Kitabı oku: «The Dust of Conflict», sayfa 7
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 space 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, clusters 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, señor,” 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 pass. 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 Pass. 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 clusters 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 attitude 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 buttons 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.
She fancied she spent at least an hour in the church, listening with apprehension to the clamor that broke out and sank again outside. There were murmurs inside the building, and an occasional rustling of the leather curtains, but this told her nothing; and at last, unable to bear the suspense any longer, she moved softly towards the door. The town was almost silent when she reached it, and there was a light burning in what appeared to be a wine shop across the plaza. She could also hear laughter as well as the tinkle of a guitar; and as this did not indicate fear she decided to enter the shop and endeavor to hire somebody to search for her father. Unfortunately, however, she did not remember a saying common in Spain respecting the fondness of evil-livers for the sound of church bells.
She flitted across the plaza without molestation, and then stopped in front of a building which bore a scroll announcing that it was a café. A blaze of light shone out from it, and looking in between the wooden pillars she could see the little tables and wine barricas. Then she gasped, for in place of reputable citizens the tables were occupied by women with powdered faces in cheap bravery and ragged men with rifles slung behind them. The light also showed her standing white in face with torn garments and the jewels sparkling at her neck to the revellers; and a man of dusky skin, with a machete hanging at his belt, sprang up with a shout.
There was a burst of laughter, and Nettie Harding fled, with the patter of several pairs of feet growing louder behind her, until two men came forward to meet her. They, however, let her pass; there was an altercation, and she stood still, trembling, when a cry in English reached her. Then she saw three or four dim figures moving back towards the café and the two men coming towards her. One of them also raised a hand to his big shapeless hat.
“I scarcely think they will trouble you any more,” he said in Castilian, which Nettie could understand.
She said nothing for a moment, but stood still looking at the men, and wondering whether they could be trusted. She could, however, see very little of them, and found a difficulty in expressing herself in Castilian.
“Can you tell me whether the Hotel Cuatro Naciones is safe?” she asked in faltering English. “I lost my companion leaving it.”
“I scarcely think it is,” said one of the men, whose accentuation was unmistakably English. “You were staying there?”
“Yes,” said Nettie. “My father was separated from me by the crowd.”
One of the men said something she did not hear to his comrade, while just then a cry of alarm came out of the darkness, and was followed by a rush of feet. Then the man who had spoken turned to her again.
“I’m afraid you can’t stay here,” he said, with evident perplexity.
As he spoke a crowd of shadowy men surged about them, but he called out angrily in Castilian, and before she quite realized what he was doing drew the girl’s hand beneath his arm. Then there was laughter and a shout: “Excuses, Don Bernardino. Pass on, comrades!”
Nettie would have snatched her hand free, but the man held it fast with a little warning pressure, and she went on with him, partly because his voice had been deferential and puzzlingly familiar, and also because it was evident that she could not get away. They went up a calle, where another band of roysterers came clamoring to meet them, until the man led her under an archway where a lamp was burning. Then he gravely dropped her hand, and Nettie gasped as she stared at him. He was burned to the color of coffee, his shoes were burst, and his garments, which had evidently never been intended to fit him, were mostly rags, but his face reminded her of the man she had met on board the “Aurania.”
“It is perhaps not astonishing that you don’t seem to recognize me, Miss Harding,” he said. “You have no idea where your father can have gone to?”
“No,” said the girl, with a little tremor of relief. “He must be in the town, and I would be very grateful if you could take me to him. Of course, I know you now.”
“Is your father Cyrus Harding – Sugar Harding – of New York?” the other man broke in.
“Yes,” said the girl, and the man drew his comrade aside.
“You and I have got to see her through, and your quarters would be the safest place,” he said.
Appleby stared at him as he asked, “Have you taken leave of your senses, Harper?”
“No,” said his companion dryly. “I guess they’re where they are of most use to me. Everybody’s entitled to what he can pick up to-night, and there are not many of the Sin Verguenza would dispute your claim. It’s beginning to strike you?”
“I hope it will not strike Miss Harding too,” said Appleby, whose face flushed. “Still, I can think of nothing else.”
Then he went back slowly to where the girl was standing.
“I fancy I can find you shelter if you will trust yourself to me; and when your father asks any of my men about you they will send him to you,” he said. “It is, however, necessary that you should take my arm.”
Nettie flashed a swift glance at him, but the man was regarding her steadily with gravely sympathetic eyes, and it was with a curious intuitive confidence she moved away with him. They passed bands of roysterers and houses with shattered doors, and finally entered a patio littered with furniture. An olive-faced man with a rifle stood on guard in it, and the color swept into the girl’s face as she saw his grin; but he let them pass, and Appleby went on, moving stiffly, and very grim in face, up a stairway that led to a veranda. There he took down a lantern that hung on a lattice, and gave it the girl as he pointed to a door.
