Harper went away chuckling, and Appleby sat still. The blow he had received in the attack had shaken him, and he had spent that day and most of the night before it in forced marching. It was some time before Harper returned, and in the meanwhile the Captain Maccario came up the stairway. He stopped in front of Appleby, and shrugged his shoulders expressively.
“The senorita is disdainful, then?” he said.
Appleby devoutly hoped Miss Harding did not understand Castilian, and attempted no explanation. He had more than a suspicion that it would not be credited, but his face was a trifle grim when he looked up at his comrade.
“There are times when a wise man asks no questions, my friend,” he said. “If any one tries to get into the room I have taken to-night he will be sorry.”
Maccario, who was an easy-going Andalusian, laughed somewhat significantly, and Appleby, glancing at the half-opened lattice, wondered with unpleasant misgivings whether Miss Harding had heard him. As it happened, she had, and clenched her hands as she listened. Still, even then she remembered that the man who had brought her there had said there was no place in Santa Marta where she would be more secure. It seemed a bold assertion, but she felt that it could be credited.
“Well,” said the Spaniard, whose eyes still twinkled, “we march at sunrise, and there are richer prizes than pretty faces to be picked up to-night. The others are busy collecting them. Is it wise to lose one’s chances for a señorita who is unsympathetic?”
The humorous Maccario came very nearly receiving a painful astonishment just then, but by an effort Appleby kept his temper. “My money is my friend’s, but not my affairs,” he said. “Tell your men if they can find an American with blue eyes to bring him here. It will be worth their while.”
Maccario tossed a handful of cigars into his comrade’s knees. “The Colonel Morales smokes good tobacco, and they were his. If we find the American we will send him to you. It is by misfortune we do not find the Colonel Morales.”
He went away, and by and by Harper came back with a flask of red wine and a roll of matting, which he spread out at the top of the stairway.
“I’m pretty big, and anybody who treads on me will get a little surprise,” he said. “You have just got to say ‘Gunboat’ if you want me.”