You know--the ones with the corpses. She
made me bring her here to die."
The girl was not wholly unconscious, it seemed, for she stirred
and murmured, faintly: "Those wagons! Don't let them put me in
there with the other dead. They pile the bodies high--" A weak
shudder convulsed her.
O'Reilly bent lower, and in a strong, determined voice cried: "You
are not going to die. I have money for food. Rouse yourself, Rosa,
rouse yourself."
"She prayed for you every night," the negress volunteered. "Such
faith! Such trust! She never doubted that you would come and find
her. Sometimes she cried, but that was because of her brother.
Esteban, you know, is dead. Yes, dead, like all the rest."
"Esteban is NOT dead," O'Reilly asserted. "He is alive. Rosa, do
you hear that? Esteban is alive and well. I left him with Gomez in
the Orient. I have come to take you to him."
"Esteban alive? Ha! You are fooling us." Evangelina wagged her
head wisely. "We know better than that."
"I tell you he IS alive," O'Reilly insisted. He heard. Jacket
calling to him at that moment, so he hallooed to the boy; then
when the latter had arrived he explained briefly, without allowing
Jacket time in which to express his amazement:
"Our search is over; we have found them. But they won't believe
that Esteban is alive. Tell them the truth.
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