It was only by craning far out over the parapet (so far indeed that he might easily have been discovered from below had there been any to look) that Rollo was able to see what followed. But every eye was fixed on the girl. No one among all that company had even a glance to waste upon the skyline of the Ermita de San Ildefonso. This was the thing Rollo saw as he looked. The girl spurned the fallen face-cloth with her bare foot, and catching the body of the dead man in her arms, she dragged it out of its niche and cast it down the steps upon which it lay all abroad, half revealed and hideous in the morning light. This done, rushing back as swiftly and with the same volcanic energy to the occupant of the other niche, she hurled him by main force after his companion. Then, panting and wan, with her single tattered garment half rent from her flat ill-nourished body, she lifted one arm aloft in triumph and cried, "There, you dogs, that is what you were afraid of!" But even as she stood thus revealed in the morning light, a low murmur of terror and astonishment ran round all who saw her. For in the struggle the girl had uncovered her shoulder and breast, and there, upon her young and girlish skin, appeared the dread irregular blotches which betrayed the worst and most deadly form of the disease. "The Black Plague! The Black Plague!" shrieked the throng of besiegers, surging this way and that like a flock of sheep which strange dogs drive, as with wild and shrill cries they turned and fled headlong towards the mountains. The girl, speechless with wrath, and perhaps also with the death-sickness far advanced within her, took a step forward as if to follow them. But forgetful of where she stood, she missed her footing, fell headlong, and lay across the dead sentinel whom she had first dragged from his post. The Basque priest looked over Rollo's shoulder and pointed downwards with a certain dread solemnity. "What did I tell you?" he said. "The finger of God! The finger of God hath touched her! Let us go down. The sun will be above the horizon in twenty minutes." "Had we not better wait?" urged Rollo. "They may return. Think of our responsibility, of our feeble defences, of----" "Of Concha," he was about to say, but checked himself, and added quietly, "of the little Queen!" The monk crossed himself with infinite calm. "They will not return," he said; "it is our duty to lay these in the quiet earth ere the sun rises. There is no infection to be feared till an hour after sunrise." "But the girl, the daughter of Munoz?" said Rollo, "did not she take the disease from the dead?"