"Why do you not stay and rest awhile ?" "Because I am the father of one of the senoras, and doubtless she thinks me drowned, and this senor is her affianced husband," answered Castell briefly.
"Ah!" said the priest, looking at them with interest, "then what relation to her is the marquis?
Well, perhaps I had better not ask, for this is no confessional, is it?
I understand that you are anxious, for that great grandee has the reputation of being gay--an excellent son of the Church, but without doubt very gay," and he shook his shaven head and smiled.

"But come up to the village, Senors, where you can rest and have your hurts attended to; afterwards we will talk." "We had best go," said Castell in English to Peter.

"There are no horses on this beach, and we cannot walk to Granada in our state." Peter nodded, and, led by the priest, whose name they discovered to be Henriques, they started.
On the crest of the hill a few hundred paces away they turned and looked back, to see that every able-bodied inhabitant of the village seemed by now to be engaged in plundering the stranded vessel.
"They are paying themselves for the mules and horses," said Fray Henriques with a shrug.

"So I see," answered Castell, "but you----" and he stopped.
"Oh, do not be afraid for me," replied the priest with a cunning little smile.

"The Church does not loot; but in the end the Church gets her share.