Page:The Valley of Adventure (1926).pdf/110

 ing man could have leaped and grappled the outlaw without getting a bullet in his eye if he had not been shrouded in a monk's disguise. Sebastian Alvitre did not expect to meet violence in that quarter; he had not looked for a monk to leap on him like a cougar and strip him at once of his dignity and his arms. Although it was a fortunate leap for that house, and all within it, Dominguez owned without reservation, it was almost certain to result in reprisals and acts of vindictive revenge which might not leave a rafter over his head.

Now this stranger with the barbarous speech on his tongue that only Padre Mateo, of all men, could understand, was riding boldly on Alvitre's horse, Alvitre's sword and pistols at his hand, and other pistols at his saddle-horn, to say nothing of the strange long rifle in the cart. Ten men might fall in the fiery rain this man could set loose from his hands without reloading a single pistol. Well, he would need all his pistols, and more, Dominguez thought with grave foreshadowing of disaster in his breast, when Alvitre and his men leaped out of the bosque and laid hold of the reins.

It was now midafternoon; the travelers had not come in sight on their return from the harbor, although they had been gone long enough, and time to spare. Dominguez feared that Alvitre already had taken his revenge.

Dominguez knew the story of John Miller, although he did not attempt to remember a name of such alien sound; Padre Mateo had told him, with-