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+Project Gutenberg Etext The Crusade of the Excelsior, by Harte
+#17 in our series by Bret Harte
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+The Crusade of the Excelsior
+
+by Bret Harte
+
+January, 2001  [Etext #2471]
+
+
+Project Gutenberg Etext The Crusade of the Excelsior, by Harte
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+
+
+THE CRUSADE OF THE EXCELSIOR
+
+by Bret Harte
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+PART I.--IN BONDS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+A CRUSADER AND A SIGN
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+ANOTHER PORTENT
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+"VIGILANCIA"
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+IN THE FOG
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+TODOS SANTOS
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+"HAIL AND FAREWELL"
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE GENTLE CASTAWAYS
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+IN SANCTUARY
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+AN OPEN-AIR PRISON
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+TODOS SANTOS SOLVES THE MYSTERY
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE CAPTAIN FOLLOWS HIS SHIP
+
+
+
+PART II.--FREED.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE MOURNERS AT SAN FRANCISCO
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE MOURNERS AT TODOS SANTOS
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+INTERNATIONAL COURTESIES
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+A GLEAM OF SUNSHINE
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+CLOUDS AND CHANGE
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+A MORE IMPORTANT ARRIVAL
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE RETURN OF THE EXCELSIOR
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+HOSTAGE
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+LIBERATED
+
+
+
+THE CRUSADE OF THE EXCELSIOR
+
+PART I.  IN BONDS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+A CRUSADER AND A SIGN.
+
+
+It was the 4th of August, 1854, off Cape Corrientes.  Morning was
+breaking over a heavy sea, and the closely-reefed topsails of a
+barque that ran before it bearing down upon the faint outline of
+the Mexican coast.  Already the white peak of Colima showed, ghost-
+like, in the east; already the long sweep of the Pacific was
+gathering strength and volume as it swept uninterruptedly into the
+opening Gulf of California.
+
+As the cold light increased, it could be seen that the vessel
+showed evidence of a long voyage and stress of weather.  She had
+lost one of her spars, and her starboard davits rolled emptily.
+Nevertheless, her rigging was taut and ship-shape, and her decks
+scrupulously clean.  Indeed, in that uncertain light, the only
+moving figure besides the two motionless shadows at the wheel was
+engaged in scrubbing the quarter-deck--which, with its grated
+settees and stacked camp-chairs, seemed to indicate the presence of
+cabin passengers.  For the barque Excelsior, from New York to San
+Francisco, had discharged the bulk of her cargo at Callao, and had
+extended her liberal cabin accommodation to swell the feverish
+Californian immigration, still in its height.
+
+Suddenly there was a slight commotion on deck.  An order, issued
+from some invisible depth of the cabin, was so unexpected that it
+had to be repeated sternly and peremptorily.  A bustle forward
+ensued, two or three other shadows sprang up by the bulwarks, then
+the two men bent over the wheel, the Excelsior slowly swung round
+on her heel, and, with a parting salutation to the coast, bore away
+to the northwest and the open sea again.
+
+"What's up now?" growled one of the men at the wheel to his
+companion, as they slowly eased up on the helm.
+
+"'Tain't the skipper's, for he's drunk as a biled owl, and ain't
+stirred out of his bunk since eight bells," said the other.  "It's
+the first mate's orders; but, I reckon, it's the Senor's idea."
+
+"Then we ain't goin' on to Mazatlan?"
+
+"Not this trip, I reckon," said the third mate, joining them.
+
+"Why?"
+
+The third mate turned and pointed to leeward.  The line of coast
+had already sunk enough to permit the faint silhouette of a trail
+of smoke to define the horizon line of sky.
+
+"Steamer goin' in, eh?"
+
+"Yes.  D'ye see--it might be too hot, in there!"
+
+"Then the jig's up?"
+
+"No.  Suthin's to be done--north of St. Lucas.  Hush!"
+
+He made a gesture of silence, although the conversation, since he
+had joined them, had been carried on in a continuous whisper.  A
+figure, evidently a passenger, had appeared on deck.  One or two of
+the foreign-looking crew who had drawn near the group, with a
+certain undue and irregular familiarity, now slunk away again.
+
+The passenger was a shrewd, exact, rectangular-looking man, who had
+evidently never entirely succumbed to the freedom of the sea either
+in his appearance or habits.  He had not even his sea legs yet; and
+as the barque, with the full swell of the Pacific now on her
+weather bow, was plunging uncomfortably, he was fain to cling to
+the stanchions.  This did not, however, prevent him from noticing
+the change in her position, and captiously resenting it.
+
+"Look here--you; I say!  What have we turned round for?  We're
+going away from the land!  Ain't we going on to Mazatlan?"
+
+The two men at the wheel looked silently forward, with that
+exasperating unconcern of any landsman's interest peculiar to
+marine officials.  The passenger turned impatiently to the third
+mate.
+
+"But this ain't right, you know.  It was understood that we were
+going into Mazatlan.  I've got business there."
+
+"My orders, sir," said the mate curtly, turning away.
+
+The practical passenger had been observant enough of sea-going
+rules to recognize that this reason was final, and that it was
+equally futile to demand an interview with the captain when that
+gentleman was not visibly on duty.  He turned angrily to the cabin
+again.
+
+"You look disturbed, my dear Banks.  I trust you haven't slept
+badly," said a very gentle voice from the quarter-rail near him;
+"or, perhaps, the ship's going about has upset you.  It's a little
+rougher on this tack."
+
+"That's just it," returned Banks sharply.  "We HAVE gone about, and
+we're not going into Mazatlan at all.  It's scandalous!  I'll speak
+to the captain--I'll complain to the consignees--I've got business
+at Mazatlan--I expect letters--I"--
+
+"Business, my dear fellow?" continued the voice, in gentle protest.
+"You'll have time for business when you get to San Francisco.  And
+as for letters--they'll follow you there soon enough.  Come over
+here, my boy, and say hail and farewell to the Mexican coast--to
+the land of Montezuma and Pizarro.  Come here and see the mountain
+range from which Balboa feasted his eyes on the broad Pacific.
+Come!"
+
+The speaker, though apparently more at his ease at sea, was in
+dress and appearance fully as unnautical as Banks.  As he leaned
+over the railing, his white, close-fitting trousers and small
+patent-leather boots gave him a jaunty, half-military air, which
+continued up to the second button of his black frock-coat, and then
+so utterly changed its character that it was doubtful if a greater
+contrast could be conceived than that offered by the widely spread
+lapels of his coat, his low turned-down collar, loosely knotted
+silk handkerchief, and the round, smooth-shaven, gentle, pacific
+face above them.  His straight long black hair, shining as if from
+recent immersion, was tucked carefully behind his ears, and hung in
+a heavy, even, semicircular fringe around the back of his neck
+where his tall hat usually rested, as if to leave his forehead
+meekly exposed to celestial criticism.  When he had joined the ship
+at Callao, his fellow-passengers, rashly trusting to the momentary
+suggestion of his legs on the gang-plank, had pronounced him
+military; meeting him later at dinner, they had regarded the mild
+Methodistic contour of his breast and shoulders above the table,
+and entertained the wild idea of asking him to evoke a blessing.
+To complete the confusion of his appearance, he was called "Senor"
+Perkins, for no other reason, apparently, than his occasional, but
+masterful, use of the Spanish vernacular.
+
+Steadying himself by one of the quarter stanchions, he waved his
+right hand oratorically towards the sinking coast.
+
+"Look at it, sir.  One of the finest countries that ever came from
+the hand of the Creator; a land overflowing with milk and honey;
+containing, sir, in that one mountain range, the products of the
+three zones--and yet the abode of the oppressed and down-trodden;
+the land of faction, superstition, tyranny, and political
+revolution."
+
+"That's all very well," said Banks irritably, "but Mazatlan is a
+well-known commercial port, and has English and American
+correspondents.  There's a branch of that Boston firm--Potter,
+Potts & Potter--there.  The new line of steamers is going to stop
+there regularly."
+
+Senor Perkins' soft black eyes fell for an instant, as if
+accidentally, on the third mate, but the next moment he laughed,
+and, throwing back his head, inhaled, with evident relish, a long
+breath of the sharp, salt air.
+
+"Ah!" he said enthusiastically, "THAT'S better than all the
+business you can pick up along a malarious coast.  Open your mouth
+and try to take in the free breath of the glorious North Pacific.
+Ah! isn't it glorious?"
+
+"Where's the captain?" said Banks, with despairing irritation.  "I
+want to see him."
+
+"The captain," said Senor Perkins, with a bland, forgiving smile
+and a slight lowering of his voice, "is, I fear, suffering from an
+accident of hospitality, and keeps his state-room.  The captain is
+a good fellow," continued Perkins, with gentle enthusiasm; "a good
+sailor and careful navigator, and exceedingly attentive to his
+passengers.  I shall certainly propose getting up some testimonial
+for him."
+
+"But if he's shut up in his state-room, who's giving the orders?"
+began Banks angrily.
+
+Senor Perkins put up a small, well-kept hand deprecatingly.
+
+"Really, my dear boy, I suppose the captain cannot be omnipresent.
+Some discretion must be left to the other officers.  They probably
+know his ideas and what is to be done better than we do.  You
+business men trouble yourselves too much about these things.  You
+should take them more philosophically.  For my part I always
+confide myself trustingly to these people.  I enter a ship or
+railroad car with perfect faith.  I say to myself, 'This captain,
+or this conductor, is a responsible man, selected with a view to my
+safety and comfort; he understands how to procure that safety and
+that comfort better than I do.  He worries himself; he spends hours
+and nights of vigil to look after me and carry me to my
+destination.  Why should I worry myself, who can only assist him by
+passive obedience?  Why'--"  But here he was interrupted by a
+headlong plunge of the Excelsior, a feminine shriek that was half a
+laugh, the rapid patter of small feet and sweep of flying skirts
+down the slanting deck, and the sudden and violent contact of a
+pretty figure.
+
+The next moment he had forgotten his philosophy, and his companion
+his business.  Both flew to the assistance of the fair intruder,
+who, albeit the least injured of the trio, clung breathlessly to
+the bulwarks.
+
+"Miss Keene!" ejaculated both gentlemen.
+
+"Oh dear!  I beg your pardon," said the young lady, reddening, with
+a naive mingling of hilarity and embarrassment.  "But it seemed so
+stuffy in the cabin, and it seemed so easy to get out on deck and
+pull myself up by the railings; and just as I got up here, I
+suddenly seemed to be sliding down the roof of a house."
+
+"And now that you're here, your courage should be rewarded," said
+the Senor, gallantly assisting her to a settee, which he lashed
+securely.  "You are perfectly safe now," he added, holding the end
+of the rope in his hand to allow a slight sliding movement of the
+seat as the vessel rolled.  "And here is a glorious spectacle for
+you.  Look! the sun is just rising."
+
+The young girl glanced over the vast expanse before her with
+sparkling eyes and a suddenly awakened fancy that checked her
+embarrassed smile, and fixed her pretty, parted lips with wonder.
+The level rays of the rising sun striking the white crests of the
+lifted waves had suffused the whole ocean with a pinkish opal
+color: the darker parts of each wave seemed broken into facets
+instead of curves, and glittered sharply.  The sea seemed to have
+lost its fluidity, and become vitreous; so much so, that it was
+difficult to believe that the waves which splintered across the
+Excelsior's bow did not fall upon her deck with the ring of
+shattered glass.
+
+"Sindbad's Valley of Diamonds!" said the young girl, in an awed
+whisper.
+
+"It's a cross sea in the Gulf of California, so the mate says,"
+said Banks practically; "but I don't see why we" . . .
+
+"The Gulf of California?" repeated the young girl, while a slight
+shade of disappointment passed over her bright face; "are we then
+so near"--
+
+"Not the California you mean, my dear young lady," broke in Senor
+Perkins, "but the old peninsula of California, which is still a
+part of Mexico.  It terminates in Cape St. Lucas, a hundred miles
+from here, but it's still a far cry to San Francisco, which is in
+Upper California.  But I fancy you don't seem as anxious as our
+friend Mr. Banks to get to your journey's end," he added, with
+paternal blandness.
+
+The look of relief which had passed over Miss Keene's truthful face
+gave way to one of slight embarrassment.
+
+"It hasn't seemed long," she said hastily; and then added, as if to
+turn the conversation, "What is this peninsula?  I remember it on
+our map at school."
+
+"It's not of much account," interrupted Banks positively.  "There
+ain't a place on it you ever heard of.  It's a kind of wilderness."
+
+"I differ from you," said Senor Perkins gravely.  "There are, I
+have been told, some old Mexican settlements along the coast, and
+there is no reason why the country shouldn't be fruitful.  But you
+may have a chance to judge for yourself," he continued beamingly.
+Since we are not going into Mazatlan, we may drop in at some of
+those places for water.  It's all on our way, and we shall save the
+three days we would have lost had we touched Mazatlan.  That," he
+added, answering an impatient interrogation in Banks' eye, "at
+least, is the captain's idea, I reckon."  He laughed, and went on
+still gayly,--"But what's the use of anticipating?  Why should we
+spoil any little surprise that our gallant captain may have in
+store for us?  I've been trying to convert this business man to my
+easy philosophy, Miss Keene, but he is incorrigible; he is actually
+lamenting his lost chance of hearing the latest news at Mazatlan,
+and getting the latest market quotations, instead of offering a
+thanksgiving for another uninterrupted day of freedom in this
+glorious air."
+
+With a half humorous extravagance he unloosed his already loose
+necktie, turned his Byron collar still lower, and squared his
+shoulders ostentatiously to the sea breeze.  Accustomed as his two
+companions were to his habitually extravagant speech, it did not at
+that moment seem inconsistent with the intoxicating morning air and
+the exhilaration of sky and wave.  A breath of awakening and
+resurrection moved over the face of the waters; recreation and new-
+born life sparkled everywhere; the past night seemed forever buried
+in the vast and exundating sea.  The reefs had been shaken out, and
+every sail set to catch the steadier breeze of the day; and as the
+quickening sun shone upon the dazzling canvas that seemed to
+envelop them, they felt as if wrapped in the purity of a baptismal
+robe.
+
+Nevertheless, Miss Keene's eyes occasionally wandered from the
+charming prospect towards the companion-ladder.  Presently she
+became ominously and ostentatiously interested in the view again,
+and at the same moment a young man's head and shoulders appeared
+above the companionway.  With a bound he was on the slanting deck,
+moving with the agility and adaptability of youth, and approached
+the group.  He was quite surprised to find Miss Keene there so
+early, and Miss Keene was equally surprised at his appearance,
+notwithstanding the phenomenon had occurred with singular
+regularity for the last three weeks.  The two spectators of this
+gentle comedy received it as they had often received it before,
+with a mixture of apparent astonishment and patronizing
+unconsciousness, and, after a decent interval, moved away together,
+leaving the young people alone.
+
+The hesitancy and awkwardness which usually followed the first
+moments of their charming isolation were this morning more than
+usually prolonged.
+
+"It seems we are not going into Mazatlan, after all," said Miss
+Keene at last, without lifting her conscious eyes from the sea.
+
+"No," returned the young fellow quickly.  "I heard all about it
+down below, and we had quite an indignation meeting over it.  I
+believe Mrs. Markham wanted to head a deputation to wait upon the
+captain in his berth.  It seems that the first officer, or
+whosoever is running the ship, has concluded we've lost too much
+time already, and we're going to strike a bee-line for Cape St.
+Lucas, and give Mazatlan the go-by.  We'll save four days by it.  I
+suppose it don't make any difference to you, Miss Keene, does it?"
+
+"I?  Oh, no!" said the girl hastily.
+
+"I'M rather sorry," he said hesitatingly.
+
+"Indeed.  Are you tired of the ship?" she asked saucily.
+
+"No," he replied bluntly; "but it would have given us four more
+days together--four more days before we separated."
+
+He stopped, with a heightened color.  There was a moment of
+silence, and the voices of Senor Perkins and Mr. Banks in political
+discussion on the other side of the deck came faintly.  Miss Keene
+laughed.
+
+"We are a long way from San Francisco yet, and you may think
+differently."
+
+"Never!" he said, impulsively.
+
+He had drawn closer to her, as if to emphasize his speech.  She
+cast a quick glance across the deck towards the two disputants, and
+drew herself gently away.
+
+"Do you know," she said suddenly, with a charming smile which
+robbed the act of its sting, "I sometimes wonder if I am REALLY
+going to San Francisco.  I don't know how it is; but, somehow, I
+never can SEE myself there."
+
+"I wish you did, for I'M going there," he replied boldly.
+
+Without appearing to notice the significance of his speech, she
+continued gravely:
+
+"I have been so strongly impressed with this feeling at times that
+it makes me quite superstitious.  When we had that terrible storm
+after we left Callao, I thought it meant that--that we were all
+going down, and we should never be heard of again."
+
+"As long as we all went together," he said, "I don't know that it
+would be the worst thing that could happen.  I remember that storm,
+Miss Keene.  And I remember"--He stopped timidly.
+
+"What?" she replied, raising her smiling eyes for the first time to
+his earnest face.
+
+"I remember sitting up all night near your state-room, with a cork
+jacket and lots of things I'd fixed up for you, and thinking I'd
+die before I trusted you alone in the boat to those rascally
+Lascars of the crew."
+
+"But how would you have prevented it?" asked Miss Keene, with a
+compassionate and half-maternal amusement.
+
+"I don't know exactly," he said, coloring; "but I'd have lashed you
+to some spar, or made a raft, and got you ashore on some island."
+
+"And poor Mrs. Markham and Mrs. Brimmer--you'd have left them to
+the boats and the Lascars, I suppose?" smiled Miss Keene.
+
+"Oh, somebody would have looked after Mrs. Markham; and Mrs.
+Brimmer wouldn't have gone with anybody that wasn't well connected.
+But what's the use of talking?" he added ruefully.  "Nothing has
+happened, and nothing is going to happen.  You will see yourself in
+San Francisco, even if you don't see ME there.  You're going to a
+rich brother, Miss Keene, who has friends of his own, and who won't
+care to know a poor fellow whom you tolerated on the passage, but
+who don't move in Mrs. Brimmer's set, and whom Mr. Banks wouldn't
+indorse commercially."
+
+"Ah, you don't know my brother, Mr. Brace."
+
+"Nor do you, very well, Miss Keene.  You were saying, only last
+night, you hardly remembered him."
+
+The young girl sighed.
+
+"I was very young when he went West," she said explanatorily; "but
+I dare say I shall recall him.  What I meant is, that he will be
+very glad to know that I have been so happy here, and he will like
+all those who have made me so."
+
+"Then you have been happy?"
+
+"Yes; very."  She had withdrawn her eyes, and was looking vaguely
+towards the companion-way.  "Everybody has been so kind to me."
+
+"And you are grateful to all?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Equally?"
