wish you every felicitation on your return trip.
Ah--ah--your orders contained no reference to--to me?" he added
hesitatingly.

"None whatever, _Senor Padre_," replied the captain genially. He
turned to go, and Jose stifled a great sigh of relief. But suddenly
the captain stopped; then turned again.

"_Caramba_!" he ejaculated, "I nearly forgot! _Hombre_! what would His
Grace have said?"

He fumbled in an inner pocket and drew forth a telegraphic document.

"_And you will seize the person of one Rosendo Ariza's daughter and
immediately send her with proper conveyance to the Sister Superior of
the convent of Our Lady in Cartagena_," he read aloud.

Jose froze to the spot. From within Rosendo's house came a soft,
scurrying sound. Then he heard a movement in his own. Morales returned
the folded message to his pocket and started to enter the house. Jose
could offer no resistance. He was rendered suddenly inert, although
vividly conscious of a drama about to be enacted in which he and his
loved ones would play leading _roles_. As in a dream he heard the
captain address Rosendo and gruffly demand that he produce his
daughter. He heard a deep curse from Rosendo; and his blood congealed
more thickly as he dwelt momentarily on the old man's possible conduct
in the face of the federal demand. He heard Morales hunting
impatiently through the shabby rooms. Then he saw him emerge in a
towering rage--but empty-handed.

"_Caramba_, Padre!" cried the angry captain, "but what is this? Have
they not had one good lesson, that I must inflict another? I demand to
know, has this Rosendo Ariza a daughter?"

He stood waiting for the answer that Jose knew he must make. The
priest's hollow voice sounded like an echo from another world.

"Yes."

"_Bien_, then I have discovered one honest man in yourself, Padre. You
will now assist me in finding her."

"I--I know not--where--where she is, _Senor Capitan_," murmured Jose
with feebly fluttering lips.

They were alone, this little party of actors, although many an eye
peered out timidly at them from behind closed shutters and barred
doors around the _plaza_. Don Jorge and Rosendo came out of the house
and stood behind Jose. The captain confronted them, bristling with
wrath at the insolence that dared oppose his supreme authority. The
heat had already begun to pour down in torrents. The morning air was
light, but not a sound traversed it. The principals in this tense
drama might have b