“If a mountain of gold should be uncovered at Soledad, of what difference to me? Would he let a woman make traffic with it? Surely not.”
“He?”
“José Perez,––who else?”
Padre Andreas closed his eyes a moment and arose, but did not answer. He paced the length of the corridor and back before he spoke.
“It is for you to ask the Americano that the prisoner be given a priest if he wants prayer,” he said returning to their original subject of communication. “It is a duty that I tell you this; it is your own house.”
“Señor Rhodes is capitan,” she returned indifferently. “It is his task to give me rest here to prepare for that long north journey. I do not rest in my mind or my soul when you talk to me of the German snake, so I will ask that you speak with Capitan Rhodes. He has the knowing of Spanish.”
“Too much for safety of us,” commented the priest darkly. “Who is to say how he uses it with the Indians? It is well known that the American government would win all this land, and work with the Indians that they help win it.”
“So everyone is saying in Hermosillo,” agreed Doña Jocasta, “but the American capitan has not told me lies of any other thing, and he is saying that is a lie made by foreign people. Also––” and she looked at him doubtfully, “the man Conrad cursed your name yesterday as a damned Austrian whose country had cost his country much.”
“My mother was not Austrian!” retorted Padre Andreas, “and all my childhood was in Mexico. But how did Conrad know?”
“He told Elena it was his business to know such things. The Germans help send many Mexican priests north over the border. He had the thought that you are to go with me for some reason political of which I knew nothing!”