CHAPTER XIIITHE EAVESDROPPERWatching from the distance, Sergeant Cassara observed that the Indians of the rancho were leaving their adobe buildings in groups, and, instead of going into the fields to work, were hurrying down the slope toward a cañon.The neophyte who waited in front of the ranch-house mounted his mule after a time, and went toward the cañon himself, urging on his steed as soon as he was a short distance from the building, until the animal was running with head down, covering the ground with great leaps.Already the sergeant had seen the soldiers and Señor Lopez run into the ranch-house, and he was contented no longer to remain a hundred yards away and speculate as to what was transpiring. Sergeant Cassara was a man who enjoyed getting all his information at first hand.He put spurs to his horse, therefore, and galloped up the road to the ranch-house, to stop at the corner of the veranda and sit there on his mount for a moment, listening. He heard the low whimpering of a woman, and the excited voices of men, and finally dismounted and walked around the corner of the house, and so came to the patio.“So! There has been murder done here?” he exclaimed, after surveying the scene. “Are you all struck dumb and thoughtless? Why stand like so many statues and do nothing? By the saints, there seems to be not an ounce of decision amongst you all! You who call yourself Rojerio Rocha would do well, it seems to me, to carry theseñoritainto the house where she will not have to face this bloody scene when she comes from her faint. One of you troopers assist theseñora, also. And you, who are named Lopez, why not start in to investigate this matter?”“What can be done?” Lopez asked.“First, who are the victims?”“The overseers.”“They have been beating the Indians, I suppose, and some have taken revenge while the overseers took their siesta. A long siesta they are enjoying now! Get the bodies away, in the saints’ name! Help him, soldiers! And then it will be time to deal with the gentiles.”Lopez called for the house servants, but none answered. There was not an Indian woman near the place; no children played about the huts in the rear; and the men, of course, had gone toward the cañon. Sergeant Cassara stood at the end of the patio and sneered as Lopez began to realise these things.“This man who calls himself Rojerio Rocha and takes such a high hand with affairs evidently was not well informed as to conditions,” the sergeant suggested.“I asked him not to come to the rancho to-day,” Lopez returned, “but he would have it so.”“He insisted, eh?”“Si, señor.”“But why bring the ladies into danger? Do they not have brains at the mission in these days?”“He insisted, also, that the ladies make the journey.”“Ah! He did? Well, the thing that appeals most to me now is for you to start your carreta back toward the mission as soon as possible, and make as good time as you can getting there. The ladies will have to get over their fright first, of course. I do not like the air hereabouts—it smells rank of conspiracy and murder.”“I agree with you,señor,” Lopez admitted.“And while we are waiting for these same ladies to settle their nerves, why not round up some of these gentiles and propound a few leading questions? Perhaps we can beat an answer or two out of the dogs.”“As soon as Señor Rocha returns from the house, sergeant. He is master here now, and must supervise this business. I do not care to make a move without his permission.”“You do not, eh? I am an independent being, thank the good saints! I suggest you prepare the carreta for the return journey, while I ride after these gentiles I saw sneaking down into the cañon, and see what can be discovered. You may follow later if this Señor Rocha is kind enough to allow you to do so.”The face of Lopez flushed at the sergeant’s tone, for Cassara was not careful to refrain from expressing his contempt for a man who would await the permission of another in such business. He ran to his horse, sprang to the saddle and galloped down the slope, leaving Lopez to glare after him. He did not follow the trail takenby the Indians, however, but rode far to the right and circled a butte, and so approached the cañon from the opposite side, warily, stopping his horse now and then to listen.After a time he dismounted and crept forward, dodging from rock to rock, bush to bush, until he reached the edge of a precipice and found the floor of the cañon stretched far below him.He saw an Indian camp where fully half a thousand warriors had gathered. They seemed to feel secure in their strength, for they made no attempt at secrecy now. Some were dancing about their fires, others were donning war paint, others guarded a herd of ponies. The Santa Barbara neophyte was talking to a throng of them, throwing out his arms in passionate gesture, and his hearers shrieked their approval.