+
+The ship gave a sudden forward plunge.  Miss Keene involuntarily
+clutched the air with her little hand, that had been resting on the
+settee between them, and the young man caught it in his own.
+
+"Equally?" he repeated, with an assumed playfulness that half
+veiled his anxiety.  "Equally--from the beaming Senor Perkins, who
+smiles on all, to the gloomy Mr. Hurlstone, who smiles on no one?"
+
+She quickly withdrew her hand, and rose.  "I smell the breakfast,"
+she said laughingly.  "Don't be horrified, Mr. Brace, but I'm very
+hungry."  She laid the hand she had withdrawn lightly on his arm.
+"Now help me down to the cabin."
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+ANOTHER PORTENT.
+
+
+The saloon of the Excelsior was spacious for the size of the
+vessel, and was furnished in a style superior to most passenger-
+ships of that epoch.  The sun was shining through the sliding
+windows upon the fresh and neatly arranged breakfast-table, but the
+presence of the ominous "storm-racks," and partitions for glass and
+china, and the absence of the more delicate passengers, still
+testified to the potency of the Gulf of California.  Even those
+present wore an air of fatigued discontent, and the conversation
+had that jerky interjectional quality which belonged to people with
+a common grievance, but a different individual experience.  Mr.
+Winslow had been unable to shave.  Mrs. Markham, incautiously and
+surreptitiously opening a port-hole in her state-room for a whiff
+of fresh air while dressing, had been shocked by the intrusion of
+the Pacific Ocean, and was obliged to summon assistance and change
+her dress.  Jack Crosby, who had attired himself for tropical
+shore-going in white ducks and patent leathers, shivered in the
+keen northwest Trades, and bewailed the cheap cigars he had
+expected to buy at Mazatlan.  The entrance of Miss Keene, who
+seemed to bring with her the freshness and purity of the dazzling
+outer air, stirred the younger men into some gallant attention,
+embarrassed, however, by a sense of self-reproach.
+
+Senor Perkins alone retained his normal serenity.  Already seated
+at the table between the two fair-headed children of Mrs. Brimmer,
+he was benevolently performing parental duties in her absence, and
+gently supervising and preparing their victuals even while he
+carried on an ethnological and political discussion with Mrs.
+Markham.
+
+"Ah, my dear lady," continued the Senor, as he spread a hot biscuit
+with butter and currant jelly for the youngest Miss Brimmer, "I am
+afraid that, with the fastidiousness of your sex, you allow your
+refined instincts against a race who only mix with ours in a menial
+capacity to prejudice your views of their ability for enlightened
+self-government.  That may be true of the aborigines of the Old
+World--like our friends the Lascars among the crew"--
+
+"They're so snaky, dark, and deceitful-looking," interrupted Mrs.
+Markham.
+
+"I might differ from you there, and say that the higher blonde
+types like the Anglo-Saxon--to say nothing of the wily Greeks--were
+the deceitful races: it might be difficult for any of us to say
+what a sly and deceitful man should be like"--
+
+"Oor not detheitful--oor a dood man," interpolated the youngest
+Miss Brimmer, fondly regarding the biscuit.
+
+"Thank you, Missie," beamed the Senor; "but to return: our Lascar
+friends, Mrs. Markham, belong to an earlier Asiatic type of
+civilization already decayed or relapsed to barbarism, while the
+aborigines of the New World now existing have never known it--or,
+like the Aztecs, have perished with it.  The modern North American
+aborigine has not yet got beyond the tribal condition; mingled with
+Caucasian blood as he is in Mexico and Central America, he is
+perfectly capable of self-government."
+
+"Then why has he never obtained it?" asked Mrs. Markham.
+
+"He has always been oppressed and kept down by colonists of the
+Latin races; he has been little better than a slave to his
+oppressor for the last two centuries," said Senor Perkins, with a
+slight darkening of his soft eyes.
+
+"Injins is pizen," whispered Mr. Winslow to Miss Keene.
+
+"Who would be free, you know, the poet says, ought themselves to
+light out from the shoulder, and all that sort of thing," suggested
+Crosby, with cheerful vagueness.
+
+"True; but a little assistance and encouragement from mankind
+generally would help them," continued the Senor.  "Ah! my dear Mrs.
+Markham, if they could even count on the intelligent sympathy of
+women like yourself, their independence would be assured.  And
+think what a proud privilege to have contributed to such a result,
+to have assisted at the birth of the ideal American Republic, for
+such it would be--a Republic of one blood, one faith, one history."
+
+"What on earth, or sea, ever set the old man off again?" inquired
+Crosby, in an aggrieved whisper.  "It's two weeks since he's given
+us any Central American independent flapdoodle--long enough for
+those nigger injins to have had half a dozen revolutions.  You know
+that the vessels that put into San Juan have saluted one flag in
+the morning, and have been fired at under another in the
+afternoon."
+
+"Hush!" said Miss Keene.  "He's so kind!  Look at him now, taking
+off the pinafores of those children and tidying them.  He is kinder
+to them than their nurse, and more judicious than their mother.
+And half his talk with Mrs. Markham now is only to please her,
+because she thinks she knows politics.  He's always trying to do
+good to somebody."
+
+"That's so," exclaimed Brace, eager to share Miss Keene's
+sentiments; "and he's so good to those outlandish niggers in the
+crew.  I don't see how the captain could get on with the crew
+without him; he's the only one who can talk their gibberish and
+keep them quiet.  I've seen him myself quietly drop down among them
+when they were wrangling.  In my opinion," continued the young
+fellow, lowering his voice somewhat ostentatiously, "you'll find
+out when we get to port that he's stopped the beginning of many a
+mutiny among them."
+
+"I reckon they'd make short work of a man like him," said Winslow,
+whose superciliousness was by no means lessened by the community of
+sentiment between Miss Keene and Brace.  "I reckon, his political
+reforms, and his poetical high-falutin' wouldn't go as far in the
+forecastle among live men as it does in the cabin with a lot of
+women.  You'll more likely find that he's been some sort of steward
+on a steamer, and he's working his passage with us.  That's where
+he gets that smooth, equally-attentive-to-anybody sort of style.
+The way he skirmished around Mrs. Brimmer and Mrs. Markham with a
+basin the other day when it was so rough convinced ME.  It was a
+little too professional to suit my style."
+
+"I suppose that was the reason why you went below so suddenly,"
+rejoined Brace, whose too sensitive blood was beginning to burn in
+his cheeks and eyes.
+
+"It's a shame to stay below this morning," said Miss Keene,
+instinctively recognizing the cause of the discord and its remedy.
+"I'm going on deck again--if I can manage to get there."
+
+The three gentlemen sprang to accompany her; and, in their efforts
+to keep their physical balance and hers equally, the social
+equilibrium was restored.
+
+By noon, however, the heavy cross-sea had abated, and the Excelsior
+bore west.  When she once more rose and fell regularly on the long
+rhythmical swell of the Pacific, most of the passengers regained
+the deck.  Even Mrs. Brimmer and Miss Chubb ventured from their
+staterooms, and were conveyed to and installed in some state on a
+temporary divan of cushions and shawls on the lee side.  For even
+in this small republic of equal cabin passengers the undemocratic
+and distinction-loving sex had managed to create a sham
+exclusiveness.  Mrs. Brimmer, as the daughter of a rich Bostonian,
+the sister of a prominent lawyer, and the wife of a successful San
+Francisco merchant, who was popularly supposed to be part-owner of
+the Excelsior, was recognized, and alternately caressed and hated
+as their superior.  A majority of the male passengers, owning no
+actual or prospective matrimonial subjection to those charming
+toad-eaters, I am afraid continued to enjoy a mild and debasing
+equality among themselves, mitigated only by the concessions of
+occasional gallantry.  To them, Mrs. Brimmer was a rather pretty,
+refined, well-dressed woman, whose languid pallor, aristocratic
+spareness, and utter fastidiousness did not, however, preclude a
+certain nervous intensity which occasionally lit up her weary eyes
+with a dangerous phosphorescence, under their brown fringes.
+Equally acceptable was Miss Chubb, her friend and traveling
+companion; a tall, well-bred girl, with faint salmon-pink hair and
+complexion, that darkened to a fiery brown in her shortsighted
+eyes.
+
+Between these ladies and Mrs. Markham and Miss Keene existed an
+enthusiastic tolerance, which, however, could never be mistaken for
+a generous rivalry.  Of the greater popularity of Miss Keene as the
+recognized belle of the Excelsior there could be no question; nor
+was there any from Mrs. Brimmer and her friend.  The intellectual
+preeminence of Mrs. Markham was equally, and no less ostentatiously,
+granted.  "Mrs. Markham is so clever; I delight to hear you converse
+together," Mrs. Brimmer would say to Senor Perkins, "though I'm sure
+I hardly dare talk to her myself.  She might easily go into the
+lecture-field--perhaps she expects to do so in California.  My dear
+Clarissa"--to Miss Chubb--"don't she remind you a little of Aunt
+Jane Winthrop's governess, whom we came so near taking to Paris with
+us, but couldn't on account of her defective French?"
+
+When "The Excelsior Banner and South Sea Bubble" was published in
+lat. 15 N. and long. 105 W., to which Mrs. Markham contributed the
+editorials and essays, and Senor Perkins three columns of
+sentimental poetry, Mrs. Brimmer did not withhold her praise of the
+fair editor.  When the Excelsior "Recrossed the Line," with a
+suitable tableau vivant and pageant, and Miss Keene as California,
+in white and blue, welcomed from the hands of Neptune (Senor
+Perkins) and Amphitrite (Mrs. Markham) her fair sister,
+Massachusetts (Mrs. Brimmer), and New York (Miss Chubb), Mrs.
+Brimmer was most enthusiastic of the beauty of Miss Keene.
+
+On the present morning Mr. Banks found his disappointment at not
+going into Mazatlan languidly shared by Mrs. Brimmer.  That lady
+even made a place for him on the cushions beside her, as she
+pensively expressed her belief that her husband would be still more
+disappointed.
+
+"Mr. Brimmer, you know, has correspondents at Mazatlan, and no
+doubt he has made particular arrangements for our reception and
+entertainment while there.  I should not wonder if he was very
+indignant.  And if, as I fear, the officials of the place, knowing
+Mr. Brimmer's position--and my own connections--have prepared to
+show us social courtesies, it may be a graver affair.  I shouldn't
+be surprised if our Government were obliged to take notice of it.
+There is a Captain-General of port--isn't there?  I think my
+husband spoke of him."
+
+"Oh, he's probably been shot long ago," broke in Mr. Crosby
+cheerfully.  "They put in a new man every revolution.  If the wrong
+party's got in, they've likely shipped your husband's correspondent
+too, and might be waiting to get a reception for you with nigger
+soldiers and ball cartridges.  Shouldn't wonder if the skipper got
+wind of something of the kind, and that's why he didn't put in.  If
+your husband hadn't been so well known, you see, we might have
+slipped in all right."
+
+Mrs. Brimmer received this speech with the languid obliviousness of
+perception she usually meted out to this chartered jester.
+
+"Do you really think so, Mr. Crosby?  And would you have been
+afraid to leave your cabin--or are you joking?  You know I never
+know when you are.  It is very dreadful, either way."
+
+But here Miss Chubb, with ready tact, interrupted any possible
+retort from Mr. Crosby.
+
+"Look," she said, pointing to some of the other passengers, who, at
+a little distance, had grouped about the first mate in animated
+discussion.  "I wonder what those gentlemen are so interested
+about.  Do go and see."
+
+Before he could reply, Mr. Winslow, detaching himself from the
+group, hurried towards them.
+
+"Here's a row: Hurlstone is missing!  Can't be found anywhere!
+They think he's fallen overboard!"
+
+The two frightened exclamations from Miss Chubb and Mrs. Brimmer
+diverted attention from the sudden paleness of Miss Keene, who had
+impulsively approached them.
+
+"Impossible!" she said hurriedly.
+
+"I fear it is so," said Brace, who had followed Winslow; "although,"
+he added in a lower tone, with an angry glance at the latter, "that
+brute need not have blustered it out to frighten everybody.  They're
+searching the ship again, but there seems no hope.  He hasn't been
+seen since last night.  He was supposed to be in his state-room--but
+as nobody missed him--you know how odd and reserved he was--it was
+only when the steward couldn't find him, and began to inquire, that
+everybody remembered they hadn't seen him all day.  You are
+frightened, Miss Keene; pray sit down.  That fellow Winslow ought to
+have had more sense."
+
+"It seems so horrible that nobody knew it," said the young girl,
+shuddering; "that we sat here laughing and talking, while perhaps
+he was--  Good heavens! what's that?"
+
+A gruff order had been given: in the bustle that ensued the ship
+began to fall off to leeward; a number of the crew had sprung to
+the davits of the quarter boat.
+
+"We're going about, and they're lowering a boat, that's all; but
+it's as good as hopeless," said Brace.  "The accident must have
+happened before daylight, or it would have been seen by the watch.
+It was probably long before we came on deck," he added gently; "so
+comfort yourself, Miss Keene, you could have seen nothing."
+
+"It seems so dreadful," murmured the young girl, "that he wasn't
+even missed.  Why," she said, suddenly raising her soft eyes to
+Brace, "YOU must have noticed his absence; why, even I"--  She
+stopped with a slight confusion, that was, however, luckily
+diverted by the irrepressible Winslow.
+
+"The skipper's been routed out at last, and is giving orders.  He
+don't look as if his hat fitted him any too comfortably this
+morning, does he?" he laughed, as a stout, grizzled man, with
+congested face and eyes, and a peremptory voice husky with
+alcoholic irritation, suddenly appeared among the group by the
+wheel.  "I reckon he's cursing his luck at having to heave-to and
+lose this wind."
+
+"But for a human creature's life!" exclaimed Mrs. Markham in
+horror.
+
+"That's just it.  Laying-to now ain't going to save anybody's life,
+and he knows it.  He's doin' it for show, just for a clean record
+in the log, and to satisfy you people here, who'd kick up a row if
+he didn't."
+
+"Then you believe he's lost?" said Miss Keene, with glistening
+eyes.
+
+"There ain't a doubt of it," returned Winslow shortly.
+
+"I don't agree with you," said a gentle voice.
+
+They turned quickly towards the benevolent face of Senor Perkins,
+who had just joined them.
+
+"I differ from my young friend," continued the Senor courteously,
+"because the accident must have happened at about daybreak, when we
+were close inshore.  It would not be impossible for a good swimmer
+to reach the land, or even," continued Senor Perkins, in answer to
+the ray of hope that gleamed in Miss Keene's soft eyes, "for him to
+have been picked up by some passing vessel.  The smoke of a large
+steamer was sighted between us and the land at about that time."
+
+"A steamer!" ejaculated Banks eagerly; "that was one of the new
+line with the mails.  How provoking!"
+
+He was thinking of his lost letters.  Miss Keene turned, heart-
+sick, away.  Worse than the ghastly interruption to their easy
+idyllic life was this grim revelation of selfishness.  She began to
+doubt if even the hysterical excitement of her sister passengers
+was not merely a pleasant titillation of their bored and inactive
+nerves.
+
+"I believe the Senor is right, Miss Keene," said Brace, taking her
+aside, "and I'll tell you why."  He stopped, looked around him, and
+went on in a lower voice, "There are some circumstances about the
+affair which look more like deliberation than an accident.  He has
+left nothing behind him of any value or that gives any clue.  If it
+was a suicide he would have left some letter behind for somebody--
+people always do, you know, at such times--and he would have chosen
+the open sea.  It seems more probable that he threw himself
+overboard with the intention of reaching the shore."
+
+"But why should he want to leave the ship?" echoed the young girl
+simply.
+
+"Perhaps he found out that we were NOT going to Mazatlan, and this
+was his only chance; it must have happened just as the ship went
+about and stood off from shore again."
+
+"But I don't understand," continued Miss Keene, with a pretty
+knitting of her brows, "why he should be so dreadfully anxious to
+get ashore now."
+
+The young fellow looked at her with the superior smile of youthful
+sagacity.
+
+"Suppose he had particular reasons for not going to San Francisco,
+where our laws could reach him!  Suppose he had committed some
+offense! Suppose he was afraid of being questioned or recognized!"
+
+The young girl rose indignantly.
+
+"This is really too shameful!  Who dare talk like that?"
+
+Brace colored quickly.
+
+"Who?  Why, everybody," he stammered, for a moment abandoning his
+attitude of individual acumen; "it's the talk of the ship."
+
+"Is it?  And before they know whether he's alive or dead--perhaps
+even while he is still struggling with death--all they can do is to
+take his character away!" she repeated, with flashing eyes.
+
+"And I'm even worse than they are," he returned, his temper rising
+with his color.  "I ought to have known I was talking to one of HIS
+friends, instead of one whom I thought was MINE.  I beg your
+pardon."
+
+He turned away as Miss Keene, apparently not heeding his pique,
+crossed the deck, and entered into conversation with Mrs. Markham.
+
+It is to be feared that she found little consolation among the
+other passengers, or even those of her own sex, whom this profound
+event had united in a certain freemasonry of sympathy and interest--
+to the exclusion of their former cliques.  She soon learned, as
+the return of the boats to the ship and the ship to her course
+might have clearly told her, that there was no chance of recovering
+the missing passenger.  She learned that the theory advanced by
+Brace was the one generally held by them; but with an added romance
+of detail, that excited at once their commiseration and admiration.
+Mrs. Brimmer remembered to have heard him, the second or third
+night out from Callao, groaning in his state-room; but having
+mistakenly referred the emotion to ordinary seasickness, she had no
+doubt lost an opportunity for confidential disclosure.  "I am
+sure," she added, "that had somebody as resolute and practical as
+you, dear Mrs. Markham, approached him the next day, he would have
+revealed his sorrow."  Miss Chubb was quite certain that she had
+seen him one night, in tears, by the quarter railing.  "I saw his
+eyes glistening under his slouched hat as I passed.  I remember
+thinking, at the time, that he oughtn't to have been left alone
+with such a dreadful temptation before him to slip overboard and
+end his sorrow or his crime."  Mrs. Markham also remembered that it
+was about five o'clock--or was it six?--that morning when she
+distinctly thought she had heard a splash, and she was almost
+impelled to get up and look out of the bull's-eye.  She should
+never forgive herself for resisting that impulse, for she was
+positive now that she would have seen his ghastly face in the
+water.  Some indignation was felt that the captain, after a cursory
+survey of his stateroom, had ordered it to be locked until his fate
+was more positively known, and the usual seals placed on his
+effects for their delivery to the authorities at San Francisco.  It
+was believed that some clue to his secret would be found among his
+personal chattels, if only in the form of a keepsake, a locket, or
+a bit of jewelry.  Miss Chubb had noticed that he wore a seal ring,
+but not on the engagement-finger.  In some vague feminine way it
+was admitted without discussion that one of their own sex was mixed
+up in the affair, and, with the exception of Miss Keene, general
+credence was given to the theory that Mazatlan contained his
+loadstar--the fatal partner and accomplice of his crime, the siren
+that allured him to his watery grave.  I regret to say that the
+facts gathered by the gentlemen were equally ineffective.  The
+steward who had attended the missing man was obliged to confess
+that their most protracted and confidential conversation had been
+on the comparative efficiency of ship biscuits and soda crackers.
