“Two dollars, senor!” said a dusky man breathlessly, as he came up to the Captain Maccario; and the Spaniard made a curious little gesture as he glanced at Appleby.
“You can keep them. Drag him away!” he said in Castilian. “It is the fortune of war, Don Bernardino!”
Appleby said nothing, but Harper turned to the officer. “The troops will not be far behind,” he said. “Will we get through?”
Maccario shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows?” he said. “It is certain the cazadores come, but if they march past us the road is open. It is by misfortune we do not know how many there are of them.”
“Where are we going if we do get through?” asked Harper.
Maccario stretching out a brown hand swept it vaguely round the horizon. “Here and there and everywhere. The Sin Verguenza will vanish until they are wanted again. There are too many troops in this country, and it is not difficult to find a hundred men when they are together; but it is different when you chase them one by one. So Morales stamps out the insurrection, and when he sends half his troops away we come back again.”
“It is not very evident how we are going to live in the meanwhile,” said Appleby dryly.
Maccario laughed. “What is mine is my friend’s, and there is a poor house at your service. One could reach it in a week’s march, and once there we are short of nothing. This is, you understand, a grateful country.”
There was light enough for Appleby to see the roguish twinkle in the Spaniard’s dark eyes, and he shook his head. “No,” he said. “While I fought with the Sin Verguenza I lived as they did, but it would not suit me to lie idle and levy contributions upon the country.”
“Well,” said Maccario reflectively, “in the meanwhile you come with me, and we may, perhaps, find means of sending you back to the sea. Just now I do not know whether any of us will get very far. We have two leagues to make by the carretera before we find cover, and there are cazadores on the road; while the Captain Vincente will be upon us by daylight if we stay here.”