mules; and there was perhaps some excuse for their leader, the Colonel Morales, who believed the Sin Verguenza to be hiding some ten leagues away.
They stopped for the last time within sight of the white-walled town, which lay dark and silent girdled by thin wisps of mist, and the Captain Maccario spoke to those who could hear him. His words were not eloquent or especially patriotic, but they were answered by a portentous murmur; and Appleby surmised that there would be wild work if the Sin Verguenza sacked the town. He, however, moved forward as he was bidden with his ragged half-company, realizing that in the meanwhile he was rather going with than leading them. Where the rest went he could not see, for his attention was occupied in getting into and out of enclosures noiselessly, and once he fell into an aloe hedge and pricked himself grievously. Then he wondered what had happened to the barefooted men, but none of them at least said anything, and the dim, flitting forms went on. It all seemed unreal to him – white walls that rose higher, shadowy figures, and the silence they scarcely disturbed; but once more he was vaguely conscious that it was curiously familiar.
Then there was no more cover, for they straggled out, not in ranks, but clusters, from among orange trees and tall, flowering shrubs, which he fancied by their scent were oleanders, with a bare strip between them and the flat-topped houses. Santa Marta lay before him scarcely two hundred yards away, and he felt his heart throb painfully. His guide whispered something, and Appleby nodded, though he could not remember what the man had said, and they went forward at a run. The patter of feet, and clatter of strap and swivel, seemed to swell into a bewildering din, but they were almost upon the fielato offices, where the carretera entered the town, before a rifle flashed.
It was answered by a bugle behind them, for it seemed that the cazadores had watched the road; another rang out in the town. But it was in grim silence the Sin Verguenza ran, though there were now pale flashes along the parapet of the flat roofs in front of them. A man – a negro, he fancied – clutched at Appleby’s arm, loosed it, and reeled backwards with a shrill scream. Another staggered, and Appleby trod on him as he fell under his feet. He scarcely saw the man, only the white walls that seemed to come no nearer, though he knew by the way his heart was thumping that he was running savagely. A curious din was going on, bugles ringing, the patter of desultory riflery; but he caught the words of somebody who ran behind him, and cried out breathlessly in Castilian as he swung up his hand.
Swinging past the fielato offices they swept under a white wall, and plunged into a shadowy calle, where pale faces peered out at them from the lattices. They went down it at a run, and would have gained the broad plaza it led to but that the blast of a volley met them in the face. Men went down, but not many, for Appleby heard the click of the bullets on the walls and stones, and surmised that it was conscript troops shipped off half trained in haste from Spain that fired. He could dimly see more of them flocking into the calle, and it became evident to him that his men must go through them.
With a hoarse shout he sprang forward, though he could never remember whether it was in English or Castilian he cried, and the Sin Verguenza came on with a roar behind. This was not the kind of fighting they preferred, but they had the best of reasons for surmising that no mercy would be shown them if they did not succeed. They were in among the huddled men before the rifles could flash again, barrel and butt rattling among the bayonets of those who had found opportunity of fixing them, and machetes swinging.
Almost to Appleby’s astonishment they also went through; and when, swinging the Marlin rifle by the muzzle, he reeled out into the plaza the cazadores fled across it like sheep. There was a breathless howl as they did so, a fresh trampling of feet, and the rest of the Sin Verguenza poured out from another calle with a half-company of cazadores retiring before them, and firing as they went. Some of them were less than half dressed, but they gave back unwillingly, with the spitting of their rifles showing red against the walls that shut in the shadowy square.
It seemed to Appleby that if the others rallied and joined them the Sin Verguenza would have their work cut out, and when one who carried a sword in place of a rifle made a stand he shouted in Castilian. He spoke the words that came to him, without reflection; but he was the son of a ranker, and the grandson of a colonel on his mother’s side. There was a flicker of riflery from the calle where Maccario’s men were, but the officer with the sword was standing still, and men who turned by twos and threes closing in on him. The first mob of beaten men were also halting, when Appleby hurled his ragged handful like a wedge in between.
They went in with clubbed rifle and red machete; the officer went down, and for a few wild, moments cazador and rebel fought hand to hand. Then the drilled men broke and fled, half of them to meet the other band of Sin Verguenza pouring from the street, and the rest up the dark calle that led out of the plaza with Appleby and his followers hard upon their heels. It was a fierce chase, but a short one, for the cazadores vanished into a great archway, and streaks of red sparks lighted the windows above. Appleby glanced over his shoulder and saw the rest of the ragged column running down the street, and then that some of them were going down. He had no leisure for reflection, but it was borne in upon him that if they were to carry Santa Marta it must be accomplished before the scattered infantry had recovered from the surprise, for he had seen already that there is very little cowardice amongst the troops of Spain.
What he said or in which tongue he spoke he did not know, but in another moment he and a negro with a machete sprang into the smoke of the rifles that whirled in the archway, and, howling like beasts now, the Sin Verguenza followed them. Men he could scarcely see broke away before them, though he fancied some remained and were trampled on; and then they were in a broad patio with lights shining behind the lattices about him, and the negro was no longer beside him. A door crashed to in front of them, pale flashes shone at the windows; but in another moment the door went down, and they were pressing up a stairway through stinging smoke, with half-seen men firing down on them. There was dust in the smoke, and the plaster came raining down until Appleby could scarcely see anything at all; but the Sin Verguenza went on, and he was borne forward in front of them when they poured tumultuously out upon a flat roof at the head of the stairway. Then there was a roar of exultation, and he dimly saw men in uniform floundering over the low walls that divided roof from roof, while from other openings there poured out more of the Sin Verguenza.
Appleby wondered why he could not see them clearly, and then his hearing also seemed to fail him. He was conscious of a confused shouting in the street below, but it grew curiously faint, and he staggered clear of the rest, and, scarcely knowing why he did so, groped his way back to the patio, where he sat down beside a bush of heliotrope or some other flower that had a heavy sickly smell. He did not know how long he sat there feeling cold and faint, but at last somebody shook him and held something to his lips. He drank, gasped, and saw Harper smiling gravely down on him.
“I guess you feel better now!” he said.
Appleby blinked at him. “I don’t quite know what’s the matter with me, but I feel – dazed,” he said. “What are the boys doing?”
Harper gravely felt his head, for Appleby had lost his hat. “Well, that’s not astonishing – and it’s a good one,” he said. “The whack that sergeant gave you would ’most have felled a bullock. As to the other question, the Sin Verguenza have the town. Morales’ men hadn’t a show at all, though they might have made a stand if you hadn’t kept them on the hustle. Take another drink.”
Appleby drank again, and his scattered senses came back to him. “I don’t seem to remember very much,” he said.
“No?” said Harper, with a curious little laugh. “Now it’s my business to get the most out of men, but I haven’t seen anything much smarter than the way you took hold and handled the Sin Verguenza. Say, who taught you soldiering?”
Appleby stared at him, and then laughed softly when he saw that the man was perfectly serious.
“I never saw a shot fired at a man in my life until I joined the Sin Verguenza,” he said.