+Mr. Banks, who was known to have spoken to him, could only remember
+that one warm evening, in reply to a casual remark about the
+weather, the missing man, burying his ears further in the turned-up
+collar of his pea-jacket, had stated, "'It was cold enough to
+freeze the ears off a brass monkey,'--a remark, no doubt, sir,
+intended to convey a reason for his hiding his own."  Only Senor
+Perkins retained his serene optimism unimpaired.
+
+"Take my word for it, we shall yet hear good news of our missing
+friend.  Let us at least believe it until we know otherwise.  Ah!
+my dear Mrs. Markham, why should the Unknown always fill us with
+apprehension?  Its surprises are equally often agreeable."
+
+"But we have all been so happy before this; and this seems such an
+unnecessary and cruel awakening," said Miss Keene, lifting her sad
+eyes to the speaker, "that I can't help thinking it's the beginning
+of the end.  Good heavens! what's that?"
+
+She had started at the dark figure of one of the foreign-looking
+sailors, who seemed to have suddenly risen out of the deck beside
+them.
+
+"The Senor Perkins," he said, with an apologetic gesture of his
+hand to his hatless head.
+
+"You want ME, my good man?" asked Senor Perkins paternally.
+
+"Si, Senor; the mate wishes to see the Patrono," he said in
+Spanish.
+
+"I will come presently."
+
+The sailor hesitated.  Senor Perkins took a step nearer to him
+benignantly.  The man raised his eyes to Senor Perkins, and said,--
+
+"Vigilancia."
+
+"Bueno!" returned the Senor gently.  "Excuse me, ladies, for a
+moment."
+
+"Perhaps it is some news of poor Mr. Hurlstone?" said Miss Keene,
+with an instinctive girlish movement of hope.
+
+"Who knows?" returned Senor Perkins, waving his hand as he gayly
+tripped after his guide.  "Let us believe in the best, dear young
+lady, the best!"
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+"VIGILANCIA."
+
+
+Without exchanging another word with his escort, Senor Perkins
+followed him to the main hatch, where they descended and groped
+their way through the half obscurity of the lower deck.  Here they
+passed one or two shadows, that, recognizing the Senor, seemed to
+draw aside in a half awed, half suppressed shyness, as of caged
+animals in the presence of their trainer.  At the fore-hatch they
+again descended, passing a figure that appeared to be keeping watch
+at the foot of the ladder, and almost instantly came upon a group
+lit up by the glare of a bull's-eye lantern.  It was composed of
+the first and second mate, a vicious-looking Peruvian sailor with a
+bandaged head, and, to the Senor's astonishment, the missing
+passenger Hurlstone, seated on the deck, heavily ironed.
+
+"Tell him what you know, Pedro," said the first mate to the
+Peruvian sailor curtly.
+
+"It was just daybreak, Patrono, before we put about," began the man
+in Spanish, "that I thought I saw some one gliding along towards
+the fore-hatch; but I lost sight of him.  After we had tumbled up
+to go on the other tack, I heard a noise in the fore-hold.  I went
+down and found HIM," pointing to Hurlstone, "hiding there.  He had
+some provisions stowed away beside him, and that package.  I
+grabbed him, Patrono.  He broke away and struck me here"--he
+pointed to his still wet bandage--"and would have got out overboard
+through the port, but the second mate heard the row and came down
+just in time to stop him."
+
+"When was this?" asked Senor Perkins.
+
+"Guardia di Diana."
+
+"You were chattering, you fellows."
+
+"Quien sabe?" said the Peruvian, lifting his shoulders.
+
+"How does he explain himself?"
+
+"He refuses to speak."
+
+"Take off his irons," said Senor Perkins, in English.
+
+"But"--expostulated the first mate, with a warning gesture.
+
+"I said--take off his irons," repeated Senor Perkins in a dry and
+unfamiliar voice.
+
+The two mates released the shackles.  The prisoner raised his eyes
+to Senor Perkins.  He was a slightly built man of about thirty,
+fair-haired and hollow-cheeked.  His short upper lip was lifted
+over his teeth, as if from hurried or labored breathing; but his
+features were regular and determined, and his large blue eyes shone
+with a strange abstraction of courage and fatuity.
+
+"That will do," continued the Senor, in the same tone.  "Now leave
+him with me."
+
+The two mates looked at each other, and hesitated; but at a glance
+from Perkins, turned, and ascended the ladder again.  The Peruvian
+alone remained.
+
+"Go!" said the Senor sharply.
+
+The man cast a vindictive look at the prisoner and retreated
+sullenly.
+
+"Did HE tell you," said the prisoner, looking after the sailor
+grimly, "that I tried to bribe him to let me go, but that I
+couldn't reach his figure?  He wanted too much.  He thought I had
+some stolen money or valuables here," he added, with a bitter
+laugh, pointing to the package that lay beside him.
+
+"And you hadn't?" said Perkins shortly.
+
+"No."
+
+"I believe you.  And now, my young friend," said Perkins, with a
+singular return of his beaming gentleness, "since those two
+efficient and competent officers and this energetic but
+discourteous seaman are gone, would you mind telling me WHAT you
+were hiding for?"
+
+The prisoner raised his eyes on his questioner.  For the last three
+weeks he had lived in the small community of which the Senor was a
+prominent member, but he scarcely recognized him now.
+
+"What if I refuse?" he said.
+
+The Senor shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Those two excellent men would feel it their duty to bring the
+Peruvian to the captain, and I should be called to interpret to
+him."
+
+"And I should throw myself overboard the first chance I got.  I
+would have done so ten minutes ago, but the mate stopped me."
+
+His eye glistened with the same fatuous determination he had shown
+at first.  There was no doubt he would do as he said.
+
+"I believe you would," said the Senor benevolently; "but I see no
+present necessity for that, nor for any trouble whatever, if you
+will kindly tell me WHAT I am to say."
+
+The young man's eyes fell.
+
+"I DID try to conceal myself in the hold," he said bluntly.  "I
+intended to remain there hidden while the ship was at Mazatlan.  I
+did not know until now that the vessel had changed her course."
+
+"And how did you believe your absence would be accounted for?"
+asked the Senor blandly.
+
+"I thought it would be supposed that I had fallen overboard before
+we entered Mazatlan."
+
+"So that anybody seeking you there would not find you, and you
+would be believed to be dead?"
+
+"Yes."  He raised his eyes quickly to Senor Perkins again.  "I am
+neither a thief nor a murderer," he said almost savagely, "but I do
+not choose to be recognized by any one who knows me on this side of
+the grave."
+
+Senor Perkins' eyes sought his, and for an instant seemed to burn
+through the singular, fatuous mist that veiled them.
+
+"My friend," he said cheerfully, after a moment's pause, "you have
+just had a providential escape.  I repeat it--a most providential
+escape.  Indeed, if I were inclined to prophesy, I would say you
+were a man reserved for some special good fortune."
+
+The prisoner stared at him with angry amazement.
+
+"You are a confirmed somnambulist.  Excuse me," continued the
+Senor, with a soft, deprecating gesture; "you are, of course,
+unaware of it--most victims of that singular complaint are, or at
+least fail to recognize the extent of their aberration.  In your
+case it has only been indicated by a profound melancholy and
+natural shunning of society.  In a paroxysm of your disorder, you
+rise in the night, fully dress yourself, and glide as unconsciously
+along the deck in pursuance of some vague fancy.  You pass the
+honest but energetic sailor who has just left us, who thinks you
+are a phantom, and fails to give the alarm; you are precipitated by
+a lurch of the ship through an open hatchway: the shock renders you
+insensible until you are discovered and restored."
+
+"And who will believe this pretty story?" said the young man
+scornfully.
+
+"The honest sailor who picked you up, who has related it in his own
+picturesque tongue to ME, who will in turn interpret it to the
+captain and the other passengers," replied Senor Perkins blandly.
+
+"And what of the two mates who were here?" said the prisoner
+hesitatingly.
+
+"They are two competent officers, who are quite content to carry
+out the orders of their superiors, and who understand their duty
+too well to interfere with the reports of their subordinates, on
+which these orders are based.  Mr. Brooks, the first officer,
+though fairly intelligent and a good reader of history, is only
+imperfectly acquainted with the languages, and Mr. M'Carthy's
+knowledge of Spanish is confined to a few objurgations which
+generally preclude extended conversation."
+
+"And who are you," said Hurlstone, more calmly, "who are willing to
+do this for a stranger?"
+
+"A friend--equally of yours, the captain's, and the other
+passengers'," replied Senor Perkins pleasantly.  "A man who
+believes you, my dear sir, and, even if he did not, sees no reason
+to interrupt the harmony that has obtained in our little community
+during our delightful passage.  Were any scandal to occur, were you
+to carry out your idea of throwing yourself overboard, it would, to
+say nothing of my personal regret, produce a discord for which
+there is no necessity, and from which no personal good can be
+derived.  Here at least your secret is secure, for even I do not
+ask what it is; we meet here on an equality, based on our own
+conduct and courtesy to each other, limited by no antecedent
+prejudice, and restrained by no thought of the future.  In a little
+while we shall be separated--why should it not be as friends?  Why
+should we not look back upon our little world of this ship as a
+happy one?"
+
+Hurlstone gazed at the speaker with a troubled air.  It was once
+more the quaint benevolent figure whom he had vaguely noted among
+the other passengers, and as vaguely despised.  He hesitated a
+moment, and then, half timidly, half reservedly, extended his hand.
+
+"I thank you," he said, "at least for not asking my secret.
+Perhaps, if it was only"--
+
+"Your own--you might tell it," interrupted the Senor, gayly.  "I
+understand.  I see you recognize my principle.  There is no
+necessity of your putting yourself to that pain, or another to that
+risk.  And now, my young friend, time presses.  I must say a word
+to our friends above, who are waiting, and I shall see that you are
+taken privately to your state-room while most of the other
+passengers are still on deck.  If you would permit yourself the
+weakness of allowing the steward to carry or assist you it would be
+better.  Let me advise you that the excitement of the last three
+hours has not left you in your full strength.  You must really give
+ME the pleasure of spreading the glad tidings of your safety among
+the passengers, who have been so terribly alarmed."
+
+"They will undoubtedly be relieved," said Hurlstone, with ironical
+bitterness.
+
+"You wrong them," returned the Senor, with gentle reproach;
+"especially the ladies."
+
+The voice of the first mate from above here checked his further
+speech, and, perhaps, prevented him, as he quickly reascended the
+upper deck, from noticing the slight embarrassment of his prisoner.
+
+The Senor's explanations to the mate were evidently explicit and
+brief.  In a few moments he reappeared with the steward and his
+assistant.
+
+"Lean on these men," he said to Hurlstone significantly, "and do
+not overestimate your strength.  Thank Heaven, no bones are broken,
+and you are only bruised by the fall.  With a little rest, I think
+we can get along without laying the captain's medicine-chest under
+contribution.  Our kind friend Mr. Brooks has had the lower deck
+cleared, so that you may gain your state-room without alarming the
+passengers or fatiguing yourself."
+
+He pressed Hurlstone's hand as the latter resigned himself to the
+steward, and was half led, half supported, through the gloom of the
+lower deck.  Senor Perkins remained for an instant gazing after him
+with even more than his usual benevolence.  Suddenly his arm was
+touched almost rudely.  He turned, and encountered the lowering
+eyes of the Peruvian sailor.
+
+"And what is to be done for me?" said the man roughly, in Spanish.
+
+"You?"
+
+"Yes.  Who's to pay for this?" he pointed to his bandaged head.
+
+Without changing his bland expression, Senor Perkins apparently
+allowed his soft black eyes to rest, as if fondly, on the angry
+pupils of the Peruvian.  The eyes of the latter presently sought
+the ground.
+
+"My dear Yoto," said Senor Perkins softly, "I scarcely think that
+this question of personal damage can be referred to the State.  I
+will, however, look into it.  Meantime, let me advise you to
+control your enthusiasm.  Too much zeal in a subordinate is even
+more fatal than laxity.  For the rest, son, be vigilant--and
+peaceful.  Thou hast meant well, much shall be--forgiven thee.  For
+the present, vamos!"
+
+He turned on his heel, and ascended to the upper deck.  Here he
+found the passengers thrilling with a vague excitement.  A few
+brief orders, a few briefer explanations, dropped by the officers,
+had already whetted curiosity to the keenest point.  The Senor was
+instantly beset with interrogations.  Gentle, compassionate, with
+well-rounded periods, he related the singular accident that had
+befallen Mr. Hurlstone, and his providential escape from almost
+certain death.  "At the most, he has now only the exhaustion of the
+shock, from which a day of perfect rest will recover him; but," he
+added deprecatingly, "at present he ought not to be disturbed or
+excited."
+
+The story was received by those fellow-passengers who had been
+strongest in their suspicions of Hurlstone's suicide or flight,
+with a keen sense of discomfiture, only mitigated by a humorous
+perception of the cause of the accident.  It was agreed that a man
+whose ludicrous infirmity had been the cause of putting the ship
+out of her course, and the passengers out of their comfortable
+security, could not be wronged by attributing to him manlier and
+more criminal motives.  A somnambulist on shipboard was clearly a
+humorous object, who might, however, become a bore.  "It all
+accounts for his being so deuced quiet and reserved in the
+daytime," said Crosby facetiously; "he couldn't keep it up the
+whole twenty-four hours.  If he'd only given us a little more of
+his company when he was awake, he wouldn't have gallivanted round
+at night, and we'd have been thirty miles nearer port."  Equal
+amusement was created by the humorous suggestion that the
+unfortunate man had never been entirely awake during the voyage,
+and that he would now, probably for the first time, really make the
+acquaintance of his fellow-voyagers.  Listening to this badinage
+with bland tolerance, Senor Perkins no doubt felt that, for the
+maintenance of that perfect amity he so ardently apostrophized, it
+was just as well that Hurlstone was in his state-room, and out of
+hearing.
+
+He would have been more satisfied, however, had he been permitted
+to hear the feminine comments on this incident.  In the eyes of the
+lady passengers Mr. Hurlstone was more a hero than ever; his
+mysterious malady invested him with a vague and spiritual interest;
+his escape from the awful fate reserved to him, in their excited
+fancy, gave him the eclat of having ACTUALLY survived it; while the
+supposed real incident of his fall through the hatchway lent him
+the additional lustre of a wounded and crippled man.  That
+prostrate condition of active humanity, which so irresistibly
+appeals to the feminine imagination as segregating their victim
+from the distractions of his own sex, and, as it were, delivering
+him helpless into their hands, was at once their opportunity, and
+his.  All the ladies volunteered to nurse him; it was with
+difficulty that Mrs. Brimmer and Mrs. Markham, reinforced with
+bandages, flannels, and liniments, and supported by different
+theories, could be kept from the door of his state-room.  Jellies,
+potted meats, and delicacies from their private stores appeared on
+trays at his bedside, to be courteously declined by the Senor
+Perkins, in his new functions of a benevolent type of Sancho Panza
+physician.  To say that this pleased the gentle optimism of the
+Senor is unnecessary.  Even while his companion writhed under the
+sting of this enforced compassion, the good man beamed philosophically
+upon him.
+
+"Take care, or I shall end this cursed farce in my own way," said
+Hurlstone ominously, his eyes again filming with a vague
+desperation.
+
+"My dear boy," returned the Senor gently, "reflect upon the
+situation.  Your suffering, real or implied, produces in the hearts
+of these gentle creatures a sympathy which not only exalts and
+sustains their higher natures, but, I conscientiously believe,
+gratifies and pleases their lower ones.  Why should you deny them
+this opportunity of indulging their twofold organisms, and
+beguiling the tedium of the voyage, merely because of some
+erroneous exhibition of fact?"
+
+Later, Senor Perkins might have added to this exposition the
+singularly stimulating effect which Hurlstone's supposed peculiarity
+had upon the feminine imagination.  But there were some secrets
+which were not imparted even to him, and it was only to each other
+that the ladies confided certain details and reminiscences.  For it
+now appeared that they had all heard strange noises and stealthy
+steps at night; and Mrs. Brimmer was quite sure that on one occasion
+the handle of her state-room door was softly turned.  Mrs. Markham
+also remembered distinctly that only a week before, being unable to
+sleep, she had ventured out into the saloon in a dressing-gown to
+get her diary, which she had left with a portfolio on a chair; that
+she had a sudden consciousness of another presence in the saloon,
+although she could distinguish nothing by the dim light of the
+swinging lantern; and that, after quickly returning to her room, she
+was quite positive she heard a door close.  But the most surprising
+reminiscence developed by the late incident was from Mrs. Brimmer's
+nurse, Susan.  As it, apparently, demonstrated the fact that Mr.
+Hurlstone not only walked but TALKED in his sleep, it possessed a
+more mysterious significance.  It seemed that Susan was awakened one
+night by the sound of voices, and, opening her door softly, saw a
+figure which she at first supposed to be the Senor Perkins, but
+which she now was satisfied was poor Mr. Hurlstone.  As there was no
+one else to be seen, the voices must have proceeded from that single
+figure; and being in a strange and unknown tongue, were
+inexpressibly weird and awful.  When pressed to remember what was
+said, she could only distinguish one word--a woman's name--Virgil--
+Vigil--no: Virginescia!
+
+"It must have been one of those creatures at Callao, whose pictures
+you can buy for ten cents," said Mrs. Brimmer.
+
+"If it is one of them, Susan must have made a mistake in the first
+two syllables of the name," said Mrs. Markham grimly.
+
+"But surely, Miss Keene," said Miss Chubb, turning to that young
+lady, who had taken only the part of a passive listener to this
+colloquy, and was gazing over the railing at the sinking sun,
+"surely YOU can tell us something about this poor young man.  If I
+don't mistake, you are the only person he ever honored with his
+conversation."
+
+"And only once, I think," said the young girl, slightly coloring.
+"He happened to be sitting next to me on deck, and I believe he
+spoke only out of politeness.  At least, he seemed very quiet and
+reserved, and talked on general topics, and I thought very
+intelligently.  I--should have thought--I mean," she continued
+hesitatingly--"I thought he was an educated gentleman."
+
+"That isn't at all inconsistent with photographs or sleep-walking,"
+said Mrs. Brimmer, with one of her vague simplicities.  "Uncle
+Quincey brought home a whole sheaf of those women whom he said he'd
+met; and one of my cousins, who was educated at Heidelberg, used to
+walk in his sleep, as it were, all over Europe."