“There is a strong bolt inside,” he said in a curiously even voice. “I do not know of any other place in Santa Marta where you would be as safe to-night.”
Nettie turned with a little shiver, and looked down into the patio. There were lights behind most of the lattices, and she could hear loud laughter and the clink of glasses, while here and there ragged figures with rifles showed up on the veranda. Then she straightened herself with an effort and looked steadily at Appleby. He stood wearily before her, very ragged, and very disreputable as far as appearance went, but he did not avoid her gaze.
“Where am I?” she asked, with a faint tremor in her voice.
“I believe this was the Alcalde’s house. It is occupied by the Insurgent leaders now.”
“Then,” said the girl, with a little gasp, “why did you bring me here?”
“I can escort you back to the plaza if you wish it,” said Appleby quietly. “Still, you would be running serious risks, and I believe I can answer for your security here. You see, I am an officer of the Sin Verguenza.”
Nettie gasped again, and once more shot a swift glance at him. Appleby was standing very still, and save for the weariness in it his face was expressionless. Then without a word she turned and went into the room, while Harper smiled softly when he heard the bolt shot home. The room, she found, was evidently a sleeping chamber, for there was a cheap iron bedstead in it, and articles of male attire were scattered about the floor. From the quantity of them, and the manner in which they were lying, it also appeared that somebody had been endeavoring to ascertain which would fit him. Then Nettie, remembering the rags the man wore, sat down somewhat limply with burning cheeks in the single chair, until a little burst of meaningless laughter that was tinged with hysteria shook her.
In the meanwhile Appleby dropped into a cane chair further along the veranda and laid his rifle across his knees. “My head’s aching, and I can’t see quite straight,” he said. “See if you can get me a little wine somewhere, Harper. Then you had better go along and find out what those rascals of mine are after, and if anybody has seen Harding.”
Harper shook his head. “I guess I’ve had ’bout enough of them for one night, and if any indignant citizen slips a knife into one of them it’s not going to be a great loss to anybody,” he said. “You know who that girl is?”
“Miss Nettie Harding. I met her on the ‘Aurania’ coming out.”
Harper smiled. “Well,” he said reflectively, “it’s not every day one of the Sin Verguenza is honored with the custody of a young woman who lives in one of the smartest houses on the Hudson. It strikes me there’s money in the thing, and I’m going to stop right here, and be handy when Sugar Harding comes along, though I don’t know that he’d think much of me as a chaperon in this outfit.”
“Get me some wine,” said Appleby, while the bronze deepened in his forehead. “I have got to keep awake, and don’t feel inclined for any foolery.”
Harper went away chuckling, and Appleby sat still. The blow he had received in the attack had shaken him, and he had spent that day and most of the night before it in forced marching. It was some time before Harper returned, and in the meanwhile the Captain Maccario came up the stairway. He stopped in front of Appleby, and shrugged his shoulders expressively.
“The senorita is disdainful, then?” he said.
Appleby devoutly hoped Miss Harding did not understand Castilian, and attempted no explanation. He had more than a suspicion that it would not be credited, but his face was a trifle grim when he looked up at his comrade.
“There are times when a wise man asks no questions, my friend,” he said. “If any one tries to get into the room I have taken to-night he will be sorry.”
Maccario, who was an easy-going Andalusian, laughed somewhat significantly, and Appleby, glancing at the half-opened lattice, wondered with unpleasant misgivings whether Miss Harding had heard him. As it happened, she had, and clenched her hands as she listened. Still, even then she remembered that the man who had brought her there had said there was no place in Santa Marta where she would be more secure. It seemed a bold assertion, but she felt that it could be credited.
“Well,” said the Spaniard, whose eyes still twinkled, “we march at sunrise, and there are richer prizes than pretty faces to be picked up to-night. The others are busy collecting them. Is it wise to lose one’s chances for a señorita who is unsympathetic?”
The humorous Maccario came very nearly receiving a painful astonishment just then, but by an effort Appleby kept his temper. “My money is my friend’s, but not my affairs,” he said. “Tell your men if they can find an American with blue eyes to bring him here. It will be worth their while.”
Maccario tossed a handful of cigars into his comrade’s knees. “The Colonel Morales smokes good tobacco, and they were his. If we find the American we will send him to you. It is by misfortune we do not find the Colonel Morales.”
He went away, and by and by Harper came back with a flask of red wine and a roll of matting, which he spread out at the top of the stairway.
