The Dust of Conflict Part 11

Appleby blinked at him. "I don't quite know what's the matter with me, but I feel-dazed," he said. "What are the boys doing?"

Harper gravely felt his head, for Appleby had lost his hat. "Well, that's not astonishing-and it's a good one," he said. "The whack that sergeant gave you would 'most have felled a bullock. As to the other question, the Sin Verguenza have the town. Morales' men hadn't a show at all, though they might have made a stand if you hadn't kept them on the hustle. Take another drink."

Appleby drank again, and his scattered senses came back to him. "I don't seem to remember very much," he said.

"No?" said Harper, with a curious little laugh. "Now it's my business to get the most out of men, but I haven't seen anything much smarter than the way you took hold and handled the Sin Verguenza. Say, who taught you soldiering?"

Appleby stared at him, and then laughed softly when he saw that the man was perfectly serious.

"I never saw a shot fired at a man in my life until I joined the Sin Verguenza," he said. "Still, though I don't know that it has anything to do with the case, most of my folks had their share of fighting, and one was with the Cristinos in Spain."

Harper shook his head. "Never heard of them," he said. "Anyway, if you feel fit for walking you had better come along and get some food. I guess you'll want it, and onions and mangoes don't go very far with me.

This place will be very like the pit with the blast on when the Sin Verguenza get their work in."

VIII - APPLEBY'S PRISONER

THE night was pleasantly cool when Cyrus Harding sat with his daughter and the Colonel Morales on the veranda which ran round the patio of the "Four Nations" hostelry in Santa Marta. The hotel was, as usual, built in the shape of a hollow square, and the s.p.a.ce enclosed formed a pleasant lounging place when the only light was furnished by the soft glow from the latticed windows surrounding it. That night it fell upon pink-washed walls, cl.u.s.ters of purple Bougainvillea that climbed the trellis, the white blossoms of a magnolia, and a row of carved pillars, while the square of indigo above was set with silver stars. It is true that the stables opened into the patio, as did the kitchen, next door to them, but that was not unusual, and the curious musky smell that hangs over most Spanish towns was tempered by the scent of flowers.

Harding lay in a cane chair, with the blue cigar smoke drifting about him and a little thoughtful smile in his lean face. He was a widower, and though he now enjoyed a very respectable competence, desired a fortune to bequeath his daughter, which was why he had sunk good money in what his friends considered reckless ventures in Cuba. Harding had, however, taken risks all his life, and knew there is not usually very much to be made by the business man who follows the beaten track. He looked further ahead than his fellows, and taking the chances as they came played for heavier stakes.

His daughter sat a little apart, daintily fresh and cool, in a long white dress, with the soft light of the lamp above her gleaming on her hair, which was of warm brown, and emphasizing the little sparkle in her eyes. The cold of New York did not suit her, and she had accompanied her father to Cuba before. Opposite Harding, across the little table on which stood a flask of wine, sat a spare, olive-faced officer, with a sword girt to his waist. He had keen dark eyes with a hint of sternness in them, and a straight, thin-lipped mouth; while he was already known in that country as El Espada, Morales the Sword. His mission was to put down the insurrection in that district, and the means he employed were draconic.

"You ask a good many questions, senor," he said in Castilian. "There is no difficulty with respect to some of them and the information in my possession is at your service; but it is different with those that concern the situation political. We are not sure yet who you Americans sympathize with; and I am, you understand, an officer of Spain."

Harding made a little deferential gesture, but he also smiled. "One can usually obtain political information of importance in my country-when one is rich enough," he said, as it were, reflectively. "Of course, one avoids hurting anybody's feelings, but it seems to me that the best guarantee we can give of our good will is the fact that some of us are investing our money here."

Morales shook his head. "It is not quite enough," he said. "There are men without money in your country, my friend, and it is those who have nothing that love the revolution. I have also a little affair with two of your estimable countrymen."

Nettie Harding, who understood him, looked up. "Now," she said, "that is interesting! You will tell us about it?"

Morales nodded. "It is a month since we marched east with a strong company and a little machine-gun," he said. "We march by night, and it is sunrise when we climb the Alturas gorge. Above, three leagues away, hides a company of the Sin Verguenza, and the Captain Vincente who marches round will take them in the rear. I have scouts thrown forward, and we march silently, but by and by the front files come running back and there is firing in the pa.s.s. The Sin Verguenza, it seems, are upon us, but that is not wise of them. Figure you the place-the rock one cannot climb above us, a barranco, very deep, below, and the machine-gun to sweep the track. Pouf! It is swept. The Sin Verguenza melt away, and we go forward to conclude the affair."

"Well," said Harding a trifle impatiently, "where do the Americans come in?"

Morales' face grew wicked. "Down the rock, my friend. Perhaps they are sailors; for where there is no footing for any man they slide down the lianas, and others follow them. The cazadores do not look above; there is still firing, and they do not hear me. The Americans are upon the gun, and more of the Sin Verguenza arrive behind them. I see one American who is young with his shoulder at the wheel of the gun, and in another minute it is gone, and there is a crash in the barranco. Then the Sin Verguenza come back again, and we go home, my friend; but it is not all my company who come out of Alturas Pa.s.s. One waits, however, and by and by my turn comes."

Nettie Harding said nothing, but there was a significant sparkle in her blue eyes, while her father's nod was deprecatory.

"They are not friends of mine, and I have a good deal to lose," he said.

