There was a faint rattle and clicking as the men fidgeted with magazine slide, or snapped open breaches to make sure that a cartridge lay in the chamber. Then an impressive silence followed, which seemed to grow more intense as the tramp of marching men came ringing sharply down the dim white road. Perhaps the officer who led them trusted to the scout who would never bring him a warning back again, or had lately arrived from Spain, and did not know that the man who sought the Sin Verguenza was apt to find them where he least expected. Then a faintly musical jingling and the rattle of wheels became audible too, and Appleby shook his weariness from him as, with the dust rolling about them, dim figures swung into sight round a bend of the road. The carretera was a broad one, and they appeared to be marching carelessly in open fours, for laughter and the hum of voices came out of the dust. Raising his head a little he glanced behind him, but the Sin Verguenza were ominously still and silent now, and he could only see Maccario’s shoulder, and in places a glint of metal where the moonlight sifted down. Again a quiver ran through him, and his heart thumped painfully as he watched the men below through the openings between the aloes. Then he set his lips and grappled with an almost uncontrollable desire to cry out and warn them. He had been hunted by them, and had seen their handiwork in the ashes of burnt aldeas that had given his comrades shelter; but for that Morales was responsible, and the men were for the most part conscripts reft from their homes in Spain, and going with laughter on their lips to their doom. The Sin Verguenza struck at night, in silence, and were seldom contented with a strategetical victory. Still, because the rattle of riflery carries far, they held their hand while several loose fours shuffling through the dust went by, and Appleby felt a trifle easier. Then there was another space of waiting before the dust that had commenced to sift down grew thicker again as the head of the company swung round the bend. They were also marching easily with gaps between the files, and the jingle of sling, swivel, scabbard, and canteen rang through their trampling, while the rifles twinkled as the fours swung across the breadths of moonlight between the shadows of the palms. They were young men, most of them, and some little more than boys; while here and there one or two, still unprovided with tropical outfit, wore the kepi and the cazadores, green; but Appleby had seen the men of the Peninsula fight before, and checked a groan. He was one of the Sin Verguenza, and knew what awaited him if Morales was successful, but the work on hand seemed horrible to him just then.