"Women? That is foolishness. It is not women for whom you hold me! He has turned traitor, has Perez! He wants me sent back across the border without that price of the guns for his mushroom government! He has told his own tales of Herrara, and of Singleton, and they are lies--all lies!"

"But what of the tale of Diego, said in the American way?" asked Kit stepping inside the room.

"Diego! Diego!" repeated Conrad and made a leap at Perez. "You have sold me out to the Americans, you sc.u.m! James warned me you were sc.u.m of the gutters, and now----"

The guard caught him, and he stood there shaking with fury in the dim light. Perez drew away with a curse.

"To h.e.l.l with you and James and your crew on the border," he growled.

"I care nothing as to how soon the d.a.m.ned gringos swing you both. When you Germans want to use us we are your 'dear brothers.' When we out-trick you, we are only sc.u.m, eh? You can tell your _commandante_ James that I won the game from him, and all the guns!"

"My thanks to you, General Rotil, that I have been allowed to hear this," said Kit, "also that I have witness. I'd do as much for you if the chance comes. Two men were killed on the border by Conrad under order of this James. Herrara was murdered in prison for fear he would turn informer about the guns. Singleton was murdered to prevent him investigating the German poisoning of cavalry horses. The German swine meant to control Granados rancho a few months longer for their own purposes."

"_Meant_ to?" sneered Conrad. "You raw cub!--you are playing with dynamite and due for a fall. So is your fool country! Though Perez here has lost his nerve and turned traitor to our deal, that is only a little puff of wind against the bulwarks of the Fatherland! We will hold Granados; we will hold the border; and with Mexico (not this crook of the west, but _real_ Mexico) we will win and hold every border state and every Pacific coast state! You,--poor fool!--will never reach Granados alive to tell this. You are but one American in the Indian wilderness, and you are sure to go under, but you go knowing that though James and I die, and though a thousand more of us die, there will be ten thousand secret German workers in America to carry on our plan until all the world will be under the power of the Prussian eagle! You,--who think you know so much, can add _that_ to finish your education in Sonora, and carry it to h.e.l.l with you!"

His voice, coldly contemptuous at first, had risen to a wrathful shriek as he faced the American and hurled at him the exultance of the Teuton dream.

"I certainly am in great luck to be your one American confessor,"

grinned Kit, "but I'll postpone that trip as long as possible. I reckon General Rotil will let the padre help me make note of this education you are handing out to me. A lot of Americans need it! Have I your permission, General?"

"Go as far as you like," snapped Rotil. "They have used up their time limit in scolding like old women. Perez, I wait for the guns."

"Send me to Hermosillo and I will recover enough for a ransom," said Perez.

Rotil regarded him a moment through half-closed, sinister eyes.

"That was your last chance, and you threw it away. Chappo, strip him; Fidelio, fetch the branding irons."

Perez shrank back, staring at Rotil as if fascinated. He was striving to measure the lengths to which the "Hawk of the Sierras" would go, and a sudden gleam of hope came into his eyes as Padre Andreas held up a crucifix before Chappo, waving him aside.

"No, Rotil,--torture is a thing for animals, not men! h.e.l.l waits for the sinner who----"

"h.e.l.l won't wait for you one holy minute!" snapped Rotil. "Get back with the women where you belong; there is men's work to do here."

He caught the priest by the arm in an iron grip and whirled him towards the _sala_. The man would have fallen but for Kit who caught him, but could not save the crash of his head against the door. Blood streamed from a cut in his forehead, and thus he staggered into the room where Dona Jocasta stood, horror-stricken and poised for flight.

But the sight of the blood-stained priest, and the sound of a strange, half animal cry from the other room, turned her feet that way.

"No, Ramon! No-_no_!" she cried and sped through the door to fling herself between him and his victims.

Her arms were stretched wide and she halted, almost touching him, with her back to the chained man towards whom she had not glanced, but she could not help seeing the charcoal brazier with the red-hot branding irons held by Fidelio. The gasping cry had come from Conrad by whom the brazier was set.

Ramon Rotil stared at her, frowning as if he would fling her from his path as he had the priest.

"No, Ramon!" she said again, still with that supplicating look and gesture, "send them out of here,--both these men. I would smother and die in a room with that German beast. You will not be sorry, Ramon Rotil, I promise you that,--I promise you by the G.o.d I dare not face!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "No, Ramon! No!" she cried, and flung herself between him and his victims.]

"Ho!" snarled Perez. "Is the priest also her lover that she----"

"Send the German out, and let Jose Perez stay to see that I keep my promise," she said letting her arms fall at her side, but facing Rotil with an addition of hauteur in her poise and glance. "The price he will pay for the words he has spoken here will be a heavy price,--one he has risked life to hold! Send that pale snake and your men outside, Ramon."

Perez was leaning forward, his face strained and white, watching her.

He could not see her face, but the glimpse of hope came again into his eyes--a woman might succeed with Rotil where a priest would fail!

Rotil, still frowning at her, waved his hand to Chappo and Fidelio.

"Take him away," he said, "and wait beyond."

The shuffling movement and clank of chains was heard, but she did not turn her head. Instead she moved past Rotil, lifted a candle, and went towards the shrine at the end of the room.

A table was there with a scarf across it, and back of the table three steps leading up to a little platform on which were ranged two or three mediocre statues of saints, once brilliant with blue and scarlet and tinsel, but tarnished and dim from the years.

In the center was a painting, also dark and dim in which only a halo was still discernible in the light of the candle, but the features of the saint pictured there were shadowed and elusive.

For a moment she knelt on the lower step and bent her head because of those remnants of a faith which was all she knew of earthly hope,--and then she started to mount the steps.

"The curse of G.o.d shrivel you!" muttered Perez in cold fury--"come down from there!"

Without heed to the threat, she moved the little statues to right or left, and then lifted her hand, resting it on the wooden frame of the painting.

"Call the Americano," she said without turning. "You will need a man, but not a man of Altar. Another day may come when you, Ramon, may have need of this house for hiding!"

Rotil strode to the door and motioned Kit to enter, then he closed both doors and gave no heed to Perez, crouched there like a chained coyote in a trap.

"Come down!" he said again. "You are in league with h.e.l.l to know of that. I never gave it to you! Come down! I meant to tell after he had finished with Conrad--I mean to tell!"

"He waited too long, and spoke too much," she said to Rotil. "Keep watch on him, and let the Americano give help here."

Kit mounted the step beside her, and at her gesture took hold of the frame on one side. She found a wedge of wood at the other side and drew it out. The loosened frame was lifted out by Kit and carried down the three steps; it was a panel a little over two feet in width and four in height.

"Set it aside, and watch Jose Perez while General Rotil looks within,"

she said evenly.

Rotil glanced at Perez scowling black hate at her, and then turned to Jocasta who held out the candle.

"It is for you to see,--you and no other," she said. "You have saved a woman he would have traded as a slave, and I give you more than a slave's ransom."

He took the candle and his eyes suddenly flamed with exultation as her meaning came to him.

"_Jocasta!_" he muttered as if scarce believing, and then he mounted the step, halted an instant in the panel of shadow, and, holding the candle over his head, he leaned forward and descended on the other side of the wall.

"You d.a.m.ned she-wolf of the hills!" growled Perez with the concentrated hate of utter failure in his voice. "I fed you, and my money covered your nakedness, and now you put a knife in my neck and go back to cattle of the range for a mate! You,--without shame or soul!"

"That is true," she said coldly. "You killed a soul in the _casita_ of the oleanders, Jose Perez, and it was a dead woman you and the German chained to be buried in the desert. But even the dead come back to help friends who are faithful, Jose,--and I am as the dead who walk."

She did not look at him as she spoke, but sank on her knees before the dark canvas where only the faint golden halo gave evidence of some incarnated holiness portrayed there. Her voice was low and even, and the sadness of it thrilled Kit. He thought of music of sweet chords, and a broken string vibrating, for the hopelessness in her voice held a certain fateful finality, and her delicate dark loveliness----

Rotil emerged from the doorway of the shrine and stood there, a curious subst.i.tute for the holy picture, looking down on her with a wonderful light in his face.