The Dust of Conflict Part 38

He lighted a cigar and sat still, though his big hands quivered now and then, and the veins showed swollen on his forehead. The light grew rapidly dim, and at last Appleby moved sharply when a man came up the stairway with a lamp. Harper laughed unpleasantly.

"It can't last very long now," he said. "We'll know what's going to happen in the next half-hour."

Appleby glanced at him languidly. "There is," he said, "one thing that would induce Morales to let us slip through his fingers."

Harper stood up and straightened himself, clenching his hands on the chair back as he stared at Appleby.

"If I thought you meant it I'd stop your talking for ever now," he said.

"Oh, I've now and then done a smart thing, and n.o.body expects too much from me, but I haven't sold a countryman to the Spaniards yet-the devils who sunk the 'Maine'!"

Appleby laughed. "I think," he said quietly, "you had better sit down."

Harper said nothing, but when he turned and flung himself into the chair his eyes were eloquent, and there was for almost an hour a tense silence in the room. It seemed interminable to Appleby, but at last there was a tramp of feet outside, and they rose simultaneously, Harper flushed and Appleby a trifle gray in face. Then there were footsteps on the stairway, and Morales came in with two or three files of cazadores behind him. He glanced at the two men, and his face grew a trifle harder, while a little vindictive sparkle crept into his eyes. Still, his voice was coldly even.

"I had the honor of making you a proposal last night, Senor Appleby," he said.

Appleby nodded. "I am sorry that I found I could not entertain it," he said.

Morales let his hand fall on the hilt of his sword. "Then there is only one course open to me. I place these men in your custody, sergeant, and until you hand them over in the guardroom at Santa Marta you will be answerable for them."

The sergeant made a little sign, two men moved forward, and in another minute Appleby and Harper went down the stairway and saw a section of cazadores waiting in the patio.

XXIV - RESPITED

A FAINT light was creeping in through the narrow window when Appleby awoke in a little upper room in the cuartel at Santa Marta. Worn out by the tense anxiety he had undergone he had at last slept restlessly, and for a moment or two he was only sensible that his surroundings were unfamiliar. Simply as he had lived at San Cristoval the room seemed unusually bare, while his limbs ached a little, and he wondered why he was lying on a thin strip of matting, and what Harper, who lay close beside him, apparently asleep, was doing there.

Then he shook himself into wakefulness as memory came back, and the events of the preceding night arranged themselves before him. He remembered his brief trial by Morales and a handful of officers, who deferred to him-for Santa Marta was under martial law-the written process declaring his offences, and the smile in Morales' dark eyes when he admitted that he had nothing to urge in extenuation. One point alone he contested, and that was that he and Harper had supplied the insurgents with arms from San Cristoval, but the process proved that rifles had been carried into the factory, and his a.s.sertion that it was done without his knowledge only called forth a smile of incredulity.

Then came the sentence, which Appleby listened to with the unconcern of desperation, and Harper, standing with great hands clenched and face dark with pa.s.sion, answered with a torrent of furious invective in luminous American and Castilian, until two cazadores dragged him away.

Appleby shivered, and rising softly walked to the window as he remembered that the day that was breaking was the last he would ever see. He flung the lattice open, and his face grew grim as he looked out upon the town. It was as yet, for the most part, dim and shadowy, and two square church towers rose blackly against a sky of paling indigo, but here and there a white wall glimmered faintly, and a pearly l.u.s.tre suffused the east. While he watched it became streaked with crimson, for in the tropics dawn comes suddenly, and by and by a long shaft of brightness streamed up into the sky. Then the city emerged from the shadow, and once more shone dazzlingly white in the morning sun.

It awoke as suddenly, for men rise early in that country to work while it is cool, and a ringing of bugles rose from beyond the flat roofs clear and musical, while the white walls flung back the patter of feet, and the hum of voices became audible. Appleby listened with a dull hopelessness that was too intense for bitterness to the stir of reawakening life, though the contrast between his lot and that of the men whose voices he heard had its effect on him. They were going out to their toil, and would in due time sleep again, but before that day was over he would be at rest forever. Then as somebody went by below singing a little light-hearted song he turned away with a groan, and saw that Harper was watching him.

"You haven't much use for singing," he said.

Appleby sat down with his back against the wall, and laughed somewhat hollowly. "No," he said. "The only appropriate music would be a requiem."

