The Dust of Conflict Part 36

Morales laughed a little. "It is well that I took mine, but I will ask you for your company as far as the carretera, Senor Appleby. One does not attach too much importance even to the word of a gentleman just now."

They walked through the dusky cane together, and parted with punctilious salutations when they reached the dim white road. Then Appleby went back to the house, and met Harper at the foot of the stairway.

"Colonel Morales came to demand an apology from you, and I promised him that you would make it," he said.

Harper seemed hoa.r.s.e with anger. "I could scarcely keep my hands off him as it was. It would have pleased me to pound the life out of him."

"Well," said Appleby dryly, "I scarcely think it will be necessary to make the apology now, but I can't tell you anything more until to- morrow. There is a good deal I must think over."

He went up the stairway, and sat for at least an hour staring straight before him with an unlighted cigar in his hand. Then he rose with a little weary smile, and tapped a suspended strip of tin, which rang dissonantly until the major-domo came in.

"You know where Don Maccario is?" he said.

Pancho's eyes twinkled. "I think I could find him."

"Then remember what I tell you," said Appleby, who laid his hand on the man's shoulder, spoke softly and rapidly, until the latter nodded.

"With permission, I will give the message to three other men who can be trusted and start at once," he said.

"Is it necessary?" said Appleby, with a faint trace of astonishment.

Pancho smiled significantly. "I think it is," he said. "Morales makes certain. He leaves nothing to chance."

XXIII - APPLEBY TAKES A RISK

IT was early next morning when Appleby and Harper sat at breakfast on the veranda. The white wall across the patio already shone dazzlingly against a strip of intense blue, and a patch of brightness grew broader across the veranda, but it was pleasantly cool as yet. From beyond the flat roof there rose the rasping thud of machetes swinging amidst the cane and the musical clink of hoes, with the dull rumble of the crushing machinery as an undertone.

Appleby had apparently not slept very well, for there was weariness in his face, and he lay a trifle more limply than usual in his chair, with a morsel of bread and a very little cup of bitter black coffee in front of him, for in Spanish countries the regular breakfast is served later in the morning. Harper seemed to notice the absence of the major-domo.

"Bread and coffee! Well, when he can't get anything else one can live on them, but if Pancho had been around he'd have found us something more,"

he said. "Their two meals a day never quite suited me. We have steak and potatoes three times in my country."

"I have seen you comparatively thankful to get one," said Appleby. "I'm not sure that we will even have bread and coffee to fall upon in another day or two."

Harper glanced at him sharply. "Where's Pancho?"

"I sent him away last night with a message for Maccario."

"As the result of Morales coming round?"

Appleby nodded. "Yes," he said. "He made a demand I could not entertain."

"About me?"

"Not exactly. I told him you felt sorry you had wounded the susceptibilities of his officer."

Harper laughed. "Well," he said, "there's only one thing I'm sorry for, and that is that I let up before I'd put the contract through. Still, I guess there's more behind it."

"There is," said Appleby gravely. "If you can keep quiet a minute or two I'll tell you."

He spoke rapidly and concisely, and Harper's face flushed as he listened. "You let him go!" he said. "Pancho and I were hanging round on the stairway."

Appleby smiled a trifle wearily. "I suspected it, but Morales is a good deal too cunning to take any unnecessary risks. If he had not come back we should have had half a company of cazadores turning up to ask what had become of him. Now I want you to understand the position. What are your countrymen likely to do about the 'Maine'?"

Harper's eyes gleamed, and his voice was hoa.r.s.e. "Make the Spaniards lick our boots or wipe them off the earth!"

"Well," said Appleby dryly, "you may do the last, but, if I know the Spaniards, you will never extort anything from them that would stain their national dignity. Still, I think you are right about your countrymen's temper, and you see what it leads to. Every battalion of Spanish infantry will be wanted on the coast, and that will give the insurgents a free hand. It means they will once more be masters of this district, and that Santa Marta must fall. Believing that, I'm going to take a risk that almost frightens me."

"I don't quite understand," said Harper.

"Harding is on his way to Cuba, and he has large sums sunk in San Cristoval and other places up and down the island. Once he gets here Morales will grind them out of him. Now, it is evident that Harding has as much sympathy with the insurgents as he has with the loyalists, and perhaps rather more, while just now he must stand in with one of them.

It seems to me that if your people can't be pacified the Spaniards will be driven out of Cuba."

"Still," said Harper reflectively, "I don't quite see why we should worry about that. Since you can't sell Harding-and that's quite plain- all we have to do is to light out quietly."

Appleby smiled. "I scarcely think we could manage it; and while I take Harding's money there's an obligation on me to do what I can for him.

That is why I'm going to commit him definitely to standing in with the insurgents."

Harper stared at him in astonishment, and then brought his fist down with a bang on the table. "You are going to bluff the Spaniards, and play Sugar Harding's hand?" he said with wondering respect. "You have 'most nerve enough to make a railroad king-but if it doesn't come off, and they patch up peace again?"

"Then," said Appleby very quietly, "what I am going to do will cost Harding every dollar he has in Cuba, though that doesn't count for so much since Morales means to ruin him, anyway. I can only make a guess, and stake everything on it. Your countrymen will ask too much, the Spaniards will offer very little. Still, it's an almost overwhelming decision."

Again Harper looked at him with a faint flush in his face, for the boldness of the venture stirred the blood in him. "It's the biggest thing I've ever had a hand in," he said. "Still, wherever it leads to, I'm going through with you!"

"It is quite likely that it will lead us in front of a firing party,"

said Appleby. "I have reasons for believing that Maccario is not far away, and I have asked him to occupy the hacienda. It commands the carretera to Santa Marta, and I fancy a handful of determined men could hold it against a battalion, while with it in their possession the Sin Verguenza would dominate this part of the country, in spite of Morales.

He has, as you know, been sending troops away. The one thing that troubles me is the uncertainty whether Maccario can get here to-night."

"Well," said Harper, "it's quite an important question, and I don't understand why we're staying here. I'd far sooner light out at once and meet him. If Morales turns up in the meanwhile we're going to have trouble."

Appleby smiled dryly. "I'm afraid we would not get very far," he said.

"Still, if it's only to find out whether my notion is correct, we can try it."

Harper picked up what was left of the bread, and with characteristic caution slipped it into his pocket. "It may come in handy. I've been out with the Sin Verguenza before," he said.

They went down the stairway, along the tram-line, and out upon the Santa Marta road, but they had scarcely made half a mile when they came upon a sergeant and several files of cazadores sitting in the shadow by the roadside. Harper stopped abruptly and Appleby smiled.

"The road is closed, then, Sergeant?" he said.

"No, senor," said the man. "Still, it is not very safe."

"Not even as far as Santa Marta?"

The sergeant shook his head. "If you are going there I will send two files with you," he said.