Perez stood up, baffled and beaten, but threatening.
“Take them off, you!” he snarled, “though it is a hell of a ransom,––and that woman will pay. Let no one forget that her pay will be heavy!”
“That paying is for afterwards!” decided Rotil airily, “but here and now we men would see a wedding before we leave Soledad. Capitan Rhodes, will you bring in Doña Jocasta?”
Kit, in some wonder, went on the errand, and found the women eager to deck her with blossoms and give some joyous note to the wedding of the dawn, but she sat cold and white with the flowers of the desert springtime about her, and forbade them.
“He terrifies me much in sending that word to wake me with this morning,” she protested. “I tell you I will kill myself before I live one more day of life with José Perez! I told him all my heart in the sala last night, and it means not anything to Ramon Rotil;––he would tie me in slavery to that man I hate!”
“Señora, I do not know what the general means, but I know it is not that. His work is for your service, even though appearance is otherwise.”
“You think that?”
“I almost know it.”
“Then I go,” she decided. “I think I would have to go anyway, but the heart would be more heavy, Santa Maria!––but this place of Soledad is strange in its ways.”
It was the first time he had seen her frightened, but her mouth trembled, and her eyes sought the floor.