"Of course you could go to Havana," said the latter, "but you wouldn't be allowed to see anything."
"I'm going right to the Insurrectos with you."
"WITH ME!" O'Reilly could not conceal his lack of enthusiasm. "I don't know that the Junta will take me."
"They will if I ask them."
Alvarado inquired, "What ever put such a ridiculous idea into your head?"
The girl laughed. "It's the only kind of ideas I have. But there are ten thousand reasons why I want to go. In the first place, I fairly itch to give pills. You say the rebels have no hospitals, no nurses—"
"We do the best we can, with our equipment."
"Well, I'll supply better equipment, and I'll handle it myself. I'm in earnest. You sha'n't stop me."
O'Reilly was uncomfortably aware of the speaker's determination; protests had no effect upon her; her clear cheeks had flushed, her eyes were dancing. Evidently here was a girl who did very much as she chose.
"You don't realize what you are saying," he told her, gravely. "You'd have to go as a filibuster, on some decrepit, unseaworthy freighter loaded to the guards and crowded with men of all sorts. It's dangerous business, running the Spanish blockade. If captured you would be treated just like the rest of us."