The woman brought the water, her two natures struggling to decide what she should do after she had given it to him. As nurse, she knew the man ought not to be allowed to talk then. As mother, she was impatient to ask him where he had learned to speak English, and to inquire if he knew her boy.
The nurse conquered. The patient drank the water and was allowed to go to sleep again undisturbed.
In time, though, he was stronger, and then, one day, the mother’s questions were asked for the hundredth time; and the last.
Yes, the prisoner patient knew just such a man. He had come among the people of the tribe many months ago. He was a tall, fair young man, and he had such a scar as the “señora,” described. He was a fine young man. Once, when this man’s father had been sick, the white man had doctored him and made him well. It was this white man, the patient said, who had taught him the little English that he knew.
“Yes,” when he saw the photograph of Heber Smith, “that is the man. He has a picture, too,” the patient said, “two pictures, little ones, set in a little gold box which hangs on his watch chain.”
The hospital nurse unclasped a big cameo breast pin from the throat of her gown and held it down so that the man in bed could see a daguerreotype set in the back of the pin.
“Was one of the pictures like that?” she asked.
The Tagalog looked at the picture, a likeness of a middle-aged man wearing the coat and hat of the Grand Army of the Republic. In the picture a medal pinned on to the breast of the man’s coat showed.
“Yes,” said he, “one of the pictures is like that.”
Then he looked up curiously at the woman sitting beside his bed. “The other picture is that of a woman,” he went on, “and—yes—” still studying her face, “I think it must be you. Only,” he added, “it doesn’t look very much like you.”