I want to help."
"Very well. But meanwhile you mustn't let your hopes rise too
high, for there is every chance that you will be disappointed. And
don't mention it to Evangelina. Now then, I've a few pennies left
and I'm going to buy some candles."
Rosa embraced her lover impulsively. "Something tells me it is
true! Something tells me you are going to save us all."
Evangelina in the far corner of the hut muttered to her husband:
"Such love-birds! They are like parrakeets, forever kissing and
cooing!"
Jacket returned at dusk and with him he brought a rusty three-foot
iron bar, evidently part of a window grating. The boy was tired,
disgusted, and in a vile temper. "A pick-ax! A crowbar!" He cursed
eloquently. "One might as well try to steal a cannon out of San
Severino. I'm ready to do anything within reason, but--"
"Why, this will do nicely; it is just what I want," O'Reilly told
him.
"Humph! I'm glad to hear it, for that rod was nearly the death of
me. I broke my back wrenching at it and the villain who owned the
house--may a bad lightning split him!--he ran after me until I
nearly expired. If my new knife had been sharp I would have turned
and sent him home with it between his ribs. To-morrow I shall put
an edge on it. Believe me, I ran until my lungs burst."
Little food remained in the hut, barely enough for Asensio and the
women, and inasmuch as O'Reilly had spent his last centavo for
candles he and Jacket were forced to go hungry again.
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