Jocasta never moved. To save her friends from his rage she had spoken, and to her the big moment of humiliation dreamed of and feared had come and been lived through. He had seen her on her knees among all that brown herd made up of such women as his mother and her mother had been. From mistress of a palace on an estate large as many European kingdoms she had become an outcast with marks of fetters on her arms, while he was knelt to as a god by the simple people of the ranges, and held power of life and death over a wide land!
Kit could not even guess at all the tempestuous background of the drama enacted there in the chill of the chapel at sunrise, but the clash of those two outlaw souls suddenly on guard before each other, thrilled him by the unexpected. Rotil, profane, ruthless, and jeering, had suddenly grown still before the face of a woman from whom he turned away.
“Late! An hour late!” he grumbled, hobbling back to the plaza. “What did I tell you? Hell of women! Well, your damned little crane got what she started after––huh! Why did she lie?”
“Well, you know, General,” said Kit doubtfully, “that the enmity between you and José Perez is no secret. Even the children talk of it, and wish success to you––I’ve heard that one do it! Doña Jocasta is of a Perez household, so it was supposed you would make prisoner anyone of their group. And Tula––well, I reckon Tula listened last night to some rather hard things the señora has lived through at Soledad, and knew she would rather die here than go back there.”
Kit realized he was on delicate ground when trying to explain any of the actions of any of the black and tan group to each other, but he sought the safest way out, and drew a breath of relief at his success, for Rotil listened closely, nodding assent, yet frowning in some perplexity.
“Um! what does that mean,––rather die than go back?” he demanded. “No one has told me why the lady has come to Mesa Blanca, or what she is doing here. I don’t see––What the devil ails you?”
For Kit stared at him incredulous, and whistled softly.
“Haven’t you got it yet?” he asked. “Last night you joked about a girl Marto stole, and we stole from him again. Don’t you realize now who that girl is?”
“Jocasta!”
It was the first time he had uttered her name and there was a low terrible note in his voice, half choked by smothered rage.