“This looks like a bad business,” Sergeant Cassara admitted to himself. “So Fly-by-Night did not tell an untruth, eh? What object the rogue can have in betraying his poor dupes is more than I can fathom. To-morrow night they will attack, he said. I wonder if that is the truth, too?”For several minutes he watched the camp, trying to estimate the number of men there, and to see what they possessed in the way of weapons, gathering information that would be of value to thecomandante. He got up from the ground to make his retreat then, and in so doing glanced across the cañon to the slope beyond.Señor Lopez and the four troopers were galloping toward the cañon.Two ideas flashed through the sergeant’s brain—thatLopez and the soldiers were riding unexpectedly into great danger, and that they had left the two women and Rojerio Rocha alone at the ranch-house.There was not time for him to reach his horse and ride to intercept them, to warn them of their danger. To screech an alarm would avail nothing—it was doubtful if the others would hear, and if the Indians heard they would guess someone approached and prepare for the meeting. It would be worse than useless for him to charge down the side of the hill, if trouble came, and attempt to aid the others—such a course would be suicide in the face of such a throng; and Sergeant Cassara was a good enough soldier to realise his duty to his comrades and superiors, to realise that it was for him to carry an alarm to mission and presidio.Helpless to warn or aid, he crouched behind the rocks at the top of the hill and watched the drama unfold below him. Lopez and the troopers reached the crest of the hill and dashed down toward the cañon proper. Cassara saw an Indian sentinel flash a warning back to the others. A few commands, and the dancing around the fires stopped, and gentiles crept up the slope, dodging behind shrubs and rocks, weapons in their hands.With Lopez in the lead, the little cavalcade swept around the end of the butte and into the cañon, into the midst of a swarm of half-frenzied natives, and stopped with gentiles grasping at the bridles. Cassara could hear Lopez shrieking something above the din, saw the troopers draw sabres, rein back their horses, and try to clear a space around them. The Indianscrowded forward, menacing, screeching their cries, more and more of them gathering about the five riders, until only the heads of the mounted men could be seen above the horde.Striking with their sabres, the troopers were trying to clear a space in which to wheel their horses and retreat. An arrow flew from the side of the hill—a trooper reeled in his saddle and fell over his horse’s neck, and a chorus of shrieks arose at this first blood.The troopers drew their pistols and, firing in the faces of the savages nearest; several Indians fell; and then the riders were the centre of a maelstrom of raging, fighting, bloodthirsty gentiles and neophytes who fought with one another to pull the troopers from their horses, to lay hands on the manager of the Fernandez rancho, a man many of them had reason to hate.“It is the beginning,” Sergeant Cassara heard himself muttering.He closed his eyes for an instant, for it is one thing to be in the centre of a savage combat and quite another to view one at close range and yet have no part in it, and when he opened them again the Indians had scattered, the five horses were running wild with gentiles trying to capture them for the loot of silver-chased saddles they presented, and on the floor of the cañon were five mutilated things that so short a time before had been men.Now the Indians were dancing about their fires again, this first small victory having added to their frenzy, and their shrieks could be heard a great distance. Cassara knew his duty now—to mount and ride, to reach theranch-house and aid in saving the women there, if he could; to continue to the mission and spread the alarm, and have those soldiers seeking Captain Fly-by-Night recalled from the hills before they were cut off one by one and slaughtered.He saw the Santa Barbara neophyte mount his mule again, and heard him shrieking at the others, though he could not catch the words. He started to slip away, back from the edge of the precipice to his horse, and as he got upon his feet he saw another horseman galloping from the ranch-house toward the cañon.Loud curses came from the throat of Sergeant Cassara then, curses at what he considered the man’s foolishness, for the rider was Rojerio Rocha.