VII -- THE DESCENT OF SANTA MARTA
A LITTLE fire burned in a hollow of the dusty barranco that fissured theface of the hill, a clear red fire of the kind that gives little lightand makes no smoke, and its pale glow showed but feebly against the rockbehind. This was still flushed with a warm lustre caught from thewestern sky, though the sun had dipped and the fleecy mists werecreeping across the dusky plain below.
A group of weary men lay about the fire, dusty and ragged, for they hadspent most of twelve weary hours forcing a path through thickets andclimbing like goats from rock to rock under the heat of the tropics. Twoof them wore garments of cotton, which hung about them rent by thorns;three others jackets of American make, looted from a loyalist store; andone trousers of English tweed, through which his knees protruded, and ajacket of alpaca of a kind esteemed in Spain. He had, however, a redsilk sash of beautiful texture, which had cost somebody else a good manydollars, round his waist; and his face, which was bronzed to a coffeecolor, had once been of paler complexion than those of most of hiscompanions. He raised himself a trifle, and glanced about him with alittle whimsical smile.
"They are a choice collection of scarecrows to take a city with," hesaid in English.
A man who lay close by looked up with a twinkle in his eyes. "I haveseen smarter soldiers," he drawled. "Still, they're a hard crowd, andI'd feel kind of sorry for Colonel Morales if his cazadores don't put upa good fight to-night. What we have on hand isn't quite the thing I cameout to do, but I guess it's better than catching fever down there in themangrove swamps. That's how it strikes me, though it will scarcely bethe kind of business you've been used to, Appleby."
Appleby laughed again as he glanced at the ragged men sprawling inattitudes that were rather easy than picturesque a little farther up thegorge. They were of various shades of color, from pale Castilian oliveto African jet, and a good many of them were barefooted, while the shoesof the rest were burst. The arms scattered about them were as curiouslyassorted--American Marlin rifles, old English Sniders, Spanish serviceweapons, and cutlass-like machetes with a two-foot blade, which provedas efficient when, as quite frequently happened, there was a difficultyin obtaining the right kind of cartridges.
They were for the most part men with wrongs, individual as well asnational; for the Spanish system of checking disaffection was sharp andstern, and the man who has seen brother or comrade butchered to bolsterup an effete authority is apt to remember it. Those who had no wrongspossessed a lust of plunder which served almost as well as animus; butthere were a few who had been driven to join them by patrioticconvictions. They had already made themselves a terror to the conscripttroops of Spain, as well as peaceful peasants with loyalist sympathies,who called them the Sin Verguenza--the men without shame. It was not fromchoice that Appleby had cast in his lot with them, but because it seemedto him preferable to falling into the Spaniards' hands. He had, however,by daring in one encounter, and shrewd counsel, already made himself aninfluence, and had been endowed with the rank of Teniente.
"No," he said a trifle dryly, "it is not. When I plundered folks in mycountry I did it for other people with a bill, and I had the law behindme. I was trained to it, you see."
"It's quite a good trade," said Harper, who had joined the Sin Verguenzabecause the coast was too strictly watched to leave him any chance ofgetting away again. "Kind of pity to let up on it. It was a woman sentyou here?"
Appleby laughed, and then sat silent a moment or two staring straightbefore him. The dusty gorge seemed to fade, and he could fancy himselfstanding once more at the head of a shadowy stairway in an English halllooking into a woman's eyes. They were big gray eyes that seemed to readone's thoughts, set most fittingly in a calm, proud face, above whichclustered red-gold hair, and he had seen them often since that eventfulnight, on many a weary march, as well as in his sleep.
"Yes," he said; "but not in the way I think you mean. She was my bestfriend's sweetheart, and nothing to me. No doubt she has married him bynow."
Harper's smile seemed to express incredulity, and for the first time adoubt flashed into his comrade's mind. Would he have done so much forTony if the woman had been any one else than Violet Wayne? The questionalmost startled him and though he strove to answer it in the affirmativeno conviction came. Tony had been his friend, and until he came toNorthrop he had never seen the girl; while it was, of course,preposterous to suspect that he had gone out under a cloud for her sake;and yet the doubt remained to be afterwards grappled with. In themeanwhile he brushed the question aside as of no moment. Violet Waynewould marry Tony, and in all probability he had already passed out ofher memory. He was, however, glad when a man with an olive face stood upbeside the fire and glanced at him with a smile.
"Among comrades it is not good courtesy to speak apart, and the Englishis a difficult tongue to me," he said in Castilian. "I have apprehendedno more in the Havana than the response discourteous, 'You bedam.'"
