“No,” said the woman, with a grim smile, “it doesn’t. It was taken a good many years ago, when I was younger than I am now, and when I hadn’t been baked for a year in this heathen climate. It’s me, though.”
In time, Juan, that was the man’s name, was so far recovered of his wound that he was to be discharged from the hospital and placed with the other able-bodied prisoners. The hospital at that time occupied an old convent. The day before Juan was to be discharged, Mrs. Smith managed her cases so that for a time no one else was left in one of the rooms with her but this man.
“Juan,” she said, when she was sure they were alone, and that no one was anywhere within hearing, “do you feel that I have done anything to help you to get well?”
The man reached down, and taking one of the nurse’s hands in his own bent over and kissed it.
“Señora,” he said, “I owe my life to you.”
“Will you do something for me, then? Something which I want done more than anything else in the world?”
“My life is the señora’s. I would that I had ten lives to give her.”
The woman pulled a letter from out the folds of her nurse’s dress. The envelope was not sealed, and before she fastened it she took the letter which was in it out and read it over for one last time. Then, pulling from her waist a little red, white and blue badge pin—one of those patriotic emblems which so many people wear at times—she dropped this into the letter, sealed the envelope, and handed it to the Tagalog. The envelope bore no address.
“I hav’n’t put the name of the place on it you said you came from,” she told the man, “because goodness only knows how it is spelled; I don’t. Besides that, it isn’t necessary. You know the place, and you know the man; the man who has got my picture and his father’s in a gold locket on his watch chain. I want you to give this letter into his own hands. I expect it will be rather a ticklish job for you to get away from here and get through the lines, but I guess you can do it if you try. Other men have. Don’t start until you are well enough so you will have strength to make the whole trip.”
A week or so after that, one of the surgeons making his daily visit reported that Juan had made his escape the previous night, and up to that time had not been brought back.