Kitabı oku: «The Dust of Conflict», sayfa 8
IX – THE BREAKING OF THE NET
THERE was no wind, and the night was very still, when Appleby lay aching in every limb behind an aloe hedge which cut off the dim white road. Harper sat on the steaming earth close beside him contemplatively munching the end of a cigar, for smoking was distinctly inadvisable just then, and he was in need of something to stay the pangs of hunger. Here and there a dusky figure showed among the leaves, and now and then a low murmur or a soft rustling rose from the black shadow of the overhanging palms; but the scarcely audible sound sank once more into the silence, and a muleteer had just passed along the dusty road apparently without the faintest suspicion that rather more than a hundred famishing men had watched him with fingers tightening on their rifle barrels. He saw and heard nothing, which was fortunate for him, and now his voice and the tramp of his team came back faintly across the cane.
The dew was heavy, as it usually is in the tropics when a clear, still night follows a day of scorching heat, and Appleby could have wrung it from the garments he had borrowed from the Alcalde’s wardrobe at Santa Marta. That, however, did not trouble him, for they rested with a pleasant coolness upon his sun-scorched skin; and he was mainly conscious of a sense of emptiness and a distressful stitch in his side as he watched the strip of road. It wound out from the inky shadows of the palms, led by the hedge of aloes, and was lost again in the cane that stretched away, a dim sweep of dusky green, under the moon. It was at least a week since he had had an adequate meal, and he had passed that day crawling through a mangrove swamp, where pits of foul black mire lay beneath the great slimy roots.
Haste and concealment had, however, appeared advisable to the Sin Verguenza; for their success at Santa Marta had brought two strong battalions upon their trail, and Morales had decreed their extermination. Cut off from the hills, they had taken to a belt of reeking mangrove swamps, and Morales, who was too wise to venture his raw troops in those dim haunts of fever, had persistently drawn his net tighter about them. They had accordingly divided when supplies ran out, and the Captain Maccario, who did not know whether the rest had succeeded in breaking through, had halted those who remained with him to wait until the moon sank before making a dash for another tract of jungle. They were, indeed, almost too weary to drag themselves any further just then, and their leader had reason for believing there was a company of cazadores somewhere upon the road.
He lay a little apart from Appleby, and raised his head so that the moonlight shone into his face, which showed intent and anxious, when a palm frond rustled behind them. There was nothing astonishing in this, but when the rustle repeated itself it seemed to Appleby that there was something curiously persistent in the sound. He glanced at the Spaniard, who saw him, and raised one hand as if in warning. The sound ceased, and there was once more an impressive silence, which lasted for some minutes. Then Appleby felt Harper’s hand upon his shoulder.
“Look!” he said in a hoarse whisper, and his comrade set his lips as he turned his head.
A man who had appeared without a sound stood in the white road, his rigid figure forced up sharp and black against it, and it was evident that he was peering about him. Then, with a swiftness that had its significance, he slipped back into the shadow, and moved through it, stopping a second or two now and then as though to listen. Appleby could just see him, and felt a little shiver run through him, for he knew the loyalist scout was running a horrible risk. He hoped the man would see nothing, for the last thing the Sin Verguenza desired was to chance a rifle shot just then. He, however, came on, treading softly and stooping as though to observe the dew-clogged dust, until he stopped again where a little pathway led in among the aloes.
Then he straightened himself, looked behind him, and turning his head stared into the shadow of the palms that lay black and impenetrable beyond the aloes, while the moonlight shone down into his face. It showed white and set against the dusky background; and Appleby, who could see the intent eyes, held his breath, for he knew the man’s life hung trembling in the balance. One step would take him to his death, for another face that was drawn and haggard and had the stamp of hunger on it showed amidst the leaves behind him. The suspense lasted for a space of seconds, and Appleby felt himself quivering under the tension, until the man made a sudden movement as though something suspicious had caught his eyes. Then there was a rustle of leaves, a shadowy form sprang, and the scout went down; while Appleby, who saw a flash in the moonlight, turned his head away. He heard a strangled groan and a struggling amidst the leaves, and then there was once more an impressive silence.
