"Up the path, for God's sake, Carmelita!" weakly cried the stricken Captain.
"Never! I'll die first!"
The knife was cleaving the air. The girl saw only Don Alfredo.
"Pause! renegade," a deep voice sounded back of them.
Padre Osuna had vaulted from an overhanging shelf. Catching Stanislaus's wrists he wrenched the knife from his hand. Raising the desperado from the earth he hurled him with volcanic power against a tree-trunk. The creature fell senseless. Examination showed him to be stunned only.
The friar took Morando's head in his arms.
"Where the hurt, my brother?"
"My shoulder," his eyes closing in oblivion.
"O, Padre, is Alfredo much injured?" her low words trembling with emotion.
"I cannot yet tell, doña," sympathetic concern for the prostrate man showing in his face and voice as he half whispered the reply.