British -- Cuba -- Fiction; Cuba -- History -- Revolution, 1895-1898 -- Fiction
“No, señor,” he said. “It is for the charity, and one cannot have the
liberty for nothing. Still, there are many contributions one must make,
and I cannot do more.”
Appleby, who understood the significance charity has in Spain, took the
provisions and lifted his battered hat as the man turned away; but when
he had taken a pace or two he came back again and dropped a little
bundle of maize‐husk cigarettes and a strip of cardboard matches beside
them. Then, without a word, he plodded away down a little path while
Harper looked at Appleby with wonder in his eyes.
“I guess there are men like him in every nation, though they’re often
quite hard to find,” he said. “More style about him than a good many of
our senators have at home. Well, we’ll have breakfast now, and then get
on again.”
They ate the half loaf and drank the wine; but Harper looked grave when
Appleby took off his shoe. His foot seemed badly swollen, but he
desisted from an attempt to remove the torn and clotted stocking with a
wry smile, and put on the shoe again. Then he limped out into the road
and plodded painfully down it under the scorching sun all that morning
without plan or purpose, though he knew that while it lay not far from
Santa Marta the Insurgents had friends and sympathizers in the aldea of
Arucas, which was somewhere in front of them. They met nobody. The road
wound away before them empty as well as intolerably hot and dusty,
though here and there a group of men at work in the fields stopped and
stared at them; and they spent an hour making what Harper called a
traverse round a white aldea they were not sure about. Then they lay
down awhile in a ruined garden beside the carretera.
There was a nispero tree in the garden laden with acid yellow fruit, and
Appleby ate the handful Harper brought him greedily, for he was slightly
feverish and grimed with dust. Then they smoked the peasant’s maize‐husk
cigarettes and watched the purple lizards crawl about the fire‐blackened
ruins of the house. They could hear the rasp of machetes amidst the cane
and the musical clink of hoes, while now and then a hum of voices
reached them from the village; and once, with a great clatter, a mounted
man in uniform went by.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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