“Two dollars, senor!” said a dusky man breathlessly, as he came up to the Captain Maccario; and the Spaniard made a curious little gesture as he glanced at Appleby.
“You can keep them. Drag him away!” he said in Castilian. “It is the fortune of war, Don Bernardino!”
Appleby said nothing, but Harper turned to the officer. “The troops will not be far behind,” he said. “Will we get through?”
Maccario shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows?” he said. “It is certain the cazadores come, but if they march past us the road is open. It is by misfortune we do not know how many there are of them.”
“Where are we going if we do get through?” asked Harper.
Maccario stretching out a brown hand swept it vaguely round the horizon. “Here and there and everywhere. The Sin Verguenza will vanish until they are wanted again. There are too many troops in this country, and it is not difficult to find a hundred men when they are together; but it is different when you chase them one by one. So Morales stamps out the insurrection, and when he sends half his troops away we come back again.”
“It is not very evident how we are going to live in the meanwhile,” said Appleby dryly.
Maccario laughed. “What is mine is my friend’s, and there is a poor house at your service. One could reach it in a week’s march, and once there we are short of nothing. This is, you understand, a grateful country.”
There was light enough for Appleby to see the roguish twinkle in the Spaniard’s dark eyes, and he shook his head. “No,” he said. “While I fought with the Sin Verguenza I lived as they did, but it would not suit me to lie idle and levy contributions upon the country.”
“Well,” said Maccario reflectively, “in the meanwhile you come with me, and we may, perhaps, find means of sending you back to the sea. Just now I do not know whether any of us will get very far. We have two leagues to make by the carretera before we find cover, and there are cazadores on the road; while the Captain Vincente will be upon us by daylight if we stay here.”
The others understood as much already, and it was because they did not know exactly where the cazadores were they were lying there. It was also a somewhat important question, and they lay still waiting for an answer until a faintly rhythmic sound came out of the silence. It sank beyond hearing, but rose again, a trifle louder; and Appleby’s heart throbbed as he recognized the tramp of marching men, while a half-articulate sound rose from the Sin Verguenza. They were hungry and very weary, and starvation waited them if they crawled back into the swamps; while the road that led to safety was closed by the troops. It was, however, evident that their leader knew his business, and Appleby fancied that if the detachment was not a strong one they might still break through.
In the meanwhile the rhythmic tramp was steadily growing louder, and he could tell by the stirring of those about him that they were waiting in strained expectancy, until there was a patter of footsteps, and a man came running down the road. He flung himself down gasping beside Maccario, and his voice was breathless as he said, “It is one company only.”
“Good!” said Maccario dryly. “If they see nothing it is also well. Then the road will be open from here to Adeje. On the other hand, if they have good eyes it is unfortunate for them.”
There was a faint rattle and clicking as the men fidgeted with magazine slide, or snapped open breaches to make sure that a cartridge lay in the chamber. Then an impressive silence followed, which seemed to grow more intense as the tramp of marching men came ringing sharply down the dim white road. Perhaps the officer who led them trusted to the scout who would never bring him a warning back again, or had lately arrived from Spain, and did not know that the man who sought the Sin Verguenza was apt to find them where he least expected. Then a faintly musical jingling and the rattle of wheels became audible too, and Appleby shook his weariness from him as, with the dust rolling about them, dim figures swung into sight round a bend of the road. The carretera was a broad one, and they appeared to be marching carelessly in open fours, for laughter and the hum of voices came out of the dust.
Raising his head a little he glanced behind him, but the Sin Verguenza were ominously still and silent now, and he could only see Maccario’s shoulder, and in places a glint of metal where the moonlight sifted down. Again a quiver ran through him, and his heart thumped painfully as he watched the men below through the openings between the aloes. Then he set his lips and grappled with an almost uncontrollable desire to cry out and warn them. He had been hunted by them, and had seen their handiwork in the ashes of burnt aldeas that had given his comrades shelter; but for that Morales was responsible, and the men were for the most part conscripts reft from their homes in Spain, and going with laughter on their lips to their doom. The Sin Verguenza struck at night, in silence, and were seldom contented with a strategetical victory. Still, because the rattle of riflery carries far, they held their hand while several loose fours shuffling through the dust went by, and Appleby felt a trifle easier.
