The stragglers were formed into their companies in the plaza, and Maccario, impressing a citizen whom he dragged out of his dwelling, sent him on with a scribbled summons to Morales to deliver up the cuartel. The message was terse and laconic, and Maccario smiled dryly when the man departed very much against his wishes bearing a white handkerchief on a cane. “One complies with civilized customs; it is required of him. And a rest of a few minutes will not hurt my men,” he said. “Still, it is a waste of courtesy when it is known beforehand what Morales’ answer will be.” While they waited there was a little derisive laughter as, with Harper on the flank of the first four, another band of the Sin Verguenza tramped into the plaza. They had, he explained disgustedly, found a feebly defended entrance by a narrow alley, and had lost their way during the pursuit of the handful of cazadores who had attempted to hold it. He had already left the ranks, and grinned at Maccario suggestively as he laid a bottle of red wine in Tony’s hands. “The boys struck a place where they sell it, and you’re not an officer, anyway,” he said. “It might come in handy, and if the others are stuck on discipline they needn’t have any.” The men had refilled the magazines by this time, and were growing impatient when the citizen came back again. He carried a strip of paper torn across the middle, and made a little deprecatory gesture as he passed it to Maccario. “That is the only answer the Colonel Morales sends,” he said. Appleby smiled dryly, but a faint flush crept into Maccario’s face. “It is what one would have expected—and it is evident he understands,” he said. “There is no room in Cuba for him and the Sin Verguenza.” Then he spoke sharply, there was a passing of orders, and the Sin Verguenza swung forward down the broad highway that led to the cuartel. The street was silent and empty under the scorching sun, with green lattices closed, and doors shut, but the men could see the square mass of the building towering white and grim, with the crimson and gold of Spain flaunting over it on the faint hot breeze. They marched in due formation now, but behind them came a rabble long held down by terror, men with bitter wrongs who carried rifles torn from the fallen cazadores, machetes, and iron bars. They had also a long score against Morales, and their time had come. They were close on the cuartel, and still the white building was silent, when the Sin Verguenza stopped a moment or two and men with iron bars beat down the door of a house Maccario pointed to. Then the most part of one company vanished within it, and it was not until they poured out on the flat roof the rest went on. It seemed to Appleby that save for the tramp of feet the street was curiously still, though he noticed that now a green lattice was open every here and there.