Page:Gaston Leroux--The bride of the sun.djvu/187

Rh comrades with broken legs. The officer was being carried off, his skull fractured.

Just as this interlude ended, the Minister for War returned, still followed by the Marquis and Natividad.

"Well?" asked Garcia, closing the window.

"The Red Ponchos" replied the Minister, looking meaningly at his illustrious chief. "Oviedo Runtu quartered them there, and added a few soldiers to the guard. They leave to-morrow night for the Cuzco."

"What else?" Garcia was nervously twisting his mustache. "They know nothing of the young lady and the little boy."

"Excellency," burst in the Marquis, who could contain himself no longer, "you must have that house searched. I know they are in it. You cannot allow those scoundrels to go free! Your name would be tarnished for ever if you did such a thing! It would make you the accomplice of murderers!…. On you depend the life of my son, the only heir of a great name which in the past has always fought for civilization, side by side with yours, and of my daughter, whom you once loved."

The latter consideration might have had little effect on the Dictator, who did not believe in confusing love and politics, but the sentence