Such a passion of belief startled the drummer. He had never before sensed this fire in the girl. But his apprehension was rising constantly. He heard a murmur from the front of the cathedral. He made her listen; he began urging her more strongly than ever that they fly while they could. She put a hand over his mouth.
"But listen, carissimo!" she insisted passionately. "Our loving Lady brought us together in her chapel; shall we not trust her to the end? Can we wound her feelings by deserting her now?" She touched her breast and forehead and looked at the image. "Oh, mi corazon, I prayed and prayed to her for this great happiness! I wrote a letter to my dear Lady and placed it here on her altar so my prayer would go up to her like an incense. And now I have you!" She put her arms around him again and gazed into his face with rapt and tender eyes. "Let us stay here!"
The fact that Dolores had written the letter which he had contemplated writing, moved Strawbridge with a profound intimacy and sweetness. It gave him another of his rare glimpses of the eternity in which his little life momentarily moved. Perhaps supernal powers were indeed ranged back of these altars, with their protecting arms about him and this sweet lady. The thought of such guardianship wrapped the drummer in its glory. It elevated his passion for the Spanish girl; it lifted it from the earth, and set it up in heaven, like a star. He was almost minded to rest his fate with the Virgin, but his mystical mood was broken by the gathering turmoil at the cathedral entrance. The sounds reached the chapel softened and sweetened by arches and domes, but they were sinister. They whipped the American's thoughts from any supernatural help and set him back sharply on his pagan self-reliance. He took the girl's arm again.
"Look here, Dolores," he hurried as the sounds swelled in intensity, "we'll have to go. She—" he nodded at the altar—"she's done enough—all I want. She's got us together. Now we ought to help ourselves!" Strawbridge's voice admitted of no discussion. He was almost dragging the girl away.
The noise at the entrance was resounding as if the cathedral were a bass viol. Dolores moved instinctively back to her protectress, but Strawbridge hurried her along.
As they ran up the aisle, Strawbridge thought swiftly of possible avenues of escape. He remembered the underground tunnels in the crypt, but the idea of flying through a hole in the ground was repellent to him. He would take the night and the stars.
Even while he was planning, he hurried to the side door of the cathedral which let out into the garden. As he fumbled at the bolts with his good hand, came two heavy, drum-like reports from the front of the cathedral. This seemed to loose pandemonium in the church.
The drummer leaped with the girl into the dark garden, and went running down the hedge. They had not gone a hundred feet before they heard men rush out at the side door behind them. Bending low in the shadow, Strawbridge ran at full tilt. His good arm took the strain of the señora's stumblings. In his necessity he upheld her, he almost carried her. He crashed on through the garden. His impact burst open the little postern gate toward the palace. As he ran, he silently cursed his pursuers with every blasphemy he could think of. He could hear the Spanish girl whispering rapid prayers.
He rushed across to the piazza behind the palace. He swung Dolores upon it and leaped up after her. The west side of the piazza was blocked by the palace kitchen. In the cooking-stove a handful of red coals glowered at him. Their pursuers had now filled the thoroughfare between the garden and the palace. Suddenly he saw two or three forms leap upon the platform. The drummer ran to the river side of the piazza. The girl clutched his arm.
"Oh, carissimo! we are not going down there!"