An American

by Belle Willey Gue

"Please intercede for me, good Angel ... tell them I have never had a chance in all my life ... tell them ... intercede...." and, then, his weak voice died away in moans, again, "Tessa, please," he said, "don't look at me that way!"

Again Ruth leaned above his bed, for in his eyes there was a look that seldom comes except when death is near. She felt a gentle hand upon her arm and knew that Estrella stood beside her ... she had come to seek advice from her superior.

So they stood ... the widow and the sweetheart, and the murderer of the man they both had loved, as virgins love, lay there before them.

Suddenly, he roused himself, as with a last and desperate effort, from the lethargy of death itself ... he looked upon them standing there beside his bed ... the woman he had loved as wild and rough and lawless men will always love a woman and the one who seemed to him as if she were an angel straight from paradise ... he imagined he had passed from life as he had known that word, and was beyond all earthly help; and, so, he did not call for human help but cried aloud on God to save his deathless soul. It was horrible to hear his human lips cry out to God as they were crying then, and Ruth regretted that Estrella stood so near to him whom she had called her foster-brother, for she'd whispered Manuello's name at once, so she sent her to find Father Felix if she could and to bring him there to help this suffering soul.

After the girl had gone away, Ruth stood alone beside the cot and looked with great commiseration on the almost senseless clay before her ... on the staring eyes and sullen, dark-skinned pallor of the heavily scarred face ... on the lips that once wore careless smiles but, now, were drawn and pale ... on the broad shoulders and powerful muscled arms. As she gazed at him it seemed to her a very pitiful condition under which he labored; she wondered why it had to be as it was with this strong, untutored man; she wondered why he had to lay his strong, young body on the altar of his passions and see it consumed as it had been by hate and treachery; and, then, she remembered the service upon which he had just been bent ... and her heart yearned over him for that alone; she leaned above his face and searched it for a sign of returning strength but found none there; his eyes stared into hers, it seemed, and then they sought the moving shadows on the canvas overhead.

Ruth raised her head from gazing into Manuello's eyes and seemed to see, above the cot on which he lay, another and a different form yet like to that she saw inert before her; it was as if a glorified replica of the man were floating over him; in many ways it was exactly like the Manuello lying there upon that little cot, and, yet, the form was more ethereal ... more delicate ... more beautiful than he could ever be and live upon the earthly plane where he had found so many things to lead him down and seldom found a single thing to lead him higher, or, at least, found anything that he could fully understand, for, although Father Felix tried to show him how to go to climb to better thoughts, he had not seen the steps at all but blundered on along the path he found himself upon.

As Ruth began to realize the change that she had seen take place, a rosy flush crept over her fair face, she clasped her hands and bowed her head in silent prayer:

"Father in heaven," she thought, "look down in mercy on this soul about to come before You for Your judgment. Have pity on his faults for they were very many ... have mercy on him, for his sins were very heavy in his human life. He did not know the way to go, dear Father ... he could not see the steps at all. Have pity on him for he will have need of pity such as only You can give to him. Amen."

And when she lifted up her face again, good Father Felix stood beside her, crucifix in hand. His head was also bowed in silent prayer for he had witnessed many earthly deaths and knew, at once, that Manuello, as he had been known in human life, had passed beyond all human judgment and gone on to his reward or punishment in another world where everything that he had done upon the earth would be accounted for by him and him alone; the good Priest knew, however, that God is good as well as just and he remembered Manuello's ignorance and superstition, too, and hoped that, after he'd been purged of earthly sins by deep repentance, he would come into the light that is God's Smile and shines for all who seek it honestly, no matter what their sins on earth have been, but only after long and terrible remorse for harm that they have done while in the body that God gave them to use and not abuse.

The road that leads into the light that is God's Smile is often hedged about by thorns and bitter herbs instead of delicate and fragrant flowers; sometimes poisonous reptiles lurk along the way and strive to strike their fangs within the heart of him who toils there; sometimes, human passions guide a strong man into devious and sinful acts as Manuello had been guided, more than once; he'd yielded to them just because he had not learned the way to handle them and they had mastered him and made of him their slave instead of being what he ordered them to be; he'd thrown the remnant of his human life into the balance in the cause he really loved ... the cause of freedom for his native land.