Maccario laughed softly. “Now I think you have a little explanation to make, Don Bernardino, and it is conceivable that the Señor Harding may not be grateful to you,” he said.
Harding evidently understood him, for he stood still just inside the doorway, dressed in white duck, looking at Appleby with a little grim smile in his eyes. The dust was grimed upon his face, which was almost haggard, and his pose suggested weariness.
“Since I find my hacienda in the possession of the Sin Verguenza I fancy Don Maccario is right, but I can wait a little for the explanation,” he said dryly in Castilian. “I have ridden a long way, and as it is twenty-four hours since I had anything worth mentioning to eat, I wonder whether it would be permissable to ask for a little comida?”
Maccario, whose eyes twinkled, summoned Pancho, and sent him for food and wine. Harding ate with an avidity which told its own story, and then turned to Appleby.
“It was not until I reached Havana that I heard about the ‘Maine,’ and then as I had a good deal of business to put through in this country it seemed advisable to get myself up as a Cuban,” he said. “I had evidence that the Administration were watching me, and I would never have got here at all if it hadn’t been for the help of a few friends among the Liberationists. Now, I fancy you and Don Maccario have something to tell me.”
Appleby sat still a moment looking at him gravely, while Harper, who came in, leaned upon a chair. Then he said slowly: “As you may wish for Don Maccario’s corroboration I think I had better tell the story, which is a little involved, in Castilian. You will find patience necessary.”
He commenced with his interview with Morales on the night of the Alcaldes’ ball, and while Harding watched him with expressionless eyes recounted briefly the two attempts upon the papers made by the spies. Then as he came to Morales’ proposition the American’s face grew grim.
“That is a clever man,” he said. “Go on!”
Appleby proceeded quietly, and while his low voice broke monotonously through the silence of the room Harding’s face lost its grimness, and became intent and eager, while a sparkle crept into his eyes.
“So you staked all I had in Cuba on the chance of war and committed me to backing the Sin Verguenza!” he said.