“Now at that very time I was coming to the Plaza, on my way to Santa Alba, where I wished to meditate before Mass; for often in meditation light comes. These reefers ran into my party only a hundred yards from here. I, hearing their story, sent at once for the guardias of the ward, while I surrounded the house with my guard. At the back of the house I found a man whose ways I did not like, one Sumecta, whom I detained.
“I thought at that time that I was dealing with things commonplace, but directly I had made an entrance into the back of the house, I smelt the carib leaf. When I smelt the carib leaf, I smelt devilry. For remember, Harker mio, I am a son of this land, where the devils are strong, and come much into human affairs. In my youth, for which God has punished me, I sought their help, so I know who uses carib leaf and when and why. So I come in, I and my guards.
“Truly, if the reefers had not been prompt and I not where I was with my party, we should have been too late. However, we were in time. Now, Harker mio, taste here this brandy. You are very white.”
“My arm is broken, sir,” Sard said.
“Facundo,” the Dictator said to an equerry, “see that the carriages, when they come, stay in the street at the back, not in the Plaza. See also that a doctor be there.”
When the equerry had gone, the Dictator turned to Margarita.
“Lady,” he said, “what shall be done to these devil-worshippers? Doom or mercy?”
“I should have been glad of mercy a few minutes ago,” Margarita said.
“And you, Harker mio, would you kill them or not kill?”
“Twenty minutes ago I would have killed them,” Sard said. “Then I fought with that man and did not win. I would not have others do what I could not do myself.”