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 nobody expects too much
from me, but I haven't sold a countryman to the Spaniards yet--the devils
who sunk the 'Maine'!"