Presently Mrs. Nitschkan came into the outer room, where Pearl cowered beside the fire, her hands over her face. She caught imploringly at the other woman's skirt. "Oh, Nitschkan, what is it? Will he live? Tell me, tell me, quick."
"Things might be better and they might be worse, but," with rough good will, "you ain't no call to wear mourning yet. His back ain't hurt serious, but his left leg and his right arm are both broken and he's an awful lot cut and bruised, especially about the back and the head. I can set a leg myself, as good as most, and many a one have I done, but those that I've set 'em for don't always seem to have as good use of their limbs after as before. So if you want him as good as new again, you'd better have a doctor."
"Yes," agreed José, who had come into the room. "They are bad breaks. I, too, can set a leg or an arm, but, as you say, Nitschkan, those for whom I have done it have usually been ungrateful enough not to use them right."
Pearl staggered to her feet. "I will go," she said, "if you two will only stay here and look after him, while I am gone. Oh dear José, promise me that you will not leave Nitschkan alone. You can hide here in the cabin when you see me coming with the doctor."
José's fingers touched the little black bag in his pocket. "Saints and devils!" he cried, expanding his chest, "only a dog would refuse you. Of course I will stay."
CHAPTER XVI
For the first few weeks after Harry's accident Pearl's consciousness of the external events in the world beyond the confines of the four walls of the cabin seemed obliterated. She could never remember afterward whether the rain fell or the days were flooded with sunshine. All of her energies and interests were absorbed in one issue—his recovery. Fortunately, his injuries proved more painful than dangerous, and were necessarily slow in the mending; but the nursing was arduous, and Pearl might have found it difficult indeed had it not been for the assistance of the two mountain women and José.
It would be another matter to define correctly the motives that impelled that debonair bandit to stand by her side so manfully in the face of Gallito's wrath and reiterated prohibitions. It might have been a conscientious wish to earn the jewels, over the possession of which he had not ceased to gloat, or it might have been an impish desire to annoy Gallito. Again, it might have been gratitude toward Seagreave, sympathy with the Pearl, or, as easily the revolt of José's volatile nature against the monotony of life in the narrow confines of his rock chamber.
But to José's danger, as to the passing days, Pearl was alike oblivious, and it was not until Harry was able to sit up again for brief periods, that she became aware of times and seasons, of other persons and of the world of human interests and reactions. She awoke to a realization of these facts with a sort of wonder. She looked abroad over the hillsides and saw a new world. The long-awaited spring had sped up from the valleys of mist, and at the wave of her white wand the mountains had bloomed with a delicate iridescence—the luster on young leaves and shining blades of grass. It was then that she also began to apprehend something of the nature of José's difficulties.
"I must be more virtuous than I thought," he explained to her one day, not without a touch of complacence, "for if the Devil were truly my friend, he would fly away with your father. Those hawk's eyes of his are ever on me and he orders me daily not to leave the mine. If I could but cook for him," he added mournfully, "he would soon see reason, for," with customary boastfulness, "I have yet to see the man whose opinions I could not change with a single dish. I, Crop-eared José, have won freedom more than once on an omelette, and have gained the sympathy and interest of those set against me, with a single sauce. See, he even threatens me because I am true to my friends, but," and here he adopted his most wheedling tone, "if you only would make up with him, and I could but cook him one supper, here in this cabin, and let him win two or three games at cards from me, all would be well again."