“Padre, all the land speaks peace today, yet you are as a threatening cloud over Soledad!”
“I speak in warning, not threat,––and I am not the only cloud in the sky. The women of vengeance are coming beyond there where the willows are green.”
Doña Jocasta looked the way he pointed, and stood up with an exclamation of alarm.
“Clodomiro! Call Clodomiro!” she said hurriedly, and as the priest only stared at her, she sped past him to the portal and called the boy who came running from the patio.
She pointed as the priest had pointed.
“They are strangers, they do not know,” she said. “Kill a horse, but meet them!”
His horse was in the plaza, and he was in the saddle before she finished speaking, digging in his heels and yelling as though leading a charge while the frightened animal ran like a wild thing.
Doña Jocasta stood gazing after him intently, shading her eyes with her hand. Women came running out of the patio and Padre Andreas stared at her.
“What new thing has given you fear?” he asked in wonder.
“No new thing,––a very old thing of which Elena told me! That green strip of willow is the edge of a quicksand where no one knows the depth. The women are thinking to make a short path across, and the one who leads will surely go down.”