“That is the only answer the Colonel Morales sends,” he said.
Appleby smiled dryly, but a faint flush crept into Maccario’s face.
“It is what one would have expected—and it is evident he understands,” he said. “There is no room in Cuba for him and the Sin Verguenza.”
Then he spoke sharply, there was a passing of orders, and the Sin Verguenza swung forward down the broad highway that led to the cuartel. The street was silent and empty under the scorching sun, with green lattices closed, and doors shut, but the men could see the square mass of the building towering white and grim, with the crimson and gold of Spain flaunting over it on the faint hot breeze. They marched in due formation now, but behind them came a rabble long held down by terror, men with bitter wrongs who carried rifles torn from the fallen cazadores, machetes, and iron bars. They had also a long score against Morales, and their time had come.
They were close on the cuartel, and still the white building was silent, when the Sin Verguenza stopped a moment or two and men with iron bars beat down the door of a house Maccario pointed to. Then the most part of one company vanished within it, and it was not until they poured out on the flat roof the rest went on. It seemed to Appleby that save for the tramp of feet the street was curiously still, though he noticed that now a green lattice was open every here and there.
Then the silence was suddenly broken by a crash of riflery, and the front of the houses was smeared by drifting smoke! Morales, it was evident, did not mean to hold his hand until they reached the cuartel. Here and there a man staggered and reeled from the ranks, there was a sharp snapping upon the stones, but Maccario’s voice rang through the din, and the Sin Verguenza went on at a furious run. They were met by the flash of a volley when they swept into the open space in front of the cuartel, shrank back, and reeled into the sliding smoke again, while the rifles of their comrades swept the windows from the houses opposite. Twice they beat the great door in the archway almost down, but those who swung the hammers and machetes melted away under the rifle flame, and then Harper went shouting at the door with a great iron bar. There were, however, men with grim faces from the alleys of Santa Marta behind him now, striking with torn-up railings, pounding with paving stones, while from roof and windows the rifles crashed.
Then the door bent inwards, and with a shout of triumph and execration the Sin Verguenza poured in across the barricade of stones and soil in cases. The din had grown bewildering, and the men seemed oblivious of sight and sound in their passion, while Appleby, who shouldered his way through the press, noticed only the closed inner door of the patio, and the ruins of the torn-up veranda stairway. Again it cost the Sin Verguenza a heavy price to break that door down, but nothing would have stopped them or those who followed them now, and they fought their way up the wide stairway, driving the cazadores back until they poured out on to the higher veranda where Morales stood with a bright sword in his hand at the foot of the big flagstaff. There was a little cluster of cazadores about him, but Appleby did not know where the rest had gone, for the struggle had become general, and scattered handfuls of men were fighting independently all over the building. He, however, fancied by the shouts and the confused din that most of them and the Sin Verguenza had swept on up the higher stairway to the roof above, for he and Maccario and Tony were almost alone.
“THEY WERE MET BY THE FLASH OF A VOLLEY.”
Maccario stopped suddenly and swung off his hat.