“I’m pretty big, and anybody who treads on me will get a little surprise,” he said. “You have just got to say ‘Gunboat’ if you want me.”
He was apparently asleep in five minutes, but Appleby lay motionless in his chair with every sense alert. The laughter and hum of voices had died away, and only an occasional hoarse shouting rose from the town. His eyes were fixed on the patio, and his hands, which were hard and brown, clenched on the rifle; but his thoughts were far away in a garden where the red beech leaves strewed the velvet grass in peaceful England, and it was not Nettie Harding’s blue eyes, but Violet Wayne’s calm gray ones that seemed to look into his. Harper’s words by the camp fire were bearing fruit, and he was ready to admit now that it was a woman who had sent him there. There was also satisfaction in the thought that he was serving her, which was the most he could look for, since his part was to give and not expect, but he felt that she would approve of what he was doing then. So the time slipped by; while Nettie Harding, still sitting behind the lattice, now and then raised her head and looked at him. His attitude betokened his watchfulness, and with a little sigh of relief she sank back into her chair again. That ragged figure with the grim, brown face seemed an adequate barrier between her and whatever could threaten her.
At last there was a trampling below, and several dusky men staggering suggestively came up the stairway. The girl heard the sound, and shivered as she watched them, until a gaunt figure rose up from beneath their feet. Then they stopped, and one of them fell down the steps and reeled with a crash against a pillar at the bottom.
“You can stop there. There is plenty of room in the stable,” said a voice; and when Appleby flung up a hand commandingly the men went away, and there was quietness again.
How long it lasted Nettie did not know, for, though she had no intention of doing so, she went to sleep, and did not hear a man come up the stairway. He had a lean face and keen blue eyes, but there was tense anxiety in them now. Appleby, who rose up, signed Harper to step aside, and in another moment the two men stood face to face – one of them dusty and worn and ragged, the other in what had been a few hours earlier immaculate dress.
“Where is my daughter?” said the latter. “There’s five hundred dollars for any one who will bring her to me.”
Appleby smiled a little. “She is here.”
The other man shook visibly and clenched his hand, but Appleby moved out of the shadow so that his face was visible, and the American’s grew quietly stern.
“Then you shall pay for this,” he said.
“Hadn’t you better speak to Miss Harding first?” said Appleby. “Knock at the door in front of you. I believe it is bolted inside.”
Harding struck the door. There was a little cry of terror that changed to one of joyful surprise, the door swung open, and the man went inside. It was five minutes later when he came out again, and he had a wallet in his hand when he stopped before Appleby. Then he started.
“Good Lord!” he said. “It’s Broughton.”
Appleby nodded, and saw that Harding was fumbling at the wallet. “No,” he said. “I would not like you to spoil the acquaintance I am rather proud of, sir.”
Harding’s face was flushed as he grasped his hand. “Well,” he said, “I guess the bills aren’t printed that could pay you for what you have done for me. Can’t you say something that’s appropriate, Nettie?”
“No,” said the girl quietly, though there was a faint gleam in her eyes. “That contract is too big for me. Still, I hope you did not lose many opportunities, Mr. Broughton, through taking care of me.”
Appleby turned to Harding hastily. “I hope you did not have any trouble with our men?”
“No,” said Harding. “It was some time before I saw them. A mob of citizens swept me away, and when I got clear of them one of Morales’ officers came up mounted with a few men. He went off at a gallop, but shouted to a sergeant to take care of me, and the fool did it too efficiently. He was from Mallorca, and couldn’t understand my Spanish, but dragged me along with him. It was an hour before I could get away, and I spent the rest of the night running up and down the town until some of your comrades found me.”
Appleby nodded. “My friend here will take a few files and go with you to your hotel,” he said. “Our men will have loaded themselves with all they can carry, and are scarcely likely to trouble you now. We leave at sunrise.”
Harding stood silent for a moment or two, and then said slowly, “Can’t you find anything better than this to do?”
“The Sin Verguenza took me in, and treated me tolerably well,” said Appleby. “I feel bound to stay with them until they have made their footing good, anyway.”
Harper nodded. “When you feel that you can leave them come to me,” he said. “I don’t want to lose sight of you.”
He shook hands again, and went away with Harper and the girl; but it was scarcely two hours later when his daughter and he stood upon the flat roof of the “Four Nations,” while a long line of men with rifles, who were no longer ragged, marched out of Santa Marta. One who marched with the second company looked up and waved his hand to them.
“That,” said Harding gravely, “is a straight man, and he will do something by and by when he has an opportunity. It is not going to be my fault if he doesn’t get one.”
