“His things ought to be sent to her, I suppose,” said Teresa. “What else can we do? And who will write to her? You or I? Maybe the port captain who hired him will send her a letter. I don’t know about that. But Mr. Cary is nothing but a second mate that jumped his ship.”
“Writing his mother! Humph!” grunted McClement. “What the deuce is there to tell her but to sit tight and hope for news? My word, but it is a rotten situation for her, isn’t it?”
“I am the one to write a letter to her,” said Teresa. “And I will tell her why. It is because I loved him, and was ready to die for him.”
Troubled sleep and wakeful hours were Teresa’s portion during this last night in the ship which had long been her home. The blind instinct of flight had driven her to break these familiar bonds. Abhorrent was the thought of returning to the long wharf at Cartagena with the ugly cargo sheds and the tapering masts of a Colombian schooner lifting beyond them. There was the fear that somehow she might betray herself, that out of the very air accusation might be directed against her.
She felt neither guilt nor remorse, but she was too young to die. And it would be hideously unjust if she should be taken and put to death for what she had done. Not by chance had she been delivered from punishment. The miraculous decree of fate had sheltered and absolved her.
She wondered if the evil spirit of Colonel Fajardo haunted the narrow strip of wharf beyond the cargo shed, waiting, waiting for the ship to bring Teresa Fernandez back to Cartagena. The unholy vision could not be thrust aside—the gaunt figure and the harsh, cruel face bleached with sudden terror—the whip-like crack of the little pistol—the strangled scream of “Jesus, have mercy”—the splash just astern of the schooner and the patch of frothy water with the widening circles. . .
Unpleasant and distressing, such a crimson page of remembrance as this, but not to be regretted or moaned over. Such was Teresa’s inflexible verdict. Raging more than once, grinding her small white teeth, she had been sorry that Colonel Fajardo had only one death to die. The Holy Office of the Inquisition would have known how to make it more lingering.
These thoughts would leave her alone, she hoped, as soon as she should have seen the last of the ship which had been so intimately associated with him.
There was something more troublesome, and she could see no way to meet it. Write a letter to the mother of Richard Cary? What in the name of God could she, Teresa, say to his mother by way of explanation? What could she tell the mother of a noble son? That he was dead? How? Where? Why? Where was the proof? Who had buried him and where was his grave? He was dead. This was all Teresa knew as she had read it in the hard eyes of Colonel Fajardo, in his twitching smile, gloating, gratified, unable to dissemble his own secret. But a mother of a son—and such a son—here was a wall of difficulty that loomed to the sky!
While the passengers were landing next morning, very impatient to run the gantlet of the customs inspectors and hurl themselves into taxicabs, Miss Fernandez was the efficient, light-footed stewardess with a blithe word and a quick readiness to aid the ladies and amuse the children. She turned aside from her duty only to accost Mr. McClement and say: