Valencia’s eyes looked sorrow on Tula, still under his hand, and then on the wood and silver thing held up before her. The sun was just rolling hot and red above the mountains, and Rotil’s shaggy head was outlined in a sort of curious radiance as the light struck the white wall across the patio at his back. Even the silver of the crucifix caught a glimmer of it, and to Valencia he looked like the warrior padres of whom her grandmother used to tell, who would thunder hell’s terrors on the frightened neophytes until the bravest would grovel in the dust and do penances unbelievable.
That commanding picture came between her and Rotil,––the outlaw and soldier and patriot. She stumbled forward with a pleading gesture towards Tula.
“Excellency, the child does no harm. She is a stranger in the house. She has picked it up perhaps when lost by the señora, and–––”
“What señora?”
“She who is most sorrowful guest here, Excellency, and her arms still bruised from the iron chains of El Aleman.”
“And her name?”
“Excellency, it is the woman saved from your man by the Americano señor here beside you. And,––she asked to be nameless while sheltered at Mesa Blanca.”
“But not to me! So this is a game between you two––” and he looked from Tula to Kit with sinister threat in his eyes, “it is then your woman who–––”
“Ramon––no!” said a voice from the far shadows, and the black shawled figure stood erect and cast off the muffling disguise. Her pale face shone like a star above all the kneeling Indians.
“God of heaven!” he muttered, and his hand fell from the shoulder of Tula. “You––you are one of the women who knelt here for vengeance?”