When Manuello escaped from the temporary hospital near Camp McCalla, he directed his eager steps toward the place of his nativity, because, as it seemed to him, he would be safer there than he had recently been; it seemed to him that if he could reach the deserted hut where he had been in concealment before, he could rest and recover while he made plans for his future, for he had decided that it would be dangerous for him to follow the American army any longer, at least for a time.

In devious ways and through the use of means known only to such as he, he managed to reach a point midway between Santiago and Havana in a much shorter time than would have seemed possible to one unversed in the ways of the wilderness; here he encountered, suddenly and unexpectedly, the good Priest whom he had known from childhood, who, also, seemed hurrying in the direction of Havana.

The young man kept away from the habitation of men as much as possible after that, and, footsore and weary, but happy in the thought that he had reached his goal, he arrived, at length, just at sunset, in the outskirts of the village of San Domingo; from there he followed the winding path up which little Tessa had so often toiled in his service, he thought of her but did not regret the blow he had given her; in fact, his anger still burned at white heat whenever he remembered how she had disfigured his features, forgetting altogether what she had done for him, because she had not done everything that he had asked her to do.

At length, he reached the vicinity of the deserted hut and stole up to reconnoitre before entering the ruined habitation; he crept up to one of the small windows and peered within; the sight that met his vision startled him to such an extent that he forgot, for the moment, his habitual caution and remained at the window although he had discovered that the hut was occupied; the room he looked into was dimly lit by the rays of the setting sun which penetrated the dense growth of tropical verdure and found their way into the small western aperture that answered the purpose of a look-out toward the village; Tessa was lying, looking very wan and care-worn, upon the rude bed she had arranged for the man who was then staring at her ... in her thin hand was a crucifix which Father Felix had just given to her ... the good Priest was kneeling upon the rough floor beside the couch and the tears were rolling down his cheeks, for the sight before him would have moved far less tender hearts than his; the girl began to speak in a low voice and Manuello strained his power of hearing to catch the faint words which fell from her pale and trembling lips.

"Good Father," she began, speaking as if at confession, "I beseech you to have mercy upon your sinful daughter; I have done grievous wrong during my short life and I beg you to intercede with the God of truth and justice before whose judgment seat I will soon appear. I ask you to pray for me, Father Felix, for I am in need of your prayers. I have been a wicked girl in some ways, though not in all, for I have resisted a very strong desire which was a part of my sinful nature and which I believe I have, now, through suffering, gained the victory over."

The girl ceased speaking from sheer weakness, then, and the Priest took the crucifix from her shaking hand and attached it to the cord at his waist, then he lifted his clasped hands in earnest and humble supplication:

"Father Who art in heaven," he prayed, "listen to us who are in Thy gracious Hands, both here and hereafter. Help me to guide this suffering soul aright and help her to walk where she was meant to walk, whether she regains her health and returns to the life she has had, formerly, or whether she passes out of this narrow existence and goes into eternity before another morning dawns. Look down, dear Father, in mercy on us who are Thy humble servants. Amen."

"Father Felix," began the sick girl, "I must confess to you something that has lain heavily upon my conscience for many weeks. I am rejoiced that you have found me for I will die easier to know that you have the secrets that I have been keeping in my heart, being unable to come to the refectory and tell you what I must, now, impart to you. A heinous crime was committed in San Domingo some months ago, as I believe by one whom you and I both know; I have withheld my suspicions from the authorities and, in so doing, I feel that I have done wrong, Father. I wish to tell you all I know, now, and let you do what you think best ... it will relieve my heart of a very heavy load to tell this to you. Manuello...."

Before her lips could utter the next word, the door of the hut which had been leaning over the opening designed for it as it had long been guiltless of hinges, was violently thrust aside and the subject of the remarks Tessa was about to make, rudely entered and advanced to the side of the couch upon which the girl was lying; the livid scar upon his dark face combined with the pallor that had followed the fever he had been having, the freshly bandaged wound, the limp that had followed the rough dressing of the bullet-punctured leg of the man, combined with the fierce determination that characterized each one of his movements, altogether made a most unpleasant appearance.

Father Felix quietly rose and stepped between the sufferer on the couch and the young Cuban who regarded the Priest with no respect in the expression of his countenance, but rather with contempt and lack of personal fear; he attempted to shove him aside so that he might again look down on the trembling occupant of the rude bed, but found that Father Felix was standing firmly on a sturdy pair of legs which had had good exercise in tramping about the hills and valleys in pursuit of his chosen profession of saving the souls of those who needed his ministrations; Manuello glared at him and snarled out:

"Out of my way with your sing-song prayers and your dangling cross! I am a desperate man and do not mean to allow even a Priest to balk either my escape or my vengeance! Stand aside and let me stop that mouth forever!"

He again tried to shove the Priest aside, when Father Felix hastily threw off his robe so that it might not impede his movements and closed with the young fellow, grappling with him with arms left bare from the shoulder upon which the biceps muscles stood out in great knots that came and went and rippled underneath the skin; Manuello was surprised at this onslaught for the good Priest's fighting prowess had never, so far, been tested in just this way; but familiarity with certain turns and twists told in the young villain's favor in spite of the freshness and vigor of Father Felix' attack; the poor girl on the floor was unable to interfere and watched the two combatants with horrified eyes as they struggled all over the rude room, sometimes one and sometimes the other seeming about to conquer; neither one of the contestants had a weapon as Manuello had come away from the hospital clad only as the other patients were; in his wild flight he had snatched an outer garment from among the many lying in a heap outside the door through which he had fled, but, with this exception, he wore only what had been put upon him by the surgeons.