Then there was another space of waiting before the dust that had commenced to sift down grew thicker again as the head of the company swung round the bend. They were also marching easily with gaps between the files, and the jingle of sling, swivel, scabbard, and canteen rang through their trampling, while the rifles twinkled as the fours swung across the breadths of moonlight between the shadows of the palms. They were young men, most of them, and some little more than boys; while here and there one or two, still unprovided with tropical outfit, wore the kepi and the cazadores, green; but Appleby had seen the men of the Peninsula fight before, and checked a groan. He was one of the Sin Verguenza, and knew what awaited him if Morales was successful, but the work on hand seemed horrible to him just then.
The tension grew almost insupportable, when one of the soldiers who had a clear voice started the “Campanadas,” and the refrain, that spoke of grapes and kisses, rolled from four to four. Melodious as it was it seemed to jar with a horrible discordance upon the silence. Still, there was a chance that the troops might pass unscathed yet if their officers saw nothing, and it was with tingling nerves Appleby watched the fours swing by. Half the company had passed him now.
Then there was a shout from one of the leading fours, and a sharp order, while a man came running along the line; and the files in front of Appleby stood still looking about them. He felt his eyes grow dim, and his fingers quiver on the rifle stock, while his heart throbbed painfully. Then a mounted officer appeared, apparently on a mule; there was another order, though Appleby had no notion what it was, and while the feet commenced to shuffle Maccario cried out.
Appleby felt the rifle butt jar on his shoulder and the barrel jump in his hand, but saw nothing for a moment beyond wisps of drifting smoke. It hung about the aloes and obscured the road, but cries and execrations and orders came out of it, until the rifles of the Sin Verguenza flashed again. What happened to the cazadores was not apparent then, but it was evident that some at least survived, for there was a rush of feet in the smoke, and men with bayonets plunged in among the aloes. They failed to force a passage through the horrible spines, and another blast of riflery met them in the face as they floundered and rent themselves. They had done what men could do, for it was usually a leader’s blunder that involved the troops of Spain in defeat, but no flesh and blood unsheltered could face that withering fire, and some went down among the aloes, while the rest flung themselves upon the murderous rifles.
Then the Sin Verguenza came out from their lair, and Appleby swung his hat off as he ran with a mob of ragged men behind him towards a slim, white-clad officer who was standing in the road. It was in Castilian he shouted, but a bitter laugh and the flash of a pistol answered him, and there was a glint of steel as half-seen men rallied about their leader. The rifles, however, flashed again, and the cluster of cazadores melted away as the Sin Verguenza poured out into the road. Appleby sprang over the fallen officer, and stood still gasping and conscious for the first time that his foot was paining him. Shadowy men were flying round the bend of the road but there were, so far as he could see, very few of them; while the glance he cast round him showed what had happened to the rest.
“It doesn’t look nice,” said Harper, who appeared at his side. “Still, there’s a mule team down, and I’m kind of anxious to find out if they brought anything to eat along.”
He disappeared again, and Appleby circumspectly took off one of the Alcalde of Santa Marta’s shoes. His foot felt hot, and the patches of stocking that clung about it were saturated, but the light was too dim to show him exactly where it was injured; so he shook the moisture from the shoe through a place where the stitches had parted and put it on again, and was standing stiffly with his weight on one leg when Maccario came by.
“You have five minutes to look for anything you may have a fancy for in,” he said. “There is, however, it seems, a lamentable scarcity of pesetas among the troops of Spain.”
Appleby turned from him with a little gesture of disgust, and Maccario, who shrugged his shoulders, went away again. But the Sin Verguenza were expeditious, and within ten minutes had grouped themselves, with bulging pockets and haversacks made for other men, in straggling fours. Then the word was given, and they swung away at the best pace they could compass down the carretera. It cost Appleby an effort to limp along with his half company, but he managed it for a time, and nobody except Harper seemed to notice when he lagged behind. Then when they were straggling behind the rearmost files those in front halted as a man came up, and a murmur ran along the line.
“Morales with four companies!” said somebody. “Marching by the Adeje cross-road. If they are not deaf, those cazadores, they have heard the firing!”
