blacksmith carried a long iron bar in his prodigious hand.
Magdalena stood near the smithy door, looking after the soldiers with sinking heart. She held Juan in blame for the blow he had given Don Geronimo, but not in unforgiving bitterness. There was mitigation in the deed, she was just enough to understand and admit, but it had been a wicked thing to strike authority down in the eyes of the subjugated and mean. It was better for Juan to go from San Fernando, Padre Ignacio's decree was wise and just; but it was a sorrowful misfortune for him to fall into the soldiers' hands. Don Geronimo could not have betrayed him; she could not believe it so.
It was not more than an hour before vespers; the shadow of building and tree fell long across the court; the shadow of the church reached far over the mean huts of the Indians which lay snuggling along the other side of the separating adobe wall; Borromeo's shadow was a huge, long-striding thing as he ran after the troopers, the terrible iron bar in his hand. In a few hours more night would have fallen; Juan would have ridden in safety out of the mission gate.
Padre Ignacio stood at the vestry door, just as he had emerged from the church but a few moments before, astonished by this rude invasion, this barbarous charge against the very walls of the sacred building in whose protecting shadow he waited. At the corner of the church the headlong advance halted suddenly at Captain del Valle's command.
