Save for the second or two he had seen him during the fight, this was the first time Wilson had ever had an opportunity to study the man closely. He was puzzled at first by some look in the man’s face which haunted him as though it bore some resemblance to another face. It did not seem to be any one feature,––he had never before seen in anyone such eyes; piercing, troubled dark eyes, moving as though never at ease; he had never seen in anyone such thin, tight lips drawn over the teeth as in a man with pain. The nose was normal enough and the cheek-bones high, but the whole expression of the face was one of anxious intensity, of fanatical ardor, with, shadowing it all, an air of puzzled uncertainty. Everything about the man was more or less of a jumbled paradox; he was dressed like a 231 priest, but he looked like a man of the world; he was clearly a native in thought and action, but he looked more like an American. He stared at Stubbs as though bewildered and unable to place him. Then his face cleared.
“Where is your master?” he demanded.
“The cap’n?” growled Stubbs, anything but pleased at the form and manner of the question. “I’m not his keeper and no man is my master.”
“Does he live?”
Briefly Wilson told of what had been done with Danbury. The Priest listened with interest. Then he asked:
“And your mission here?”
Before Wilson could frame a reply, the Priest waved his hand impatiently to the crowd which melted away.
“Come with me,” he said. “I am weary and need to rest a little.”
The Priest preceded them through the village and to an adobe hut which stood at a little distance from the other houses and was further distinguished by being surrounded by green things. It was a story-and-a-half-high structure, thatched with straw.
On the way Wilson managed to whisper to Stubbs: