Page:The Valley of Adventure (1926).pdf/134

 do it here, at the very door of the mission, to defy and humiliate Padre Ignacio, to work your mean spite against him in this manner, worm of a soldier that you are!"

"Bind him!" Captain del Valle commanded his men, a threat of terrible discipline in his scowl.

"Let me plead for him, brave captain," Gertrudis appealed, standing pale and wistful in the cart's end.

"It cannot be, miss, or madam," Captain del Valle replied. His pistol was pointed at Juan Molinero's heart; the soldiers, trembling, white and cold with fear, came forward with ropes to bind the prisoner's hands.

"There is no harm in him, he is gentle in word and thought," Gertrudis pleaded, "and only two nights past he grappled an armed outlaw with his bare hands when he threatened the lives of a citizen and his family. See—that is the outlaw's horse; his pistols are here, in this gallant gentleman's belt."

"It is nothing to me, lady," Captain del Valle said.

"But you—he spared you"

"Ha! God save her! She falls!" Padre Ignacio cried, leaping in vain endeavor to assist Gertrudis who, in her earnestness seeming to forget where she stood, had stepped from the cart-end and fallen to the ground.

She lay as if insensible, her cheek in the dust,