Chapter 24
ROSA "Look!" Jacket clutched at O'Reilly and pointed a shaking finger. "More beggars! Cristo! And those little children!" The boy tried to laugh, but his voice cracked nervously. "Are they children, or gourds with legs under them?" O'Reilly looked, then turned his eyes away. He and Jacket had reached the heart of Matanzas and were facing the public square, the Plaza de la Libertad it was called. O'Reilly knew the place well; every building that flanked it was familiar to him, from the vast, rambling Governor's Palace to the ornate Casino Espanol and the Grand Hotel, and time was when he had been a welcome visitor at all of them. But things were different now. Gone were the customary crowds of well-dressed, well-fed citizens; gone the rows of carriages which at this hour of the day were w
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