At the same moment, and before his followers could set their hands to their mouths or retreat a step, round both corners of the building there came a double swarm of gipsies, running at random through the tangle of the wood and streaming frantically along the paths. The Executioner of Salamanca also turned and ran down the steps. "Touch the thing who will!" he cried; "I have done with it!" And the entire attacking party with their knives and sledge-hammers would in like manner have fled, but for a strange and unlooked-for event which happened at that moment. As Rollo peered over the low parapet, he saw a slight form rush suddenly across the front of the fleeing gipsies, shouting at and striking the fugitives. And even at that distance he was sure that it must be the daughter of Munoz, whom he had left captive in La Granja. She had been safely enough locked in the castle--how then had she escaped? He remembered the Sergeant's last threat that he would have some conversation with Senor Munoz. He wondered if the girl's escape had anything to do with that. That it was not impossible to escape from the palace, the presence of Concha Cabezos upstairs informed him. But all theorising of this kind was stopped at sight of the vehement anger of the girl, and of the evident power she had over these wild and savage men. She did not even hesitate to strike a fugitive with her clenched fist if he attempted to evade her. Nay, in her fury she drew a knife from Ezquerra's belt and struck at the throat of the Executioner of Salamanca. So vehement was her anger and so potent her influence, that the girl actually succeeded in arresting more than half the fleeing gipsies. Some, however, evaded her, and she would stay her headlong course a moment to send a fierce curse after them. "She is crazed!" thought Rollo; "her wrongs have driven her mad!" But the sight of that glimmering array of plague-stricken sentinels waiting for them still and silent in the red dawn, was more than the fortitude of the rallied forces could stand. Upon approaching the Hermitage the gipsies again showed symptoms of renewed flight. Whereupon the girl, shrilly screaming the vilest names at them and in especial designating Ezquerra as the craven-hearted spawn of an obscene canine ancestry, mounted the steps herself with the utmost boldness and confidence. "I will teach you," she screamed; "I, a girl and alone, will show you what sacks of straw ye are frighted of. Do ye not know that the great prize is here, within this very house, behind these defenceless windows and cardboard doors? The Queen of Spain, whose ransom is worth twice ten thousand _duros_, even if your coward hearts dared not shed her black Bourbon blood. Behold!"