“The fool has left the women alone!” he gasped. “By all the saints, I’d like to run him through for the worthless, senseless thing he is! Let them alone in the ranch-house, he has, and rides toward danger like an imbecile! Can’t he hear those yells, the fool? Can’t he tell something is wrong?”Crashing through the brush, stumbling over the rocks, Cassara rushed toward his horse and vaulted into the saddle. His spurs raked the beast’s sides cruelly; with a snort of pain and surprise the animal ran wildly around the butte, sending showers of gravel down into the cañon. The sergeant bent low and gripped the reins, lifting the horse in its great jumps. On and on he rode, circling the knoll so as to approach the house from the opposite side.He came within view of it—and pulled up his mount sharply. He was too late. Rojerio Rocha was in thecentre of a horde of shrieking Indians. They did not pull him from his horse, and they seemed to be making no effort to attack him. But they had turned the animal’s head, and fully two hundred of them were rushing it back toward the houses running alongside, some mounted on ponies and some afoot. In an instant Cassara had judged distance. The Indians were within fifty yards of the adobe buildings, within one hundred yards of the house. And he was fully three hundred yards away.Sergeant Cassara hesitated a moment. He never knew fear, and was not the sort of man to surrender another man and two women to a savage band without making an effort to rescue them, even if it was certain he would die in the attempt.But he could not save these people, he knew, and would only lose his own life. And if he died in the patio of the ranch-house at the hands of frenzied gentiles who hated the uniform he wore, there would be none to carry the alarm to the mission.And now the throng had reached the house and rushed into the patio, Rojerio Rocha still mounted on his horse. A bedlam of shrieks and screams assailed the sergeant’s ears. He thought of the two women who had ridden out in the carreta—the dignifiedseñora, the dimplingseñorita—and cursed the man whose obstinacy had brought them there.“Torture—and worse!” he exclaimed. “May the saints see that this Rojerio Rocha suffers thrice for every bit of pain those women are caused!”And then he wheeled his horse, sent home the spurs, and dashed down the road toward the distant mission.Thecomandante, back from his fruitless search of the hills for Captain Fly-by-Night, saw the flying horse in the distance, caught the glint of sun from the sergeant’s sword and called to his soldiers. Frailes ran to the end of the adobe wall to watch the approaching horseman.Less than twenty neophytes remained at the mission now—all day they had been sneaking away one at a time and hurrying to the camp on the rancho—and of those who remained it was a question which were loyal.“’Tis our famous sergeant from Santa Barbara!” thecomandantecried. “He rides like that because the matter is urgent, you may be sure.”The foam-flecked horse stopped at the end of the wall with forefeet in the air as the sergeant swung himself backward in the saddle and sprang to the ground. Even as his feet struck the turf his hand snapped to his cap in salute. He was breathing heavily, but he was a soldier of experience, and did not shout his news aloud like a frightened child.“Something of moment to report,comandante,” he said.Thecomandantedrew himself up and returned the salute—he was a soldier of experience, too.“Regarding hostiles?” he asked, while the frailes hung on his words.“Regarding hostiles,señor.”“Follow me to the guest house, sergeant; you cangive me your report there. Have one of the men attend to your horse. Is it of a military nature only, or should the frailes hear?”“They can hear it,comandante.”They crossed the plaza, the lieutenant leading the way. There was no haste in their manner. If there were disloyal neophytes about, they would learn nothing from the way in which these soldiers conducted themselves. Behind the lieutenant and sergeant walked four frailes, their heads hanging, sensing what they were to hear. Another fray remained in the plaza, and every neophyte there knew he was being watched.The lieutenant threw open the door of the guest house, and they entered, and the door was closed again. The frailes stood against the wall in a row awaiting the blow they expected. Thecomandantethrew back his shoulders and took a deep breath, and snapped out his order:“Report, sergeant!”“Five hundred or more hostiles are camped on the Fernandez rancho. They are dancing and putting on their paint. I followed when Señor Lopez and Rojerio Rocha took the women there. Four troopers escorted them.”“I am aware of that.”“Two rancho overseers were found knifed. I made an investigation and found the hostile camp. Lopez and the four soldiers rode into the cañon where the camp is located and were slain——”“All?”“All,” said Cassara.“The others?”