+
+"Did you notice anything queer in his eyes, Miss Keene?" asked Miss
+Chubb vivaciously.
+
+Miss Keene had noticed that his eyes were his best feature, albeit
+somewhat abstracted and melancholy; but, for some vague reason she
+could not explain herself, she answered hurriedly that she had seen
+nothing very particular in them.
+
+"Well," said Mrs. Markham positively, "when he's able to be out
+again, I shall consider it my duty to look him up, and try to keep
+him sufficiently awake in the daytime to ensure his resting better
+at night."
+
+"No one can do it, dear Mrs. Markham, better than you; and no one
+would think of misunderstanding your motives," said Mrs. Brimmer
+sweetly.  "But it's getting late, and the air seems to be ever so
+much colder.  Captain Bunker says it's because we are really
+nearing the Californian coast.  It seems so odd!  Mr. Brimmer wrote
+to me that it was so hot in Sacramento that you could do something
+with eggs in the sun--I forget what."
+
+"Hatch them?" suggested Miss Chubb.
+
+"I think so," returned Mrs. Brimmer, rising.  "Let us go below."
+
+The three ladies rustled away, but Miss Keene, throwing a wrap
+around her shoulders, lingered by the railing.  With one little
+hand supporting her round chin, she leaned over the darkly heaving
+water.  She was thinking of her brief and only interview with that
+lonely man whose name was now in everybody's mouth, but who, until
+to-day, had been passed over by them with an unconcern equal to his
+own.  And yet to her refined and delicately feminine taste there
+appeared no reason why he should not have mingled with his fellows,
+and have accepted the homage from them that SHE was instinctively
+ready to give.  He seemed to her like a gentleman--and something
+more.  In her limited but joyous knowledge of the world--a
+knowledge gathered in the happy school-life of an orphan who but
+faintly remembered and never missed a parent's care--she knew
+nothing of the mysterious dominance of passion, suffering, or
+experience in fashioning the outward expression of men, and saw
+only that Mr. Hurlstone was unlike any other.  That unlikeness was
+fascinating.  He had said very little to her in that very brief
+period.  He had not talked to her with the general gallantry which
+she already knew her prettiness elicited.  Without knowing why, she
+felt there was a subtle flattery in his tacit recognition of that
+other self of which she, as yet, knew so little.  She could not
+remember what they had talked about--nor why.  Nor was she offended
+that he had never spoken to her since, nor gone beyond a grave
+lifting of his hat to her when he passed.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+IN THE FOG.
+
+
+By noon of the following day the coast of the Peninsula of
+California had been sighted to leeward.  The lower temperature of
+the northwest Trades had driven Mrs. Brimmer and Miss Chubb into
+their state-rooms to consult their wardrobes in view of an
+impending change from the light muslins and easy languid toilets of
+the Tropics.  That momentous question for the moment held all other
+topics in abeyance; and even Mrs. Markham and Miss Keene, though
+they still kept the deck, in shawls and wraps, sighed over this
+feminine evidence of the gentle passing of their summer holiday.
+The gentlemen had already mounted their pea-jackets and overcoats,
+with the single exception of Senor Perkins, who, in chivalrous
+compliment to the elements, still bared his unfettered throat and
+forehead to the breeze.  The aspect of the coast, as seen from the
+Excelsior's deck, seemed to bear out Mr. Banks' sweeping indictment
+of the day before.  A few low, dome-like hills, yellow and treeless
+as sand dunes, scarcely raised themselves above the horizon.  The
+air, too, appeared to have taken upon itself a dry asperity; the
+sun shone with a hard, practical brilliancy.  Miss Keene raised her
+eyes to Senor Perkins with a pretty impatience that she sometimes
+indulged in, as one of the privileges of accepted beauty and petted
+youth.
+
+"I don't think much of your peninsula," she said poutingly.  "It
+looks dreadfully flat and uninteresting.  It was a great deal nicer
+on the other coast, or even at sea."
+
+"Perhaps you are judging hastily, my dear young friend," said Senor
+Perkins, with habitual tolerance.  "I have heard that behind those
+hills, and hidden from sight in some of the canyons, are perfect
+little Edens of beauty and fruitfulness.  They are like some ardent
+natures that cover their approaches with the ashes of their burnt-
+up fires, but only do it the better to keep intact their glowing,
+vivifying, central heat."
+
+"How very poetical, Mr. Perkins!" said Mrs. Markham, with blunt
+admiration.  "You ought to put that into verse."
+
+"I have," returned Senor Perkins modestly.  "They are some
+reflections on--I hardly dare call them an apostrophe to--the
+crater of Colima.  If you will permit me to read them to you this
+evening, I shall be charmed.  I hope also to take that opportunity
+of showing you the verses of a gifted woman, not yet known to fame,
+Mrs. Euphemia M'Corkle, of Peoria, Illinois."
+
+Mrs. Markham coughed slightly.  The gifted M'Corkle was already
+known to her through certain lines quoted by the Senor; and the
+entire cabin had one evening fled before a larger and more
+ambitious manuscript of the fair Illinoisian.  Miss Keene, who
+dreaded the reappearance of this poetical phantom that seemed to
+haunt the Senor's fancy, could not, however, forget that she had
+been touched on that occasion by a kindly moisture of eye and
+tremulousness of voice in the reader; and, in spite of the hopeless
+bathos of the composition, she had forgiven him.  Though she did
+not always understand Senor Perkins, she liked him too well to
+allow him to become ridiculous to others; and at the present moment
+she promptly interposed with a charming assumption of coquetry.
+
+"You forget that you promised to let ME read the manuscript first,
+and in private, and that you engaged to give me my revenge at chess
+this evening.  But do as you like.  You are all fast becoming
+faithless.  I suppose it is because our holiday is drawing to a
+close, and we shall soon forget we ever had any, or be ashamed we
+ever played so long.  Everybody seems to be getting nervous and
+fidgety and preparing for civilization again.  Mr. Banks, for the
+last few days, has dressed himself regularly as if he were going
+down town to his office, and writes letters in the corner of the
+saloon as if it were a counting-house.  Mr. Crosby and Mr. Winslow
+do nothing but talk of their prospects, and I believe they are
+drawing up articles of partnership together.  Here is Mr. Brace
+frightening me by telling me that my brother will lock me up, to
+keep the rich miners from laying their bags of gold dust at my
+feet; and Mrs. Brimmer and Miss Chubb assure me that I haven't a
+decent gown to go ashore in."
+
+"You forget Mr. Hurlstone," said Brace, with ill-concealed
+bitterness; "he seems to have time enough on his hands, and I dare
+say would sympathize with you.  You women like idle men."
+
+"If we do, it's because only the idle men have the time to amuse
+us," retorted Miss Keene.  "But," she added, with a laugh, "I
+suppose I'm getting nervous and fidgety myself; for I find myself
+every now and then watching the officers and men, and listening to
+the orders as if something were going to happen again.  I never
+felt so before; I never used to have the least concern in what you
+call 'the working of the ship,' and now"--her voice, which had been
+half playful, half pettish, suddenly became grave,--"and now--look
+at the mate and those men forward.  There certainly is something
+going on, or is going to happen.  What ARE they looking at?"
+
+The mate had clambered halfway up the main ratlines, and was
+looking earnestly to windward.  Two or three of the crew on the
+forecastle were gazing in the same direction.  The group of cabin-
+passengers on the quarterdeck, following their eyes, saw what
+appeared to be another low shore on the opposite bow.
+
+"Why, there's another coast there!" said Mrs. Markham.
+
+"It's a fog-bank," said Senor Perkins gravely.  He quickly crossed
+the deck, exchanged a few words with the officer, and returned.
+Miss Keene, who had felt a sense of relief, nevertheless questioned
+his face as he again stood beside her.  But he had recovered his
+beaming cheerfulness.  "It's nothing to alarm you," he said,
+answering her glance, "but it may mean delay if we can't get out of
+it.  You don't mind that, I know."
+
+"No," replied the young girl, smiling.  "Besides, it would be a new
+experience.  We've had winds and calms--we only want fog now to
+complete our adventures.  Unless it's going to make everybody
+cross," she continued, with a mischievous glance at Brace.
+
+"You'll find it won't improve the temper of the officers," said
+Crosby, who had joined the group.  "There's nothing sailors hate
+more than a fog.  They can go to sleep in a hurricane between the
+rolls of a ship, but a fog keeps them awake.  It's the one thing
+they can't shirk.  There's the skipper tumbled up, too!  The old
+man looks wrathy, don't he?  But it's no use now; we're going slap
+into it, and the wind's failing!"
+
+It was true.  In the last few moments all that vast glistening
+surface of metallic blue which stretched so far to windward
+appeared to be slowly eaten away as if by some dull, corroding
+acid; the distant horizon line of sea and sky was still distinct
+and sharply cut, but the whole water between them had grown gray,
+as if some invisible shadow had passed in mid-air across it.  The
+actual fog bank had suddenly lost its resemblance to the shore, had
+lifted as a curtain, and now seemed suspended over the ship.
+Gradually it descended; the top-gallant and top-sails were lost in
+this mysterious vapor, yet the horizon line still glimmered
+faintly.  Then another mist seemed to rise from the sea and meet
+it; in another instant the deck whereon they stood shrank to the
+appearance of a raft adrift in a faint gray sea.  With the complete
+obliteration of all circumambient space, the wind fell.  Their
+isolation was complete.
+
+It was notable that the first and most peculiar effect of this
+misty environment was the absolute silence.  The empty, invisible
+sails above did not flap; the sheets and halyards hung limp; even
+the faint creaking of an unseen block overhead was so startling as
+to draw every eye upwards.  Muffled orders from viewless figures
+forward were obeyed by phantoms that moved noiselessly through the
+gray sea that seemed to have invaded the deck.  Even the passengers
+spoke in whispers, or held their breath, in passive groups, as if
+fearing to break a silence so replete with awe and anticipation.
+It was next noticed that the vessel was subjected to some vague
+motion; the resistance of the water had ceased, the waves no longer
+hissed under her bows, or nestled and lapped under her counter; a
+dreamy, irregular, and listless rocking had taken the place of the
+regular undulations; at times, a faint and half delicious vertigo
+seemed to overcome their senses; the ship was drifting.
+
+Captain Bunker stood near the bitts, where his brief orders were
+transmitted to the man at the almost useless wheel.  At his side
+Senor Perkins beamed with unshaken serenity, and hopefully replied
+to the captain's half surly, half anxious queries.
+
+"By the chart we should be well east of Los Lobos island, d'ye
+see?" he said impatiently.  "You don't happen to remember the
+direction of the current off shore when you were running up here?"
+
+"It's five years ago," said the Senor modestly; "but I remember we
+kept well to the west to weather Cape St. Eugenio.  My impression
+is that there was a strong northwesterly current setting north of
+Ballenos Bay."
+
+"And we're in it now," said Captain Bunker shortly.  "How near St.
+Roque does it set?"
+
+"Within a mile or two.  I should keep away more to the west," said
+Senor Perkins, "and clear"--
+
+"I ain't asking you to run the ship," interrupted Captain Bunker
+sharply.  "How's her head now, Mr. Brooks?"
+
+The seamen standing near cast a rapid glance at Senor Perkins, but
+not a muscle of his bland face moved or betrayed a consciousness of
+the insult.  Whatever might have been the feeling towards him, at
+that moment the sailors--after their fashion--admired their
+captain; strong, masterful, and imperious.  The danger that had
+cleared his eye, throat, and brain, and left him once more the
+daring and skillful navigator they knew, wiped out of their shallow
+minds the vicious habit that had sunk him below their level.
+
+It had now become perceptible to even the inexperienced eyes of the
+passengers that the Excelsior was obeying some new and profound
+impulse.  The vague drifting had ceased, and in its place had come
+a mysterious but regular movement, in which the surrounding mist
+seemed to participate, until fog and vessel moved together towards
+some unseen but well-defined bourne.  In vain had the boats of the
+Excelsior, manned by her crew, endeavored with a towing-line to
+check or direct the inexplicable movement; in vain had Captain
+Bunker struggled, with all the skilled weapons of seamanship,
+against his invincible foe; wrapped in the impenetrable fog, the
+ship moved ghost-like to what seemed to be her doom.
+
+The anxiety of the officers had not as yet communicated itself to
+the passengers; those who had been most nervous in the ordinary
+onset of wind and wave looked upon the fog as a phenomenon whose
+only disturbance might be delay.  To Miss Keene this conveyed no
+annoyance; rather that placid envelopment of cloud soothed her
+fancy; she submitted herself to its soft embraces, and to the
+mysterious onward movement of the ship, as if it were part of a
+youthful dream.  Once she thought of the ship of Sindbad, and that
+fatal loadstone mountain, with an awe that was, however, half a
+pleasure.
+
+"You are not frightened, Miss Keene?" said a voice near her.
+
+She started slightly.  It was the voice of Mr. Hurlstone.  So thick
+was the fog that his face and figure appeared to come dimly out of
+it, like a part of her dreaming fancy.  Without replying to his
+question, she said quickly,--
+
+"You are better then, Mr. Hurlstone?  We--we were all so frightened
+for you."
+
+An angry shadow crossed his thin face, and he hesitated.  After a
+pause he recovered himself, and said,--
+
+"I was saying you were taking all this very quietly.  I don't think
+there's much danger myself.  And if we should go ashore here"--
+
+"Well?" suggested Miss Keene, ignoring this first intimation of
+danger in her surprise at the man's manner.
+
+"Well, we should all be separated only a few days earlier, that's
+all!"
+
+More frightened at the strange bitterness of his voice than by the
+sense of physical peril, she was vaguely moving away towards the
+dimly outlined figures of her companions when she was arrested by a
+voice forward.  There was a slight murmur among the passengers.
+
+"What did he say?" asked Miss Keene, "What are 'Breakers ahead'?"
+
+Hurlstone did not reply.
+
+"Where away?" asked a second voice.
+
+The murmur still continuing, Captain Bunker's hoarse voice pierced
+the gloom,--"Silence fore and aft!"
+
+The first voice repeated faintly,--
+
+"On the larboard bow."
+
+There was another silence.  Again the voice repeated, as if
+mechanically,--
+
+"Breakers!"
+
+"Where away?"
+
+"On the starboard beam."
+
+"We are in some passage or channel," said Hurlstone quietly.
+
+The young girl glanced round her and saw for the first time that,
+in one of those inexplicable movements she had not understood, the
+other passengers had been withdrawn into a limited space of the
+deck, as if through some authoritative orders, while she and her
+companion had been evidently overlooked.  A couple of sailors, who
+had suddenly taken their positions by the quarter-boats, strengthened
+the accidental separation.
+
+"Is there some one taking care of you?" he asked, half hesitatingly;
+"Mr. Brace--Perkins--or"--
+
+"No," she replied quickly.  "Why?"
+
+"Well, we are very near the boat in an emergency, and you might
+allow me to stay here and see you safe in it."
+
+"But the other ladies?  Mrs. Markham, and"--
+
+"They'll take their turn after YOU," he said grimly, picking up a
+wrap from the railing and throwing it over her shoulders.
+
+"But--I don't understand!" she stammered, more embarrassed by the
+situation than by any impending peril.
+
+"There is very little danger, I think," he added impatiently.
+"There is scarcely any sea; the ship has very little way on; and
+these breakers are not over rocks.  Listen."
+
+She tried to listen.  At first she heard nothing but the occasional
+low voice of command near the wheel.  Then she became conscious of
+a gentle, soothing murmur through the fog to the right.  She had
+heard such a murmuring accompaniment to her girlish dreams at
+Newport on a still summer night.  There was nothing to frighten
+her, but it increased her embarrassment.
+
+"And you?" she said awkwardly, raising her soft eyes.
+
+"Oh, if you are all going off in the boats, by Jove, I think I'll
+stick to the ship!" he returned, with a frankness that would have
+been rude but for its utter abstraction.
+
+Miss Keene was silent.  The ship moved gently onward.  The
+monotonous cry of the leadsman in the chains was the only sound
+audible.  The soundings were indicating shoaler water, although the
+murmuring of the surf had been left far astern.  The almost
+imperceptible darkening of the mist on either beam seemed to show
+that the Excelsior was entering some land-locked passage.  The
+movement of the vessel slackened, the tide was beginning to ebb.
+Suddenly a wave of far-off clamor, faint but sonorous, broke across
+the ship.  There was an interval of breathless silence, and then it
+broke again, and more distinctly.  It was the sound of bells!
+
+The thrill of awe which passed through passengers and crew at this
+spiritual challenge from the vast and intangible void around them
+had scarcely subsided when the captain turned to Senor Perkins with
+a look of surly interrogation.  The Senor brushed his hat further
+back on his head, wiped his brow, and became thoughtful.
+
+"It's too far south for Rosario," he said deprecatingly; "and the
+only other mission I know of is San Carlos, and that's far inland.
+But that is the Angelus, and those are mission bells, surely."
+
+The captain turned to Mr. Brooks.  The voice of invisible command
+again passed along the deck, and, with a splash in the water and
+the rattling of chains, the Excelsior swung slowly round on her
+anchor on the bosom of what seemed a placid bay.
+
+Miss Keene, who, in her complete absorption, had listened to the
+phantom bells with an almost superstitious exaltation, had
+forgotten the presence of her companion, and now turned towards
+him.  But he was gone.  The imminent danger he had spoken of, half
+slightingly, he evidently considered as past.  He had taken the
+opportunity offered by the slight bustle made by the lowering of
+the quarter-boat and the departure of the mate on a voyage of
+discovery to mingle with the crowd, and regain his state-room.
+With the anchoring of the vessel, the momentary restraint was
+relaxed, the passengers were allowed to pervade the deck, and Mrs.
+Markham and Mr. Brace simultaneously rushed to Miss Keene's side.
+
+"We were awfully alarmed for you, my dear," said Mrs. Markham,
+"until we saw you had a protector.  Do tell me--what DID he say?
+He must have thought the danger great to have broken the Senor's
+orders and come upon deck?  What did he talk about?"
+
+With a vivid recollection in her mind of Mr. Hurlstone's
+contemptuous ignoring of the other ladies, Miss Keene became
+slightly embarrassed.  Her confusion was not removed by the
+consciousness that the jealous eyes of Brace were fixed upon her.
+
+"Perhaps he thought it was night, and walked upon deck in his
+sleep," remarked Brace sarcastically.  "He's probably gone back to
+bed."
+
+"He offered me his protection very politely, and begged to remain
+to put me in the boat in case of danger," said Miss Keene,
+recovering herself, and directing her reply to Mrs. Markham.  "I
+think that others have made me the same kind of offer--who were
+wide awake," she added mischievously to Brace.
+
+"I wouldn't be too sure that they were not foolishly dreaming too,"
+returned Brace, in a lower voice.
+
+"I should think we all were asleep or dreaming here," said Mrs.
