"Well," said Harding, glancing at him curiously, "I guess you know your
own affairs best. Maccario sent that fellow word to be ready to smuggle
me in, Appleby."
"He will be waiting, and you are not likely to have much difficulty with
the patrols when you are inside the town. Still, it is a big risk, sir."
Harding laughed. "I have been taking steep chances all my life, and I
have quite a few dollars scattered up and down this country which I
can't afford to throw away. They're not exactly mine, since it seems to
me that I'm holding them in trust for my daughter Nettie. Now, I guess
I've kept those men of yours long enough already."
He shook hands with Tony, and the men below flung up their rifles to the
slope when he and Appleby went down the stairway. Maccario walked down
the tram-line with them, and then stopped a moment when they reached the
road, where Harding laid his hand on Appleby's arm.
"I leave you in charge of San Cristoval and my affairs here with every
confidence," he said.
"I shall endeavor to deserve it, sir," said Appleby. "Still, it is not
quite out of the question that Morales may burn the hacienda."
Harding smiled. "The hacienda can be built again, and they can't blow up
the land. It will stop right there all the time, in spite of them."
"Still, they could seize it."
"Well," said Harding, with quiet confidence, "when we have chased every
Spanish soldier out of Cuba I'll get it back again, and that is just
what is going to happen before very long. It's quite difficult to freeze
a citizen of my country out of his property."
"Unless an American trust casts covetous eyes upon it," said Appleby.
Harding laughed as he shook hands with him and Maccario, and then turned
away with a smile still upon his The four Sin Verguenza plodded behind
him down the road, and Maccario glanced at his companion.
"One would not have fancied the Senor Harding knew he was taking a heavy
risk," he said.
"Still, I think it was quite plain to him."
Maccario glanced across the cane towards Santa Marta. "I had many
friends there, and he has one or two at most. Morales is a daring and
clever man--but it is his misfortune that in this affair he has others of
the same kind against him."
"That is an admission," said Appleby, with a little smile "If you count
the Senor Harper, two of them come from America."
Maccario laughed. "And one from England! Men of that kind are not
confined to any one country, my friend. Still, they are perhaps more
plentiful in the Peninsula--and Cuba--than elsewhere."
Appleby said nothing, and they walked slowly back to the hacienda.
Rather more than a fortnight passed uneventfully, and save for a few
affairs between outposts and patrols there was no outbreak of
hostilities. Morales lay in Santa Marta with the country rising against
him, and Maccario patiently waited his time, for the Sin Verguenza were
growing stronger every day. The insurrection was still largely sporadic
and indifferently organized, and since each leader acted for the most
part independently what was happening elsewhere only concerned the Sin
Verguenza indirectly, while the struggle had become almost a personal
question between them and Morales. In the meanwhile Appleby heard that
Harding had eluded the latter's vigilance and left Santa Marta.
Then late one night a man came gasping up the veranda stairway, and
Appleby and Maccario descended half-dressed to meet him in the big
living-room. The dust was white upon him, and he blinked at them out of
half-closed eyes, while Appleby noticed that he limped a little.
Maccario pointed to a chair, and poured him out a glass of wine.
"You have come a long way?" he said.
"From Brena Abajo. I left there in the afternoon the day before
yesterday."
"On a mule?"
The man smiled grimly as he pointed to his broken shoes.
"I came on these," he said.
Maccario turned to Appleby. "Our friend walks fast. It is counted a four
days' journey. Still, I think he knows that one seldom gains anything by
trifling with the Sin Verguenza."
A little gleam crept into the man's dark eyes. "One walks fast when he
is eager for vengeance," he said. "I had a little wine-shop, and a
comrade who I trusted, four days ago. Comes a column of Candotto's
Peninsulares, and there is an asking of questions of the Alcalde, who is
not a friend of mine. Andres, it is discovered, has smuggled rifles to
the friends of liberty in the mountains."