"Well," said Harper reflectively, "I don't quite know, though I'm free to admit that I'm feeling a good deal more anxious than I care about. I was thinking, and didn't sleep much last night, and it kind of seems to me the Spaniards have about enough on their backs just now."

Appleby shook his head. "The trouble is that Morales will take care that all anybody of consequence knows is that two of the Sin Verguenza were extinguished in Santa Marta," he said.

"Still, there's another point. Morales doesn't let up too easily on anything he means to put through, and he wouldn't get very much out of either of us when we're dead."

Appleby turned upon him almost savagely. "Stop," he said. "You know the thing is decided as well as I do. Yesterday took a good deal of the stiffening out of me-and in another hour or two we shall have a tolerably difficult part to play."

Harper's face grew suddenly grim. "Well," he said a trifle hoa.r.s.ely, "I guess we can face what is coming as well as a Spaniard can, and-I've got to admit it-n.o.body could expect any more from any man."

Appleby made no answer, but it was by an effort that, feeling his comrade's eyes upon him, he sat still, when the door opened and a cazadore came in. He laid down a piece of bread and a bottle of thin red wine, and then glanced at them compa.s.sionately.

"When will it be?" asked Appleby very quietly.

The man made a little gesture. "Soon, I think. There is a parade fixed in an hour from now."

He went out, and Harper's hands quivered a little as he held up the wine and glanced at Appleby.

"It's not often I don't feel inclined to eat, but I don't seem to have much use for breakfast now," he said. "Here's to the folks who'll wonder what has happened to us back there in the country we came from!"

He drank, and handed the wine to Appleby, who stood up as he put the bottle to his lips. It was, however, not Tony Palliser or Nettie Harding, but a woman with grave gray eyes, that now when the shadows were closing round him he drank to as it were reverently. She would, as Harper had suggested, never even know what had befallen him, but she seemed very near him then, and he felt the influence of her serenity upon him.

He laid down the bottle, and Harper took out two cigars. "Now," he said, "I guess when they come for me I'll be ready."

The hour that followed seemed interminable, but at last there was a tramp of feet on the stairway, and a sergeant of cazadores who came in made a sign to them. They rose in silence, and were thrust amidst a cl.u.s.ter of other prisoners in the patio, while an officer reading from a paper called their names aloud. Then a guard with bayonets fixed closed in about them, and they pa.s.sed out through an archway into the street.

Appleby blinked about him with half-closed eyes, for he had come out of the shadow, and the white walls were dazzlingly bright, while from out of the press of close-packed humanity beneath them came the flash of steel.

Then the crowd opened up, and a company of cazadores, that filed out of another opening halted a moment to wait for the prisoners' guard.

Appleby was driven forward and took his place among the rest, there was a ringing of bugles that drowned the hum of voices from the crowd, and they had started on their last journey to the doleful tapping of the drums. Morales, it seemed, understood his countrymen, and meant to gratify the Iberian l.u.s.t of sensation which finds vent in the bull-ring, and is akin to that which packed the amphitheatres in the days of ancient Rome. Still, Appleby noticed vacantly that the loyalist city seemed curiously unresponsive for the shout that went up when the troops moved forward died away, and the tapping of the drums broke sharply through a brief silence that was almost portentous.

It was followed by a low murmuring that suggested the sound of the sea, and gazing at the rows of intent faces Appleby noticed that hats were swept off as the prisoners pa.s.sed, and that here and there a man crossed himself. Once a burst of Vivas went up, but the murmurs that answered them were hoa.r.s.e and angry, and for a s.p.a.ce of minutes there was once more a heavy silence that seemed intensified by the beat of marching feet and the tapping of the drums.

Appleby saw the faces at the windows and upon the roofs, swept a glance along the crowd that lined the pavement, and with a little tingling of his nerves turned his eyes away. He felt a horror of these men who had come to watch him die, and set his lips and struggled with an almost overwhelming impulse to fling bitter jibes or anathemas at them as he stared straight before him. Harper was walking quietly at his side, and a pace or two in front were four of their companions in misfortune-a lad who limped, an old man, and two peons who laughed now and then. Beyond them he could see a forest of wavering rifles crested with flashing steel, and the figure of a mounted officer silhouetted sharply against a strip of sky.

