"But the man Ferou is a human leech! Oh, I overheard your secret talk. I tell you, the Frenchman sucks life-blood for money!"
"It is thief catch thief, Don Jaime. The Wolf-Cub, Quesada, is a cancer in the side of Spain. And Spain must be healed. We will loose the leech to suck this evil cancer from the side of Spain!"
"You are hatching a snake's egg, mi gran caballero. The fruit of it shall stink in the nostrils of all brave Moors! You may take your oath on that, Don Esteban! I for one will be no party to it!"
"No lo quiera Dios! God forbid, proud Torreblanca y Moncada, that we of the police should expect your aid! You have a higher call. Up in Minas de la Sierra, there is wailing and much sickness—ah, so many men have slapped under and died, and so many more suffer in earthly purgatory!"
"Sea como Dios quiera!" muttered Don Jaime. "God's will be done!"
The sergeant looked up at him, old eyes alive with strange fervor.
"They say of you, Don Jaime—si, and of me, too!—that we have granite boulders for hearts. But I know. Arrogante Torreblanca y Moncada is very tender with the sick. He has hands of gold for calling one back to life and for closing softly the lids of the dying. Vaya, mi gran hidalgo doctor! Go thou in the companionship of the sublime Christ and Mary, the All Compassionate!"
He stepped to one side. Don Jaime bade him a courteous adieu. Then, with all the hauteur of one riding an Arabian barb, sitting rigid in the saddle, the senor doctor loped his rawboned old nag up the winding goat path toward the barrio.
The policeman looked after him. Pascual Montara chewed fiercely the ends of his black mustache. He muttered:
"To-morrow at noon. When that great rock is hot with midday glare, this hombre Jacques Ferou will force the Sacrilegious One out upon the brink."