Appleby glanced up the road, and saw enough to convince him that the cazadores were slipping forward circumspectly through the shadow of the cane, while it became evident from their murmurs that his companions had decided it was advisable to retire while the way was open. He slipped his arm through Tony’s, and they started down a little path through the cane, while Tony endeavored to shake his grasp off, and finding that he could not do so limped along clumsily, leaning heavily upon him. The cazadores, however, apparently knew the ways of the Sin Verguenza too well to venture far from the open in pursuit of them, and finally they came gasping and perspiring into sight of the hacienda. Maccario stood at the gate of the patio waiting them, and glanced curiously at the stranger. “A prisoner?” he said. “No,” said Appleby. “A friend of mine!” Maccario swung off his hat, but when he begged Appleby to explain that any friend of his was welcome there he saw that the stranger winced. They went up to Appleby’s room, where there was an awkward silence for a moment or two, when Tony dropped limply into the nearest chair and averted his eyes from Appleby, who leaned upon the table looking down on him compassionately. He was worn with travel, and his face showed pallid and haggard under the lamplight. “How did you chance upon the cazadores?” said Appleby, who felt that the question was trivial as he asked it. “They were watching the road”; and Tony laughed in a curious hollow fashion, though there was apparently no cause for it. “They nearly got me. I was a little lame, you see. Tore my foot with one of those condemned aloe spikes a day or two ago.” “Well,” said Appleby, “you were about the last person I expected to come across. What, in the name of wonder, brought you here?” Tony looked at him a moment and smiled, while Appleby felt the blood rise to his forehead, and grew angry with himself. The constraint that was evidently upon Tony had extended to him, and would not be shaken off. Why this was so he did not know, but he could not greet his comrade with fitting friendliness. “I came to find you,” said Tony hastily. “Landed at Havana with Harding’s address as my only guide. He had, I found out, left the city, but I came across two or three men who seemed to know him, and one of them passed me on to his friends, who contrived to get me here. We travelled, for the most part, at night, hiding in the daytime, and got very little to eat, but most of the men I met did what they could for me when I told them that I had business with a leader of the Sin Verguenza.” Appleby laughed a little. “You will find a bath yonder, and I’ll send you up some food,” he said. “Then come down when you are ready. You will find me on the veranda.”