Way was made for them, and the march went on. The trampling feet clashed rhythmically upon the stones, the rows of crowded windows and long white walls slid behind, and then while a blast of the bugles rang across the town Appleby found himself plodding into the smaller plaza. There was a long flash of sunlight on steel, the leading company split up and wheeled, and while the files tramped past he and the guard were left standing with a double rank of cazadores behind them at one end of the plaza. In another two or three moments it was lined two deep by men with bayonets holding back the crowd; but the church with the two towers closed the opposite end, and Appleby noticed vacantly how dazzlingly white the empty s.p.a.ce shone in the sun, save where the long black shadow of the cross above fell athwart it. The church door was, as usual, open, and the sound of an organ came out from it dolefully. Except for that, there was for almost a minute a silence that grew horribly oppressive.

Then a voice was raised, and read what appeared to be a list of the prisoners' offences, but Appleby could attach no meaning to it, and set his lips when the man with the paper called three names aloud. It was with a revulsion of feeling that left him very cold he realized that none of them was his or Harper's, but next moment he almost wished that they had been included in the summons. He had no hope now, and found the task of standing there unmoved before those swarming faces becoming insuperably difficult.

The lad who limped shuffled forward across the plaza, with the two peons and a guard behind, until they stopped and turned again a foot or two from the church wall. The peons were men with patient brown faces dressed simply in white cotton and unstarched linen, and Appleby fancied that their offence was in all probability the smuggling of arms or communications for the insurgents. Then he became aware by a sudden hum of voices that something unexpected was going on, and turning his eyes saw two priests appear in the porch of the church, and a sergeant standing somewhat sheepishly before them. One was little and portly, in shabby ca.s.sock, but he spoke in a shrill vehement voice, and his face was flushed; the other stood on the step above him, a tall man in ornate vestments that made a blaze of color in the porch, and he held one arm up commandingly.

Appleby could not hear what they said, for only his visual senses seemed to have retained their efficiency, but he fancied they were protesting when the sergeant moved slowly back across the plaza. Appleby turned and watched him stop with lifted hand before the colonel, but Morales did what few other men in that country would have ventured on when, making a contemptuous gesture, he sent the sergeant back with his answer, and sat still in his saddle with one hand his hip.

Still, the priests persisted, and would apparently have moved forward from the church, when there was a flash of steel and tramp of feet, and four or five files of infantry who had evidently little liking for their task halted in front of the porch. This time there was a hoa.r.s.e portentous note in the murmurs of the crowd, and Appleby had another token of Morales' courage when he saw him glance at the hemmed in priests with a little sardonic smile.

He made a sign with his gloved hand, somebody called out sharply, a line of men moved forward a pace or two, and there was a jingle and clatter as the rifles went up to the hip. Appleby saw the lame lad shrink back towards the wall, and one of the peons with bound hands awkwardly pull forward his hat over his eyes, but the other stood bolt upright with his at his side.

Once more a voice rang sharply through the stillness, the rifles went up to the shoulder, and Appleby, who set his lips and clenched his hands, turned his eyes aside. For a second or two it was horribly and intensely still, and then a hoa.r.s.e, strained voice, one of the peons' Appleby fancied, cried, "Viva la libertad!"

It was followed by a crash, a whisp of smoke drifted past him, there was an inarticulate cry from the crowd, and he dimly saw the firing party moving through the smoke. Beyond them he had a blurred glimpse of a figure that swayed upon its knees, and another lying full length clawing at the stones. Then he shivered and gazed up at the crowded housetops and dazzling sky, and by a grim effort held himself stiffly erect.

Harper's voice reached him through the murmur of horror from the crowd.

"Lord!" he said hoa.r.s.ely. "They've bungled it!"

Again the rifles crashed, and the men came back, two of them, Appleby noticed, walking a trifle unsteadily. The faces of the rest were set and grim, and he braced himself for an effort as the man with the paper moved forward again. His turn and Harper's was coming now, but what he had seen had stirred him to a fierce anger that drove out physical fear, and it was impotent fury he strove to hold in check. Then he saw Morales apparently conferring with one or two of his officers who seemed to be glancing towards him and Harper, while the latter gripped his shoulder until he winced.

"Why can't they be quick?" he said. "I'll take one of those soldiers'

rifles and empty the magazine into them in another minute."

Then there was a louder hum of voices and a surging of the crowd, for the men of the firing party, waiting no order, brought their rifles down with a crash. They were young men of the Barremeda company, which, as Appleby had heard, was not above suspicion, though that was, perhaps, why Morales had appointed them the task. A lieutenant appeared to be gesticulating in front of them, but the men stood immovable, with ordered rifles and set brown faces, and there was now a murmur from the ranks behind them, while a great cry went up from the crowd.