"Herrero now and then comes up this way?"
The missionary nodded. "He is the thorn in our side," he said. "Domingo, his associate, as of course you know, rambles through the back country. There is no one else to cause us anxiety, but Herrero has an old grudge against us. There were villages in these valleys when he first came here, and he swept them almost clean. We gathered up the remnant of the people, and now they will not buy his rum from him."
"If the news we got with our last supplies is correct he can not be more than a few days' march away," the younger man broke in. "I have been wondering how often he will pass us by. Some day he will come down on us. It's a sure thing."
Nares straightened himself a trifle. He had for several years borne almost all a man could bear and live through in that land, and after he left Ormsgill had fled inland, proscribed, finding no safety anywhere until his countrymen at their peril had offered him shelter at the mission. Besides, he had fever and prickly heat, which tries the meekest white man's patience, and it was New England stock he sprang from. He was a Puritan by birth as well as training, of the old grim Calvinistic strain, and his forbears had believed that the sword of the Lord is now and then entrusted to human hands. In that faith they had faced their king at Naseby, and in later days and another land held their own at Bunker Hill, and again crushed the Southern slave-owners' riflemen. It awoke once more deep down in the heart of their descendant as he sat on the mission veranda that night.
"What will you do then?" he said. "It sometimes seems to me that we have borne enough. One could almost wonder if there is anything more than prudence in our non-resistance. That alone seldom carries one very far."
A faint sparkle crept into the eyes of the younger man, for there was also a capacity for righteous wrath in him, but his elder companion raised a restraining hand.
"What can we do that will not bring down trouble on our followers' heads?" he asked.
Nares had not slept for several nights, and that coming on top of his other troubles had its effect on him, for he was, after all, very human, and the white man's self-restraint is apt to grow feeble in that land where his passions usually grow strong. Now and then, indeed, it breaks down altogether suddenly.
"Somebody must suffer for every reform," he said. "It seems that a sacrifice is demanded, and the ban is upon us still. Here, at least, the cost of man's progress is the shedding of blood." Then he made a little forceful gesture. "They are arming in the bush. In another month or two there will be very grim doings at San Roque."
The older man changed the subject abruptly. "You have your own course to consider. Have you come to a decision yet? I almost think if you surrendered to a responsible officer the Society has influence enough to secure your acquittal. After all, there are a few honest men upon the coast."