“You believe so?”
“I am positive of it.”
“But the senorita. Can you communicate with her.”
“Ay; and without the knowledge of Captain Huerta.”
“You can?” cries Ashley, eagerly. “But you said you would be watched.”
“Ah,” says the priest, with a faint smile, “there is an entrance to the church that Captain Huerta knows not of—an entrance from my house through the little garden intervening.”
“Good. Excellently good,” remarks Ashley, into whose active brain has flashed an inspiration. “Father Hilario, I have a plan. You must join the senorita and myself in marriage.”
“Marry you? Impossible!” exclaims the astonished padre. Have the American’s troubles driven him insane?
“Impossible nothing. Easiest thing in the world if the lady is willing,” is Ashley’s cheerful response. “Now, listen to me, father. Don Quesada is a fugitive, and his daughter, being a Cuban, is amenable to the laws of this country. From the Spanish government she would not likely receive much earnest protection or reparation for any wrongs she might suffer. But when she becomes Mrs. Jack Ashley,” says Jack, dramatically, working up to a mild enthusiasm, “she is then an American citizen and as such she will be under the protection of a flag that the Spaniard dare not affront with impunity. You get the idea, eh?”
“Impossible, impossible, I tell you,” repeats Father Hilario. “You are not a Catholic, Senor Ashley; the senorita is. Besides, the consent of her father—”