Vicente’s ragged shoulders squared still straighter. “When I ask you for money, señor generál!” he replied proudly. “We are of Spain, and for that I do it. He that made as priest went not to the convento, but into the house 74, Street of the Viceroy.”
“Hola! Señor teniente, take twenty men in the instant and round-up that house, bringing hither all that are in it; and that everything be searched. And send the teniente Ochoa with another file to bring hither prisoner the Comandante Ponce de Leon. Corriendo!”
For twenty minutes “the sleepless general” walked the room—sometimes apparently unconscious of the children, and suddenly flinging at them some question, sharp and searching as a javelin. Then there were reluctant feet upon the stairs.
“It has to report, your Excellency,” said Lieutenant Ochoa, “that the Señor Comandante Ponce de Leon is not to be found. Since the first dusk no one has seen him.”
Rodil struck his forehead; but before he seemed able to command his voice, there was another commotion outside, and a group of officers bustled into the room.
“What is this, mi generál?” cried one of them angrily. “Here we are dragged from the house like criminals! What means this rat-catcher of a lieutenant?”
“Little by little, gentlemen mine!” answered Rodil in a suspiciously quiet tone. “You will excuse the molestation for my sake, since I ordered it. And now, I beg you, have the goodness to tell me of a fraile who entered your house half an hour ago.”
“Fraile, señor generál? No priest has entered the house,” answered the first speaker, sharply. He was a tall, handsome officer, upon whom even the shabbiness of a uniform that had seen twenty-one months’ fighting sat becomingly. “I think your Excellency might have asked the question with less violence to us.”
“Ill it fits me to show discourtesy to such loyal gentlemen,” Rodil replied, with an added dryness. “And I am glad to learn that no priest has been among you—for I fancied, my Señor Captain Baca, that he might be converting you to the brotherhood. You would half pass for a fraile yourself, now that I see”—and in spite of himself the general’s voice rose ever so little—“the moustache which was the pride of the company is shorn off since midday.”
“Pues—your Excellency,” stammered the tall captain. “For the heat—and—and—since time hangs heavily on our hands, I shaved for a joke.”