will do your bidding, Dom Antonio, and may God
forgive me the sin! For you, Pierre and Juanna, I am about to make you
man and wife, to join you in a sacrament that is none the less holy and
indissoluble because of the dreadful circumstances under which it is
celebrated. I say to you, Pierre, abandon your wickedness, and love and
cherish this woman, lest a curse from heaven fall upon you. I say
to you, Juanna, put your trust in God, the God of the fatherless and
oppressed, who will avenge your wrongs--and forgive me. Let water be
brought, that I may consecrate it--water and a ring."

"Here, take this one," said Pereira, lifting Leonard's signet ring from
the pile of gold. "I give it back for a luck-penny."

And he tossed the ring to the priest.

Water was brought in a basin, and the father consecrated it.

Then he bade Leonard stand by the girl and motioned to the crowd to fall
back from them. All this while Leonard had been watching Juanna. She
said no word, and her face was calm, but her eyes told him the terror
and perplexity which tore her heart.

Once or twice she lifted her clenched right hand towards her lips, then
dropped it without touching them. Leonard knew but too well what deed
she meditated. He knew also the deadly nature of the drug she carried.
If once it touched her tongue! The suspense was terrible. He could bear
it no longer; even at the risk of discovery he must speak with her.

In obedience to the priest's direction he sauntered to her side
laughing. Then, still laughing, with his hand he separated the tresses
of dark hair, as though to look at the beauty of her side face, and bent
down as if to kiss her.

She stood pale and rigid, but once more her hand was lifted towards her
mouth.

"Stop," he whispered swiftly into her ear, speaking in English, "I have
come to rescue you. Go through with this farce, it means nothing. Then,
if I bid you, run for the drawbridge into the slave-camp."

She heard, a light of intelligence shone in her eyes, and her hand fell
again.

"Come, stop that, friend Pierre," said Pereira suspiciously. "What are
you whispering about?"

"I was telling the bride how beautiful I think her," he answered
carelessly.

Juanna turned and flashed on him a well-simulated glance of hate and
scorn. Then the service began.

The young priest was gifted with a low and beautiful voice, and by the
light of the moon he read the ritual of marriage so solemnly that even
the villains