each
other down her wrinkled cheeks.

The litter had stopped. Padre Felipe helped me to my feet; but I turned
from him and threw my arms around Barbara's neck. She clung to me
desperately, her breath catching and her voice broken as she tried to
speak.

The friar took her by the shoulder roughly.

"She is worn out with tramping through the woods all night. It is no
wonder! But 'twas her own doing, for she would come; now she must keep
up or be left behind. We must reach shelter before the storm breaks in
earnest, for it will be no light one."

A heavier gust passed while he was speaking; there was a louder moan in
the tree-tops, and a broken branch crashed down at our very feet.

"Have we much farther to go?" I asked. He shook his head.

"About a league, perhaps?"

"Not more," was his reply.

"Then put the poor dame in the litter, and I will walk."

He looked intently at me. "Can you do it?"

"Better than she. I feel faint here," I added, laying my hand upon my
bosom, "but my limbs are young and strong and unwearied."

"You want food," was his brief comment; and, turning to the litter, he
drew out from a concealed pouch that was slung beneath it, a bottle of
water, and a loaf of bread, and gave me to drink and to eat. I took it
gladly, and Barbara did likewise. I thought, then, he would have taken
some himself; but he put by the remainder, saying he had no need of it,
and signed to the old woman to take her place in the litter, which was
then raised by two of his followers. The third went in advance to clear
away obstacles from the path, and we followed behind, I clinging to the
padre's arm.

He said no more to me, but the touch of his hand was not ungentle. I
marked how he led me over the smoothest ground, choosing the briars
himself, though his feet were bare, and shielding me with his arm from
the sharp blades of the dwarf palmettos that hedged the way.

As I walked beside him I could but marvel at the strange turns of Fate;
for now it seemed that I would owe my deliverance, in part, to one of
the very class I most hated as being the first cause of our captivity.
From time to time I glanced up at his dark, stern face, and wondered
whether, if I had not chanced to be his charge and under his sworn
protection, he could have found it in his heart to burn me for a
heretic!

CHAPTER XX.

The light grew ever stronger behind the hurrying clouds, but the deep
places in the forest held their shadow