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.
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