“But you say the priest was also a ladrone,” the merchant objected.
The corporal shook his head. “A priest is a priest, and the Church will not forgive, or admit excuses. How can she, when she has the souls of all these savages to save? Still, if I ever get the chance of seeing the Holy Father, and explaining——” and he went out, still frowning and shaking his head.
Don José helped himself slowly to another glass of wine, and sighed. “We shall never go back to Spain, he and I. It is getting too late now, and so”—he smiled sadly—“the Holy Father will lose much useful information.”
When Felizardo slew Pablo the priest, and took to the bush, carrying Dolores Lasara in his arms, he had no definite aim, save that of gaining a temporary hiding-place; but the moment he had found this, and even whilst he was bringing the girl round with some of the wine he had taken from her father’s table—the bottle itself was sticky with her father’s blood—his mind became busy with the problem of the future.
He was an outlaw for life. He had killed a priest—had offended far beyond the offence of the ordinary ladrone, who only kills ordinary men, and tortures women and children. True, the priest was a ladrone, even worse than a ladrone, but it was the cloth, and not the man beneath it, which mattered. Felizardo faced the issue squarely. Somehow, it seemed as though he had learned many things during that night. He had taken up the bolo, and thenceforth the Law of the Bolo must be his only code. A few hours before, no one had less desire to be an outlaw than he; now, he had become an outlaw, despite himself; but he did not rail against Fate, because he was an Asiatic, and also because, after all, he had got Dolores.
Still, there was one trouble, which would be greater for her than for him. He put it to her very gently after he had told her of the end of Father Pablo.
“We cannot be married now, dear one,” he said. “No priest would do it, even though I captured him, and threatened him with death.”
She looked at him with shining eyes. “What matter? I shall have you, all the same.”
He turned away. “It is not too late for you to go back, even now. The good Sisters at the convent would take you.”