"This--Cobo"--the American's voice shook in spite of his effort to hold it steady--"I shall hope to meet him some time." The sudden fury that filled Colonel Lopez's face was almost hidden by the gloom. "Yes. Oh yes!" he cried, quickly, "and you are but one of a hundred; I am another. In my command there is a standing order to spare neither Cobo nor any of his assassins; they neither expect nor receive quarter from us. Now, companero"--the Cuban dropped a hand on O'Reilly's bowed head--"I am sorry that I had to bring you such evil tidings, but, we are men--and this is war." "No, no! It isn't war--it's merciless savagery! To murder children and to outrage women--why, that violates all the ethics of warfare." "Ethics!" the colonel cried, harshly. "Ethics? Hell is without ethics. Why look for ethics in war? Violence--injustice--insanity--chaos--THAT is war. It is man's agony--woman's despair. It is a defiance of God. War is without mercy, without law; it is--well, it is the absence of all law, all good." There was a considerable silence. Then Lopez went on in another key. "We Cubans carry heavy hearts, but our wrongs have made us mighty, and our sufferings have made us brave. Here in the orient we do well enough; but, believe me, you cannot imagine the desolation and the suffering farther west--whole provinces made barren and their inhabitants either dead or dying. The world has never seen anything like Weyler's slaughter of the innocents. If there is indeed a God--and sometimes I doubt it--he will not permit this horror to continue; from every pool of Cuban blood another patriot will spring up, until we drive that archfiend and his armies into the sea. Go back to your own country now, and if your grief has made you one of us in sympathy, tell the world what that black butcher in Havana is doing, and beg your Government to recognize our belligerency, so that we may have arms. ARMS!" It was some time before O'Reilly spoke; then he said, quietly: "I am not going back. I am going to stay here and look for Rosa." "So!" exclaimed the colonel. "Well, why not? So long as we do not know precisely what has happened to her, we can at least hope. But, if I were you, I would rather think of her as dead than as a prisoner in some concentration camp. You don't know what those camps are like, my friend, but I do. Now I shall leave you. One needs to be alone at such an hour--eh?" With a pressure of his hand, Colonel Lopez walked away into the darkness. Judson and his adventurous countryman did not see O'Reilly that night, nor, in fact, did any one. But the next morning he appeared before General Gomez. He was haggard, sick, listless. The old Porto-Rican had heard from Lopez in the mean time; he was sympathetic. "I am sorry you came all the way to hear such bad news," he said. "War is a sad, hopeless business." "But I haven't given up hope," O'Reilly said. "I want to stay here and--and fight."