+Markham briskly.  "Nobody seems to know where we are, and the only
+man who might guess it--Senor Perkins--has gone off in the boat
+with the mate."
+
+"We're not a mile from shore and a Catholic church," said Crosby,
+who had joined them.  "I just left Mrs. Brimmer, who is very High
+Church, you know, quite overcome by these Angelus bells.  She's
+been entreating the captain to let her go ashore for vespers.  It
+wouldn't be a bad idea, if we could only see what sort of a place
+we've got to.  It wouldn't do to go feeling round the settlement in
+the dark--would it?  Hallo! what's that?  Oh, by Jove, that'll
+finish Mrs. Brimmer, sure!"
+
+"Hush!" said Miss Keene impulsively.
+
+He stopped.  The long-drawn cadence of a chant in thin clear
+soprano voices swept through the fog from the invisible shore, rose
+high above the ship, and then fell, dying away with immeasurable
+sweetness and melancholy.  Even when it had passed, a lingering
+melody seemed to fill the deck.  Two or three of the foreign
+sailors crossed themselves devoutly; the other passengers withheld
+their speech, and looked at each other.  Afraid to break the charm
+by speech, they listened again, but in vain an infinite repose
+followed that seemed to pervade everything.
+
+It was broken, at last, by the sound of oars in their rowlocks; the
+boat was returning.  But it was noticed that the fog had slightly
+lifted from the surface of the water, for the boat was distinctly
+visible two cables' length from the ship as she approached; and it
+was seen that besides the first officer and Senor Perkins there
+were two strangers in the boat.  Everybody rushed to the side for a
+nearer view of those strange inhabitants of the unknown shore; but
+the boat's crew suddenly ceased rowing, and lay on their oars until
+an indistinct hail and reply passed between the boat and ship.
+There was a bustle forward, an unexpected thunder from the
+Excelsior's eight-pounder at the bow port; Captain Bunker and the
+second mate ranged themselves at the companionway, and the
+passengers for the first time became aware that they were
+participating at the reception of visitors of distinction, as two
+strange and bizarre figures stepped upon the deck.
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+TODOS SANTOS.
+
+
+It was evident that the two strangers represented some exalted
+military and ecclesiastical authority.  This was shown in their
+dress--a long-forgotten, half mediaeval costume, that to the
+imaginative spectator was perfectly in keeping with their
+mysterious advent, and to the more practical as startling as a
+masquerade.  The foremost figure wore a broad-brimmed hat of soft
+felt, with tarnished gold lace, and a dark feather tucked in its
+recurved flap; a short cloak of fine black cloth thrown over one
+shoulder left a buff leathern jacket and breeches, ornamented with
+large round silver buttons, exposed until they were met by high
+boots of untanned yellow buckskin that reached halfway up the
+thigh.  A broad baldric of green silk hung from his shoulder across
+his breast, and supported at his side a long sword with an enormous
+basket hilt, through which somewhat coquettishly peeped a white
+lace handkerchief.  Tall and erect, in spite of the grizzled hair
+and iron-gray moustaches and wrinkled face of a man of sixty, he
+suddenly halted on the deck with a military precision that made the
+jingling chains and bits of silver on his enormous spurs ring
+again.  He was followed by an ecclesiastic of apparently his own
+age, but smoothly shaven, clad in a black silk sotana and sash, and
+wearing the old-fashioned oblong, curl-brimmed hat sacred to "Don
+Basilo," of the modern opera.  Behind him appeared the genial face
+of Senor Perkins, shining with the benignant courtesy of a master
+of ceremonies.
+
+"If this is a fair sample of the circus ashore, I'll take two
+tickets," whispered Crosby, who had recovered his audacity.
+
+"I have the inexpressible honor," said Senor Perkins to Captain
+Bunker, with a gracious wave of his hand towards the extraordinary
+figures, "to present you to the illustrious Don Miguel Briones,
+Comandante of the Presidio of Todos Santos, at present hidden in
+the fog, and the very reverend and pious Padre Esteban, of the
+Mission of Todos Santos, likewise invisible.  When I state to you,"
+he continued, with a slight lifting of his voice, so as to include
+the curious passengers in his explanation, "that, with very few
+exceptions, this is the usual condition of the atmosphere at the
+entrance to the Mission and Presidio of Todos Santos, and that the
+last exception took place thirty-five years ago, when a ship
+entered the harbor, you will understand why these distinguished
+gentlemen have been willing to waive the formality of your waiting
+upon them first, and have taken the initiative.  The illustrious
+Comandante has been generous to exempt you from the usual port
+regulations, and to permit you to wood and to water"--
+
+"What port regulation is he talking of?" asked Captain Bunker
+testily.
+
+"The Mexican regulations forbidding any foreign vessel to
+communicate with the shore," returned Senor Perkins deprecatingly.
+
+"Never heard of 'em.  When were they given?"
+
+The Senor turned and addressed a few words to the commander, who
+stood apart in silent dignity.
+
+"In 1792."
+
+"In what?--Is he mad?" said Bunker.  "Does he know what year this
+is?"
+
+"The illustrious commander believes it to be the year of grace
+1854," answered Senor Perkins quietly.  "In the case of the only
+two vessels who have touched here since 1792 the order was not
+carried out because they were Mexican coasters.  The illustrious
+Comandante explains that the order he speaks of as on record
+distinctly referred to the ship 'Columbia, which belonged to the
+General Washington.'"
+
+"General Washington!" echoed Bunker, angrily staring at the Senor.
+"What's this stuff?  Do you mean to say they don't know any history
+later than our old Revolutionary War?  Haven't they heard of the
+United States among them?  Nor California--that we took from them
+during the late war?"
+
+"Nor how we licked 'em out of their boots, and that's saying a good
+deal," whispered Crosby, glancing at the Comandante's feet.
+
+Senor Perkins raised a gentle, deprecating hand.
+
+"For fifty years the Presidio and the Mission of Todos Santos have
+had but this communication with the outer world," he said blandly.
+"Hidden by impenetrable fogs from the ocean pathway at their door,
+cut off by burning and sterile deserts from the surrounding
+country, they have preserved a trust and propagated a faith in
+enforced but not unhappy seclusion.  The wars that have shaken
+mankind, the dissensions that have even disturbed the serenity of
+their own nation on the mainland, have never reached them here.
+Left to themselves, they have created a blameless Arcadia and an
+ideal community within an extent of twenty square leagues.  Why
+should we disturb their innocent complacency and tranquil enjoyment
+by information which cannot increase and might impair their present
+felicity?  Why should we dwell upon a late political and
+international episode which, while it has been a benefit to us, has
+been a humiliation to them as a nation, and which might not only
+imperil our position as guests, but interrupt our practical
+relations to the wood and water, with which the country abounds?"
+
+He paused, and before the captain could speak, turned to the silent
+Commander, addressed him in a dozen phrases of fluent and courteous
+Spanish, and once more turned to Captain Bunker.
+
+"I have told him you are touched to the heart with his courtesy,
+which you recognize as coming from the fit representative of the
+great Mexican nation.  He reciprocates your fraternal emotion, and
+begs you to consider the Presidio and all that it contains, at your
+disposition and the disposition of your friends--the passengers,
+particularly those fair ladies," said Senor Perkins, turning with
+graceful promptitude towards the group of lady passengers, and
+slightly elevating himself on the tips of his neat boots, "whose
+white hands he kisses, and at whose feet he lays the devotion of a
+Mexican caballero and officer."
+
+He waved his hand towards the Comandante, who, stepping forward,
+swept the deck with his plumed hat before each of the ladies in
+solemn succession.  Recovering himself, he bowed more stiffly to
+the male passengers, picked his handkerchief out of the hilt of his
+sword, gracefully wiped his lips, pulled the end of his long gray
+moustache, and became again rigid.
+
+"The reverend father," continued Senor Perkins, turning towards the
+priest, "regrets that the rules of his order prevent his extending
+the same courtesy to these ladies at the Mission.  But he hopes to
+meet them at the Presidio, and they will avail themselves of his
+aid and counsel there and everywhere."
+
+Father Esteban, following the speaker's words with a gracious and
+ready smile, at once moved forward among the passengers, offering
+an antique snuff-box to the gentlemen, or passing before the ladies
+with slightly uplifted benedictory palms and a caressing paternal
+gesture.  Mrs. Brimmer, having essayed a French sentence, was
+delighted and half frightened to receive a response from the
+ecclesiastic, and speedily monopolized him until he was summoned by
+the Commander to the returning boat.
+
+"A most accomplished man, my dear," said Mrs. Brimmer, as the
+Excelsior's cannon again thundered after the retiring oars, "like
+all of his order.  He says, although Don Miguel does not speak
+French, that his secretary does; and we shall have no difficulty in
+making ourselves understood."
+
+"Then you really intend to go ashore?" said Miss Keene timidly.
+
+"Decidedly," returned Mrs. Brimmer potentially.  "It would be most
+unpolite, not to say insulting, if we did not accept the
+invitation.  You have no idea of the strictness of Spanish
+etiquette.  Besides, he may have heard of Mr. Brimmer."
+
+"As his last information was only up to 1792, he might have
+forgotten it," said Crosby gravely.  "So perhaps it would be safer
+to go on the general invitation."
+
+"As Mr. Brimmer's ancestors came over on the Mayflower, long before
+1792, it doesn't seem so very impossible, if it comes to that,"
+said Mrs. Brimmer, with her usual unanswerable naivete; "provided
+always that you are not joking, Mr. Crosby.  One never knows when
+you are serious."
+
+"Mrs. Brimmer is quite right; we must all go.  This is no mere
+formality," said Senor Perkins, who had returned to the ladies.
+"Indeed, I have myself promised the Comandante to bring YOU," he
+turned towards Miss Keene, "if you will permit Mrs. Markham and
+myself to act as your escort.  It was Don Miguel's express
+request."
+
+A slight flush of pride suffused the cheek of the young girl, but
+the next moment she turned diffidently towards Mrs. Brimmer.
+
+"We must all go together," she said; "shall we not?"
+
+"You see your triumphs have begun already," said Brace, with a
+nervous smile.  "You need no longer laugh at me for predicting your
+fate in San Francisco."
+
+Miss Keene cast a hurried glance around her, in the faint hope--she
+scarcely knew why--that Mr. Hurlstone had overheard the Senor's
+invitation; nor could she tell why she was disappointed at not
+seeing him.  But he had not appeared on deck during the presence of
+their strange visitors; nor was he in the boat which half an hour
+later conveyed her to the shore.  He must have either gone in one
+of the other boats, or fulfilled his strange threat of remaining on
+the ship.
+
+The boats pulled away together towards the invisible shore, piloted
+by Captain Bunker, the first officer, and Senor Perkins in the
+foremost boat.  It had grown warmer, and the fog that stole softly
+over them touched their faces with the tenderness of caressing
+fingers.  Miss Keene, wrapped up in the stern sheets of the boat,
+gave way to the dreamy influence of this weird procession through
+the water, retaining only perception enough to be conscious of the
+singular illusions of the mist that alternately thickened and
+lightened before their bow.  At times it seemed as if they were
+driving full upon a vast pier or breakwater of cold gray granite,
+that, opening to let the foremost boat pass, closed again before
+them; at times it seemed as if they had diverged from their course,
+and were once more upon the open sea, the horizon a far-off line of
+vanishing color; at times, faint lights seemed to pierce the
+gathering darkness, or to move like will-o'-wisps across the smooth
+surface, when suddenly the keel grated on the sand.  A narrow but
+perfectly well defined strip of palpable strand appeared before
+them; they could faintly discern the moving lower limbs of figures
+whose bodies were still hidden in the mist; then they were lifted
+from the boats; the first few steps on dry land carried them out of
+the fog that seemed to rise like a sloping roof from the water's
+edge, leaving them under its canopy in the full light of actual
+torches held by a group of picturesquely dressed people before the
+vista of a faintly lit, narrow, ascending street.  The dim twilight
+of the closing day lingered under this roof of fog, which seemed to
+hang scarcely a hundred feet above them, and showed a wall or
+rampart of brown adobe on their right that extended nearly to the
+water; to the left, at the distance of a few hundred yards, another
+low brown wall appeared; above it rose a fringe of foliage, and,
+more distant and indistinct, two white towers, that were lost in
+the nebulous gray.
+
+One of the figures dressed in green jackets, who seemed to be in
+authority, now advanced, and, after a moment's parley with Senor
+Perkins while the Excelsior's passengers were being collected from
+the different boats, courteously led the way along the wall of the
+fortification.  Presently a low opening or gateway appeared,
+followed by the challenge of a green-jacketed sentry, and the
+sentence, "Dios y Libertad"  It was repeated in the interior of a
+dusky courtyard, surrounded by a low corridor, where a dozen green-
+jacketed men of aboriginal type and complexion, carrying antique
+flintlocks, were drawn up as a guard of honor.
+
+"The Comandante," said Senor Perkins, "directs me to extend his
+apologies to the Senor Capitano Bunker for withholding the salute
+which is due alike to his country, himself, and his fair company;
+but fifty years of uninterrupted peace and fog have left his cannon
+inadequate to polite emergencies, and firmly fixed the tampion of
+his saluting gun.  But he places the Presidio at your disposition;
+you will be pleased to make its acquaintance while it is still
+light; and he will await you in the guard-room."
+
+Left to themselves, the party dispersed like dismissed school-
+children through the courtyard and corridors, and in the enjoyment
+of their release from a month's confinement on shipboard stretched
+their cramped limbs over the ditches, walls, and parapets, to the
+edge of the glacis.
+
+Everywhere a ruin that was picturesque, a decay that was refined
+and gentle, a neglect that was graceful, met the eye; the sharp
+exterior and reentering angles were softly rounded and obliterated
+by overgrowths of semitropical creepers; the abatis was filled by a
+natural brake of scrub-oak and manzanita; the clematis flung its
+long scaling ladders over the escarpment, until Nature, slowly but
+securely investing the doomed fortress, had lifted a victorious
+banner of palm from the conquered summit of the citadel!  Some
+strange convulsions of the earth had completed the victory; the
+barbette guns of carved and antique bronze commemorating fruitless
+and long-forgotten triumphs were dismounted; one turned in the
+cheeks of its carriage had a trunnion raised piteously in the air
+like an amputated stump; another, sinking through its rotting
+chassis, had buried itself to its chase in the crumbling adobe
+wall.  But above and beyond this gentle chaos of defense stretched
+the real ramparts and escarpments of Todos Santos--the impenetrable
+and unassailable fog!  Corroding its brass and iron with saline
+breath, rotting its wood with unending shadow, sapping its adobe
+walls with perpetual moisture, and nourishing the obliterating
+vegetation with its quickening blood, as if laughing to scorn the
+puny embattlements of men--it still bent around the crumbling ruins
+the tender grace of an invisible but all-encompassing arm.
+
+Senor Perkins, who had acted as cicerone to the party, pointed out
+these various mutations with no change from his usual optimism.
+
+"Protected by their peculiar isolation during the late war, there
+was no necessity for any real fortification of the place.
+Nevertheless, it affords some occupation and position for our kind
+friend, Don Miguel, and so serves a beneficial purpose.  This
+little gun," he continued, stopping to attentively examine a small
+but beautifully carved bronze six-pounder, which showed indications
+of better care than the others, "seems to be the saluting-gun Don
+Miguel spoke of.  For the last fifty years it has spoken only the
+language of politeness and courtesy, and yet through want of care
+the tampion, as you see, has become swollen and choked in its
+mouth."
+
+"How true in a larger sense," murmured Mrs. Markham, "the habit of
+courtesy alone preserves the fluency of the heart."
+
+"I know you two are saying something very clever," said Mrs.
+Brimmer, whose small French slippers and silk stockings were
+beginning to show their inadequacy to a twilight ramble in the fog;
+"but I am so slow, and I never catch the point.  Do repeat it
+slowly."
+
+"The Senor was only showing us how they managed to shut up a smooth
+bore in this country," said Crosby gravely.  "I wonder when we're
+going to have dinner.  I suppose old Don Quixote will trot out some
+of his Senoritas.  I want to see those choir girls that sang so
+stunningly a while ago."
+
+"I suppose you mean the boys--for they're all boys in the Catholic
+choirs--but then, perhaps you are joking again.  Do tell me if you
+are, for this is really amusing.  I may laugh--mayn't I?"  As the
+discomfited humorist fell again to the rear amidst the laughter of
+the others, Mrs. Brimmer continued naively to Senor Perkins,--"Of
+course, as Don Miguel is a widower, there must be daughters or
+sisters-in-law who will meet us.  Why, the priest, you know--even
+he--must have nieces.  Really, it's a serious question--if we are
+to accept his hospitality in a social way.  Why don't you ask HIM?"
+she said, pointing to the green-jacketed subaltern who was
+accompanying them.
+
+Senor Perkins looked half embarrassed.
+
+"Repeat your question, my dear lady, and I will translate it."
+
+"Ask him if there are any women at the Presidio."
+
+Senor Perkins drew the subaltern aside.  Presently he turned to
+Mrs. Brimmer.
+
+"He says there are four: the wife of the baker, the wife of the
+saddler, the daughter of the trumpeter, and the niece of the cook."
+
+"Good heavens! we can't meet THEM," said Mrs. Brimmer.
+
+Senor Perkins hesitated.
+
+"Perhaps I ought to have told you," he said blandly, "that the old
+Spanish notions of etiquette are very strict.  The wives of the
+officials and higher classes do not meet strangers on a first
+visit, unless they are well known."
+
+"That isn't it," said Winslow, joining them excitedly.  "I've heard
+the whole story.  It's a good joke.  Banks has been bragging about
+us all, and saying that these ladies had husbands who were great
+merchants, and, as these chaps consider that all trade is vulgar,
+you know, they believe we are not fit to associate with their
+women, don't you see?  All, except one--Miss Keene.  She's
+considered all right.  She's to be introduced to the Commander's
+women, and to the sister of the Alcalde."
+
+"She will do nothing of the kind," said Miss Keene indignantly.
+"If these ladies are not to be received with me, we'll all go back
+to the ship together."
+
+She spoke with a quick and perfectly unexpected resolution and
+independence, so foreign to her usual childlike half dependent
+character, that her hearers were astounded.  Senor Perkins gazed at
+her thoughtfully; Brace, Crosby, and Winslow admiringly; her sister
+passengers with doubt and apprehension.
+
+"There must he some mistake," said Senor Perkins gently.  "I will
+inquire."
+
+He was absent but a few moments.  When he returned, his face was
+beaming.
+
+"It's a ridiculous misapprehension.  Our practical friend Banks, in
+his zealous attempts to impress the Comandante's secretary, who
+knows a little English, with the importance of Mr. Brimmer's
+position as a large commission merchant, has, I fear, conveyed only
+the idea that he was a kind of pawnbroker; while Mr. Markham's
+trade in hides has established him as a tanner; and Mr. Banks' own
+flour speculations, of which he is justly proud, have been
+misinterpreted by him as the work of a successful baker!"