Like two Titans, the two human beings struggled for supremacy, the one being actuated only by a desire to serve the right, and the other seeming to have been given almost satanic power as he felt that his own life and future freedom depended upon adding two more to his victims, for the Priest had already heard enough to make him find out more and Tessa had been about to confess all she knew to him, so, above everything on earth, the furious Cuban wished to slay the Priest and the poor girl whose only fault had been her yielding to his selfishness.

Twice, Manuello's fingers almost closed about the good Priest's throat, and twice did Father Felix lift the other man bodily from the floor and dash him down in a huddled heap in one corner of the room, but neither had quite conquered when an unexpected interference ended the conflict very suddenly.

Manuello had crowded Father Felix over toward the tumble-down door of the hut and was about to push him through the opening, or, at least, attempt to do so, when, all at once the young fellow felt his fingers lose their strength and his arms fell away from the body of the Priest ... he was conscious of a strange, tingling sensation all through his shaken nerves; had he been familiar with the action of powerful electric currents, he would have described it as a heavy shock of electricity but, although he could not have altogether explained his sensations, their effect was instantaneous and resulted in the release of Father Felix while his assailant dropped prone upon the floor of the hut and groveled at his feet in abject terror, for he thought the end of his life had come and, in that thought, the murderer became the penitent and, with the fear of death before his mind, he began to mumble broken bits of half-forgotten prayers and to beg for forgiveness for his sins which he knew to be many and grievous.

As the changed attitude of his foe became evident to the good Priest he hurried over to the side of the sick girl with assurances of his desire to assist her in every possible way and, with the changed conditions surrounding him, he again put on the robe of his holy office, and, with it, seemed again to be the sedate and quiet leader of the flock he strove to lead into green pastures and beside pleasant waters.

Having ministered to Tessa, for the moment, he turned his attention to his late antagonist:

"My Son," he said, "you are wounded and spent with the loss of blood; your mind, perhaps, has been turned by your misfortunes so that you did not realize either your words or your actions. I hope that, from this time on, you will fix your mind on better things than thoughts of vengeance or of murder. To begin with, I have a favor to ask of you. Will you help me remove Tessa, here, from this place to her home? She is in need of tender care."

"I will do what you tell me to," meekly answered the recent antagonist of the Priest. "I see that I was wrong in imagining you to be my enemy. I think that this last wound has made me crazy for the time, as you have just said. From this time on I will try to be as I have been before ... glad to be guided by your higher wisdom. I humbly ask your pardon for what I have done here, tonight."

Manuello bowed his head for his spirit had been broken by the strange happening which we have described, and, at once, his hope began to rise again, that, after all, Father Felix would do him no real harm, for he seemed, again, the kind and loving prelate whom the man had known from his youth up.

When some simple preparations had been made, the two men lifted Tessa from the rude couch to the stretcher they had improvised, and, in turn, lifted it, with its light burden, to their shoulders, when, from time to time, they found an open space in the dense underbrush that hid the ruined hut from ordinary observation; thus they descended the hill that led to the village of San Domingo; having reached the door of the home of the girl, in the gathering darkness, they laid the stretcher down and Manuello disappeared as Father Felix knocked for admittance.

To say the young fellow was glad to be released from what seemed to him to be the custody of the Priest would be to put his feelings lightly, for, having cleared the ruined hut, he quickly returned to it and, lying on the simple bed Tessa had so lately occupied, he went to sleep, apparently, as sweetly as a new-born infant would.

Old Mage wondered, a little, at Estrella's remark concerning Manuello, after he had disappeared; but she finally set her mind at rest by deciding that, whichever of the dashing Cubans she had ousted from Ruth's help, she had done good work, for, as she said to herself, from her view-point it was "good riddance to bad rubbage."

The head surgeon made a note of the occurrence and went on about his work, for one man more or less, in time of war, cannot be reckoned as in civil life.

Ruth Wakefield had no doubt at all as to the identity of her former patient; when a pure girl has given herself to be the wife of any man she does not, soon, forget his personality, and Ruth knew very well the man she'd cared for had not been the one she'd called her husband ... that his body lay within its narrow grave she felt assured but what lay buried over him old Mage, alone, yet knew; she'd chuckled, many times, as to that burial, and it was hard for her to keep her secret as she longed for the approval that she felt she merited in this small matter, but the thought that Ruth might differ with her as to what she'd done had always, so far, sealed her lips.

"There is a time in the affairs of men that, taken at its flood, leads on to fortune," has been said by one who, justly, has been called a master in the art of putting words together; William Shakespeare did not know the actors in this story, but he knew the minds of men as few have known them since his time.

Manuello did not know that such a writer as this master of the English language had ever existed, yet he acted on the thought in the above quotation, when, the morning after the events related in this chapter, he again departed from the ruined hut and disappeared, effectually, within the fastnesses that only such as he could know about; every inch, or so it seemed, of territory surrounding Havana was familiar to the Cuban scouts and Manuello had grown up among the cacti and the palms and desolation that followed in the wake of Spanish oppression and injustice.