“Señor Rocha rode toward the cañon as I was starting to return to the house to make an attempt to rescue the women. The hostiles seized him and took him back to the house. Before I could cover the distance they were in the patio—fully two hundred of them. I knew it would be useless to attempt a rescue then, so rode to report.”“And the women——”“Were in the house,comandante!” Sergeant Cassara said.The frailes groaned and bowed their heads in resignation. Further explanation was not needed. They realised the situation fully; such situations had been met by frailes since the sainted Serra first set foot in California and began his great work of creating the mission chain.“There remains one thing to do, then—prepare for defence,” thecomandantesaid. “We have twenty soldiers, eight frailes, about a score of neophytes believed to be loyal, and half a dozen ranchers who happen to be in the mission. Ensign Sanchez and his squad from Santa Barbara should be here in the morning. The squad is a small one, but every man is a man in such times. At least, we can put up a pretty battle. If we can hold out until the Governor arrives”—a pause—“Hah! Five or more to one, eh? How like you the odds, sergeant? Frailes, you know your duties, I believe. If you feel like hesitating in the work of preparing for carnage, remember those two women!”But they were fighting priests, those men. Theexpressions that came into their faces now were not such as come into the countenances of cowards and weaklings. Their gowns remained, but beneath them the priests had been transformed into soldiers in an instant of time. They passed before the lieutenant and sergeant, walked to the door, opened it and went out, each to do what he could in the plan for defence.Thecomandanteand Sergeant Cassara faced each other for an instant, like men who understand without resorting to words, then Sergeant Cassara saluted and followed the frailes out of the guest house and into the plaza.And back of the fireplace, against the guest house wall in the old tunnel, crouched Captain Fly-by-Night, who had heard all that had been said; who remembered a proud, flushed face, a dimple, two snapping black eyes, a voice so sweet and low that it struck to the heart like the breath of a song—and who prayed now that the black night would come quickly!
Watching from the distance, Sergeant Cassara observed that the Indians of the rancho were leaving their adobe buildings in groups, and, instead of going into the fields to work, were hurrying down the slope toward a cañon.
The neophyte who waited in front of the ranch-house mounted his mule after a time, and went toward the cañon himself, urging on his steed as soon as he was a short distance from the building, until the animal was running with head down, covering the ground with great leaps.
Already the sergeant had seen the soldiers and Señor Lopez run into the ranch-house, and he was contented no longer to remain a hundred yards away and speculate as to what was transpiring. Sergeant Cassara was a man who enjoyed getting all his information at first hand.
He put spurs to his horse, therefore, and galloped up the road to the ranch-house, to stop at the corner of the veranda and sit there on his mount for a moment, listening. He heard the low whimpering of a woman, and the excited voices of men, and finally dismounted and walked around the corner of the house, and so came to the patio.
“So! There has been murder done here?” he exclaimed, after surveying the scene. “Are you all struck dumb and thoughtless? Why stand like so many statues and do nothing? By the saints, there seems to be not an ounce of decision amongst you all! You who call yourself Rojerio Rocha would do well, it seems to me, to carry theseñoritainto the house where she will not have to face this bloody scene when she comes from her faint. One of you troopers assist theseñora, also. And you, who are named Lopez, why not start in to investigate this matter?”
“What can be done?” Lopez asked.
“First, who are the victims?”
“The overseers.”
“They have been beating the Indians, I suppose, and some have taken revenge while the overseers took their siesta. A long siesta they are enjoying now! Get the bodies away, in the saints’ name! Help him, soldiers! And then it will be time to deal with the gentiles.”
Lopez called for the house servants, but none answered. There was not an Indian woman near the place; no children played about the huts in the rear; and the men, of course, had gone toward the cañon. Sergeant Cassara stood at the end of the patio and sneered as Lopez began to realise these things.
“This man who calls himself Rojerio Rocha and takes such a high hand with affairs evidently was not well informed as to conditions,” the sergeant suggested.