+
+"And what idea did he convey about YOU?" asked Crosby audaciously;
+"it might be interesting to us to know, for our own satisfaction."
+
+"I fear they did not do me the honor to inquire," replied Senor
+Perkins, with imperturbable good-humor; "there are some persons,
+you know, who carry all their worldly possessions palpably about
+with them.  I am one of them.  Call me a citizen of the world, with
+a strong leniency towards young and struggling nationalities; a
+traveler, at home anywhere; a delighted observer of all things, an
+admirer of brave men, the devoted slave of charming women--and you
+have, in one word, a passenger of the good ship Excelsior."
+
+For the first time, Miss Keene noticed a slight irony in Senor
+Perkins' superabundant fluency, and that he did not conceal his
+preoccupation over the silent saluting gun he was still admiring.
+The approach of Don Miguel and Padre Esteban with a small bevy of
+ladies, however, quickly changed her thoughts, and detached the
+Senor from her side.  Her first swift feminine impression of the
+fair strangers was that they were plain and dowdy, an impression
+fully shared by the other lady passengers.  But her second
+observation, that they were more gentle, fascinating, child-like,
+and feminine than her own countrywomen, was purely her own.  Their
+loose, undulating figures, guiltless of stays; their extravagance
+of short, white, heavily flounced skirt, which looked like a
+petticoat; their lightly wrapped, formless, and hooded shoulders
+and heads, lent a suggestion of dishabille that Mrs. Brimmer at
+once resented.
+
+"They might, at least, have dressed themselves," she whispered to
+Mrs. Markham.
+
+"I really believe," returned Mrs. Markham, "they've got no bodices
+on!"
+
+The introductions over, a polyglot conversation ensued in French by
+the Padre and Mrs. Brimmer, and in broken English by Miss Chubb,
+Miss Keene, and the other passengers with the Commander's
+secretary, varied by occasional scraps of college Latin from Mr.
+Crosby, the whole aided by occasional appeals to Senor Perkins.
+The darkness increasing, the party reentered the courtyard, and,
+passing through the low-studded guard-room, entered another
+corridor, which looked upon a second court, enclosed on three
+sides, the fourth opening upon a broad plaza, evidently the public
+resort of the little town.  Encompassing this open space, a few
+red-tiled roofs could be faintly seen in the gathering gloom.
+Chocolate and thin spiced cakes were served in the veranda, pending
+the preparations for a more formal banquet.  Already Miss Keene had
+been singled out from her companions for the special attentions of
+her hosts, male and female, to her embarrassment and confusion.
+Already Dona Isabel, the sister of the Alcalde, had drawn her
+aside, and, with caressing frankness, had begun to question her in
+broken English,--
+
+"But Miss Keene is no name.  The Dona Keene is of nothing."
+
+"Well, you may call me Eleanor, if you like," said Miss Keene,
+smiling.
+
+"Dona Leonor--so; that is good," said Dona Isabel, clapping her
+hands like a child.  "But how are you?"
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Miss Keene, greatly amused, "but I don't
+understand."
+
+"Ah, Caramba!  What are you, little one?"  Seeing that her guest
+still looked puzzled, she continued,--"Ah!  Mother of God!  Why are
+your friends so polite to you?  Why does every one love you so?"
+
+"Do they?  Well," stammered Miss Keene, with one of her rare,
+dazzling smiles, and her cheeks girlishly rosy with naive
+embarrassment, "I suppose they think I am pretty."
+
+"Pretty!  Ah, yes, you are!" said Dona Isabel, gazing at her
+curiously.  "But it is not all that."
+
+"What is it, then?" asked Miss Keene demurely.
+
+"You are a--a--Dama de Grandeza!"
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+"HAIL AND FAREWELL."
+
+
+Supper was served in the inner room opening from the corridor lit
+by a few swinging lanterns of polished horn and a dozen wax candles
+of sacerdotal size and suggestion.  The apartment, though spacious,
+was low and crypt-like, and was not relieved by the two deep oven-
+like hearths that warmed it without the play of firelight.  But
+when the company had assembled it was evident that the velvet
+jackets, gold lace, silver buttons, and red sashes of the
+entertainers not only lost their tawdry and theatrical appearance
+in the half decorous and thoughtful gloom, but actually seemed more
+in harmony with it than the modern dresses of the guests.  It was
+the Excelsior party who looked strange and bizarre in these
+surroundings; to the sensitive fancy of Miss Keene, Mrs. Brimmer's
+Parisian toilet had an air of provincial assumption; her own pretty
+Zouave jacket and black silk skirt horrified her with its apparent
+ostentatious eccentricity; and Mrs. Markham and Miss Chubb seemed
+dowdy and overdressed beside the satin mantillas and black lace of
+the Senoritas.  Nor were the gentlemen less outres: the stiff
+correctness of Mr. Banks, and the lighter foppishness of Winslow
+and Crosby, not to mention Senor Perkins' more pronounced
+unconventionality, appeared as burlesques of their own characters
+in a play.  The crowning contrast was reached by Captain Bunker,
+who, in accordance with the habits of the mercantile marine of that
+period when in port, wore a shore-going suit of black broadcloth,
+with a tall hat, high shirt collar, and diamond pin.  Seated next
+to the Commander, it was no longer Don Miguel who looked old-
+fashioned, it was Captain Bunker who appeared impossible.
+
+Nevertheless, as the meal progressed, lightened by a sweet native
+wine made from the Mission grape, and stimulated by champagne--a
+present of Captain Bunker from the cabin lockers of the Excelsior--
+this contrast, and much of the restraint that it occasioned, seemed
+to melt away.  The passengers became talkative; the Commander and
+his friends unbent, and grew sympathetic and inquiring.  The
+temptation to recite the news of the last half century, and to
+recount the wonderful strides of civilization in that time, was too
+great to be resisted by the Excelsior party.  That some of them--
+notwithstanding the caution of Senor Perkins--approached
+dangerously near the subject of the late war between the United
+States and Mexico, of which Todos Santos was supposed to be still
+ignorant, or that Crosby in particular seized upon this opportunity
+for humorous exaggeration, may be readily imagined.  But as the
+translation of the humorist's speech, as well as the indiscretions
+of his companions, were left to the Senor, in Spanish, and to Mrs.
+Brimmer and Miss Keene, in French, any imminent danger to the
+harmony of the evening was averted.  Don Ramon Ramirez, the
+Alcalde, a youngish man of evident distinction, sat next to Miss
+Keene, and monopolized her conversation with a certain curiosity
+that was both grave and childish in its frank trustfulness.  Some
+of his questions were so simple and incompatible with his apparent
+intelligence that she unconsciously lowered her voice in answering
+them, in dread of the ridicule of her companions.  She could not
+resist the impression, which repeatedly obtruded upon her
+imagination, that the entire population of Todos Santos were a
+party of lost children, forgotten by their parents, and grown to
+man and womanhood in utter ignorance of the world.
+
+The Commander had, half informally, drunk the health of Captain
+Bunker, without rising from his seat, when, to Miss Keene's alarm,
+Captain Bunker staggered to his feet.  He had been drinking freely,
+as usual; but he was bent on indulging a loquacity which his
+discipline on shipboard had hitherto precluded, and which had,
+perhaps, strengthened his solitary habit.  His speech was voluble
+and incoherent, complimentary and tactless, kindly and aggressive,
+courteous and dogmatic.  It was left to Senor Perkins to translate
+it to the eye and ear of his host without incongruity or offense.
+This he did so admirably as to elicit not only the applause of the
+foreigners who did not understand English, but of his own
+countrymen who did not understand Spanish.
+
+"I feel," said Senor Perkins, in graceful peroration, "that I have
+done poor justice to the eloquence of this gallant sailor.  My
+unhappy translation cannot offer you that voice, at times trembling
+with generous emotion, and again inaudible from excessive modesty
+in the presence of this illustrious assembly--those limbs that
+waver and bend under the undulations of the chivalrous sentiment
+which carries him away as if he were still on that powerful element
+he daily battles with and conquers."
+
+But when coffee and sweets were reached, the crowning triumph of
+Senor Perkins' oratory was achieved.  After an impassioned burst of
+enthusiasm towards his hosts in their own tongue, he turned towards
+his own party with bland felicity.
+
+"And how is it with us, dear friends?  We find ourselves not in the
+port we were seeking; not in the goal of our ambition, the haven of
+our hopes; but on the shores of the decaying past.  'Ever drifting'
+on one of those--
+
+
+                        'Shifting
+     Currents of the restless main,'
+
+
+if our fascinating friend Mrs. Brimmer will permit us to use the
+words of her accomplished fellow-townsman, H. W. Longfellow, of
+Boston--we find ourselves borne not to the busy hum and clatter of
+modern progress, but to the soft cadences of a dying crusade, and
+the hush of ecclesiastical repose.  In place of the busy marts of
+commerce and the towering chimneys of labor, we have the ruined
+embattlements of a warlike age, and the crumbling church of an
+ancient Mission.  Towards the close of an eventful voyage, during
+which we have been guided by the skillful hand and watchful eye of
+that gallant navigator Captain Bunker, we have turned aside from
+our onward course of progress to look back for a moment upon the
+faded footprints of those who have so long preceded us, who have
+lived according to their lights, and whose record is now before us.
+As I have just stated, our journey is near its end, and we may, in
+some sense, look upon this occasion, with its sumptuous
+entertainment, and its goodly company of gallant men and fair
+women, as a parting banquet.  Our voyage has been a successful one.
+I do not now especially speak of the daring speculations of the
+distinguished husband of a beautiful lady whose delightful society
+is known to us all--need I say I refer to Quincy Brimmer, Esq., of
+Boston" (loud applause)--"whose successful fulfillment of a
+contract with the Peruvian Government, and the landing of munitions
+of war at Callao, has checked the uprising of the Quinquinambo
+insurgents?  I do not refer especially to our keen-sighted business
+friend Mr. Banks" (applause), "who, by buying up all the flour in
+Callao, and shipping it to California, has virtually starved into
+submission the revolutionary party of Ariquipa--I do not refer to
+these admirable illustrations of the relations of commerce and
+politics, for this, my friends--this is history, and beyond my
+feeble praise.  Let me rather speak of the social and literary
+triumphs of our little community, of our floating Arcadia--may I
+say Olympus?  Where shall we find another Minerva like Mrs.
+Markham, another Thalia like Miss Chubb, another Juno like Mrs.
+Brimmer, worthy of the Jove-like Quincy Brimmer; another Queen of
+Love and Beauty like--like"--continued the gallant Senor, with an
+effective oratorical pause, and a profound obeisance to Miss Keene,
+"like one whose mantling maiden blushes forbid me to name?"
+(Prolonged applause.)  "Where shall we find more worthy mortals to
+worship them than our young friends, the handsome Brace, the
+energetic Winslow, the humorous Crosby?  When we look back upon our
+concerts and plays, our minstrel entertainments, with the
+incomparable performances of our friend Crosby as Brother Bones;
+our recitations, to which the genius of Mrs. M'Corkle, of Peoria,
+Illinois, has lent her charm and her manuscript" (a burlesque start
+of terror from Crosby), "I am forcibly impelled to quote the
+impassioned words from that gifted woman,--
+
+
+     'When idly Life's barque on the billows of Time,
+        Drifts hither and yon by eternity's sea;
+      On the swift feet of verse and the pinions of rhyme
+        My thoughts, Ulricardo, fly ever to thee!'"
+
+
+"Who's Ulricardo?" interrupted Crosby, with assumed eagerness,
+followed by a "hush!" from the ladies.
+
+"Perhaps I should have anticipated our friend's humorous question,"
+said Senor Perkins, with unassailable good-humor.  "Ulricardo,
+though not my own name, is a poetical substitute for it, and a mere
+figure of apostrophe.  The poem is personal to myself," he
+continued, with a slight increase of color in his smooth cheek
+which did not escape the attention of the ladies,--"purely as an
+exigency of verse, and that the inspired authoress might more
+easily express herself to a friend.  My acquaintance with Mrs.
+M'Corkle has been only epistolary.  Pardon this digression, my
+friends, but an allusion to the muse of poetry did not seem to me
+to be inconsistent with our gathering here.  Let me briefly
+conclude by saying that the occasion is a happy and memorable one;
+I think I echo the sentiment of all present when I add that it is
+one which will not be easily forgotten by either the grateful
+guests, whose feelings I have tried to express, or the chivalrous
+hosts, whose kindness I have already so feebly translated."
+
+In the applause that followed, and the clicking of glasses, Senor
+Perkins slipped away.  He mingled a moment with some of the other
+guests who had already withdrawn to the corridor, lit a cigar, and
+then passed through a narrow doorway on to the ramparts.  Here he
+strolled to some distance, as if in deep thought, until he reached
+a spot where the crumbling wall and its fallen debris afforded an
+easy descent into the ditch.  Following the ditch, he turned an
+angle, and came upon the beach, and the low sound of oars in the
+invisible offing.  A whistle brought the boat to his feet, and
+without a word he stepped into the stern sheets.  A few strokes of
+the oars showed him that the fog had lifted slightly from the
+water, and a green light hanging from the side of the Excelsior
+could be plainly seen.  Ten minutes' more steady pulling placed him
+on her deck, where the second officer stood with a number of the
+sailors listlessly grouped around him.
+
+"The landing has been completed?" said Senor Perkins interrogatively.
+
+"All except one boat-load more, which waits to take your final
+instructions," said the mate.  "The men have growled a little about
+it," he added, in a lower tone.  "They don't want to lose anything,
+it seems," he continued, with a half sarcastic laugh.
+
+Senor Perkins smiled peculiarly.
+
+"I am sorry to disappoint them.  Who's that in the boat?" he asked
+suddenly.
+
+The mate followed the Senor's glance.
+
+"It is Yoto.  He says he is going ashore, and you will not forbid
+him."
+
+Senor Perkins approached the ship's side.
+
+"Come here," he said to the man.
+
+The Peruvian sailor rose, but did not make the slightest movement
+to obey the command.
+
+"You say you are going ashore?" said Perkins blandly.
+
+"Yes, Patrono."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To follow him--the thief, the assassin--who struck me here;" he
+pointed to his head.  "He has escaped again with his booty."
+
+"You are very foolish, my Yoto; he is no thief, and has no booty.
+They will put YOU in prison, not him."
+
+"YOU say so," said the man surlily.  "Perhaps they will hear me--
+for other things," he added significantly.
+
+"And for this you would abandon the cause?"
+
+The man shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Why not?" he glanced meaningly at two of his companions, who had
+approached the side; "perhaps others would.  Who is sending the
+booty ashore, eh?"
+
+"Come out of that boat," said the Senor, leaning over the bulwarks
+with folded arms, and his eyes firmly fixed on the man.
+
+The man did not move.  But the Senor's hand suddenly flew to the
+back of his neck, smote violently downwards, and sent eighteen
+inches of glittering steel hurtling through the air.  The bowie-
+knife entered the upturned throat of the man and buried itself
+halfway to the hilt.  Without a gasp or groan he staggered forward,
+caught wildly at the side of the ship, and disappeared between the
+boat and the vessel.
+
+"My lads," said Senor Perkins, turning with a gentle smile towards
+the faces that in the light of the swinging lantern formed a
+ghastly circle around him, "when I boarded this ship that had
+brought aid and succor to our oppressors at Callao, I determined to
+take possession of it peacefully, without imperiling the peace and
+property of the innocent passengers who were intrusted to its care,
+and without endangering your own lives or freedom.  But I made no
+allowance for TRAITORS.  The blood that has been shed to-night has
+not been spilt in obedience to my orders, nor to the cause that we
+serve; it was from DEFIANCE of it; and the real and only culprit
+has just atoned for it."
+
+He stopped, and then stepped back from the gangway, as if to leave
+it open to the men.
+
+"What I have done," he continued calmly, "I do not ask you to
+consider either as an example or a warning.  You are free to do
+what HE would have done," he repeated, with a wave of his hand
+towards the open gangway and the empty boat.  "You are free to
+break your contract and leave the ship, and I give you my word that
+I will not lift a hand to prevent it.  But if you stay with me," he
+said, suddenly turning upon them a face as livid as their own, "I
+swear by the living God, that, if between this and the
+accomplishment of my design, you as much as shirk or question any
+order given by me, you shall die the death of that dog who went
+before you.  Choose as you please--but quickly."
+
+The mate was the first to move.  Without a word, he crossed over to
+the Senor's side.  The men hesitated a moment longer, until one,
+with a strange foreign cry, threw himself on his knees before the
+Senor, ejaculating, "Pardon! pardon!"  The others followed, some
+impulsively catching at the hand that had just slain their comrade,
+and covering it with kisses!
+
+"Pardon, Patrono--we are yours."
+
+"You are the State's," said Senor Perkins coldly, with every
+vestige of his former urbanity gone from his colorless face.
+"Enough!  Go back to your duty."  He watched them slink away, and
+then turned to the mate.  "Get the last boat-load ready, and report
+to me."
+
+From that moment another power seemed to dominate the ship.  The
+men no longer moved listlessly, or slunk along the deck with
+perfunctory limbs; a feverish haste and eagerness possessed them;
+the boat was quickly loaded, and the mysterious debarkation
+completed in rapidity and silence.  This done, the fog once more
+appeared to rise from the water and softly encompass the ship,
+until she seemed to be obliterated from its face.  In this vague
+obscurity, from time to time, the faint rattling of chains was
+heard, the soft creaking of blocks, and later on, the regular rise
+and fall of oars.  And then the darkness fell heavier, the sounds
+became more and more indistinct and were utterly lost.
+
+Ashore, however, the lanterns still glittered brightly in the
+courtyard of the Presidio; the noise of laughter and revel still
+came from the supper-room, and, later, the tinkling of guitars and
+rhythmical clapping hands showed that the festivities were being
+wound up by a characteristic fandango.  Captain Bunker succumbed
+early to his potations of fiery aguardiente, and was put to bed in
+the room of the Commander, to whom he had sworn eternal friendship
+and alliance.  It was long past midnight before the other guests
+were disposed of in the various quarters of the Presidio; but to
+the ladies were reserved the more ostentatious hospitalities of the
+Alcalde himself, the walls of whose ambitious hacienda raised
+themselves across the plaza and overlooked the gardens of the
+Mission.
