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 Borromeo rushed past Padre Ignacio and into the church.

"To the altar, Juan! to the altar! the soldiers are upon you!" the blacksmith shouted, his great voice roaring in the empty church, coming back in shattered echoes from the choir loft and stately gables.

Padre Ignacio hastened after Borromeo; two troopers dismounted at the captain's command and entered through the vestry door.

There was neither bench nor pew, nor cushion to kneel upon at prayer, in the spacious interior of San Fernando church. The white plastered walls, the soft red tiles of the floor, clean as devoted care could make them, lent an atmosphere of purity and sanctity to the place. Its very emptiness seemed to accentuate its consecration to holy purposes, to lofty meditation, to heaven-aspiring prayer.

The boots of Sergeant Olivera and his men—two at his back, two keeping the door—were loud on the tiles before Borromeo's warning was hurled among the beams. Juan and Gertrudis were standing before the altar, his hands clasping hers as when he had reached to lift her. She shrank against him in terror of the soldiers, their defiance of that sanctuary, the sudden violence in their peaceful hour.

"Stand!" Sergeant Olivera commanded, advancing with drawn sabre.

"The soldiers!" said Gertrudis weakly, clinging in stifling fright to Juan's supporting hands. "Leave me, Juan—fly!"