“I asked him not to come to the rancho to-day,” Lopez returned, “but he would have it so.”
“He insisted, eh?”
“Si, señor.”
“But why bring the ladies into danger? Do they not have brains at the mission in these days?”
“He insisted, also, that the ladies make the journey.”
“Ah! He did? Well, the thing that appeals most to me now is for you to start your carreta back toward the mission as soon as possible, and make as good time as you can getting there. The ladies will have to get over their fright first, of course. I do not like the air hereabouts—it smells rank of conspiracy and murder.”
“I agree with you,señor,” Lopez admitted.
“And while we are waiting for these same ladies to settle their nerves, why not round up some of these gentiles and propound a few leading questions? Perhaps we can beat an answer or two out of the dogs.”
“As soon as Señor Rocha returns from the house, sergeant. He is master here now, and must supervise this business. I do not care to make a move without his permission.”
“You do not, eh? I am an independent being, thank the good saints! I suggest you prepare the carreta for the return journey, while I ride after these gentiles I saw sneaking down into the cañon, and see what can be discovered. You may follow later if this Señor Rocha is kind enough to allow you to do so.”
The face of Lopez flushed at the sergeant’s tone, for Cassara was not careful to refrain from expressing his contempt for a man who would await the permission of another in such business. He ran to his horse, sprang to the saddle and galloped down the slope, leaving Lopez to glare after him. He did not follow the trail takenby the Indians, however, but rode far to the right and circled a butte, and so approached the cañon from the opposite side, warily, stopping his horse now and then to listen.
After a time he dismounted and crept forward, dodging from rock to rock, bush to bush, until he reached the edge of a precipice and found the floor of the cañon stretched far below him.
He saw an Indian camp where fully half a thousand warriors had gathered. They seemed to feel secure in their strength, for they made no attempt at secrecy now. Some were dancing about their fires, others were donning war paint, others guarded a herd of ponies. The Santa Barbara neophyte was talking to a throng of them, throwing out his arms in passionate gesture, and his hearers shrieked their approval.
“This looks like a bad business,” Sergeant Cassara admitted to himself. “So Fly-by-Night did not tell an untruth, eh? What object the rogue can have in betraying his poor dupes is more than I can fathom. To-morrow night they will attack, he said. I wonder if that is the truth, too?”
For several minutes he watched the camp, trying to estimate the number of men there, and to see what they possessed in the way of weapons, gathering information that would be of value to thecomandante. He got up from the ground to make his retreat then, and in so doing glanced across the cañon to the slope beyond.
Señor Lopez and the four troopers were galloping toward the cañon.
Two ideas flashed through the sergeant’s brain—thatLopez and the soldiers were riding unexpectedly into great danger, and that they had left the two women and Rojerio Rocha alone at the ranch-house.
There was not time for him to reach his horse and ride to intercept them, to warn them of their danger. To screech an alarm would avail nothing—it was doubtful if the others would hear, and if the Indians heard they would guess someone approached and prepare for the meeting. It would be worse than useless for him to charge down the side of the hill, if trouble came, and attempt to aid the others—such a course would be suicide in the face of such a throng; and Sergeant Cassara was a good enough soldier to realise his duty to his comrades and superiors, to realise that it was for him to carry an alarm to mission and presidio.
Helpless to warn or aid, he crouched behind the rocks at the top of the hill and watched the drama unfold below him. Lopez and the troopers reached the crest of the hill and dashed down toward the cañon proper. Cassara saw an Indian sentinel flash a warning back to the others. A few commands, and the dancing around the fires stopped, and gentiles crept up the slope, dodging behind shrubs and rocks, weapons in their hands.
With Lopez in the lead, the little cavalcade swept around the end of the butte and into the cañon, into the midst of a swarm of half-frenzied natives, and stopped with gentiles grasping at the bridles. Cassara could hear Lopez shrieking something above the din, saw the troopers draw sabres, rein back their horses, and try to clear a space around them. The Indianscrowded forward, menacing, screeching their cries, more and more of them gathering about the five riders, until only the heads of the mounted men could be seen above the horde.