+
+It was from one of the deep, quaintly barred windows of the
+hacienda that Miss Keene gazed thoughtfully on the night, unable to
+compose herself to sleep.  An antique guest-chamber had been
+assigned to her in deference to her wish to be alone, for which she
+had declined the couch and vivacious prattle of her new friend,
+Dona Isabel.  The events of the day had impressed her more deeply
+than they had her companions, partly from her peculiar inexperience
+of the world, and partly from her singular sensitiveness to
+external causes.  The whole quaint story of the forgotten and
+isolated settlement, which had seemed to the other passengers as a
+trivial and half humorous incident, affected her imagination
+profoundly.  When she could escape the attentions of her
+entertainers, or the frivolities of her companions, she tried to
+touch the far-off past on the wings of her fancy; she tried to
+imagine the life of those people, forgetting the world and
+forgotten by it; she endeavored to picture the fifty years of
+solitude amidst these decaying ruins, over which even ambition had
+crumbled and fallen.  It seemed to her the true conventual
+seclusion from the world without the loss of kinship or home
+influences; she contrasted it with her boarding-school life in the
+fashionable seminary; she wondered what she would have become had
+she been brought up here; she thought of the happy ignorance of
+Dona Isabel, and--shuddered; and yet she felt herself examining the
+odd furniture of the room with an equally childlike and admiring
+curiosity.  And these people looked upon HER as a superior being!
+
+From the deep embrasure of the window she could see the tops of the
+pear and olive trees, in the misty light of an invisible moon that
+suffused the old Mission garden with an ineffable and angelic
+radiance.  To her religious fancy it seemed to be a spiritual
+effusion of the church itself, enveloping the two gray dome-shaped
+towers with an atmosphere and repose of its own, until it became
+the incarnate mystery and passion where it stood.
+
+She was suddenly startled by a moving shadow beside the wall,
+almost immediately below her--the figure of a man!  He was stealing
+cautiously towards the church, as if to gain the concealment of the
+shrubbery that grew beside it, and, furtively glancing from side to
+side, looked towards her window.  She unconsciously drew back,
+forgetting at the moment that her light was extinguished, and that
+it was impossible for the stranger to see her.  But she had seen
+HIM, and in that instant recognized Mr. Hurlstone!
+
+Then he HAD come ashore, and secretly, for the other passengers
+believed him still on the ship!  But what was he doing there?--and
+why had he not appeared with the others at the entertainment?  She
+could understand his avoidance of them from what she knew of his
+reserved and unsocial habits; but when he could so naturally have
+remained on shipboard, she could not, at first, conceive why he
+should wish to prowl around the town at the risk of detection.  The
+idea suddenly occurred to her that he had had another attack of his
+infirmity and was walking in his sleep, and for an instant she
+thought of alarming the house, that some one might go to his
+assistance.  But his furtive movements had not the serene
+impassibility of the somnambulist.  Another thought withheld her;
+he had looked up at her window!  Did he know she was there?  A
+faint stirring of shame and pleasure sent a slight color to her
+cheek.  But he had gained the corner of the shrubbery and was lost
+in the shadow.  She turned from the window.  A gentle sense of
+vague and half maternal pity suffused her soft eyes as she at last
+sought her couch and fell into a deep slumber.
+
+Towards daybreak a wind arose over the sleeping town and far
+outlying waters.  It breathed through the leaves of the Mission
+garden, brushed away the clinging mists from the angles of the
+towers, and restored the sharp outlines of the ruined
+fortifications.  It swept across the unruffled sea to where the
+Excelsior, cradled in the softly heaving bay, had peacefully swung
+at anchor on the previous night, and lifted the snowy curtain of
+the fog to seaward as far as the fringe of surf, a league away.
+
+But the cradle of the deep was empty--the ship was gone!
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE GENTLE CASTAWAYS.
+
+
+Miss Keene was awakened from a heavy sleep by a hurried shake of
+her shoulder and an indefinite feeling of alarm.  Opening her eyes,
+she was momentarily dazed by the broad light of day, and the
+spectacle of Mrs. Brimmer, pale and agitated, in a half-Spanish
+dishabille, standing at her bedside.
+
+"Get up and dress yourself, my dear, at once," she said hurriedly,
+but at the same time attentively examining Miss Keene's clothes,
+that were lying on the chair: "and thank Heaven you came here in an
+afternoon dress, and not in an evening costume like mine!  For
+something awful has happened, and Heaven only knows whether we'll
+ever see a stitch of our clothes again."
+
+"WHAT has happened?" asked Miss Keene impatiently, sitting up in
+bed, more alarmed at the unusual circumstance of Mrs. Brimmer's
+unfinished toilet than at her incomplete speech.
+
+"What, indeed!  Nobody knows; but it's something awful--a mutiny,
+or shipwreck, or piracy.  But there's your friend, the Commander,
+calling out the troops; and such a set of Christy Minstrels you
+never saw before!  There's the Alcalde summoning the Council;
+there's Mr. Banks raving, and running round for a steamboat--as if
+these people ever heard of such a thing!--and Captain Bunker, what
+with rage and drink, gone off in a fit of delirium tremens, and
+locked up in his room!  And the Excelsior gone--the Lord knows
+where!"
+
+"Gone!" repeated Miss Keene, hurrying on her clothes.  "Impossible!
+What does Father Esteban tell you?  What does Dona Isabel say?"
+
+"That's the most horrible part of it!  Do you know those wretched
+idiots believe it's some political revolution among ourselves, like
+their own miserable government.  I believe that baby Isabel thinks
+that King George and Washington have something to do with it; at
+any rate, they're anxious to know to what side you belong!  So; for
+goodness' sake! if you have to humor them, say we're all on the
+same side--I mean, don't you and Mrs. Markham go against Miss Chubb
+and me."
+
+Scarcely knowing whether to laugh or cry at Mrs. Brimmer's
+incoherent statement, Miss Keene hastily finished dressing as the
+door flew open to admit the impulsive Dona Isabel and her sister
+Juanita.  The two Mexican girls threw themselves in Miss Keene's
+arms, and then suddenly drew back with a movement of bashful and
+diffident respect.
+
+"Do, pray, ask them, for I daren't," whispered Mrs. Brimmer, trying
+to clasp a mantilla around her, "how this thing is worn, and if
+they haven't got something like a decent bonnet to lend me for a
+day or two?"
+
+"The Senora has not then heard that her goods, and all the goods of
+the Senores and Senoras, have been discovered safely put ashore at
+the Embarcadero?"
+
+"No?" said Mrs. Brimmer eagerly.
+
+"Ah, yes!" responded Dona Isabel.  "Since the Senora is not of the
+revolutionary party."
+
+Mrs. Brimmer cast a supplicatory look at Miss Keene, and hastily
+quitted the room.  Miss Keene would have as quickly followed her,
+but the young Ramirez girls threw themselves again tragically upon
+her breast, and, with a mysterious gesture of silence, whispered,--
+
+"Fear nothing, Excellencia!  We are yours--we will die for you, no
+matter what Don Ramon, or the Comandante, or the Ayuntamiento,
+shall decide.  Trust us, little one!--pardon--Excellencia, we
+mean."
+
+"What IS the matter?" said Miss Keene, now thoroughly alarmed, and
+releasing herself from the twining arms about her.  "For Heaven's
+sake let me go!  I must see somebody!  Where is--where is Mrs.
+Markham?"
+
+"The Markham?  Is it the severe one?--as thus,"--said Dona Isabel,
+striking an attitude of infantine portentousness.
+
+"Yes," said Miss Keene, smiling in spite of her alarm.
+
+"She is arrested."
+
+"Arrested!" said Eleanor Keene, her cheeks aflame with indignation.
+"For what?  Who dare do this thing?"
+
+"The Comandante.  She has a missive--a despatch from the
+insurrectionaries."
+
+Without another word, and feeling that she could stand the suspense
+no longer, Miss Keene forced her way past the young girls,
+unheeding their cries of consternation and apology, and quickly
+reached the patio.  A single glance showed her that Mrs. Brimmer
+was gone.  With eyes and cheeks still burning, she swept past the
+astounded peons, through the gateway, into the open plaza.  Only
+one idea filled her mind--to see the Commander, and demand the
+release of her friend.  How she should do it, with what arguments
+she should enforce her demand, never occurred to her.  She did not
+even think of asking the assistance of Mr. Brace, Mr. Crosby, or
+any of her fellow-passengers.  The consciousness of some vague
+crisis that she alone could meet possessed her completely.
+
+The plaza was swarming with a strange rabble of peons and soldiery;
+of dark, lowering faces, odd-looking weapons and costumes, mules,
+mustangs, and cattle--a heterogeneous mass, swayed by some fierce
+excitement.  That she saw none of the Excelsior party among them
+did not surprise her; an instinct of some catastrophe more serious
+than Mrs. Brimmer's vague imaginings frightened but exalted her.
+With head erect, leveled brows, and bright, determined eyes she
+walked deliberately into the square.  The crowd parted and gave way
+before this beautiful girl, with her bared head and its invincible
+crest of chestnut curls.  Presently they began to follow her, with
+a compressed murmur of admiration, until, before she was halfway
+across the plaza, the sentries beside the gateway of the Presidio
+were astonished at the vision of a fair-haired and triumphant
+Pallas, who appeared to be leading the entire population of Todos
+Santos to victorious attack.  In vain a solitary bugle blew, in
+vain the rolling drum beat an alarm, the sympathetic guard only
+presented arms as Miss Keene, flushed and excited, her eyes darkly
+humid with gratified pride, swept past them into the actual
+presence of the bewildered and indignant Comandante.
+
+The only feminine consciousness she retained was that she was more
+relieved at her deliverance from the wild cattle and unbroken
+horses of her progress than from the Indians and soldiers.
+
+"I want to see Mrs. Markham, and to know by what authority she is
+arrested," said Miss Keene boldly.
+
+"The Senor Comandante can hold no conference with you until you
+disperse your party," interpreted the secretary.
+
+She was about to hurriedly reply that she knew nothing of the crowd
+that had accompanied her; but she was withheld by a newly-born
+instinct of tact.
+
+"How do I know that I shall not be arrested, like my friend?" she
+said quickly.  "She is as innocent as myself."
+
+"The Comandante pledges himself, as a hidalgo, that you shall not
+be harmed."
+
+Her first impulse was to advance to the nearest intruders at the
+gate and say, "Do go away, please;" but she was doubtful of its
+efficiency, and was already too exalted by the situation to be
+satisfied with its prosaic weakness.  But her newly developed
+diplomacy again came to her aid.  "You may tell them so, if you
+choose, I cannot answer for them," she said, with apparent dark
+significance.
+
+The secretary advanced on the corridor and exchanged a few words
+with her more impulsive followers.  Miss Keene, goddess-like and
+beautiful, remained erect behind him, and sent them a dazzling
+smile and ravishing wave of her little hand.  The crowd roared with
+an effusive and bovine delight that half frightened her, and with a
+dozen "Viva la Reyna Americanas!" she was hurried by the Comandante
+into the guard-room.
+
+"You ask to know of what the Senora Markham is accused," said the
+Commander, more gently.  "She has received correspondence from the
+pirate--Perkins!"
+
+"The pirate--Perkins?" said Miss Keene, with indignant incredulity.
+
+"The buccaneer who wrote that letter.  Read it to her, Manuel."
+
+The secretary took his eyes from the young girl's glowing face,
+coughed slightly, and then read as follows:--
+
+
+"ON BOARD THE EXCELSIOR, of the Quinquinambo
+Independent States Navy, August 8, 1854.
+
+"To Captain Bunker.--Sir," . . .
+
+"But this is not addressed to YOU!" interrupted Miss Keene
+indignantly.
+
+"The Captain Bunker is a raving madman," said the Commander
+gravely.  "Read on!"
+
+The color gradually faded from the young girl's cheek as the
+secretary continued, in a monotonous voice:--
+
+"I have the honor to inform you that the barque Excelsior was, on
+the 8th of July, 1854, and the first year of the Quinquinambo
+Independence, formally condemned by the Federal Council of
+Quinquinambo, for having aided and assisted the enemy with
+munitions of war and supplies, against the law of nations, and the
+tacit and implied good-will between the Republic of the United
+States and the struggling Confederacies of South America; and that,
+in pursuance thereof, and under the law of reprisals and letters of
+marque, was taken possession of by me yesterday.  The goods and
+personal effects belonging to the passengers and yourself have been
+safely landed at the Embarcadero of Todos Santos--a neutral port--
+by my directions; my interpretation of the orders of the Federal
+Council excepting innocent non-combatants and their official
+protector from confiscation or amercement.
+
+"I take the liberty of requesting you to hand the inclosed order on
+the Treasury of the Quinquinambo Confederate States to Don Miguel
+Briones, in payment of certain stores and provisions, and of a
+piece of ordnance known as the saluting cannon of the Presidio of
+Todos Santos.  Vigilancia!
+
+"Your obedient servant,
+
+"LEONIDAS BOLIVAR PERKINS,
+
+"Generalissimo Commanding Land and Sea Forces,
+Quinquinambo Independent States."
+
+
+In her consternation at this fuller realization of the vague
+catastrophe, Miss Keene still clung to the idea that had brought
+her there.
+
+"But Mrs. Markham has nothing to do with all this?"
+
+"Then why does she refuse to give up her secret correspondence with
+the pirate Perkins?" returned the secretary.
+
+Miss Keene hesitated.  Had Mrs. Markham any previous knowledge of
+the Senor's real character?
+
+"Why don't you arrest the men?" she said scornfully.  "There is Mr.
+Banks, Mr. Crosby, Mr. Winslow, and Mr. Brace."  She uttered the
+last name more contemptuously, as she thought of that young
+gentleman's protestations and her present unprotected isolation.
+
+"They are already arrested and removed to San Antonio, a league
+hence," returned the secretary.  "It is fact enough that they have
+confessed that their Government has seized the Mexican province of
+California, and that they were on their way to take possession of
+it."
+
+Miss Keene's heart sank.
+
+"But you knew all this yesterday," she faltered; "and our war with
+Mexico is all over years ago."
+
+"We did not know it last night at the banquet, Senora; nor would we
+have known it but for this treason and division in your own party."
+
+A sudden light flashed upon Miss Keene's mind.  She now
+comprehended the advances of Dona Isabel.  Extravagant and
+monstrous as it seemed, these people evidently believed that a
+revolution had taken place in the United States; that the two
+opposing parties had been represented by the passengers of the
+Excelsior; and that one party had succeeded, headed by the
+indomitable Perkins.  If she could be able to convince them of
+their blunder, would it be wise to do so?  She thought of Mrs.
+Brimmer's supplication to be ranged "on her side," and realized
+with feminine quickness that the situation might be turned to her
+countrymen's advantage.  But which side had Todos Santos favored?
+It was left to her woman's wit to discover this, and conceive a
+plan to rescue her helpless companions.
+
+Her suspense was quickly relieved.  The Commander and his secretary
+exchanged a few words.
+
+"The Comandante will grant Dona Leonora's request," said the
+secretary, "if she will answer a question."
+
+"What is it?" responded Miss Keene, with inward trepidation.
+
+"The Senora Markham is perhaps beloved by the Pirate Perkins?"
+
+In spite of her danger, in spite of the uncertain fate hanging over
+her party, Miss Keene could with difficulty repress a half
+hysterical inclination to laugh.  Even then, it escaped in a sudden
+twinkle of her eye, which both the Commander and his subordinate
+were quick to notice, as she replied demurely, "Perhaps."
+
+It was enough for the Commander.  A gleam of antique archness and
+venerable raillery lit up his murky, tobacco-colored pupils; a
+spasm of gallantry crossed the face of the secretary.
+
+"Ah--what would you?--it is the way of the world," said the
+Commander.  "We comprehend.  Come!"
+
+He led the way across the corridor, and suddenly opened a small
+barred door.  Whatever preconceived idea Miss Keene may have had of
+her unfortunate country-woman immured in a noisome cell, and
+guarded by a stern jailer, was quite dissipated by the soft misty
+sunshine that flowed in through the open door.  The prison of Mrs.
+Markham was a part of the old glacis which had been allowed to
+lapse into a wild garden that stretched to the edge of the sea.
+There was a summer-house built on--and partly from--a crumbling
+bastion, and here, under the shade of tropical creepers, the
+melancholy captive was comfortably writing, with her portable desk
+on her knee, and a traveling-bag at her feet.  A Saratoga trunk of
+obtrusive proportions stood in the centre of the peaceful
+vegetation, like a newly raised altar to an unknown deity.  The
+only suggestion of martial surveillance was an Indian soldier,
+whose musket, reposing on the ground near Mrs. Markham, he had
+exchanged for the rude mattock with which he was quietly digging.
+
+The two women, with a cry of relief, flew into each other's arms.
+The Commander and his secretary discreetly retired to an angle of
+the wall.
+
+"I find everything as I left it, my dear, even to my slipper-bag,"
+said Mrs. Markham.  "They've forgotten nothing."
+
+"But you are a captive!" said Eleanor.  "What does it mean?"
+
+"Nothing, my dear.  I gave them a piece of my mind," said Mrs.
+Markham, looking, however, as if that mental offering had by no
+means exhausted her capital, "and I have written six pages to the
+Governor at Mazatlan, and a full account to Mr. Markham."
+
+"And they won't get them in thirty years!" said Miss Keene
+impetuously.  "But where is this letter from Senor Perkins.  And,
+for Heaven's sake, tell me if you had the least suspicion before of
+anything that has happened."
+
+"Not in the least.  The man is mad, my dear, and I really believe
+driven so by that absurd Illinois woman's poetry.  Did you ever see
+anything so ridiculous--and shameful, too--as the 'Ulricardo'
+business?  I don't wonder he colored so."
+
+Miss Keene winced with annoyance.  Was everybody going crazy, or
+was there anything more in this catastrophe that had only enfeebled
+the minds of her countrywomen!  For here was the severe, strong-
+minded Mrs. Markham actually preoccupied, like Mrs. Brimmer, with
+utterly irrelevant particulars, and apparently powerless to grasp
+the fact that they were abandoned on a half hostile strand, and cut
+off by half a century from the rest of the world.
+
+"As to the letter," said Mrs. Markham, quietly, "there it is.
+There's nothing in it that might not have been written by a
+friend."
+
+Miss Keene took the letter.  It was written in a delicate, almost
+feminine hand.  She could not help noticing that in one or two
+instances corrections had been made and blots carefully removed
+with an eraser.
+
+
+"Midnight, on the Excelsior.
