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. “Still, though I don’t know that it has anything to do with the case, most of my folks had their share of fighting, and one was with the Cristinos in Spain.” Harper shook his head. “Never heard of them,” he said. “Anyway, if you feel fit for walking you had better come along and get some food. I guess you’ll want it, and onions and mangoes don’t go very far with me. This place will be very like the pit with the blast on when the Sin Verguenza get their work in.” VIII — APPLEBY’S PRISONER THE night was pleasantly cool when Cyrus Harding sat with his daughter and the Colonel Morales on the veranda which ran round the patio of the “Four Nations” hostelry in Santa Marta. The hotel was, as usual, built in the shape of a hollow square, and the space enclosed formed a pleasant lounging place when the only light was furnished by the soft glow from the latticed windows surrounding it. That night it fell upon pink‐washed walls, clusters of purple Bougainvillea that climbed the trellis, the white blossoms of a magnolia, and a row of carved pillars, while the square of indigo above was set with silver stars. It is true that the stables opened into the patio, as did the kitchen, next door to them, but that was not unusual, and the curious musky smell that hangs over most Spanish towns was tempered by the scent of flowers.