Pilar heard the retreating footfalls of the mustangs.  She was too stunned to think, to realize the horrible fate that had befallen her.  She crouched down against the wall of the cave nearest the light, her ear alert for the growl of a panther or the whir of a rattler’s tail.

II

The night after the close of school the Governor gave a grand ball, which was attended by the older of the convent girls who lived in Monterey or were guests in the capital.  The dowagers sat against the wall, a coffee-coloured dado; the girls in white, the caballeros in black silk small-clothes, the officers in their uniforms, danced to the music of the flute and the guitar.  When Elena Estudillo was alone in the middle of the room dancing El Son and the young men were clapping and shouting and flinging gold and silver at her feet, Sturges and Eustaquia slipped out into the corridor.  It was a dark night, the duenas were thinking of naught but the dance and the days of their youth, and the violators of a stringent social law were safe for the moment.  A chance word, dropped by Sturges in the dance, and Eustaquia’s eager interrogations, had revealed the American’s indignation at the barbarous treatment of Pilar, and his deep interest in the beautiful victim.

“Senor,” whispered Eustaquia, excitedly, as soon as they reached the end of the corridor, “if you feel pity and perhaps love for my unhappy friend, go to her rescue for the love of Mary.  I have heard to-day that her punishment is far worse than what you saw.  It is so terrible that I hardly have dared—­”

“Surely, that old fiend could think of nothing else,” said Sturges.  “What is she made of, anyhow?”

“Ay, yi!  Her heart is black like the redwood tree that has been burnt out by fire.  Before Don Enrique ran away, she beat him many times; but, after, she was a thousand times worse, for it is said that she loved him in her terrible way, and that her heart burnt up when she was left alone—­”

“But Dona Pilar, senorita?”

“Ay, yi!  Benito, one of the vaqueros of Dona Erigida, was in town to-day, and he told me (I bribed him with whiskey and cigaritos—­the Commandante’s, whose guest I am, ay, yi!)—­he told me that Dona Erigida did not take my unhappy friend home, but—­”

“Well?” exclaimed Sturges, who was a man of few words.

Eustaquia jerked down his ear and whispered, “She took her to a cave in the mountains and pushed her in, and rolled a huge stone as big as a house before the entrance, and there she will leave her till she is thirty—­or dead!”

“Good God!  Does your civilization, such as you’ve got, permit such things?”

“The mother may discipline the child as she will.  It is not the business of the Alcalde.  And no one would dare interfere for poor Pilar, for she has committed a mortal sin against the Church—­”

“I’ll interfere.  Where is the cave?”