“Nonsense!  I, for one, sha’n’t take a dollar of it,” the girl declared.  “All I want to do is help dig.  If you’ll just promise to let me do that—­”

“I promise.  And you shall have one-fourth of everything.”

“No!  No!”

“Oh, but you must. I insist.  Nursing is a poorly paid profession.  Wouldn’t you like to be rich?”

“Profession!  Poorly paid?” Norine sputtered, angrily.  “As if I’d take pay!”

“As if I would accept a great service and forget it, like some miserable beggar!” Esteban replied, stiffly.

O’Reilly laughed out.  “Don’t let’s quarrel over the spoil until we get it,” said he.  “That’s the way with all treasure-hunters.  They invariably fall out and go to fighting.  To avoid bloodshed, I’ll agree to sell my interest cheap, for cash.  Come!  What will you bid?  Start it low.  Do I hear a dollar bid?  A dollar!  A dollar!  A dollar!  My share of the famous Varona fortune going for a dollar!”

“There!  He doesn’t believe a word of it,” Esteban said.

Norine gave an impatient shrug.  “Some people wouldn’t believe they were alive unless they saw their breath on a looking-glass.  Goodness!  How I hate a sneering skeptic, a wet blanket.”

O’Reilly rose with one arm shielding his face.  “In the interest of friendship, I withdraw.  A curse on these buried treasures, anyhow.  We shall yet come to blows.”

As he walked away he heard Norine say:  “Don’t pay any attention to him.  We’ll go and dig it up ourselves, and we won’t wait until the war is over.”

An hour later Esteban and his nurse still had their heads together.  They were still talking of golden ingots and pearls from the Caribbean the size of plums when they looked up to see O’Reilly running toward them.  He was visibly excited; he waved and shouted at them.  He was panting when he arrived.

“News!  From Matanzas!” he cried.  “Gomez’s man has arrived.”

Esteban struggled to rise, but Norine restrained him.  “Rosa?  What does he say?  Quick!”

“Good news!  She left the Pan de Matanzas with the two negroes.  She went into the city before Cobo’s raid.”

Esteban collapsed limply.  He closed his eyes, his face was very white.  He crossed himself weakly.

“The letter is definite.  It seems they were starving.  They obeyed Weyler’s bando.  They’re in Matanzas now.”

“Do you hear, Esteban?” Norine shook her patient by the shoulder.  “She’s alive.  Oh, can’t you see that it always pays to believe the best?”

“Alive!  Safe!” Esteban whispered.  His eyes, when he opened them, were swimming; he clutched Norine’s hand tightly; his other hand he extended to O’Reilly.  The latter was choking; his cheeks, too, were wet.  “A reconcentrado!  In Matanzas!  Well, that’s good.  We have friends there—­they’ll not let her starve.  This makes a new man of me.  See!  I’m strong again.  I’ll go to her.”