"In this case it's up to you, General," replied Kit. "I'm glad the responsibility is not mine. Even as it is, women who look like these are likely to walk through my dreams for many a night!"
Rotil gloomed at them, puzzled, frowning, and at times the flicker of a doubtful smile would change his face without lighting it. No one moved or spoke.
"Here!" he said at last, "this child and two women have spoken, but there are over twenty of you here. Three out of twenty is no vote--hold up your hands. Come, don't hang back, or you won't get Judas! There are no priests here, and no spies for priests, and there have been words enough. Show your hands!"
Kit looked back into the darkest corner, wondering what the vote of Jocasta would be; her mother was said to be Indian, or half Indian, and her hatred of the German would help her understand these darker tribal sisters.
But in the many lifted hands her own could not be seen and he felt curiously relieved, though it was no affair of his, and one vote either way would weigh nothing.
Rotil looked at the lifted hands, and grunted.
"You win, _muchacha_," he said to Tula. "I think you're the devil, and it's you made the women talk. You can come along to Soledad and fetch their Judas back to them."
"My thanks to you, and my service, Excellency," said Tula. "I will go and be glad that I go for that. But I swear by the Body and Blood, and I swear on this, that I only pay the debt of my people to El Aleman."
She was helping old Tia Tomasa to her feet with one hand, and held up the little crucifix to him with the other. She had noted that white people make oath on a cross when they want to be believed, and she wished with all her pagan heart to be believed by this man who had been a sort of legendary hero to her many months before she had seen his face, or dared hope he would ever grant favor to her--Tula!
But whatever effect she hoped to secure by emphasizing her oath on the Christian symbol, she was not prepared for the rough grasp on her arm, or the harsh command of his voice.
"Holy God!" he growled, "why do you thrust that in my face,--you?"
"Excellency--I--" began Tula, but he shook her as a cat would shake a mouse.
A note of warning flashed from some wireless across the girl's mind, for it was no little thing by which Ramon Rotil had suddenly become a growling tiger with his hand near her throat.