“You seem kind of quiet. I guess you’re thinking hard,” he said.
“No,” said Appleby, with a little laugh. “I could scarcely remember clearly what happened yesterday. I don’t know, however, that I want to especially.”
“Well,” said Harper reflectively, “it must be the same kind of thing that is wrong with me. My thoughts keep going round in rings, and bring up at the same place every time, as though somebody had put a peg in. I can see that peon in the plaza clawing at the stones, and the cazadores standing still with ordered rifles. That seems to slide away, and it’s the ‘Maine’ going under, bows down. I wasn’t there, but the big swirl in the water is quite plain to me, and I can see the bodies coming up through the green heave by twos and threes. Then I wonder how I came away from the cuartel and left Morales sitting there, and I want to live until I meet him, when he isn’t alone, again.”
His voice sank into a faint hoarse murmur that was more significant than any declamation, but Appleby, who had his own score against Morales, said nothing. He felt that a time would come when he and the Spanish soldier would once more stand face to face, and that to let his vindictive passions run riot in the meanwhile would be puerile. Then Maccario’s voice came sharply across the wavering rifles, and the shuffle of feet grew still. There was a murmur of voices until the head of the column moved again, and the men who left the carretera plodded along a narrow pathway and then flung themselves down among the cane, while Appleby, who did not quite know how he got there, found himself sitting in a little open space with Maccario and two or three of the leaders. There was blackness and silence about them.
“Morales will wait until the dawn,” said Maccario. “We have taught him that one gains little by chasing the Sin Verguenza at night, and the men have marched a long way. We will seize the hacienda when the light is just creeping into the sky.”
“There are troops there?” asked Appleby.
“A section or two. Morales is a clever man, but one is apt to believe what one wishes to, and it is some little time since he drove out the Sin Verguenza.”
“He has spies,” said Appleby.
Maccario laughed softly. “It is dangerous to spy upon the Sin Verguenza, and there are men who go out and are not seen again. One also brings a tale of what he has not seen now and then, and when one has friends everywhere it is not difficult to contrive that the cazadores shall find reasons Morales should believe him.”
“Pancho brought you my message?” said Appleby.