"What I want to know is, if you had money to spare would you buy the San Cristoval hacienda? There should be a profit in it at the price, but not if the patriots are likely to burn the sugar mill, or the administration to quarter troops there. You are responsible for this district!"

"Money is very scarce with me, my friend," said Morales dryly.

Harding nodded sympathetically, and dropped his voice to a lower tone.

"One would be content with a little less profit if it meant security,"

he said. "It would pay me to make certain that the hacienda would not be meddled with-by the Sin Verguenza."

There was a little gleam of comprehension in the officer's eyes, and he thoughtfully flicked the ash from his cigar. "I think I could promise that," he said. "We will talk again, senor, but now-if I have your excuses-I think I will be wanted at the cuartel."

He rose, made Miss Harding a little punctilious inclination, and moved away, while the lamplight flung his shadow black upon the pink-washed walls. It seemed to the girl suggestively sinister.

"I do not like that man," she said. "He has wicked eyes, and his face is cruel!"

Harding laughed. "Anyway, it's evident he has his price, and I think I'll buy the hacienda, though I'll want a man to run it, since I can't stay here. He will have to be the right kind of man."

Nettie Harding appeared reflective. "I wonder what has become of Mr.

Broughton whom we met on board the 'Aurania'?" she said.

"The folks I gave him letters to told me he was here in Cuba; but I'm not quite sure his name was Broughton. He had got himself mixed up in some kind of trouble in England."

"Then," said the girl decisively, "somebody else made the trouble."

"It's quite likely. I don't think there's any meanness in that man; but I wouldn't worry about him. It wouldn't please Julian."

The girl laughed. "Julian," she said, "knows me too well to be jealous."

Harding said nothing, and the two sat silent awhile. There were few guests in the "Four Nations" just then, and only a faint murmur rose from the plaza beyond the pink-washed walls. Somebody, however, was singing, and now and then a soft tinkle of guitars came musically through the stillness with the chorus of the "Campanadas." Nettie Harding listened vacantly, while glancing up at the blue above she wondered whether the same clear stars shone down on a certain naval officer, and if he thought of her as the big warship rolled across the wastes of the Pacific. It was very still, and cool, and peaceful, and she lay, languidly content to dream, in the cane chair, until she straightened herself with a little gasp as the ringing of a rifle came sudden and portentous out of the darkness. It was followed by a crash of firing, and Harding looked up sharply.

"Winchesters-but those are Spanish rifles now!" he said. "It seems the Insurgents must have got in behind the pickets."

"The Insurgents!" said the girl, with a shiver.

Harding rose, and stood looking down upon her curiously grave in face.

"This is a thing I never expected. Morales told me there wasn't a rebel within ten leagues of us; but he has men enough to whip them off," he said. "Put on a jacket, Nettie. We can see what is going on from the roof."

In another minute they stood looking down over the low parapet into the shadowy plaza. There was not a light in it now, but through the ringing of the bugles there rose a confused clamor and the patter of running feet, and Nettie Harding could dimly see cl.u.s.ters of citizens apparently making the best pace they could towards the calle that led out of Santa Marta. As she watched a line of figures broke through them and by their rhythmic tramp she guessed that these were soldiery. Then a fresh mob of citizens poured into the plaza, and the rifles crashed again.

"What does it mean?" she asked.

Harding, stooping over the parapet, listened a moment to the confused voices, and then shook his head. "I'm afraid it's the Sin Verguenza coming," he said. "They have a little account against Santa Marta, and I wouldn't like to be Morales when they send in the bill."

His att.i.tude betokened strained attention, and the girl fancied he was endeavoring to ascertain how the troops had fared. Then the clamor grew suddenly louder, and she grasped his arm.

"Oh!" she said. "They are in the town!"

"Yes," said Harding curtly, "I guess they are. The sooner we leave them and the Santa Martans to it the better! Get your little trinkets together, Nettie; I'll have the mules we hired ready inside five minutes."

He plunged down the stairway, burst through the negroes already clamoring about the stable, and dragged the mules out. There was a crowd in the archway leading out of the patio when the girl joined him.

"We can't mount here," he said. "Keep close behind me until we make the plaza."

It was accomplished with difficulty, but the men who pressed upon them saw the glinting pistol; and Nettie Harding stood ready to mount in the plaza when a mob of fugitives surged about them. There was a crash of riflery very close at hand, the mule plunged, and she reeled backwards with a little cry. For a moment she felt her father's grasp upon her shoulder, then the mules seemed to vanish and Harding with them, and she was driven forward amidst the press. A voice she recognized was shouting a few yards away, but it ceased suddenly, and she was jostled this way and that with the little breath she had left almost crushed out of her.

She could only wove as the crowd did, and it bore her onward into a dark calle, where screaming women were pouring from the doorways, and here and there a pale light shone down upon the terrified faces about her, but there was no sign of Harding anywhere.

She could never remember how long this lasted; but by and by the crowd seemed to melt away where two or three streets branched off from a smaller plaza, and she stood still, breathless, striving to draw the thin jacket, whose b.u.t.tons had been torn away, over the trinkets she had hastily clasped into her bodice and cast about her neck. Then the venomous clanging of rifles commenced again, and when something zip- zapped along the stones and struck the white walls with a curious splashing sound she turned to run and saw a dusky archway in front of her. Stumbling into it, she flung back the great leather curtains, and found herself in a little church. It smelt of stale incense, and a few pale lights that only intensified the darkness blinked here and there; but she could hear low rustlings which seemed to indicate that others had taken refuge in it, and shrank into a corner.