“Forward!” Maccario’s voice came back. “With Vincente behind us there will be masses needed if we do not pass the Adeje road before Morales.”
Then the pace grew faster, and Appleby dropped farther behind, with Harper hanging resolutely at his side. There was very little discipline among the Sin Verguenza at any time, and every man’s first care was to save his own neck just then. So little by little the distance grew greater between them and the two lonely men, until when the last of them swept round a bend Appleby stopped altogether and looked at Harper.
“I can’t go any farther on one foot. Push on,” he said.
Harper laughed a little. “I’ve a stitch in my side myself, and this kind of gallop takes it out of one. I feel kind of tired of the Sin Verguenza after to-night’s work, anyway.”
Appleby made a little impatient gesture. “Go on,” he said, “go on.”
“No, sir. I guess I told you I couldn’t run.”
“I’m dead lame,” said Appleby. “You can’t carry me.”
“Well, I’m not going to try. We’ll hustle along, and it’s quite likely we’ll get somebody to take us in.”
Appleby made a last effort, but his voice shook a little as he said, “This is not your business, Harper. You can’t do anything for me. Don’t be a fool!”
Harper laid a hard hand on his shoulder. “Now, I have no use for arguing. We are white men alone in a heathen country, and you can’t help not being an American, anyway. When he’s in a tight place I don’t go back on my partner. You lean on me, and we’ll come to a hole we can crawl into by and by.”
He slipped his arm under Appleby’s shoulder, and they shuffled on alone down the dim white road. There was silence all about them, and the tramp of the Sin Verguenza came back more and more faintly out of the distance until it ceased altogether.
X – AN UNEXPECTED MEETING
IT was almost cold and very still when Appleby looked out from his lair among the cane. Morning had not come but the clump of trees that had been a mere blur of shadow when he last awakened had grown into definite form, and rose black and solemn against the eastern sky. This was no longer dusky indigo, but of a softer color tinged with a faint pearly gray, while detached stalks of cane seemed to be growing into visibility. Then he stood up with a little shiver, his torn garments clinging about him wet with the dew, and became vaguely conscious that he was very uncomfortable. His limbs ached with weariness, and there was a distressful stiffness in his hip-joint which those who have slept on damp ground are acquainted with, while his foot throbbed painfully.
These sensations, however, vanished, and left him intent and alert, for a sound he recognized came quivering through the still, cool air. It was evident that Harper heard it also, for he rose stiffly, and his face showed faintly white as he turned in the direction of the carretera which ran through the cane some fifty yards away.
“Troops! It’s kind of fortunate we crawled in here,” he said.
Appleby nodded, for he had passed the greater part of six months hiding from the troops of Spain, and the tramp of marching men was unpleasantly familiar to him, while now, as it grew louder in a dull staccato, it seemed unusually portentous and sinister. The earth lay still and peaceful, wrapped in shadow, while the pearly grayness changed to a pale ruby gleam in the eastern sky; but that beat of human feet jarred dissonantly through nature’s harmonies.
It swelled in slow crescendo, a rhythm of desecration, while the thin jingle of steel and a confused rattling that had still a measured cadence also became audible. The two men who heard it sat very still among the cane, until Appleby, who was not usually a prey to apprehensive fancies, started at the clack of Harper’s rifle as he snapped down the lever and closed the breach again. The sound seemed to ring about them with a horrible distinctness.
“They seem in a hurry, and that’s quite fortunate for us,” said Harper. “Anyway, if they see us they’re not going to get me while there’s anything in the magazine. I’ve no use for being stood up with my hands tied against a wall.”
Appleby said nothing, but his brown fingers stiffened on the wet Marlin rifle, and Harper smiled in a somewhat sardonic fashion when he saw the glint in his half-closed eyes. Reticence is not accounted a virtue in his country, but the Englishman’s immobility was eloquent, and his comrade was satisfied that if the worst came they would not start out on the unknown trail alone. Then four by four dim figures swung out of the shadows, and the cane seemed to shiver in unison with their trampling as they went by with a forest of sloped rifles wavering above them. Here and there a mounted officer showed above the rest; while even when the leading fours were lost again in the shadows there seemed no end to them, and there was still no slackening in the sonorous beat of feet. At last, however, laden beasts appeared with men who straggled about them, then two or three more sections with rifles trailed; and Appleby drew in a deep breath when once more the gap between the cane was empty.