Appleby laughed. "I fancy you others can beat us in that line," he said."Shall we get in to-night, Maccario?"
The Insurgent captain made a little expressive gesture. "Who knows!" hesaid. "They have two companies of cazadores, but there is this in ourfavor--they do not expect us. Four days' march--for troops--from Adeje, andwe have come in two! Yes, I think we shall get in, and then there willbe trouble for those others in Santa Marta and the Colonel Morales."
Appleby glanced down the barranco, and saw framed, as it were, in itsrocky gateway the sweep of plain below. The tall green cane and orangegroves had faded to a blur of dusky blueness now, but in one place hecould still discern the pale gleam of white walls. That was Santa Marta,and he remembered how they had been welcomed there when, weary and dustywith travel, they had last limped that way. There were no troops inSanta Marta then, and the Sin Verguenza, who did not know that aninfantry battalion lay close by, had accepted the citizens' hospitality,and borrowed much less from them than they usually did when theirentertainers had loyalist sympathies. While they slept the deep sleep ofweariness the cazadores fell upon the town, and the Colonel Moralesallowed a very short shrift to those who failed to escape from it.Therefore Santa Marta was anathema to the Sin Verguenza, and, what wasalmost as much to the purpose, it was rich.
While he watched the white walls faded, and the fire in the barrancogrew brighter as darkness closed down. A negro, who removed a kettlefrom it, carefully put it out, and served them with a meal, thoughHarper sighed disgustedly as he lighted a maize-husk cigarette when hehad consumed his portion.
"Well, I guess we'll get breakfast to-morrow, if we're alive," he said."I've lived on some kind of curious things in Cuba, including fricasseeof mule, but onions, bad guavas, and half-ripe mangoes, as a mixture forfighting on, doesn't suit my taste at all. No, sir. I want to lie downnice and quiet, and not worry anybody, when I've got dysentery."
His companions, however, did not complain. Perhaps they were accustomedto scarcity, though the Sin Verguenza lived well when they could do soat other men's expense; and there is a capacity for patient endurance inmost of the peoples of Spain. They lay smoking cigarettes instead, whilea little cool breeze came down out of the soft darkness that now veiledthe hills above. Beneath them lights twinkled dimly like clusteringfireflies in the misty plain, and once a faint elfin ringing of buglescame up. The Sin Verguenza answered it with a hoarse murmur, and thenlay still, patiently biding their time.
The dew settled heavily as the rocks grew cooler; Appleby's alpacajacket grew clammy, but he lay motionless beside the embers, once moregrappling with the question what was he, an Englishman of education,doing there? Violet Wayne's eyes seemed to ask it of him reproachfully,and he could not find a fitting answer. The plea that he was therebecause he could not help it did not occur to him, for he was young, andbelieved that a determined man can shape his own destiny. Instead, headmitted vaguely that the reckless life, the testing of his bodilystrength, the close touch with human nature stripped of its veneer, andthe brief taste of command, all appealed t
o him. This, he knew, was nodefence; but he felt that he at least owed the Sin Verguenza something,for they had come upon him while he hid from the troops of Spain, and,finding that he had nothing but his life to part with, had incontinentlygiven him what they had, which was just then very little.
At last the Captain Maccario rose to his feet and called aloud. Therewas a murmur of voices, a clatter of arms, a rattle of stones, and apatter of feet, and the Sin Verguenza came out from the barranco likebeasts from their lairs. The hillside fell steep beneath them, but theywent down, flitting noiselessly, half-seen shadows, while each man chosehis own path, and not as troops would have done. Here and there themachetes cleared a way where it would take too long to go round, orthere was a crackle of undergrowth when they plunged into a belt oftrees. Then a mule track led them down to the level, and with a shuffleof broken boots and soft patter of naked feet they swung along the dustycarretera road. It wound away before them smelling of dew-cooled earth,a faint white riband, past the shadowy tobacco and dusky sugar cane, andthere was no stoppage when here and there a flat-roofed house loomed upbeside it. Then there was a murmur of warning, a drowsy "Viva lalibertad!" and the column passed on; for the insurrection had takenhold, and the enemies of the Sin Verguenza were the men who hadsomething to lose.