Striking with their sabres, the troopers were trying to clear a space in which to wheel their horses and retreat. An arrow flew from the side of the hill—a trooper reeled in his saddle and fell over his horse’s neck, and a chorus of shrieks arose at this first blood.
The troopers drew their pistols and, firing in the faces of the savages nearest; several Indians fell; and then the riders were the centre of a maelstrom of raging, fighting, bloodthirsty gentiles and neophytes who fought with one another to pull the troopers from their horses, to lay hands on the manager of the Fernandez rancho, a man many of them had reason to hate.
“It is the beginning,” Sergeant Cassara heard himself muttering.
He closed his eyes for an instant, for it is one thing to be in the centre of a savage combat and quite another to view one at close range and yet have no part in it, and when he opened them again the Indians had scattered, the five horses were running wild with gentiles trying to capture them for the loot of silver-chased saddles they presented, and on the floor of the cañon were five mutilated things that so short a time before had been men.
Now the Indians were dancing about their fires again, this first small victory having added to their frenzy, and their shrieks could be heard a great distance. Cassara knew his duty now—to mount and ride, to reach theranch-house and aid in saving the women there, if he could; to continue to the mission and spread the alarm, and have those soldiers seeking Captain Fly-by-Night recalled from the hills before they were cut off one by one and slaughtered.
He saw the Santa Barbara neophyte mount his mule again, and heard him shrieking at the others, though he could not catch the words. He started to slip away, back from the edge of the precipice to his horse, and as he got upon his feet he saw another horseman galloping from the ranch-house toward the cañon.
Loud curses came from the throat of Sergeant Cassara then, curses at what he considered the man’s foolishness, for the rider was Rojerio Rocha.
“The fool has left the women alone!” he gasped. “By all the saints, I’d like to run him through for the worthless, senseless thing he is! Let them alone in the ranch-house, he has, and rides toward danger like an imbecile! Can’t he hear those yells, the fool? Can’t he tell something is wrong?”
Crashing through the brush, stumbling over the rocks, Cassara rushed toward his horse and vaulted into the saddle. His spurs raked the beast’s sides cruelly; with a snort of pain and surprise the animal ran wildly around the butte, sending showers of gravel down into the cañon. The sergeant bent low and gripped the reins, lifting the horse in its great jumps. On and on he rode, circling the knoll so as to approach the house from the opposite side.
He came within view of it—and pulled up his mount sharply. He was too late. Rojerio Rocha was in thecentre of a horde of shrieking Indians. They did not pull him from his horse, and they seemed to be making no effort to attack him. But they had turned the animal’s head, and fully two hundred of them were rushing it back toward the houses running alongside, some mounted on ponies and some afoot. In an instant Cassara had judged distance. The Indians were within fifty yards of the adobe buildings, within one hundred yards of the house. And he was fully three hundred yards away.
Sergeant Cassara hesitated a moment. He never knew fear, and was not the sort of man to surrender another man and two women to a savage band without making an effort to rescue them, even if it was certain he would die in the attempt.
But he could not save these people, he knew, and would only lose his own life. And if he died in the patio of the ranch-house at the hands of frenzied gentiles who hated the uniform he wore, there would be none to carry the alarm to the mission.
And now the throng had reached the house and rushed into the patio, Rojerio Rocha still mounted on his horse. A bedlam of shrieks and screams assailed the sergeant’s ears. He thought of the two women who had ridden out in the carreta—the dignifiedseñora, the dimplingseñorita—and cursed the man whose obstinacy had brought them there.
“Torture—and worse!” he exclaimed. “May the saints see that this Rojerio Rocha suffers thrice for every bit of pain those women are caused!”
And then he wheeled his horse, sent home the spurs, and dashed down the road toward the distant mission.
Thecomandante, back from his fruitless search of the hills for Captain Fly-by-Night, saw the flying horse in the distance, caught the glint of sun from the sergeant’s sword and called to his soldiers. Frailes ran to the end of the adobe wall to watch the approaching horseman.
