"You young devil!" he grinned. "I wish you were a boy. Here, you men help me, or get me a crutch. I will see these women on their knees, and if you don't lie----"
With the help of Fidelio and a cane, he started very well, and nodded to Kit.
"You pick well, amigo," he observed. "She is a wildcat, and of interest. Come you and see. _Por Dios!_ I've seen a crucifixion of the Penitentes and helped dig the hidden grave. Also I have heard of the 'Judas' death on Holy Friday, but never before this has so young a woman creature picked a man for it,--a man alive! Courage of the devil!"
Tula arose, and went before them across the plaza to the door of the chapel. Kit knew this was the right moment for him to disappear and get the black mare back of the wall, but Rotil kept chuckling to him over the ungirlish request, and so pointedly included him in the party that there seemed no excuse available for absenting himself.
A flush of rose swept upward to the zenith heralding the sun, but in the adobe room, with its door to the west, no light came, except by dim reflection, and as Tula entered and the men stood at the threshold, they blocked the doorway of even that reflection, and the candle at the saint's shrine shone dimly over the bent heads of the kneeling women.
Rotil stood looking about questioningly; he had not expected to see so many. Then at the sound of the click of the prayer beads, some recollection of some past caused him to automatically remove his wide-brimmed hat.
"Mothers," said Tula quietly, "the Deliverer has come."
There was a half-frightened gasp, and dark faces turned toward the door.
"He comes as I told you, because I am no one by myself, and he could not know I was sent by you. I am not anyone among people, and he does not believe. Only people of importance should speak with a soldier who is a general."
"No, _por Dios_, my boy, you speak well!" said Rotil, clapping his hand on her shoulder, "but your years are not many and it cannot be you know the thing you ask for."
"I know it," asserted Tula with finality.
An old woman got up stiffly, and came towards him. "We are very poor, yet even our children are robbed from us--that is why we pray. Don Ramon, your mother was simple as we, and had heart for the poor. Our lives are wasted for the masters, and our women children are stolen for the sons of masters. That is done, and we wish they may find ways to kill themselves on the trail. But the man who drove them with whips is now your man--and we mothers ask him of you."