The men, busy with the final packing, stared after him with much curiosity, and accosted the priest as he paced thoughtfully back to the portal.
“Padre, is this ammunition a gift of Don José, or is it magic from the old monks who hid the red gold of El Alisal and come back here to guard it and haunt Soledad?” inquired one of the boldest.
“There are no hauntings, and that red gold has led enough men astray in the desert. It is best forgotten.”
“But strange things do come about,” insisted another man. “Marto Cavayso swore he had witchcraft put on him by the green, jewel eyes of Doña Jocasta, and you see that since she follows our general he has the good luck, and this ammunition comes to him from God knows where!”
“It may be the Americano knows,” hazarded the first speaker. “He took her from Marto, and rides ever beside her. Who proves which is the enchanter?”
“It is ill work to put the name of ‘enchantment’ against any mortal,” chided the priest.
“That may be,” conceded the soldier, “but we have had speech of this thing, and look you!––Doña Jocasta rode in chains until the Americano crossed her trail, and Don Ramon, and all of us, searched in vain for the American guns, until the Americano rode to Soledad! Enchantment or not, he has luck for his friends!”
“As you please!” conceded the priest with more indifference than he felt. The Americano certainly did not belong to Soledad, and the wonder was that Ramon Rotil gave him charge of so beauteous a lady. Padre Andreas could easily perceive how the followers of Rotil thought it enchantment, or any other thing of the devil.
Instinctively he disapproved of Rhodes’ position in the group; his care-free, happy smile ill fitted the situation at Soledad. Before the stealing away of Doña Jocasta she had been as a dead woman who walked; her sense of overwhelming sin was gratifying in that it gave every hope of leading to repentance, but on her return the manner of her behavior was different. She rode like a queen, and even the marriage was accepted as a justice! Padre Andreas secretly credited the heretic Americano with the change, and Mexican girls put no such dependence on a man outside of her own family,––unless that man was a lover!
He saw his own influence set aside by the stranger and the rebel leader, and with Doña Jocasta as a firebrand he feared dread and awful things now that Rotil had given her power.