The quarry came into view as they reached the sunlight, dazzled and blinking—a smallish lithe man, running and dodging with terror in his eyes. But he was no match for his pursuer, and before he had gained the end of the gallery, the giant's hand closed upon the neck of his enemy.
Then Luis Fernandez, knowing his hour, screamed like a rabbit taken in a snare.
And through the manifold corridors of the Abbey, and up from underground, rang the dread cry "Torture!" "They have been torturing him to death in their accursed dungeons! Kill! Kill! Death to the Friars wherever found!"
For the blind mouths of down-trodden villages, long dumb, had at last found a universal tongue.
Ramon Garcia looked once only into the face which glared up at him. In that glance Luis Fernandez read his fate. Without a word of anger or any sound save his own footsteps, El Sarria walked to the nearest open arcade of the gallery and threw his enemy over with one hand, with the contemptuous gesture of a man who flings carrion to the dogs.
Luis Fernandez fell six hundred feet clear and scarce knew that he had been hurt.
"God grant us all as merciful a death!" cried Concha; "little did he deserve it!"
They untied Rollo from the trestle work of the rack which the miller of Sarria had used to gratify his revenge. At first he could not stand on his feet. His hands trembled like aspen leaves, and he had perforce to sit down and lean his head against Concha's shoulder.
"Nay, do not weep, little one," he said, "I am not hurt. You came in time! But" (here he smiled) "another turn of that wheel and I would have told them all!"
Meanwhile the hammers were clanging multitudinous. At the sight of Rollo's pale drawn face the populace went wild. Their mad clamour rose to heaven. All that night the great Abbey of Montblanch, with its garniture of stall and chapel, carven reredos and painted picture, went blazing up to the skies.