For several minutes I lay quite motionless, lost in admiration of the beauty of the picture upon which my eyes rested, and inhaling long breaths of the perfumed air that played about me; then a swiftly awaking consciousness that I was distinctly hungry caused me to turn my head toward the chair which Mama Elisa had occupied when I fell asleep. The chair was still occupied, not by Mama Elisa, however, but by a quadroon girl of about seventeen years of age, clad in the usual garb of the coloured women, namely, a sort of loose chemise of white cotton, and a petticoat, printed in a kind of Paisley pattern, which reached to a little below her knees. Her long black hair hung in two thick plaits down far below her waist; she wore massive gold earrings in her small shapely ears; a necklace of big amber beads encircled her finely-modelled neck, and her otherwise bare feet were shod in low-cut crimson morocco slippers. When I first glimpsed her she was leaning back in a chair, idly waving a palm-leaf fan, while her fine dark eyes gazed abstractedly, and with a somewhat sad expression, methought, upon the brilliant picture presented by the open window; but as I stared she started to her feet and bent over me, gazing intently into my eyes; then she laid her soft, shapely hand for a moment upon my brow, withdrew it again, and murmured, in pure, rich Castilian:
“The Señor is better. He has slept long and well. His skin is cool; the fever has gone. And he is hungry; is it not so?”
I nodded.
“Good!” she exclaimed, with a smile of satisfaction that disclosed two rows of small, perfectly-shaped teeth. “I will go and tell Mama Elisa.”
And before I could say a word, or ask a question, she had vanished through a door in the wall against which stood the head of my bed.
A minute later in came Mama Elisa, smiling all over her honest, still good-looking face, bearing in her hands a large, massive tray, which looked as though it might be solid silver. This tray was draped with a cloth of snow-white damask, upon which were symmetrically arranged a small silver bowl, the steaming contents of which emitted a most savoury, appetising odour, a spoon, a small cruet, a plate upon which lay a slice of white bread and another of dry toast, and a wine-glass containing some liquid of a rich ruby colour, that might possibly be port wine.
“Aha!” she cheerily exclaimed, as she placed the tray and its contents upon the table by the side of the bed, “it is easy to see that the Señor is better; his eyes are brighter; the long sleep has done him good. And now he needs only plenty of nourishing food and careful nursing to set him again upon his feet. Teresita tells me that you are hungry, Señor—which is another good sign. Do you think you could take a little broth, Señor?”
I replied that I had very little doubt upon that point, whereupon the good soul proceeded to crumble a small quantity of the bread into the steaming bowl, after which, slipping her arm under my shoulder and very tenderly raising me, she supported my body against her ample bosom as she fed me from the bowl, a spoonful at a time, coaxing me between whiles to nibble at the toast. The broth was delicious, whatever it might have been made of—I was in no mood to ask the question—and to my own surprise and Mama’s intense gratification I consumed it—in quantity about half-a-pint—to the last drop, and also ate about half a slice of toast. Then came the wine-glass of ruby-coloured liquid, which proved to be, as I had anticipated, port wine, rich and generous, seeming to fill me with new life. And when I had finished my meal and had drained another bumper of lemonade, Teresita was summoned to assist in the process of washing my face and hands and inducting me into clean linen, after which followed another long sleep.
My progress toward recovery was now rapid, although I soon learned that my escape from death had been little short of miraculous. Naturally, as soon as my reason returned to me, and I was strong enough to engage in conversation, I began to inquire where I was, and how I came to be there; but for the first three or four days after the events above described my nurses, Mama Elisa and Teresita, refused to tell me anything save that I was with friends. But at length, when I had so far recovered as to be able to sit up in bed without assistance, Mama Elisa took compassion upon me and proceeded to satisfy my curiosity. She informed me first, that the gale in which the Wasp foundered had occurred more than three weeks previously! Then she proceeded to say that on the second day after the gale had moderated, the sea having by that time gone down sufficiently to permit the fishermen once more to proceed to sea in their canoes, one Tomasso, a negro—formerly a slave but now a freeman, in the service of Señor Don Luis Fernando Maria Calderon y Albuquerque, owner of the Bella Vista estate—had sallied forth from a certain small cove on the estate for the purpose of procuring a supply of fish, as usual. After having been thus engaged for some hours, with very scant success, Tomasso had decided to try his luck farther out; and while padding to seaward his attention had been attracted by the appearance of something floating about a mile away. Paddling in that direction, in the hope that what he saw might be worth picking up, he had at length come alongside the hatchway, with me upon it, in a state of collapse. The negroes on the island had risen in insurrection against the whites only some six years previously, while slavery had been abolished only about four years, the relations between the blacks and the whites on the island were consequently still greatly strained, and many a negro, finding one in that helpless state, would have callously left me to die. Tomasso, however, luckily for me, was not one of that sort: he had always been well treated by his master, and therefore felt no animus against the whites; consequently as soon as he found that a spark of life still remained in my body, he transferred me to his canoe and, abandoning for the moment all further thought of fishing, paddled back to the shore. Then, hauling his canoe up on the beach, he had hastened to the house and acquainted his master, Don Luis, with his find. The latter, a generous, humane, high-spirited fellow, and as noble a specimen of the Spanish hidalgo as one need wish to meet, at once hastened down to the cove and, upon perceiving my condition, gave immediate orders that I was to be carried up to the house, put to bed, and everything possible done to save my life. The nearest reliable doctor being at Santiago, over forty miles distant, on the other side of the mountains, he had quickly decided to put me in the hands of Mama Elisa, born upon his estate, of amply proved fidelity, and marvellously skilled in the use of herbs and the treatment of disease, with the result that, having battled for a fortnight with the raging fever that almost immediately developed itself, she had at length triumphantly brought me to the point of convalescence.