CHAPTER XXVII
THE dead man's fate oppressed Strawbridge, and the irony of all the rejoicing at the rise of Saturnino filled him with bitterness. He turned away. He meant to go back to the priests' house. He would leave this anarchic land as quickly as he could. As he turned, a girl came running down the steps of the palace. She stopped half-way down and peered at the man on the pavement. Next moment she called his name, under her breath:
"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
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