The last was in Castilian, and Maccario delicately rolled up the brim of the hat and let it spring out again to show the beauty of the fabric, while his dark eyes twinkled.
“It seems that one’s efforts for the benefit of his countrymen are appreciated now and then, but my business is the same,” he said. “One does not look for the patriot Maccario in the prosperous merchant of tobacco, for those who would make mankind better and freer are usually poor. That is all—but I am still a leader of the Sin Verguenza, and as such I salute you, comrade.”
He made Appleby a little inclination, which the latter understood, as he drank off his wine. It implied that he, too, was still counted among the Sin Verguenza.
“There is business on hand?” he said quietly, signing to Harper, who moved towards the door.
Maccario, somewhat to his astonishment, checked Harper with a gesture. “It is not necessary,” he said. “There is nobody there. Morales is sending his troops away, and by and by we seize the Barremeda district for the Revolution.”
“You want me?” asked Appleby very slowly.
A curious little smile crept into Maccario’s eyes. “Where could one get another teniente to equal you?”
Appleby sat very still. He had, he fancied, started on the way to prosperity when he became Harding’s manager, and while he sympathized vaguely with the aspirations of the few disinterested Insurgents who seemed to possess any he had seen sufficient of the Sin Verguenza. If he could cling to the position it seemed not unlikely that a bright future awaited him; and while free from avarice, he had his ambitions. On the other hand, there were privations relieved only by the brief revelry that followed a scene of rapine, weary marches, hungry bivouacs, and anxious days spent hiding in foul morasses from the troops of Spain. Still, he had already surmised that he would sooner or later have to make the decision, and while he remembered the promise the ragged outcasts had required of him a vague illogical longing for the stress of the conflict awoke in him.
“Well,” he said quietly, “when I am wanted I will be ready.”
Maccario made him a very slight inclination, which was yet almost stately and expressive, as only a Spaniard’s gesture could be.