Still, a dozen men with rifles, and cartridges to match, stayed behindwhen they filed through a white aldea lying silent amidst the cane, andthe Sin Verguenza swung into slightly quicker stride. If the ColonelMorales was to be caught at all he must be caught napping, and, as theyknew, he usually slept with one eye open. Still, Appleby fancied itmight be accomplished, for he had discovered already that the Castilianhas a disdain for petty details, and frequently leaves a good deal tochance.
By degrees the dust grew thicker and the little flat-topped houses moreplentiful, while here and there white haciendas grew into shape amongthe trees. There were no lights in any of them; but by and by the SinVerguenza stopped where the white orange flowers lay crushed upon theroad and consulted with their guide. The Colonel Morales, they believed,did not expect them, but it was likely that he had pushed forward asection or two of cazadores to watch the road. The leaders also arguedsoftly for some little time, and Appleby listened with his Marlin rifleunder his arm, noticing how the fireflies sparkled in the leavesmeanwhile. There were great stars above him in the sweep of cloudlessindigo, and the low murmur of voices emphasized the stillness, while theheavy scent of the orange flowers was in his nostrils. Long afterwards avision of the long, straggling column waiting in the dim white roadwould rise up before him when he breathed that scent.
Then they went on again, by paths that led through tobacco fields andamidst breast-high cane dripping with the dew that brushed them as theypassed. This was, however, the work the Sin Verguenza were accustomedto, and no one saw them flit through the misty fields file by file. Thecazadores, on their part, marched with bugles and wagons and loadedmules; and there was perhaps some excuse for their leader, the ColonelMorales, who believed the Sin Verguenza to be hiding some ten leaguesaway.
They stopped for the last time within sight of the white-walled town,which lay dark and silent girdled by thin wisps of mist, and the CaptainMaccario spoke to those who could hear him. His words were not eloquentor especially patriotic, but they were answered by a portentous murmur;and Appleby surmised that there would be wild work if the Sin Verguenzasacked the town. He, however, moved forward as he was bidden with hisragged half-company, realizing that in the meanwhile he was rather goingwith than leading them. Where the rest went he could not see, for hisattention was occupied in getting into and out of enclosuresnoiselessly, and once he fell into an aloe hedge and pricked himselfgrievously. Then he wondered what had happened to the barefooted men,but none of them at least said anything, and the dim, flitting formswent on. It all seemed unreal to him--white walls that rose higher,shadowy figures, and the silence they scarcely disturbed; but once morehe was vaguely conscious that it was curiously familiar.
Then there was no more cover, for they straggled out, not in ranks, butclusters, from among orange trees and tall, flowering shrubs, which hefancied by their scent were oleanders, with a bare strip between themand the flat-topped houses. Santa Marta lay before him scarcely twohundred yards away, and he felt his heart throb painfully. His guidewhispered something, and Appleby nodded, though he could not rememberwhat the man had said, and they went forward at a run. The patter offeet, and clatter of strap and swivel, seemed to swell into abewildering din, but they were almost upon the fielato offices, wherethe carretera entered the town, before a rifle flashed.
It was answered by a bugle behind them, for it seemed that the cazadoreshad watched the road; another rang out in the town. But it was in grimsilence the Sin Verguenza ran, though there were now pale flashes alongthe parapet of the flat roofs in front of them. A man--a negro, hefancied--clutched at Appleby's arm, loosed it, and reeled backwards witha shrill scream. Another staggered, and Appleby trod on him as he fellunder his feet. He scarcely saw the man, only the white walls thatseemed to come no nearer, though he knew by the way his heart wasthumping that he was running savagely. A curious din was going on,bugles ringing, the patter of desultory riflery; but he caught the wordsof somebody who ran behind him, and cried out breathlessly in Castilianas he swung up his hand.
Swinging past the fielato offices they swept under a white wall, andplunged into a shadowy calle, where pale faces peered out at them fromthe lattices. They went down it at a run, and would have gained thebroad plaza it led to but that the blast of a volley met them in theface. Men went down, but not many, for Appleby heard the click of thebullets on the walls and stones, and surmised that it was conscripttroops shipped off half trained in haste from Spain that fired. He coulddimly see more of them flocking into the calle, and it became evident tohim that his men must go through them.
With a hoarse shout he sprang forward, though he could never rememberwhether it was in English or Castilian he cried, and the Sin Verguenzacame on with a roar behind. This was not the kind of fighting theypreferred, but they had the best of reasons for surmising that no mercywould be shown them if they did not succeed. They were in among thehuddled men before the rifles could flash again, barrel and buttrattling among the bayonets of those who had found opportunity of fixingthem, and machetes swinging.
