Henderson looked behind him. They were only a little way from the tree where the girl trembled among the leaves, fearful of losing the good name that was more to her than life; not far from the long tables spread under the trees before the mansion, from which the laughter and clatter of those who fed around them came clearly. "Why do you hesitate, little Gabriel?" Roberto asked impatiently. "The shoe, and be forgiven." [Illustration] "Damn your generosity!" Henderson replied. The weight of his body was behind the blow that he struck Roberto under the ear. Roberto fell as limp as wet leather, for the iron of salt-horse and hardtack, and months of disciplinary labor, was in that blow. Roberto's fine ruffled shirt made the gag that stopped his mouth, his silk necktie the bond for his hands; the sleeves of his shirt served well to secure his feet. And there the sailor left him, stretched behind the trunk of a great oak, his overfed heart fluttering like a moth caught in wax. "Quick--your foot!" Henderson whispered, mounting the seat encircling the tree-trunk where Don Roberto's betrothed prayed softly for deliverance among the leaves. "You haven't killed him, Don Gabriel?" she asked. She clambered down from her higher perch as she spoke, leaning to lay her hand on his shoulder. He felt the tremor of her body, the dread anxiety of her low-spoken word. "He'll be ready for the wedding tomorrow, Miss Sprague, if you need him so soon," Gabriel assured her. "I pray that day will never come!" she said, with such feeling that caution was forgotten. "But I would not have him dead, of all things dead at your hands, Don Gabriel," she added softly, her hand still on his shoulder, her breath on his cheek. Henderson had found her unshod foot; he was replacing the slipper with such haste that impeded his work, anxious for her to come down and hurry back to her duenna's side. For his own road was calling to him; the moon marked its way over the hill among the greasewood and the sage. "Now go," he said, having fastened the buckle on its silken strap across her vaulted instep. "Run for it, Miss Sprague!" She came down lightly, her hand in his, her weight thrown on his shoulder, and stood so a moment, as if she had climbed to give him some sweet confidence unseen among the boughs. "Avoid the man called Fernando--the one who found your shoe," he whispered, his breath short with something that was not fatigue from the fastening of her shoe. "I know a way," she panted. "I shall be safe now." It seemed as if shortness of breath were a contagion that had laid hold of both of them under the gray solemn roble that moonlit night. Both of them knew well enough that they had no moments to gamble away, but she lingered. Her hand was still cold in the chill of her past fright. "Have you heard from the north?" she asked eagerly, whispering close to his ear. "The north?"