“There will be no room for the Sin Verguenza now, and nobody will be likely to take us in,” he said. “What is to be done, Harper?”
“Go to sleep!” said the American tranquilly. “I wouldn’t worry about the Sin Verguenza. Quite a few of them have picked up enough to retire on. I wish I hadn’t handed my haversack to black Domingo when I went back for you. That’s what’s troubling me.”
Appleby laughed, and rolled into the little hollow he had made for himself with the careless disregard of the future which is not infrequently the adventurer’s most valuable possession. He also slept soundly, and the sun was high when he awakened with a start to see a man looking down on him. He was dressed in unstarched linen, frayed but very clean, and a big straw hat, while he held a hoe and a basket in one hand, and stood regarding Appleby with grave curiosity.
“There is much sun to-day, señor,” he said.
Appleby shifted his hand from the rifle and laid it restrainingly on Harper, who staggered to his feet, for there was something that inspired him with confidence in the man’s dark eyes.
“Are there troops on the road?” he asked.
“No,” said the man. “None between here and Arucas. The señores are – ”
“Friends of liberty!” and Harper grinned as he straightened himself and turned to Appleby. “Hadn’t you better tell him the question is where can two patriots get anything to eat?”
The man glanced at their haggard faces and torn garments, which were white with dust and clammy with dew.
“Ave Maria!” he said softly, and taking a small loaf from the basket broke it into two pieces. One he held out with a bottle of thin red wine, while he glanced at the other half of the loaf deprecatingly.
“One must eat to work,” he said, as if in explanation. “There is always work for the poor, and between the troops and the Sin Verguenza they have very little else here.”
A flush crept into Appleby’s forehead, and Harper pulled out a few pesetas, which was all he had, but the man shook his head.
“No, señor,” he said. “It is for the charity, and one cannot have the liberty for nothing. Still, there are many contributions one must make, and I cannot do more.”
Appleby, who understood the significance charity has in Spain, took the provisions and lifted his battered hat as the man turned away; but when he had taken a pace or two he came back again and dropped a little bundle of maize-husk cigarettes and a strip of cardboard matches beside them. Then, without a word, he plodded away down a little path while Harper looked at Appleby with wonder in his eyes.
“I guess there are men like him in every nation, though they’re often quite hard to find,” he said. “More style about him than a good many of our senators have at home. Well, we’ll have breakfast now, and then get on again.”
They ate the half loaf and drank the wine; but Harper looked grave when Appleby took off his shoe. His foot seemed badly swollen, but he desisted from an attempt to remove the torn and clotted stocking with a wry smile, and put on the shoe again. Then he limped out into the road and plodded painfully down it under the scorching sun all that morning without plan or purpose, though he knew that while it lay not far from Santa Marta the Insurgents had friends and sympathizers in the aldea of Arucas, which was somewhere in front of them. They met nobody. The road wound away before them empty as well as intolerably hot and dusty, though here and there a group of men at work in the fields stopped and stared at them; and they spent an hour making what Harper called a traverse round a white aldea they were not sure about. Then they lay down awhile in a ruined garden beside the carretera.
There was a nispero tree in the garden laden with acid yellow fruit, and Appleby ate the handful Harper brought him greedily, for he was slightly feverish and grimed with dust. Then they smoked the peasant’s maize-husk cigarettes and watched the purple lizards crawl about the fire-blackened ruins of the house. They could hear the rasp of machetes amidst the cane and the musical clink of hoes, while now and then a hum of voices reached them from the village; and once, with a great clatter, a mounted man in uniform went by.
Harper lay still, drowsily content to rest; but those sounds of human activity troubled Appleby. The men who made them had work to do, and a roof to shelter them when their toil was done, but he was drifting aimlessly as the red leaves he had watched from the foot-bridge one winter day in England. Tony stood beside him then, and he wondered vaguely what Tony was doing now – playing the part of gentleman steward to Godfrey Palliser with credit to himself and the good will of his uncle’s tenants, riding through English meadows, meeting men who were glad to welcome him in London clubs, or basking in the soft gleam of Violet Wayne’s eyes. It was the latter only that Appleby envied him; and he wondered whether Tony, who had so much, knew the full value of the love that had been given him as the crown of all, and then brushed the thoughts away when Harper rose.
