"Ola, Señor Strawbridge! is that you?" She started quickly down the rest of the steps to him. "Cá! Señor Strawbridge, come to my señora at once; she needs you! Quick! Pronto! Ehue, señor, hurry!"
The drummer recognized the griffe girl. The urgency in her voice brought him up sharply.
"What is it, chica?"
"Oh, Madre de Jesus! The soldiers are searching the convents! She has slipped into the garden and hid! The poor angel! I came flying for you! Señor, hurry! For love of the Virgin! Would you have a heretic like Saturnino seize a nun?"
A terrible feeling came over Strawbridge.
"Seize her! Is that hell-hound...." The monstrousness of it throttled him. The girl pulled at his sleeve, and by this time both were running diagonally across the plaza. They were not conspicuous: they might have been new merrymakers, hurrying to sing, around the bonfire, of the rise of Saturnino and of his protection to "our daughters and our niñas." But these two angled into one of the narrow calles that emptied into the plaza. Even from this little run the convalescent began to breathe heavily. He caught his breath to ask:
"How do you know they are searching the convents?"
"I was in the convent of Saint Ursula with her."
"What did they do there?"
"The soldiers surrounded the place, and allowed no one to leave."