the throng of besiegers,
surging this way and that like a flock of sheep which strange dogs
drive, as with wild and shrill cries they turned and fled headlong
towards the mountains.

The girl, speechless with wrath, and perhaps also with the
death-sickness far advanced within her, took a step forward as if to
follow them. But forgetful of where she stood, she missed her footing,
fell headlong, and lay across the dead sentinel whom she had first
dragged from his post.

The Basque priest looked over Rollo's shoulder and pointed downwards
with a certain dread solemnity.

"What did I tell you?" he said. "The finger of God! The finger of God
hath touched her! Let us go down. The sun will be above the horizon in
twenty minutes."

"Had we not better wait?" urged Rollo. "They may return. Think of our
responsibility, of our feeble defences, of----"

"Of Concha," he was about to say, but checked himself, and added
quietly, "of the little Queen!"

The monk crossed himself with infinite calm.

"They will not return," he said; "it is our duty to lay these in the
quiet earth ere the sun rises. There is no infection to be feared till
an hour after sunrise."

"But the girl, the daughter of Munoz?" said Rollo, "did not she take the
disease from the dead?"

"Nay," said the Basque. "I have often beheld the smitten of the plague
like that. It works so upon very many. For a time they are as it were
possessed with seven devils, and the strength of man is vain against
them. They snap strong cords even as Samson did the Philistine withes.
Then--puff! Comes a breath of morning air chill from the Sierra, and
they are gone. They were--and they are not. The finger of God hath
touched them. So it was with this girl."

"I will follow you!" said Rollo, awe-stricken in spite of himself. "Tell
me what I am to do!"

The monk pressed his hand again to his brow a little wearily. "I fear,"
he said, "that it will fall to you to perform the greater part of the
work. For Brother Domingo, our good almoner, he of the merry
countenance, died of his fatigues early this morning, and the other two,
my brethren, are once more in the town bringing God to the dying!"

Instinctively Rollo removed his hat from his head.

"But," added the monk, "they dug the graves in holy ground before they
went!"

In silence Rollo permitted himself to be covered with an armour of
freshly tarred cloth, which was considered in Spain at that time to be
a complete prot