Felipe chuckled. "See the lad looking down at his stomach! Button your jacket, Juanito; the noonday's shining through! Another sip, to the reverend father's health! His brothers run away--the Abbot himself runs: but Brother Bartolomé stays. For he labours for the good of man, and that gives a clear conscience. Behold how just, after all, are the dispositions of Heaven: how blind are the wicked! For three weeks those bloody-minded dogs have been grinning and running about the city: and here under their feet, as in a mine, have lain the two most precious jewels of all--a clear conscience and a liquor which, upon my faith, holy father, cannot be believed in under a second glass." Brother Bartolomé was refilling the glass, when the Carmelite touched his arm. "You have been here--all the while?" "Has it been so long? I have been at work, you see." "For the good of man," interrupted Felipe. "Time slips away when one works for the good of man." "And all the while you were distilling this?" "This--and other things." "Other things to drink?" "My daughter, had they caught me, they might have tortured me. I might have held my tongue: but, again, I might not. Under torture one never knows what will happen. But the secret of the liquor had to die with me--that is in the vow. So to be on the safe side I made--other things." "Father, give me to drink of those other things." She spoke scarcely above her breath: but her fingers were gripping his arm. He looked straight into her eyes. "My poor child!" was all he said, very low and slow. "I can touch no other sacrament," she pleaded. "Father, have mercy and give me that one!" She watched his eyes eagerly as they flinched from hers in pity and dwelt for a moment on a tall chest behind her shoulder, against the wall to the right of the door. She glanced round, stepped to the chest, and laid a hand on the lid. "Is it here?" she asked. But he was beside her on the instant; and stooping, locked down the lid, and drew out the key abruptly. "Is it here?" she repeated. "My child, that is an ice-chest. In the liquor, for perfection, the water used has first to be frozen. That chest contains ice, and nothing else." "Nothing else?" she persisted. But here Felipe broke in. "The Señorita is off her hinges, father. Much fasting has made her light-headed. And that brings me to my business. You know my head, too, is not strong: good enough for a furlong or two, but not for the mile course. Now if you will shelter these two innocents whilst I forage we shall make a famous household. You have rooms here in plenty; the best-hidden in Panama. But none of us can live without food, and with these two to look after I am hampered. There are the dogs, too. But Felipe knows a trick or two more than the dogs, and if he do not fill your larder by sunset, may his left leg be withered like his right!"