The Dust of Conflict

by Harold Bindloss

He laid down the bottle, and Harper took out two cigars. “Now,” he said, “I guess when they come for me I’ll be ready.”

The hour that followed seemed interminable, but at last there was a tramp of feet on the stairway, and a sergeant of cazadores who came in made a sign to them. They rose in silence, and were thrust amidst a cluster of other prisoners in the patio, while an officer reading from a paper called their names aloud. Then a guard with bayonets fixed closed in about them, and they passed out through an archway into the street. Appleby blinked about him with half-closed eyes, for he had come out of the shadow, and the white walls were dazzlingly bright, while from out of the press of close-packed humanity beneath them came the flash of steel.

Then the crowd opened up, and a company of cazadores, that filed out of another opening halted a moment to wait for the prisoners’ guard. Appleby was driven forward and took his place among the rest, there was a ringing of bugles that drowned the hum of voices from the crowd, and they had started on their last journey to the doleful tapping of the drums. Morales, it seemed, understood his countrymen, and meant to gratify the Iberian lust of sensation which finds vent in the bull-ring, and is akin to that which packed the amphitheatres in the days of ancient Rome. Still, Appleby noticed vacantly that the loyalist city seemed curiously unresponsive for the shout that went up when the troops moved forward died away, and the tapping of the drums broke sharply through a brief silence that was almost portentous.

It was followed by a low murmuring that suggested the sound of the sea, and gazing at the rows of intent faces Appleby noticed that hats were swept off as the prisoners passed, and that here and there a man crossed himself. Once a burst of Vivas went up, but the murmurs that answered them were hoarse and angry, and for a space of minutes there was once more a heavy silence that seemed intensified by the beat of marching feet and the tapping of the drums.

Appleby saw the faces at the windows and upon the roofs, swept a glance along the crowd that lined the pavement, and with a little tingling of his nerves turned his eyes away. He felt a horror of these men who had come to watch him die, and set his lips and struggled with an almost overwhelming impulse to fling bitter jibes or anathemas at them as he stared straight before him. Harper was walking quietly at his side, and a pace or two in front were four of their companions in misfortune—a lad who limped, an old man, and two peons who laughed now and then. Beyond them he could see a forest of wavering rifles crested with flashing steel, and the figure of a mounted officer silhouetted sharply against a strip of sky.

Way was made for them, and the march went on. The trampling feet clashed rhythmically upon the stones, the rows of crowded windows and long white walls slid behind, and then while a blast of the bugles rang across the town Appleby found himself plodding into the smaller plaza. There was a long flash of sunlight on steel, the leading company split up and wheeled, and while the files tramped past he and the guard were left standing with a double rank of cazadores behind them at one end of the plaza. In another two or three moments it was lined two deep by men with bayonets holding back the crowd; but the church with the two towers closed the opposite end, and Appleby noticed vacantly how dazzlingly white the empty space shone in the sun, save where the long black shadow of the cross above fell athwart it. The church door was, as usual, open, and the sound of an organ came out from it dolefully. Except for that, there was for almost a minute a silence that grew horribly oppressive.

Then a voice was raised, and read what appeared to be a list of the prisoners’ offences, but Appleby could attach no meaning to it, and set his lips when the man with the paper called three names aloud. It was with a revulsion of feeling that left him very cold he realized that none of them was his or Harper’s, but next moment he almost wished that they had been included in the summons. He had no hope now, and found the task of standing there unmoved before those swarming faces becoming insuperably difficult.

The lad who limped shuffled forward across the plaza, with the two peons and a guard behind, until they stopped and turned again a foot or two from the church wall. The peons were men with patient brown faces dressed simply in white cotton and unstarched linen, and Appleby fancied that their offence was in all probability the smuggling of arms or communications for the insurgents. Then he became aware by a sudden hum of voices that something unexpected was going on, and turning his eyes saw two priests appear in the porch of the church, and a sergeant standing somewhat sheepishly before them. One was little and portly, in shabby cassock, but he spoke in a shrill vehement voice, and his face was flushed; the other stood on the step above him, a tall man in ornate vestments that made a blaze of color in the porch, and he held one arm up commandingly.

Appleby could not hear what they said, for only his visual senses seemed to have retained their efficiency, but he fancied they were protesting when the sergeant moved slowly back across the plaza. Appleby turned and watched him stop with lifted hand before the colonel, but Morales did what few other men in that country would have ventured on when, making a contemptuous gesture, he sent the sergeant back with his answer, and sat still in his saddle with one hand his hip.

Still, the priests persisted, and would apparently have moved forward from the church, when there was a flash of steel and tramp of feet, and four or five files of infantry who had evidently little liking for their task halted in front of the porch. This time there was a hoarse portentous note in the murmurs of the crowd, and Appleby had another token of Morales’ courage when he saw him glance at the hemmed in priests with a little sardonic smile.