"Mine is a thankless task, señora, but the general decided you are the best keeper of this," and he gave to her the scribbled page torn from a note book.
She took it and held it unread, looking at him with dark tragic eyes.
"I have fear of written words, señor, and would rather hear them spoken. So many changes have come that I dread new changes. No matter where my cage is moved, it is still a cage to me," she said wistfully.
"I've a hunch, Doña Jocasta, that the bars of that cage are going to be broken for you," ventured Kit, taking the seat she indicated, "and this note may be one of the weapons to do it. Evidently Señor Perez has had some mistaken information concerning the stealing of you from here;--he thought it was by the general's order. So mistaken was he that he thought you were the object of Rotil's raid on Soledad, and for his own freedom he has offered to give you, and half his stock of ammunition, to General Ramon Rotil, and agree to a truce between their factions."
"Ah! he offers to make gift of me to the man he hates," she said after a long silence. "And the guns and ammunition,--he also surrenders them?"
"He offers--but it is written here! Since the guns, however, have been taken south, he cannot give them; he can only promise them, until such time----"
"Ho!" she said scornfully. "Is that the tale he tells? It is true there are guns in the south, but guns are also elsewhere! He forgets, does José Perez,--or else he plays for time. This offer," and she referred to the note, "it is not written since we arrived--no. It was written earlier, when he thought I was held by that renegade far in the desert."
"I reckon that is true, señora, for after receiving it, Rotil had him chained in a room fronting the plaza that he might see you enter Soledad with honors."
"Ramon Rotil did that?" she mused, looking at the note thoughtfully, "and he gives to me the evidence against José? Señor, in the Perez lands we hear only evil things and very different things about Rotil. They would say this paper was for sale, but not for a gift. And--he gives it to me!"
Kit also remembered different things and evil things told of Rotil, but they were not for discussion with a lady. He had wondered a bit that it was not the padre who was given the message to transmit, yet suddenly he realized that even the padre might have tried to make it a question of barter, for the padre wanted help for his priestly office in the saving of Perez' soul, and incidentally of his life.