"_Na_, Padre," they cried in tense excitement, "it is for the best! Go back to the hill! We will supply you with food and blankets--but you must not come here! Amado Sanchez is sick; Guillermo Hernandez is sick. Go back! You must not expose us!" The attitude of the frightened, desperate men was threatening. Josè saw that it would be unwise to resist them. "_Bien, compadres_, we will go," he said, his heart breaking with sorrow for these children of fear. Then, assembling his little family, he turned and retraced his steps sadly through the street that burned in lonely silence in the torrid heat. Carmen's eyes were big with wonder; but a happy idea soon drove all apprehension from her thought. "Padre!" she exclaimed, "we will live in the old church, and we will play house there!" She clapped her hands in merriment. "Never!" muttered Rosendo. "I will not enter that place! It would bring the plague upon me! _Na! na!_" he insisted, when they reached the steps, "do you go in if you wish; but I will stay outside in the shadow of the building." Nor would the combined entreaties of Carmen and Josè induce him to yield. Doña Maria calmly and silently prepared to remain with him. "Pull off the old door, Padre!" cried Carmen excitedly. "And open all the shutters. Look! Look, Padre! There goes the bad angel that padre Rosendo was afraid of!" A number of bats, startled at the noise and the sudden influx of light, were scurrying out through the open door. "Like the legion of demons which Jesus sent into the swine," said Josè. "I will tell you the story some day, _chiquita_," he said, in answer to her look of inquiry. The day passed quickly for the child, nor did she seem to cast another thought in the direction of the cloud which hung over the sorrowing town. At dusk, Mendoza and Cárdenas came to the foot of the hill with food and blankets. "Amado Sanchez has just died," they reported. "What!" cried Josè. "So soon? Why--he fell sick only yesterday!" "No, Padre, he had been ailing for many days--but it may have been the plague just the same. Perhaps it was with us before Feliz brought it. But we have not exposed ourselves to the disease and--Padre--there is not a man in Simití who will bury Amado. What shall we do?" Josè divined the man's thought. "_Bien, amigo_," he replied. "Go you back to your homes. To-night Rosendo and I will come and bury him." Josè had sent Carmen and Doña Maria beyond the church, that they might not hear the grewsome tidings. When the men had returned to their homes, the little band on the hilltop ate their evening meal in silence. Then a bench was swept clean for Carmen's bed, for she insisted on sleeping in the old church with Josè when she learned that he intended to pass the night there.