There was, however, consolation in the thought that Morales could not have known he had sent for the Sin Verguenza, or he would have flung a company of cazadores into the hacienda. A few resolute men could, Appleby fancied, hold it against a battalion, for there were no openings but narrow windows, and those high up, in the outer walls, while, if the defenders tore the veranda stairway up, the patio would be apt to prove a death-trap to the troops that entered it. It also seemed to him that, now the prospect of complications with the Americans would everywhere stir the insurgents to activity, Morales would scarcely have men to spare for a determined assault upon the hacienda.
The longer Appleby reflected the more sure he felt that he had made a wise decision. It had, however, cost him an effort to face the risk, and now he wondered a little at his own fearlessness. He who had hitherto haggled about trifles and pored over musty papers in a country solicitor’s office had been driven into playing a bold man’s part in the great game of life, and the reflection brought him a curious sense of content. Even if he paid the forfeit of his daring, as it seemed he would in all probability do, he had, at least, proved himself the equal, in boldness of conception and clearness of vision, of men trained to politics and war, and he found the draught he had tasted almost intoxicating.
The exhilaration of it had vanished now, but the vague content remained and blunted the anxieties that commenced to creep upon him. Still, he fell to wondering where Maccario was, and how long it would take him to reach San Cristoval, for Morales would demand his answer soon after nightfall He lay very still while the shadow of the cane grew narrower, until the sun shone hot upon his set brown face, and then slowly stood up.
“I think we will go back and pay the men,” he said. “The few pesetas mean a good deal to them, and I would sooner they got them than Morales.”
They went back together silently, and the whistle shrieked out its summons when the mill stopped for the men’s ten o’clock breakfast. Appleby drew them up as they came flocking in and handed each the little handful of silver due to him.
“You will go back to work until the usual hour,” he said. “If all goes well you will begin again to-morrow, but this is a country in which no one knows what may happen.”
The men took the money in grave wonder, and Appleby, who did not eat very much, sat down to breakfast, but both he and Harper felt it a relief when the plates were taken away.
“You will keep them busy, if it is only to stop them talking,” he said. “I have wasted too much time already, and if I am to straighten up everything by this evening there is a good deal to do.”
Harper went out, and Appleby, sitting down in his office, wrote up accounts until the afternoon. He dare leave no word for Harding, but that appeared unnecessary, for if Harding found San Cristoval in the possession of the Sin Verguenza he would, Appleby felt certain, understand and profit by the position. The room resembled an oven, and no more light than served to make writing possible entered the closed lattices; but with the perspiration dripping from him Appleby toiled on, and the last Spanish dollar had been accounted for when Harper and the man who carried the comida came up the stairway. Then it was with a little sigh he laid down his pen and tied the neatly engrossed documents together. The life he led at San Cristoval suited him, and now he was to turn his back on it and go back once more, a homeless and penniless adventurer, to the Sin Verguenza. Glancing up he saw Harper leaning on a bureau and looking at him.
“That’s another leaf turned down,” he said. “A good deal may happen to both of us before to-morrow.”