he ran, his long legs cutting the distance like a swallow's wings. "I seemed to know it, but it evades me like an echo." He hurried on, flitting from arch to arch like a swift bird.
He cut through the corner of the vineyard to the vestry door outside which Captain del Valle had fallen. In a moment he was out again, carrying with him the tall black cross borne at the head of processions. It was more than half as high as Padre Ignacio. A figure of Our Señor was carved upon its tree.
Governor de Arrillaga's sleep had been cut by the alarm beneath Padre Ignacio's window; his waking had been as sudden as a fall. Now he was moving about his chamber.
"What is this?" he called, his head thrust out of his door. "What alarm is this under my window, Padre Ignacio?"
"There is an assault on the dam by those rascals of the pueblo," Padre Mateo informed him, coming to his door a little way along the dark passage under the bare rafters. "Padre Ignacio has gone to stop them—I am going. Compose yourself until we return."
"Stay!" the governor commanded. "Guide me to the dam—in a moment I'll be with you—in a moment—where the devil is my sword!"
Padre Mateo, boiling as he was with rage against the skulking rascals who had come to work them this incalculable damage, had no choice but to curb his passion and his feet. He heard the governor
