Chesterton advanced and asked if he could be of service.The priest shook his head.The child,he said,was the only son of the landlord,and much beloved by him,and by all the village.He was now in the third week of typhoid fever and the period of hemorrhages.Unless they could be checked,the boy would die,and the priest,who for many miles of mountain and forest was also the only doctor,had exhausted his store of simple medicines.
"Nothing can stop the hemorrhage,"he protested wearily,"but the strongest of drugs.And I have nothing!"
Chesterton bethought him of the medicine case Miss Armitage had forced upon him."I have given opium to the men for dysentery,"he said."Would opium help you?"
The priest sprang at him and pushed him out of the door and toward the saddle-bags.
"My children,"he cried,to the silent group in the plaza,"God has sent a miracle!"
After an hour at the bedside the priest said,"He will live,"and knelt,and the mother of the boy and the villagers knelt with him.
When Chesterton raised his eyes,he found that the landlord,who had been silently watching while the two men struggled with death for the life of his son,had disappeared.But he heard,leaving the village along the trail to Mayaguez,the sudden clatter of a pony's hoofs.It moved like a thing driven with fear.
The priest strode out into the moonlight.In the recovery of the child he saw only a demonstration of the efficacy of prayer,and he could not too quickly bring home the lesson to his parishioners.
Amid their murmurs of wonder and gratitude Chesterton rode away.
To the kindly care of the priest he bequeathed El Capitan.With him,also,he left the gold pieces which were to pay for the fresh pony.
A quarter of a mile outside the village three white figures confronted him.Two who stood apart in the shadow shrank from observation,but the landlord,seated bareback upon a pony that from some late exertion was breathing heavily,called to him to halt.
"In the fashion of my country,"he began grandiloquently,"we have come this far to wish you God speed upon your journey."In the fashion of the American he seized Chesterton by the hand."I thank you,senor,"he murmured.
"Not me,"returned Chesterton."But the one who made me 'pack'that medicine chest.Thank her,for to-night I think it saved a life."
The Spaniard regarded him curiously,fixing him with his eyes as though deep in consideration.At last he smiled gravely.
"You are right,"he said."Let us both remember her in our prayers."
As Chesterton rode away the words remained gratefully in his memory and filled him with pleasant thoughts."The world,"he mused,"is full of just such kind and gentle souls."
After an interminable delay he reached Newport,and they escaped from the others,and Miss Armitage and he ran down the lawn to the rocks,and stood with the waves whispering at their feet.
It was the moment for which each had so often longed,with which both had so often tortured themselves by living in imagination,that now,that it was theirs,they were fearful it might not be true.
Finally,he said:"And the charm never failed!Indeed,it was wonderful!It stood by me so obviously.For instance,the night before San Juan,in the mill at El Poso,I slept on the same poncho with another correspondent.I woke up with a raging appetite for bacon and coffee,and he woke up out of his mind,and with a temperature of one hundred and four.And again,I was standing by Capron's gun at El Caney,when a shell took the three men who served it,and only scared ME.And there was another time--"He stopped."Anyway,"he laughed,"here I am."
"But there was one night,one awful night,"began the girl.She trembled,and he made this an added excuse for drawing her closer to him."When I felt you were in great peril,that you would surely die.And all through the night I knelt by the window and looked toward Cuba and prayed,and prayed to God to let you live."
Chesterton bent his head and kissed the tips of her fingers.After a moment he said:"Would you know what night it was?It might be curious if I had been--"
"Would I know!"cried the girl."It was eight days ago.The night of the twelfth.An awful night!"
"The twelfth!"exclaimed Chesterton,and laughed and then begged her pardon humbly."I laughed because the twelfth,"he exclaimed,"was the night peace was declared.The war was over.I'm sorry,but THAT night I was riding toward you,thinking only of you.I was never for a moment in danger."
End