Less than twenty neophytes remained at the mission now—all day they had been sneaking away one at a time and hurrying to the camp on the rancho—and of those who remained it was a question which were loyal.
“’Tis our famous sergeant from Santa Barbara!” thecomandantecried. “He rides like that because the matter is urgent, you may be sure.”
The foam-flecked horse stopped at the end of the wall with forefeet in the air as the sergeant swung himself backward in the saddle and sprang to the ground. Even as his feet struck the turf his hand snapped to his cap in salute. He was breathing heavily, but he was a soldier of experience, and did not shout his news aloud like a frightened child.
“Something of moment to report,comandante,” he said.
Thecomandantedrew himself up and returned the salute—he was a soldier of experience, too.
“Regarding hostiles?” he asked, while the frailes hung on his words.
“Regarding hostiles,señor.”
“Follow me to the guest house, sergeant; you cangive me your report there. Have one of the men attend to your horse. Is it of a military nature only, or should the frailes hear?”
“They can hear it,comandante.”
They crossed the plaza, the lieutenant leading the way. There was no haste in their manner. If there were disloyal neophytes about, they would learn nothing from the way in which these soldiers conducted themselves. Behind the lieutenant and sergeant walked four frailes, their heads hanging, sensing what they were to hear. Another fray remained in the plaza, and every neophyte there knew he was being watched.
The lieutenant threw open the door of the guest house, and they entered, and the door was closed again. The frailes stood against the wall in a row awaiting the blow they expected. Thecomandantethrew back his shoulders and took a deep breath, and snapped out his order:
“Report, sergeant!”
“Five hundred or more hostiles are camped on the Fernandez rancho. They are dancing and putting on their paint. I followed when Señor Lopez and Rojerio Rocha took the women there. Four troopers escorted them.”
“I am aware of that.”
“Two rancho overseers were found knifed. I made an investigation and found the hostile camp. Lopez and the four soldiers rode into the cañon where the camp is located and were slain——”
“All?”
“All,” said Cassara.
“The others?”
“Señor Rocha rode toward the cañon as I was starting to return to the house to make an attempt to rescue the women. The hostiles seized him and took him back to the house. Before I could cover the distance they were in the patio—fully two hundred of them. I knew it would be useless to attempt a rescue then, so rode to report.”
“And the women——”
“Were in the house,comandante!” Sergeant Cassara said.
The frailes groaned and bowed their heads in resignation. Further explanation was not needed. They realised the situation fully; such situations had been met by frailes since the sainted Serra first set foot in California and began his great work of creating the mission chain.
“There remains one thing to do, then—prepare for defence,” thecomandantesaid. “We have twenty soldiers, eight frailes, about a score of neophytes believed to be loyal, and half a dozen ranchers who happen to be in the mission. Ensign Sanchez and his squad from Santa Barbara should be here in the morning. The squad is a small one, but every man is a man in such times. At least, we can put up a pretty battle. If we can hold out until the Governor arrives”—a pause—“Hah! Five or more to one, eh? How like you the odds, sergeant? Frailes, you know your duties, I believe. If you feel like hesitating in the work of preparing for carnage, remember those two women!”
But they were fighting priests, those men. Theexpressions that came into their faces now were not such as come into the countenances of cowards and weaklings. Their gowns remained, but beneath them the priests had been transformed into soldiers in an instant of time. They passed before the lieutenant and sergeant, walked to the door, opened it and went out, each to do what he could in the plan for defence.
Thecomandanteand Sergeant Cassara faced each other for an instant, like men who understand without resorting to words, then Sergeant Cassara saluted and followed the frailes out of the guest house and into the plaza.
And back of the fireplace, against the guest house wall in the old tunnel, crouched Captain Fly-by-Night, who had heard all that had been said; who remembered a proud, flushed face, a dimple, two snapping black eyes, a voice so sweet and low that it struck to the heart like the breath of a song—and who prayed now that the black night would come quickly!