"Nay," said the Basque. "I have often beheld the smitten of the plague like that. It works so upon very many. For a time they are as it were possessed with seven devils, and the strength of man is vain against them. They snap strong cords even as Samson did the Philistine withes. Then--puff! Comes a breath of morning air chill from the Sierra, and they are gone. They were--and they are not. The finger of God hath touched them. So it was with this girl." "I will follow you!" said Rollo, awe-stricken in spite of himself. "Tell me what I am to do!" The monk pressed his hand again to his brow a little wearily. "I fear," he said, "that it will fall to you to perform the greater part of the work. For Brother Domingo, our good almoner, he of the merry countenance, died of his fatigues early this morning, and the other two, my brethren, are once more in the town bringing God to the dying!" Instinctively Rollo removed his hat from his head. "But," added the monk, "they dug the graves in holy ground before they went!" In silence Rollo permitted himself to be covered with an armour of freshly tarred cloth, which was considered in Spain at that time to be a complete protection against plague infection. The monk Teodoro was proceeding to array himself in like manner, when Concha appeared beside them and held out her hands for the gauntlets. "The little Princess is asleep," she said eagerly; "I am strong. I have as good a right to serve God as either of you--and as great is my need!" The Basque gazed at her curiously. Her hair was still wholly covered by the sailor's red cap. To the eye she appeared a mere boy in her page's dress, but there was at all times something irresistibly attractive about Concha's face. Now her lips quivered sensitively, but her eyes were steady. She continued to hold out her hands. "I demand that you permit me to serve God!" she cried to Brother Teodoro. The monk shrugged his shoulders with a pitying gesture and looked from one to the other. "I am an old dragoon," he said, "and under the guidons of _El Gran' Lor'_ I have seen the like. It is none of my business, of course, but all the same it is a pity. I should be happier to leave you watching the slumbers of the Princess!" "Ah!" cried Concha, earnestly, "if you are indeed an old soldier, and a good one under guidon or holy cross--for this time let me be one also!" "You are young--I pray you, think!" urged the Basque. "There is great danger! Look at that maid yonder, and what she hath brought on herself." "Ah," said Concha, softly--so softly indeed as to be almost inaudible, "but the difference is that she did this thing for hate--while--I--I----" She did not finish her sentence, but raising her eyes, wet with seldom-coming tears, to those of the stern-faced brother, she said instead, "Give me the dress and let us be gone. The sun is rising!"