“We have got to make Arucas by to-night, or lie out starving, which is a thing I have no use for,” he said. “It’s a long hustle.”
Appleby rose, and staggered as he placed his weight upon his injured foot, and then, while Harper laid a steadying hand on his shoulder, limped out into the carretera. It stretched away before them, white, and hot, and straight, with scarcely a flicker of shadow to relieve its blinding glare; and Appleby half closed his eyes, while the perspiration dripped from Harper’s face.
“And it’s quite often I’ve sworn I’d turn farmer and never go to sea again! Well, I guess there are more fools like me!”
Appleby had no observation to make, and they plodded on through a land of silence and intolerable heat. No Latin who can help it works at that hour of the afternoon, and peon and soldier alike lay where there was coolness and shadow wrapped in restful sleep. Only the two aliens crawled on with aching heads and dazzled eyes down the dusty road which rolled back interminably to their weary feet. The cane was no longer green to Appleby, but steeped in yellow glare, the dust gleamed incandescent white, and the sky seemed charged with an overwhelming radiancy.
Still, he limped on, dreaming, while each step cost him agony, of the brown woods at Northrop and the sheen of frost on the red brier leaves in the English lanes, for all that he had seen during that last eventful fortnight there flashed into his memory. He could recall the chill of the night air when he stood looking into the future from the face of the hill as he went to meet keeper Davidson; the sweep of velvet lawn, the song of the robin on the lime bough in the bracing cold of morning, and plainer than all the face of the woman he had made a promise to under the soft light in the conservatory. He did not know what that promise would cost him when he made it; but the woman had read his character, and was warranted in deciding that it would be kept.
No road, however, goes on interminably, and the white aldea of Arucas rose before them when the sun was low. They plodded into it, limping and stumbling over the slippery stones, and frightening the dark-eyed children with their grim faces; for there was a hum of life behind the lattices now, and a cooking of the comida in the patios and in front of the open doors. Harper sniffed hungrily – for the pungent odors of the dark green oil and garlic hung about the flat-topped houses – and finally halted before an archway leading into a shadowy patio. There was a legend above it.
“‘The Golden Fleece’!” he said. “Well, they’ll have some wine here, and I’ve got five pesetas.”
They went in, and when they limped into the guest chamber a man dressed in unstarched linen stared at them aghast.
“Madre de Dios!” he said.
He would apparently have backed away in consternation had not Harper, who slipped between him and the door, stood with his back to it; while Appleby spoke two words softly in Castilian. They were without connection and apparently meaningless, but they carried weight with those who had any hand in the insurrection, and the landlord sat down, evidently irresolute.
“Would you ruin me? The Sin Verguenza are scattered, and Espada Morales is not far away,” he said.
“Still,” said Appleby dryly, “they are not dead, my friend, and it is only those who are buried that never come back again.”
The innkeeper nodded, for the delicacy of the hint as well as the man’s accent were thoroughly Castilian.
“Well,” he said reflectively, “here one is ruined in any case, and what one gives to the friends of liberty Morales will not get. After all, it is but a handful of beans or an omelet, and it is golden onzas those others would have from me.”
“If eggs are not too dear here we can pay,” said Appleby, with a laugh, and turned to see that Harper was glancing at him reproachfully.
It was evident that the innkeeper saw him, too, for a little smile came into his eyes. “Then it is seldom so with the Sin Verguenza,” he said. “Doubtless your companion is one of them.”
“Silver is scarce with the Sin Verguenza,” said Appleby. “Still, there are debts they pay with lead.”
The innkeeper set food before them – beans and oil, an omelet, and a bottle of thin red wine from the Canaries. He also somewhat reluctantly produced a few cigars of a most excellent tobacco; and Harper sighed with pure content when he dropped into a big raw-hide chair when the meal was over.
“Now I could ’most be happy if I knew when we would strike another place like this,” he said. “Still, it’s quite plain to me that we can’t stay here. There are too many cazadores prowling up and down this carretera.”
