The Dust of Conflict

by Harold Bindloss

It was with annoyance he found he could not sleep, and resigned himself to pass the weary hours waiting for daylight as he had frequently done before. The perspiration dripped from him, and there was a pain in his joints, for the insidious malarial fever he had contracted in the swamps troubled him now and then, and finding no relief in any change of posture lay rigidly still. A mosquito hovered about him with a thin, persistent droning—and one mosquito is occasionally sufficient to drive a sleepless man to frenzy—but the building was very silent. Appleby could see the faint gleam of moonlight deflected by the lattice on the floor, but the rest of the room was wrapped in inky blackness. He was glad of that for there was a dull ache at the back of his eyes, which he surmised was the result of standing for most of twelve hours in the glare of the whitewashed sheds the previous day. By and by, however, the dead stillness which the droning of the mosquito emphasized grew oppressive, and he found himself listening with a curious intentness for any sound that would break it. He did not know why he did so, but he obeyed the impulse with a vague feeling that watchfulness was advisable.

Five minutes passed, as it were, interminably, while he only heard the strident ticking of the watch beneath his pillow, and then the stairway leading to the veranda outside his window creaked softly. That was nothing unusual, for the timber not infrequently groaned and cracked under the change of temperature in the stillness of the night; but there was something that stirred Appleby’s suspicions in the sound, and he raised himself softly when he heard it again. The room he slept in opened into a larger one, which Harding had fitted up as an office, where the safe was kept, but the door between it and the veranda was barred, and Appleby had himself made fast the lattice of the window.

He could hear nothing further for a space, and was annoyed to feel the hand he laid on the pillow trembling and his hair wet with perspiration. Then it was with difficulty he checked a gasp, for the door handle seemed to rattle, and the bolt of the lock slid home with a soft click. The smooth sound was very suggestive, for Appleby had found the lock stiff and hard to move. Somebody had apparently oiled it surreptitiously, and it was evident that he would not have done so without a purpose. For a moment he was almost dismayed. He was shut in, and there were a good many pesetas in Harding’s safe; but the unpleasant nervous strain he had hitherto been sensible of had gone and left him with faculties sharpened by anger. Then an inspiration dawned on him, and his lips set in a little grim smile. The Latin has usually no great regard for trifles, and it was not very astonishing that the man who oiled and locked the door had overlooked the fact that the lattice was fastened within.

Appleby was out of bed in a moment, and moving with silent deliberation, slipped a duck jacket over his pajamas and softly pulled out a bureau drawer. Here, however, he had another astonishment, for the pistol he kept under his clothing had gone, and he stood still a moment reflecting with the collectedness which usually characterized him in an emergency. Harper slept in a distant wing of the building; the major-domo, or house steward, in a room by the kitchen across the patio; and he could not waken either without giving a general alarm, which did not appear advisable. Appleby had no great confidence in any of his retainers, and considered it likely that some of them were in the plot, and would in all probability contrive the escape of the prowler in the confusion. He must, it seemed, see the affair through alone, and, what was more to the purpose, unarmed. Then he remembered the bar which, when dropped into two sockets, locked the two halves of the lattice, and treading softly made for the window. It was quite certain now that somebody was moving about the adjoining room.

The lattice swung open with scarcely a sound, and if Appleby made any noise crawling through the opening the intruder apparently did not hear him. In another few moments he had gained the adjoining door which stood just ajar, and dimly saw the black figure of a man who held a small lantern bending over the American office bureau. This astonished Appleby, who had expected the iron safe beside it would have claimed his attention.

He pushed the door a little farther open, and stood close against it with his fingers tightening on the bar, while the man whose face he could not see flung several bundles of documents out of a drawer, and held them near the lantern, as though he would read the endorsements upon them, which Appleby remembered were in English. He had, however, apparently no difficulty in understanding them, for he took up each bundle and glanced at it before he laid it down, and then, pulling the drawer out, thrust his hand into the opening.

Appleby started as he watched him, for that drawer was shorter than the rest, and there was a hidden receptacle behind it. It was difficult for any one to remain impartially neutral in Cuba just then, and Appleby had surmised already that Harding only retained his footing there by the exercise of skilful diplomacy, while communications reached him now and then which he showed to nobody. He had, however, taken the contents of the receptacle away with him.

It was a very slight movement that Appleby made, but the door he leaned against creaked, and the man swung sharply round. Perhaps he was afraid of the light of the lantern being seen from the windows opposite, for he did not raise it, but stood still, apparently glancing about him, while Appleby waited motionless with every nerve in his body tingling. It seemed to him that there was a faint sound behind him on the stairway.

He fancied the almost intolerable tension lasted for nearly a minute, and then the man, who failed to see him, turned again with a little half-audible ejaculation, and opening another drawer bent over it with his back to Appleby, who moved silently in his direction. He made two strides and stopped, with his fingers quivering on the bar; but the man was still stooping over the drawer, and he made another stride and stopped again. He could almost reach the stranger with the bar, but remembering the Cuban’s quickness with the steel he decided it would be advisable to make quite certain.

A board creaked as he made the next step, the man swung round again, and there was a pale flash in the light of the lantern as he sprang backwards. He was on the opposite side of the bureau and out of reach when Appleby swung up the bar, but the latter, who recognized the fact, stood between him and the door. They stood still for what seemed an interminable space in the black darkness, for the faint blink of light from the lantern was cut off by the displaced drawer, and then Appleby moved a foot or two as the dim shadowy figure, which he fancied had drawn itself together, sidled round the bureau. He surmised that his adversary was bracing himself for a spring, and knew that unless he met it with the bar he would be at the mercy of the steel. Still, he meant at any cost to hold the position that commanded the door.