s last words
burned through his tired brain like live coals. In a sense the Alcalde
was right. He had been selfishly absorbed in the girl. But he alone,
excepting Rosendo, had any adequate appreciation of the girl's real
nature. To the stagnant wits of Simiti she was one of them, but with
singular characteristics which caused the more superstitious and less
intelligent to look upon her as an uncanny creature, possessed of
occult powers.

Moreover, Jose had duped Don Mario with assurances of cooeperation. He
had allowed him to believe that Rosendo was searching for La Libertad,
and that he should participate in the discovery, if made. Had his
course been wholly wise, after all? He could not say that it had.

But--God above! it was all to save an innocent child from the blackest
of fates! If he had been stronger himself, this never could have
happened. Or, perhaps, if he had not allowed himself to be lulled to
sleep by a fancied security bred of those long months of quiet, he
might have been awake and alert to meet the enemy when he returned to
the attack. Alas! the devil had left him for a season, and Jose had
laid down "the shield of faith," while he lost himself in the
intellectual content which the study of the new books purchased with
his ancestral gold had afforded. But evil sleeps not; and with a
persistency that were admirable in a better cause, it returned with
unbated vigor at the moment the priest was off his guard.

* * * * *

Dawn broke upon a sleepless night for Jose. The Alcalde had sent word
that Fernando must remain with the priest, and that no visits would be
permitted to Rosendo in the jail. Jose had heard nothing from Carmen,
and, though often during the long night he sought to know, as she
would, that God's protection rested upon her; and though he sought
feebly to prove the immanence of good by knowing no evil, the morning
found him drawn and haggard, with corroding fear gnawing his desolate
heart. Fernando remained mute; and Dona Maria could only learn that
the constable had been seen leading the girl into Don Mario's house
shortly after Rosendo's arrest.

At an early hour the people, buzzing with excitement, assembled for
the trial, which was held in the town hall, a long, empty adobe house
of but a single room, with dirt floor, and a few rough benches. The
Alcalde occupied a broken chair at one end of the room. The trial
itself was of the simplest or