d a clatter, Fidelio was
soon lost in the dust.

Kit was by no means certain that he did "get" him. He felt that he had
quite enough trouble without addition of records and secrecy for acts
of the Deliverer.

CHAPTER XIX

THE RETURN OF TULA

The sentinel palms of Soledad were sending long lines of shadows
toward the blue range of the Sierras, and gnarled old orange trees in
the ancient mission garden drenched the air with fragrance from many
petals.

There had been a sand storm the day before, followed by rain, and all
the land was refreshed and sparkling. The pepper trees swung tassels
of bloom and the flaming coral of the occotilla glowed like tropic
birds poised on wide-reaching wands of green. Meadow larks echoed each
other in the tender calls of nesting time, and from the jagged peaks
on the east, to far low hills rising out of a golden haze in the west,
there was a great quiet and peace brooding over the old mission
grounds of the wilderness.

Dona Jocasta paced the outer corridor, watched somberly by Padre
Andreas on whom the beauty of the hour was lost.

"Is your heart turned stone that you lift no hand, or speak no word
for the soul of a mortal?" he demanded. "Already the terrible women of
Palomitas are coming to wait for their Judas, and this is the morning
of the day!"

"It is no work of mine, Padre," she answered wearily. "I am
sick,--here!--that the beast has been all these days and nights under
a roof near me. I know how the women feel, though I think I would not
wait, as they have waited,--for Good Friday."

"It is murder in your heart to harbor such wickedness of thought," he
insisted. "Your soul is in jeopardy that you do not contemplate
forgiveness. Even though a man be a heretic, a priest must do his
office when it comes to a sentence of death. After all--he is a
human."

"I do not know that," replied Dona Jocasta thoughtfully, and she sank
into a rawhide chair in the shade of a pillar. "Listen, Padre. I am
not learned in books, but I have had new thoughts with me these days.
Don Pajarito is telling me of los Alemanos all over the world;--souls
they have not, and serpents and toads are their mothers! Here in
Mexico we have our flag from old Indian days with the eagle and the
snake. Once I heard scholars in Hermosillo talk about that; they said
it was from ancient times of sky worship, and the bird was a bird of
stars,--also the serpent."

Padre Andreas lifted his brows in deri