Pancho shrugged.  “That is the trouble.  We would have to march around Texas, I presume.”

“Around Texas?”

“Yes.  You see, Texas is a bad country; it is full of—­barbarians who know how to fight.  If it were not for Texas we would have the United States at our mercy.”  After some consideration he ventured this opinion:  “We could afford to pay the Texans for allowing us to ride through their country, provided we stole nothing and paid for the cattle we ate.  Well, Longorio is a great one for schemes; he is talking over the telegraph with somebody at this moment.  Perhaps it is the President of Texas.”

“You are a poor man, are you not?” Alaire inquired.

“Miserably poor.”

“Would you like to make a great deal of money?”

“Dios!  That is why I’m a soldier.”

“I will pay you well to get me two horses—­”

But old Pancho shook his head vigorously.  “Impossible!  General Longorio is going to marry you.  We all got drunk last night to celebrate the wedding.  Yes, and the priest is waiting.”

“I will make you rich.”

“Ho!  I wouldn’t live to spend a single peso.  Felipe disobeyed orders, and the general shot him before he could cross himself.  Boom!  The poor fellow was in hell in a minute.  No.  We will all be rich after we win a few battles and capture some American cities.  I am an old man; I shall leave the drinking and the women to the young fellows, and prepare for my old age.”

Seeing that she could not enlist Pancho’s aid, Alaire begged him to fetch the priest.

“You wish spiritual comfort, senora?”

“Perhaps.”

“Well, he doesn’t look like much of a priest, but probably he will do.  As for me, I don’t believe in such things.  Churches are all very well for ignorant people, but we Mexicans are too intelligent; we are making an end of them.”

The priest was a small, white-haired man with a gentle, almost timid face, and at the moment when he appeared before Alaire he was in anything but a happy frame of mind.  He had undergone, he told her, a terrible experience.  His name was O’Malley.  He had come from Monclova, whence the Rebels had banished him under threat of death.  He had seen his church despoiled of its valuables, his school closed; he himself had managed to escape only by a miracle.  During his flight toward the border he had suffered every indignity, and finally Longorio had intercepted him and brought him here, practically in chains.

“What a situation!  What chaos!” he lamented.  “The land is overrun with bandits; there is no law, no authority, no faith; religion is made a mockery.  The men are becoming infidels and atheists, and in many places they will not allow us to give comfort even to their women.”

“Is it as bad as that?”