- As they approach the Indian huts where the criminal purportedly lies dying, the priest sends the muleteer away with payment for the trek to Las Casas. He departs, leaving the bottles of brandy at the priest's instruction.
- Our two-toothed Judas continues to protest the priest's suspicion of him. Overkill there, dude.
- The priest actually feels bad for the guy, burdened with a sin of such magnitude. If you've read your Dante, you know that traitors dwell with the Big S himself in the bottommost pit of Hell.
- The mestizo lags behind, out of breath, complaining about the pace. It can take a long time to die, the traitor says.
- Shrewdly, the priest asks his guide if "they" will let him see the criminal. The mestizo, realizing the trap too late, says, "Of course," but then predictably backtracks.
- The priest stops to drink for courage while the mestizo eyes the bottle greedily. He offers to carry the other bottles.
- They come to the hut of the dying man. The priest proceeds to enter and the mestizo calls him, frightened, but then lies about having said anything. Cold feet?
- The criminal tells the priest to beat it. He knows what's up. Apparently he wanted a priest when he wrote the note, but not now. He tries to offer the priest a gun, and then a knife, so he can defend himself from the police.
- The effort kills him. The priest is understandably miffed.
- He offers absolution and a prayer on the off chance that the man repented, but in that moment the priest feels himself to be no more than one criminal aiding another, neither of whom deserves mercy.