“My lamb,” Mother Jenks said softly to Dolores, “the war is over. Wot's the matter with goin' in the south gate an' wytin' on the palace steps for the provisional president to make his grand ountray? If we 'esitate five minutes they'll have a bloomin' guard on both gates, arskin' us 'oo we are an' wot we want.”
“But Mr. Webster will come to that back street looking for me; I must go back and wait there for him.”
“Wyte, nothink!” Mother Jenks overruled the girl's protest roughly. “'E'll 'ave gone into the palace with the crowd for a look-see; we'll meet 'im there an' syve 'im the trouble o' 'untin' for us. Come!” And she half dragged the shrinking girl toward the gate, a block distant, where only a few minutes before Webster and Don Juan Cafetéro had made their ineffectual stand.
“Don't look at the blighters, honey,” Mother Jenks warned Dolores when, in approaching the gate, she caught sight of the bodies strewed in front of it. “My word! Regular bally mess—an' all spiggoties! Cawn't be. Must 'ave been some white meat on this bird, as my sainted 'Enery uster s'y. Hah! Thought so! There's a red-headed 'un! Gawd's truth! An' 'e done all that—Gor' strike me pink! It's Don Juan Cafetéro.”
Mother Jenks stepped over the gory corpses ringed around Don Juan and knelt beside him. “Don Juan!” she cried. “You bally, interferin' blighter, you've gone an' got it!”
She ran her strong old arms under his dripping body, lifted him and laid his red head on her knee, while with her free hand she drew a small flask of brandy from her dress pocket.
Don Juan opened his buttermilk eyes and gazed up at her with slowly dawning wonder, then closed them again, drowsily, like a tired child. Mother Jenks pressed the flask to his blue lips; as the brandy bit his tongue he rolled his fiery head in feeble protest and weakly set his teeth against the lip of the flask. Wondering, Mother Jenks withdrew it—and then Don Juan spoke.
“Have ye the masther's permission, allanah? I give him me worm av honour—not—to dhrink—till—he—give—permission. He—was good—to me—troth he was—God—love—me—boss——”
His jaw dropped loosely; his head rolled sideways; but ere his spirit fled, Don Juan Cafetéro had justified the faith of his master. He had kept his word of honour. He had made good on his brag to die for John Stuart Webster and welcome the chance! Mother Jenks held his body a little while, gazing into the face no longer rubicund; then gently she eased it to the ground and for the first time was aware that Dolores knelt in the dirt opposite to her striving to lift the body upon which Don Juan had been lying.
The strength of Dolores was unequal to the task; so Mother Jenks, hardened, courageous, calm as her sainted 'Enery at his inglorious finish, rose and stepped around to her side to help her. She could see this other was a white man, too; coolly she stooped and wiped his gory face with the hem of her apron. And then she recognized him!