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. CHAPTER XVI