Page:Under three flags; a story of mystery (IA underthreeflagss00tayliala).pdf/285

 here," admonishes Father Hilario. "Is there aught I can do for thee, my son?"

Ashley forces a tranquillity of mind that he little feels. "How came you to learn of the senorita's imprisonment?" he asks.

"I was returning from a midnight summons to a death-*bed and had nearly reached my house when Captain Huerta and his men entered the town, escorting a volante. Suddenly the party were attacked in the darkness."

"By Huerta's own men?"

"That was doubtless part of the plot. The two women in the volante were separated. The senorita was borne fainting into the church and then quietness reigned again. I lingered about the scene, and was a witness of your arrest not many minutes afterward. I begged permission to see you, and the carcelero, in granting it, bade me roughly to tell you that you die on the morrow."

"A merry knave," remarks Ashley. "Well, father, you can be of great service to me. Will you not bear a message from me to General Truenos? Or, no; hang Truenos. To General Murillo, then. You know him. My detention here is without his knowledge, of that I am assured. It is a vile outrage that he would not brook."

The priest shakes his head. "It would be useless," he says. "From the instant I leave this place I shall be watched, shadowed every step of the way to my house. An attempt to leave Santos would be at once frustrated."

"You believe so?"

"I am positive of it."

"But the senorita. Can you communicate with her."

"Ay; and without the knowledge of Captain Huerta."

"You can?" cries Ashley, eagerly. "But you said you would be watched."

"Ah," says the priest, with a faint smile, "there is an entrance to the church that Captain Huerta knows not of—an entrance from my house through the little garden intervening."

"Good. Excellently good," remarks Ashley, into whose active brain has flashed an inspiration. "Father