His voice, coldly contemptuous at first, had risen to a wrathful shriek as he faced the American and hurled at him the exultance of the Teuton dream.
"I certainly am in great luck to be your one American confessor," grinned Kit, "but I'll postpone that trip as long as possible. I reckon General Rotil will let the padre help me make note of this education you are handing out to me. A lot of Americans need it! Have I your permission, General?"
"Go as far as you like," snapped Rotil. "They have used up their time limit in scolding like old women. Perez, I wait for the guns."
"Send me to Hermosillo and I will recover enough for a ransom," said Perez.
Rotil regarded him a moment through half-closed, sinister eyes.
"That was your last chance, and you threw it away. Chappo, strip him; Fidelio, fetch the branding irons."
Perez shrank back, staring at Rotil as if fascinated. He was striving to measure the lengths to which the "Hawk of the Sierras" would go, and a sudden gleam of hope came into his eyes as Padre Andreas held up a crucifix before Chappo, waving him aside.
"No, Rotil,--torture is a thing for animals, not men! Hell waits for the sinner who----"
"Hell won't wait for you one holy minute!" snapped Rotil. "Get back with the women where you belong; there is men's work to do here."
He caught the priest by the arm in an iron grip and whirled him towards the _sala_. The man would have fallen but for Kit who caught him, but could not save the crash of his head against the door. Blood streamed from a cut in his forehead, and thus he staggered into the room where Doña Jocasta stood, horror-stricken and poised for flight.
But the sight of the blood-stained priest, and the sound of a strange, half animal cry from the other room, turned her feet that way.
"No, Ramon! No-_no_!" she cried and sped through the door to fling herself between him and his victims.
Her arms were stretched wide and she halted, almost touching him, with her back to the chained man towards whom she had not glanced, but she could not help seeing the charcoal brazier with the red-hot branding irons held by Fidelio. The gasping cry had come from Conrad by whom the brazier was set.
Ramon Rotil stared at her, frowning as if he would fling her from his path as he had the priest.