Then they broke into a run, but Maccario swung round as they sped down a street and flung himself into a shadowy patio. They swept through it into an open door, and out through one at the back of the building, while Appleby gasped with relief as he found himself in a garden with the town at last behind him.
Maccario laughed a little as he touched his shoulder. “There is a path here,” he said. “The Sin Verguenza have friends everywhere.”
They were quickly clear of the garden, and as they blundered through a grove of trees shadowy objects clustered about them, while when Maccario stopped again there appeared to be a swarm of them. A growing clamor, through which the ringing of the bugles came stridently, rose from the town.
“We will stop and adopt a convenient formation,” he said. “You will, I think, find a few of your friends here, Don Bernardino. It is scarcely likely that Morales will risk a pursuit in the darkness.”
“If anybody had told me he would have sat there because he promised I guess I wouldn’t have believed him,” said Harper.
Maccario laughed. “There is apparently still a little you do not understand,” he said. “That is a great rascal, but he is also a brave soldier and a Castilian gentleman. Had he not known his own value to Spain it is conceivable that—”
He stopped with a little expressive gesture, and Harper felt something very like a shiver run through him. He, however, said nothing further, but took his place among the rest, for already Appleby was forming the men. Then marching silently they swung through the tobacco fields until they came out upon the carretera that led to San Cristoval.
[XXVI — THE SEIZING OF SAN CRISTOVAL]
FOR a time the tramp of marching feet throbbed softly along the carretera that wound, a black thread of shadow, through the dusky cane. The dust was clogged with moisture and deadened the sound, while the Sin Verguenza were not shod after the fashion of British infantry. Some of them, indeed, wore no shoes at all, and as he watched the dim, half-seen figures flit almost silently through the night Appleby could have fancied he was marching with a company of shadows through a land of dreams.
The sensation was, however, by no means new to him. He had felt it now and then before on a long night march when the mind, as it were, released itself from the domination of the worn-out, but it was plainer now than it had ever been. He had during the last few days been living under a heavy strain, and now there crowded upon him vague perplexing fancies and elusive memories which he could almost believe had been transmitted him by the soldiers whose blood was in his veins. It was only by an effort that, plodding along with half-closed eyes, he shook them off and roused himself to attention. Shadowy men moved on into the blackness in front of him, and more were winding out of the gloom behind. Now and then a clump of palms went by, showing a mere patch of obscurity against the clouded sky, and where the road was harder the beat of weary feet rang through the silence hollowly. He did not feel drowsy, but wondered if he was wholly awake when he heard Harper’s voice beside him.