there is
early breakfast, and it is best to get your share before some quick
task is set,--and this day there are many tasks."

The women were entering the portal at the rear, because the chapel of
the old hacienda was at the corner. There was considerable commotion
as Fidelio enforced the order to search for arms;--if the Deliverer
suspected treachery, how could they hope for the sympathy they came to
beg for?

"Tell him there is nothing hidden under our rags but hearts of
sorrow," said the mother of Fidelio. "Ask that he come here where we
kneel to give God thanks that El Aleman is now in the power of the
Deliverer."

"General Rotil does not walk, and there is no room for a horse in this
door. Someone of you must speak for the others, and go where he is."

The kneeling women looked at each other with troubled dark eyes.

"Valencia will be the best one," said an old woman. "She lost no one
by the pale beast, but she knows us every one. Marta, who was wife of
Miguel, was always mother and spoke for us to the padre, or anyone,
but Marta----"

She paused and shook her head; some women wept. All knew Marta was one
who cried to them for vengeance.

"That is true," said Valencia. "Marta was the best, but the child of
Marta is here, and knows more than we. She has done much,--more than
many women. I think the daughter can speak best for the mother, and
that the Deliverer will listen."

Tula had knelt like the others, facing a little shelf on the wall
where a carven saint was dimly illuminated by the light of a candle.
All the room was very dark, for the dawn was yet but as a gray cloak
over the world, and no window let in light.

The girl stood up and turned toward Valencia.

"I will go," she said, "because it is my work to go when you speak,
but the Deliverer will ask for older tongues and I will come back to
tell you that."

Without hesitation she walked out of the door, and the others
bent their heads and there was the little click-click of rosary
beads, slipping through their fingers in the dusk. Among the many
black-shawled huddled figures kneeling on the hard tiles, none
noticed the one girl in the corner where shadows were deepest,
and whose soft slender hands were muffled in Valencia's fringes.

Kit stood until he noted that the searching for arms did not include
her, and then crossed the patio with Fidelio on his way to the
corrals. If the black mare of Dona Jocasta could be gotten to the rear
portal