After the first staggering blow from the stranger's horse, some of the stronger spirits rallied, and lunged forward to drag the woman from her rescuer, while others lashed his horse that it might become uncontrollable. Two able-bodied wenches held on like grim death, despite the quirt which he brought down across their shoulders again and again, while he held the horse and Polonia with one arm. The animal, between the lashing of the mob and the roaring of the flames, was leaping madly, and the rider had all he could do to control its terror. Any moment a shot, or a club, or a stone thrown at his own head might give them two victims instead of one. That was Juanita's one wild fear. She screamed for Ana with the pistol, but Ana had sunk down, white and trembling on the doorstep, as she saw a black form suddenly appear in the midst of the howling mob of savages. An instant she saw him on the outer edge of the leaping, struggling circle, and the next he was by the head of the horse, and a strong arm struck right and left until there was space enough to show he was a bronzed, bearded man in a priest's habit. "Back to your kennels, dogs!" he cried, sharply. "Since when have ye dared strike at gentlemen? On your knees, every one of you! On your knees!" The younger girls and children dropped in the dust, but some of the older were less willing to give up. "She is a witch, father; she is killing a woman," cried one; "it is right a devil be put in the fire!" "Then how hot must the fire be made when your day comes!" he replied, and raised his hand and spoke slowly, solemnly, "Thrice heated will that fire be for the thrice-accursed! To your knees, in the name of God!" With sullen, shamed, disappointed faces, they obeyed. A white man who is a stranger they dared attack, if enough of them were together, but not a priest--a priest who could hit hard enough to knock a bull down. "That was a close shave, padre," observed the American, with a breath of relief. "They had this poor old wretch almost pulled in two--will you take her?" The priest made a step forward, and then halted and smiled, as in vague perplexity. "I have not the pleasure of understanding English," he said, gently. Ana arose and came forward; she was still very pale and still trembling; she looked at the priest and tried to speak, but the words were smothered in a half sob. "My daughter," he said, quietly, "take courage." Then he glanced at the pistol still in her hand. "It was you who fired? That was right. I was on the hill in the edge of the wood, and it is well you sent that warning. Your American friend said--?" "Oh, I speak a little Spanish too," remarked Bryton, in that tongue; "it is the woman with the tied hands I wanted you to take." The padre did so, untying the rope deftly, and steadying her wavering figure, while Bryton slipped from the saddle, and spoke to Juanita, who had the one welcoming face he had seen.