Groping along the wall on his right, he came to a recess,—the gate! Pedro and Mocho halted beside him. Passing his hand over the doors, Cristoval felt the padlock, which rattled slightly under his trembling fingers, and he drew back. Mocho pushed the two sledge-men into the gateway, and they placed themselves with hammers poised.
The Antis were now moving past, led by Abul Hassan, and a detail detached themselves and halted, ready to follow into the Acllahuasi. Minute after minute fled, and the warriors crept on toward the square, while Cristoval waited, shivering with excitement until he clenched his teeth to prevent their rattling. Hours, hours, he stood before the gates behind which he should find joy or despair, listening for what would be the signal. The movement of the Antis was hardly audible above the wind and rain, though as one after another brushed past he heard their breathing, strained with the tension of coming battle. The street was dense with them, their bent bodies and constrained, fearfully slow advance as expressive of fierce intentness as if it could be read in their faces. But, gods! would they never reach the square? Had the Morisco halted? Cristoval leaned forward and glanced up the street: a quivering level of brazen helmets, half luminous in the reflection from the firelit haze ahead.
As he looked, a shout rose from the sentinel, hoarse and startled, cut short by the deafening war-cry of the Antis as they rushed.
"Strike! Strike!" shouted Cristoval, and the gates thundered and crashed under the sledges. Stroke after stroke fell upon the resonant panels, shattering them to fragments. The street bellowed and howled. From the square, wild shouts, the sharp blasts of a trumpet, the roar of the assaulting Antis. A shot, then a second, and a broken fusillade. A flash lighted the dripping walls, and an ear-stunning report rent the heavy air. The rampart was high, and before the Antis were over a soldier had seized a brand, rushed to the piece, uncovered the vent and fired. Unheeding wounds and death, the Antis were on the parapet, and the gun dismounted. They were over the work and into the square, driving the half-formed infantry before them. But for days no horse had been unsaddled, no trooper out of his armor. In a moment the earth was trembling with their onset, and the Antis were hurled back to the barricade. Here they stopped and fought, hand to hand. At other points, now, the yells and turmoil of assault, the flash and roar of guns. A few defences were carried, and the Peruvians plunged into the square, to be met and broken by flying squads of horse, driven back into the streets and slaughtered by the artillery.
But the Antis held the rampart, and the gate of the Acllahuasi was broken through. Followed by Pedro, Mocho, and a score of warriors, Cristoval dashed into the enclosure. The darkness was pitchy, and he went headlong into a copse of shrubbery, stumbled through into a path, lost it at once, and lost himself in another thicket. Half a minute had separated him from his friends. He groped about in bewilderment, blundering on. Heard voices, and shouted: answered, as it seemed, from every point of the compass. One voice was Pedro's, but Heaven alone could have sent a clue to its direction. He was in a great garden, dark with foliage intersected by a maze of paths. He crashed forward into another gravelled walk, and brought up against a wall. He was across the enclosure, and felt a pavement beneath his feet. He could discern doorways, numbers of them, all alike; some open, with empty dark chambers, some closed. He followed to the right, trying the closed ones, finding them unlocked and the rooms vacant. No sign of life, and he hurried on with sinking heart, sick with the fear that he had come too late. The night was hideous with the clamor outside, but he gave little heed, intent only on his quest. He heard a step, and ran against someone in the gloom, who sprang back with a familiar exclamation and engaged him. "Pedro!" he shouted, and the cook responded: "Thou, Cristoval! Heaven be praised! Where the fiend are we? Where are the others?"
"Only the fiend knoweth. Come!" They hastened along, throwing open doors, but finding everywhere darkness and vacancy. Cristoval's hope was fast going. "Oh, my God! Oh, my God!" he muttered over and over. "Where is she? Rava! Rava!" he called. "Answer, in the name of Heaven!"
Suddenly a gruff voice commanded in Spanish, "Halt!" Cristoval sprang forward. Again the summons, "Halt!" and a burly form loomed in the darkness with a mace raised to strike. "Halt! I command you in the name of the Holy Church!"
"Father Valverde!" cried the cavalier. "Hold, man! I am—"
The mace descended with sturdy force, dexterously caught on Cristoval's buckler. In an instant the priest's heels were kicked from under him, and Cristoval strode past, while Pedro seated himself upon the prostrate ecclesiastic. Without hesitation Cristoval tried the door Valverde had been guarding. It was fast, and he hurled his weight against it. At the second assault it yielded, burst open at the next, and the cavalier found himself in a dimly-lighted room, facing a group of shrieking women clinging about one who confronted him with unwavering, courageous eyes, but with no sign of recognition.
He stepped forward and halted, strove to speak, and failed, and stood overcome, while the women, made hysterical by the tumult beyond the convent walls, wailed at his dread appearance. He had forgotten his lowered visor, his bared sword, and the seeming menace of his attitude, and could only murmur hoarsely as he advanced: "Rava! Rava! Dost not know me—Cristoval?"