The Blood of the Conquerors

f his trips to the mountains. He got out of these ventures into another environment about what some men get out of sprees-a complete change of the sta

nd had met again at the Montezuma ball. It seemed as though the thought of her had been in the back of his mind all the time, and now suddenly came forward, cla

elf admitted him. He thought he had never seen such [pg 53] a dainty bit of fragran

led him into the sitting room and presented him to the tall emaciated sick man

sation was a weak and painful affair, kept barely alive, now by one and now by another. The atmosphere was heavy with disapproval. If their greetings had left Ramon in any doubt as to the attitude of the girl's family toward him, that doubt was removed by the fact that neither Mrs. Roth n

erately wealthy. They used a very broad "a" and served tea at four o'clock in the afternoon. Gordon Roth was a Harvard graduate and did not conceal the fa

ff and solemn, her eyes showed an irrepressible gleam of humour, and her fascinating little mout

versation toward the safe and relia

Delcasar?" she enquired in an innocent

m," Ramon admitt

f to smile. Gordon Roth ca

writer," he explained. "We are a

in her chair, and crossed her legs

ns have a sort of secret religious fraternity that most of the men belong to, and that they meet every Good Friday and beat themselves with whips and sit down on cactus and crucify a man on a cross and all sorts of horri

n no

ntes. I've seen t

them. I love to hear

re are not so many of them now, and they don't do as much as they used to. The church is down on them, you know, and they're

curiosity ha

t is the meaning of this thi

e two got mixed up, I guess. The church used to tolerate it; it was a regular religious festival. But now it's outlawed. They still have a lot of political power. They all vote t

oy," Julia broke in. She was leaning forward with her chin in her h

n. It was March, and there was snow on the ground in patches, and the mountains were cold and bare, and I remember I thought I was going

are backs, wet with blood, like slapping a man with a wet towel, only louder. I didn't know what it was, but my father did, and he called to me and we spurred our horses right up the mountain, and hid in a clump of cedar

hey doing?" Julia demanded frowning at hi

o was supposed to represent death. And then they had a Virgin Mary, [pg 58] too. Four penitentes just like the others, with nothing on but bloody pants and black bandages around their eyes, carried the image on a litter raised up over their heads, and they had swords fastened to their elbows and stuck between their ribs, so that if they let down, the swords would stick into their hearts and kill them. An

man, the whatever-you-ca

him. Now they generally do it with ropes, but that's bad enough,

t fascinated, as are so many women by what is cruel and bloody. But

nearly all the-er-native people belonged to this b

the educated people." Here a note of pride came into his voice. "We are descended from officers of the Spanish army-th

don Roth in a dry

lowed him to the door. In the hall she gave him her hand and looked up at him, and neither of them found anything to say. For some reason the pressure of her hand and the look of her eyes flust

g