She did not look at him as she spoke, but sank on her knees before the dark canvas where only the faint golden halo gave evidence of some incarnated holiness portrayed there. Her voice was low and even, and the sadness of it thrilled Kit. He thought of music of sweet chords, and a broken string vibrating, for the hopelessness in her voice held a certain fateful finality, and her delicate dark loveliness–––
Rotil emerged from the doorway of the shrine and stood there, a curious substitute for the holy picture, looking down on her with a wonderful light in his face.
“Your ransom wins for you all you wish of me,––except the life of one man,” he said, and with a gesture indicated that Kit help her to her feet. He did so, and saw that she was very white and trembling.
Rotil looked at Perez over her head, and Perez scowled back, with all the venom of black hate.
“You win!––but a curse walks where she walks. Ask her? Ask Marto of the men she put under witchcraft! Ask Conrad who had good luck till she hated him! If you have a love, or a child, or anything dear, let her not look hate on them, for her knife follows that look! Ask her of the knife she set in the heart of a child for jealousy of Conrad! Ai, general though you are, your whole army is not strong enough to guard you from the ill luck you will take with the gift she gives! She is a woman under a curse. Ha! Look at her as I say it, for you hear the truth. Ask the padre!”
Kit realized that Perez was launching against her the direst weight of evil the Mexican or Indian mind has to face. Though saints and heaven and hell might be denied by certain daring souls, the potency of witchcraft was seldom doubted. Men or women accused of it were shunned as pariahs, and there had been known persons who weakened and dwindled into death after accusation had been put against them.
He thought of it as she cowered under each separate count of the curse launched against her. She bent like a slender reed under the strokes of a flail, lower and lower against his arm, but when the deadly voice flung the final taunt at her, she straightened slowly and looked at Rotil.
“Yes, ask the padre––or ask me!” she said in that velvet soft voice of utter despair. “That I sent an innocent soul to death is too true. To my great sorrow I did it;––I would do it again! For that my life is indeed a curse to me,––but his every other word a lie!”
Then she took a step forward, faltered, and fell back into the outstretched arm of Kit.
“Take Señora Perez to the women, and come back,” said Rotil. Kit noted that even though he moved close, and bent over the white unconscious face, he did not touch her.