“We have Domingo Pereira,” he said. “The others are getting impatient, señor!”
Maccario rose and turned to Morales. “Take warning, señor. No one is safe from the Sin Verguenza, and we may not extend you as much consideration when we next meet,” he said. “In the meanwhile I ask your word on the faith of a soldier of Spain that you will sit here silent for the next ten minutes.”
Again Morales’ eyes gleamed. “Now,” he said ironically, “comes your difficulty. I will promise nothing—and a pistol is noisy. I am not sure about the extent of the mutiny.”
Maccario very suggestively shook his sleeve. “In this country one carries a little implement which is silent and effective, but there is another means of obviating the difficulty. This sash of mine is of ample length and spun from the finest silk, though one would not care to subject a distinguished officer to an indignity.”
“Take it off,” said Harper. “I’ll fix him so half his cazadores couldn’t untie him. You’re not going to take his word he’ll sit there.”
Maccario stopped him with a gesture, and turned to Morales. “It would, it seems, be wiser to promise, señor. We ask no more than ten minutes.”
For a moment the officer’s olive face became suffused, but the blood ebbed from it, leaving it almost pale, and it was very quietly he pledged himself. Then they turned and left him, and Harper gasped when they went out into the corridor.
“Well,” he said shortly, “I don’t want to go through an thing like that again. It was ’most as hard as what happened in the plaza, and it seems to me the sooner we light out of this place the better.”
In another minute they reached the great patio, where a handful of men in uniform were eagerly waiting them. They formed about the released prisoners, and one of them ironically saluted the loyalist sentry who sat in his box with a cloth bound about his head as they passed out into the silent street. The hot walls flung back the tramp of their feet with a horrible distinctness, but the citizen of Santa Marta had grown accustomed to the passing of the rounds, and when Maccario, stopping beneath a light, pulled out his watch they were close to the outside of the town.
“Haste would be advisable, I think,” he said.