Almost to Appleby's astonishment they also went through; and when,swinging the Marlin rifle by the muzzle, he reeled out into the plazathe cazadores fled across it like sheep. There was a breathless howl asthey did so, a fresh trampling of feet, and the rest of the SinVerguenza poured out from another calle with a half-company of cazadoresretiring before them, and firing as they went. Some of them were lessthan half dressed, but they gave back unwillingly, with the spitting oftheir rifles showing red against the walls that shut in the shadowysquare.
It seemed to Appleby that if the others rallied and joined them the SinVerguenza would have their work cut out, and when one who carried asword in place of a rifle made a stand he shouted in Castilian. He spokethe words that came to him, without reflection; but he was the son of aranker, and the grandson of a colonel on his mother's side. There was aflicker of riflery from the calle where Maccario's men were, but theofficer with the sword was standing still, and men who turned by twosand threes closing in on him. The first mob of beaten men were alsohalting, when Appleby hurled his ragged handful like a wedge in between.
They went in with clubbed rifle and red machete; the officer went down,and for a few wild, moments cazador and rebel fought hand to hand. Thenthe drilled men broke and fled, half of them to meet the other band ofSin Verguenza pouring from the street, and the rest up the dark callethat led out of the plaza with Appleby and his followers hard upon theirheels. It was a fierce chase, but a short one, for the cazadoresvanished into a great archway, and streaks of red sparks lighted thewindows above. Appleby glanced over his shoulder and saw the rest of theragged column running down the street, and then that some of them weregoing down. He had n
o leisure for reflection, but it was borne in uponhim that if they were to carry Santa Marta it must be accomplishedbefore the scattered infantry had recovered from the surprise, for hehad seen already that there is very little cowardice amongst the troopsof Spain.
What he said or in which tongue he spoke he did not know, but in anothermoment he and a negro with a machete sprang into the smoke of the riflesthat whirled in the archway, and, howling like beasts now, the SinVerguenza followed them. Men he could scarcely see broke away beforethem, though he fancied some remained and were trampled on; and thenthey were in a broad patio with lights shining behind the lattices abouthim, and the negro was no longer beside him. A door crashed to in frontof them, pale flashes shone at the windows; but in another moment thedoor went down, and they were pressing up a stairway through stingingsmoke, with half-seen men firing down on them. There was dust in thesmoke, and the plaster came raining down until Appleby could scarcelysee anything at all; but the Sin Verguenza went on, and he was borneforward in front of them when they poured tumultuously out upon a flatroof at the head of the stairway. Then there was a roar of exultation,and he dimly saw men in uniform floundering over the low walls thatdivided roof from roof, while from other openings there poured out moreof the Sin Verguenza.
Appleby wondered why he could not see them clearly, and then his hearingalso seemed to fail him. He was conscious of a confused shouting in thestreet below, but it grew curiously faint, and he staggered clear of therest, and, scarcely knowing why he did so, groped his way back to thepatio, where he sat down beside a bush of heliotrope or some otherflower that had a heavy sickly smell. He did not know how long he satthere feeling cold and faint, but at last somebody shook him and heldsomething to his lips. He drank, gasped, and saw Harper smiling gravelydown on him.
"I guess you feel better now!" he said.
Appleby blinked at him. "I don't quite know what's the matter with me,but I feel--dazed," he said. "What are the boys doing?"
Harper gravely felt his head, for Appleby had lost his hat. "Well,that's not astonishing--and it's a good one," he said. "The whack thatsergeant gave you would 'most have felled a bullock. As to the otherquestion, the Sin Verguenza have the town. Morales' men hadn't a show atall, though they might have made a stand if you hadn't kept them on thehustle. Take another drink."
Appleby drank again, and his scattered senses came back to him. "I don'tseem to remember very much," he said.
"No?" said Harper, with a curious little laugh. "Now it's my business toget the most out of men, but I haven't seen anything much smarter thanthe way you took hold and handled the Sin Verguenza. Say, who taught yousoldiering?"
Appleby stared at him, and then laughed softly when he saw that the manwas perfectly serious.
"I never saw a shot fired at a man in my life until I joined the SinVerguenza," he said. "Still, though I don't know that it has anything todo with the case, most of my folks had their share of fighting, and onewas with the Cristinos in Spain."
Harper shook his head. "Never heard of them," he said. "Anyway, if youfeel fit for walking you had better come along and get some food. Iguess you'll want it, and onions and mangoes don't go very far with me.This place will be very like the pit with the blast on when the SinVerguenza get their work in."