+
+"MY FRIEND: When you receive this I shall probably be once more on
+the bosom of that mysterious and mighty element whose majesty has
+impressed us, whose poetry we have loved, and whose moral lessons,
+I trust, have not been entirely thrown away upon us.  I go to the
+deliverance of one of those oppressed nations whose history I have
+often recited to you, and in whose destiny you have from time to
+time expressed a womanly sympathy.  While it is probable,
+therefore, that my MOTIVES may not be misunderstood by you, or even
+other dear friends of the Excelsior, it is by no means impossible
+that the celerity and unexpectedness of my ACTION may not be
+perfectly appreciated by the careless mind, and may seem to require
+some explanation.  Let me then briefly say that the idea of
+debarking your goods and chattels, and parting from your delightful
+company at Todos Santos, only occurred to me on our unexpected--
+shall I say PROVIDENTIAL?--arrival at that spot; and the necessity
+of expedition forbade me either inviting your cooperation or
+soliciting your confidence.  Human intelligence is variously
+constituted--or, to use a more homely phrase, 'many men have many
+minds'--and it is not impossible that a premature disclosure of my
+plans might have jeopardized that harmony which you know it has
+been my desire to promote.  It was my original intention to have
+landed you at Mazatlan, a place really inferior in climate and
+natural attractions to Todo Santos, although, perhaps, more easy of
+access and egress; but the presence of an American steamer in the
+offing would have invested my enterprise with a certain publicity
+foreign, I think, to all our tastes.  Taking advantage, therefore,
+of my knowledge of the peninsular coast, and the pardonable
+ignorance of Captain Bunker, I endeavored, through my faithful
+subordinates, to reach a less known port, and a coast rarely
+frequented by reason of its prevailing fog.  Here occurred one of
+those dispensations of an overruling power which, dear friend, we
+have so often discussed.  We fell in with an unknown current, and
+were guided by a mysterious hand into the bay of Todos Santos!
+
+"You know of my belief in the infinite wisdom and benignity of
+events; you have, dear friend, with certain feminine limitations,
+shared it with me.  Could there have been a more perfect
+illustration of it than the power that led us here?  On a shore,
+historic in interest, beautiful in climate, hospitable in its
+people, utterly freed from external influences, and absolutely
+without a compromising future, you are landed, my dear friend, with
+your youthful companions.  From the crumbling ruins of a decaying
+Past you are called to construct an Arcadia of your own; the
+rudiments of a new civilization are within your grasp; the cost of
+existence is comparatively trifling; the various sums you have with
+you, which even in the chaos of revolution I have succeeded in
+keeping intact, will more than suffice to your natural wants for
+years to come.  Were I not already devoted to the task of freeing
+Quinquinambo, I should willingly share this Elysium with you all.
+But, to use the glowing words of Mrs. M'Corkle, slightly altering
+the refrain--
+
+
+     'Ah, stay me not!  With flying feet
+      O'er desert sands, I rush to greet
+      My fate, my love, my life, my sweet
+        Quinquinambo!'
+
+
+"I venture to intrust to your care two unpublished manuscripts of
+that gifted woman.  The dangers that may environ my present
+mission, the vicissitudes of battle by sea or land, forbid my
+imperiling their natural descent to posterity.  You, my dear
+friend, will preserve them for the ages to come, occasionally
+refreshing yourself, from time to time, from that Parnassian
+spring.
+
+"Adieu! my friend.  I look around the familiar cabin, and miss your
+gentle faces.  I feel as Jason might have felt, alone on the deck
+of the Argo when his companions were ashore, except that I know of
+no Circean influences to mar their destiny.  In examining the
+state-rooms to see if my orders for the complete restoration of
+passengers' property had been carried out, I allowed myself to look
+into yours.  Lying alone, forgotten and overlooked, I saw a
+peculiar jet hair-pin which I think I have observed in the coils of
+your tresses.  May I venture to keep this gentle instrument as a
+reminder of the superior intellect it has so often crowned?  Adieu,
+my friend.
+
+"Ever yours, LEONIDAS BOLIVAR PERKINS."
+
+
+"Well?" said Mrs. Markham impatiently, as Miss Keene remained
+motionless with the letter in her hand.
+
+"It seems like a ridiculous nightmare!  I can't understand it at
+all.  The man that wrote this letter may be mad--but he is neither
+a pirate nor a thief--and yet"--
+
+"He a pirate?" echoed Mrs. Markham indignantly; "He's nothing of
+the kind!  It's not even his FAULT!"
+
+"Not his fault?" repeated Miss Keene; "are you mad, too?"
+
+"No--nor a fool, my dear!  Don't you see?  It's all the fault of
+Banks and Brimmer for compromising the vessel: of that stupid,
+drunken captain for permitting it.  Senor Perkins is a liberator, a
+patriot, who has periled himself and his country to treat us
+magnanimously.  Don't you see it?  It's like that Banks and that
+Mrs. Brimmer to call HIM a pirate!  I've a good mind to give the
+Commander my opinion of THEM."
+
+"Hush!" said Miss Keene, with a sudden recollection of the
+Commander's suspicions, "for Heaven's sake; you do not know what
+you are saying.  Look! they were talking with that strange man, and
+now they are coming this way."
+
+The Commander and his secretary approached them.  They were both
+more than usually grave; but the look of inquiry and suspicion with
+which they regarded the two women was gone from their eyes.
+
+"The Senor Comandante says you are free, Senoras, and begs you will
+only decide whether you will remain his guests or the guests of the
+Alcalde.  But for the present he cannot allow you any communication
+with the prisoners of San Antonio."
+
+"There is further news?" said Miss Keene faintly, with a presentiment
+of worse complications.
+
+"There is!  A body from the Excelsior has been washed on shore."
+
+The two women turned pale.
+
+"In the pocket of the murdered man is an accusation against one
+Senor Hurlstone, who was concealed on the ship; who came not ashore
+openly with the other passengers, but who escaped in secret, and is
+now hiding somewhere in Todos Santos."
+
+"And you suspect him of this infamous act?" said Eleanor,
+forgetting all prudence in her indignation.  "You are deceiving
+yourself.  He is as innocent as I am!"
+
+The Commander and the secretary smiled sapiently, but gently.
+
+"The Senor Comandante believes you, Dona Leonora: the Senor
+Hurlstone is innocent of the piracy.  He is, of a surety, the
+leader of the Opposition."
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+IN SANCTUARY.
+
+
+When James Hurlstone reached the shelter of the shrubbery he leaned
+exhaustedly against the adobe wall, and looked back upon the garden
+he had just traversed.  At its lower extremity a tall hedge of
+cactus reinforced the crumbling wall with a cheval de frise of
+bristling thorns; it was through a gap in this green barrier that
+he had found his way a few hours before, as his torn clothes still
+testified.  At one side ran the low wall of the Alcalde's casa, a
+mere line of dark shadow in that strange diaphanous mist that
+seemed to suffuse all objects.  The gnarled and twisted branches of
+pear-trees, gouty with old age, bent so low as to impede any
+progress under their formal avenues; out of a tangled labyrinth of
+figtrees, here and there a single plume of feathery palm swam in a
+drowsy upper radiance.  The shrubbery around him, of some unknown
+variety, exhaled a faint perfume; he put out his hand to grasp what
+appeared to be a young catalpa, and found it the trunk of an
+enormous passion vine, that, creeping softly upward, had at last
+invaded the very belfry of the dim tower above him; and touching
+it, his soul seemed to be lifted with it out of the shadow.
+
+The great hush and quiet that had fallen like a benediction on
+every sleeping thing around him; the deep and passionless repose
+that seemed to drop from the bending boughs of the venerable trees;
+the cool, restful, earthy breath of the shadowed mold beneath him,
+touched only by a faint jessamine-like perfume as of a dead
+passion, lulled the hurried beatings of his heart and calmed the
+feverish tremor of his limbs.  He allowed himself to sink back
+against the wall, his hands tightly clasped before him.  Gradually,
+the set, abstracted look of his eyes faded and became suffused, as
+if moistened by that celestial mist.  Then he rose quickly, drew
+his sleeve hurriedly across his lashes, and began slowly to creep
+along the wall again.
+
+Either the obscurity of the shrubbery became greater or he was
+growing preoccupied; but in steadying himself by the wall he had,
+without perceiving it, put his hand upon a rude door that, yielding
+to his pressure, opened noiselessly into a dark passage.  Without
+apparent reflection he entered, followed the passage a few steps
+until it turned abruptly; turning with it, he found himself in the
+body of the Mission Church of Todos Santos.  A swinging-lamp, that
+burned perpetually before an effigy of the Virgin Mother, threw a
+faint light on the single rose-window behind the high altar;
+another, suspended in a low archway, apparently lit the open door
+of the passage towards the refectory.  By the stronger light of the
+latter Hurlstone could see the barbaric red and tarnished gold of
+the rafters that formed the straight roof.  The walls were striped
+with equally bizarre coloring, half Moorish and half Indian.  A few
+hangings of dyed and painted cloths with heavy fringes were
+disposed on either side of the chancel, like the flaps of a wigwam;
+and the aboriginal suggestion was further repeated in a quantity of
+colored beads and sea-shells that decked the communion-rails.  The
+Stations of the Cross, along the walls, were commemorated by
+paintings, evidently by a native artist--to suit the same barbaric
+taste; while a larger picture of San Francisco d'Assisis, under the
+choir, seemed to belong to an older and more artistic civilization.
+But the sombre half-light of the two lamps mellowed and softened
+the harsh contrast of these details until the whole body of the
+church appeared filled with a vague harmonious shadow.  The air,
+heavy with the odors of past incense, seemed to be a part of that
+expression, as if the solemn and sympathetic twilight became
+palpable in each deep, long-drawn inspiration.
+
+Again overcome by the feeling of repose and peacefulness, Hurlstone
+sank upon a rude settle, and bent his head and folded arms over a
+low railing before him.  How long he sat there, allowing the subtle
+influence to transfuse and possess his entire being, he did not
+know.  The faint twitter of birds suddenly awoke him.  Looking up,
+he perceived that it came from the vacant square of the tower above
+him, open to the night and suffused with its mysterious radiance.
+In another moment the roof of the church was swiftly crossed and
+recrossed with tiny and adventurous wings.  The mysterious light
+had taken an opaline color.  Morning was breaking.
+
+The slow rustling of a garment, accompanied by a soft but heavy
+tread, sounded from the passage.  He started to his feet as the
+priest, whom he had seen on the deck of the Excelsior, entered the
+church from the refectory.  The Padre was alone.  At the apparition
+of a stranger, torn and disheveled, he stopped involuntarily and
+cast a hasty look towards the heavy silver ornaments on the altar.
+Hurlstone noticed it, and smiled bitterly.
+
+"Don't alarm yourself.  I only sought this place for shelter."
+
+He spoke in French--the language he had heard Padre Esteban address
+to Mrs. Brimmer.  But the priest's quick eye had already detected
+his own mistake.  He lifted his hand with a sublime gesture towards
+the altar, and said,--
+
+"You are right!  Where should you seek shelter but here?"
+
+The reply was so unexpected that Hurlstone was silent.  His lips
+quivered slightly.
+
+"And if it were SANCTUARY I was seeking?" he said.
+
+"You would first tell me why you sought it," said Padre Esteban
+gently.
+
+Hurlstone looked at him irresolutely for a moment and then said,
+with the hopeless desperation of a man anxious to anticipate his
+fate,--
+
+"I am a passenger on the ship you boarded yesterday.  I came ashore
+with the intention of concealing myself somewhere here until she
+had sailed.  When I tell you that I am not a fugitive from justice,
+that I have committed no offense against the ship or her
+passengers, nor have I any intention of doing so, but that I only
+wish concealment from their knowledge for twenty-four hours, you
+will know enough to understand that you run no risk in giving me
+assistance.  I can tell you no more."
+
+"I did not see you with the other passengers, either on the ship or
+ashore," said the priest.  "How did you come here?"
+
+"I swam ashore before they left.  I did not know they had any idea
+of landing here; I expected to be the only one, and there would
+have been no need for concealment then.  But I am not lucky," he
+added, with a bitter laugh.
+
+The priest glanced at his garments, which bore the traces of the
+sea, but remained silent.
+
+"Do you think I am lying?"
+
+The old priest lifted his head with a gesture.
+
+"Not to me--but to God!"
+
+The young man followed the gesture, and glanced around the barbaric
+church with a slight look of scorn.  But the profound isolation,
+the mystic seclusion, and, above all, the complete obliteration of
+that world and civilization he shrank from and despised, again
+subdued and overcame his rebellious spirit.  He lifted his eyes to
+the priest.
+
+"Nor to God," he said gravely.
+
+"Then why withhold anything from Him here?" said the priest gently.
+
+"I am not a Catholic--I do not believe in confession," said
+Hurlstone doggedly, turning aside.
+
+But Padre Esteban laid his large brown hand on the young man's
+shoulder.  Touched by some occult suggestion in its soft contact,
+he sank again into his seat.
+
+"Yet you ask for the sanctuary of His house--a sanctuary bought by
+that contrition whose first expression is the bared and open soul!
+To the first worldly shelter you sought--the peon's hut or the
+Alcalde's casa--you would have thought it necessary to bring a
+story.  You would not conceal from the physician whom you asked for
+balsam either the wound, the symptoms, or the cause?  Enough," he
+said kindly, as Hurlstone was about to reply.  "You shall have your
+request.  You shall stay here.  I will be your physician, and will
+salve your wounds; if any poison I know not of rankle there, you
+will not blame me, son, but perhaps you will assist me to find it.
+I will give you a secluded cell in the dormitory until the ship has
+sailed.  And then"--
+
+He dropped quietly on the settle, took the young man's hand
+paternally in his own, and gazed into his eyes as if he read his
+soul.
+
+And then . . .  Ah, yes . . .  What then?  Hurlstone glanced once
+more around him.  He thought of the quiet night; of the great peace
+that had fallen upon him since he had entered the garden, and the
+promise of a greater peace that seemed to breathe with the incense
+from those venerable walls.  He thought of that crumbling barrier,
+that even in its ruin seemed to shut out, more completely than
+anything he had conceived, his bitter past, and the bitter world
+that recalled it.  He thought of the long days to come, when,
+forgetting and forgotten, he might find a new life among these
+simple aliens, themselves forgotten by the world.  He had thought
+of this once before in the garden; it occurred to him again in this
+Lethe-like oblivion of the little church, in the kindly pressure of
+the priest's hand.  The ornaments no longer looked uncouth and
+barbaric--rather they seemed full of some new spiritual
+significance.  He suddenly lifted his eyes to Padre Esteban, and,
+half rising to his feet, said,--
+
+"Are we alone?"
+
+"We are; it is a half-hour yet before mass," said the priest.
+
+"My story will not last so long," said the young man hurriedly, as
+if fearing to change his mind.  "Hear me, then--it is no crime nor
+offense to any one; more than that, it concerns no one but myself--
+it is of"--
+
+"A woman," said the priest softly.  "So! we will sit down, my son."
+
+He lifted his hand with a soothing gesture--the movement of a
+physician who has just arrived at an easy diagnosis of certain
+uneasy symptoms.  There was also a slight suggestion of an habitual
+toleration, as if even the seclusion of Todos Santos had not been
+entirely free from the invasion of the primal passion.
+
+Hurlstone waited for an instant, but then went on rapidly.
+
+"It is of a woman, who has cursed my life, blasted my prospects,
+and ruined my youth; a woman who gained my early affection only to
+blight and wither it; a woman who should be nearer to me and dearer
+than all else, and yet who is further than the uttermost depths of
+hell from me in sympathy or feeling; a woman that I should cleave
+to, but from whom I have been flying, ready to face shame,
+disgrace, oblivion, even that death which alone can part us: for
+that woman is--my wife."
+
+He stopped, out of breath, with fixed eyes and a rigid mouth.
+Father Esteban drew a snuff-box from his pocket, and a large
+handkerchief.  After blowing his nose violently, he took a pinch of
+snuff, wiped his lip, and replaced the box.
+
+"A bad habit, my son," he said apologetically, "but an old man's
+weakness.  Go on."
+
+"I met her first five years ago--the wife of another man.  Don't
+misjudge me, it was no lawless passion; it was a friendship, I
+believed, due to her intellectual qualities as much as to her
+womanly fascinations; for I was a young student, lodging in the
+same house with her, in an academic town.  Before I ever spoke to
+her of love, she had confided to me her own unhappiness--the
+uncongeniality of her married life, the harshness, and even
+brutality, of her husband.  Even a man less in love than I was
+could have seen the truth of this--the contrast of the coarse,
+sensual, and vulgar man with an apparently refined and intelligent
+woman; but any one else except myself would have suspected that
+such a union was not merely a sacrifice of the woman.  I believed
+her.  It was not until long afterwards that I learned that her
+marriage had been a condonation of her youthful errors by a
+complaisant bridegroom; that her character had been saved by a
+union that was a mutual concession.  But I loved her madly; and
+when she finally got a divorce from her uncongenial husband, I
+believed it less an expression of her love for me than an act of
+justice.  I did not know at the time that they had arranged the
+divorce together, as they had arranged their marriage, by equal
+concessions.
+
+"I was the only son of a widowed mother, whose instincts were from
+the first opposed to my friendship with this woman, and what she
+prophetically felt would be its result.  Unfortunately, both she
+and my friends were foolish enough to avow their belief that the
+divorce was obtained solely with a view of securing me as a
+successor; and it was this argument more than any other that
+convinced me of my duty to protect her.  Enough, I married, not
+only in spite of all opposition--but BECAUSE of it.
+
+"My mother would have reconciled herself to the marriage, but my
+wife never forgave the opposition, and, by some hellish instinct
+divining that her power over me might be weakened by maternal
+influence, precipitated a quarrel which forever separated us.  With
+the little capital left by my father, divided between my mother and
+myself, I took my wife to a western city.  Our small income
+speedily dwindled under the debts of her former husband, which she
+had assumed to purchase her freedom.  I endeavored to utilize a
+good education and some accomplishments in music and the languages
+by giving lessons and by contributing to the press.  In this my
+wife first made a show of assisting me, but I was not long in
+discovering that her intelligence was superficial and shallow, and
+that the audacity of expression, which I had believed to be
+originality of conviction, was simply shamelessness, and a desire
+for notoriety.  She had a facility in writing sentimental poetry,
+which had been efficacious in her matrimonial confidences, but
+which editors of magazines and newspapers found to be shallow and
+insincere.  To my astonishment, she remained unaffected by this, as
+she was equally impervious to the slights and sneers that
+continually met us in society.  At last the inability to pay one of
+her former husband's claims brought to me a threat and an anonymous
+letter.  I laid them before her, when a scene ensued which revealed
+the blindness of my folly in all its hideous hopelessness: she
+accused me of complicity in her divorce, and deception in regard to
+my own fortune.  In a speech, whose language was a horrible
+revelation of her early habits, she offered to arrange a divorce
+from me as she had from her former husband.  She gave as a reason
+her preference for another, and her belief that the scandal of a
+suit would lend her a certain advertisement and prestige.  It was a
+combination of Messalina and Mrs. Jarley"--
+
+"Pardon!  I remember not a Madame Jarley," said the priest.
+
+"Of viciousness and commercial calculation," continued Hurlstone
+hurriedly.  "I don't remember what happened; she swore that I
+struck her!  Perhaps--God knows!  But she failed, even before a
+western jury, to convict me of cruelty.  The judge that thought me
+half insane would not believe me brutal, and her application for
+divorce was lost.
+
+"I need not tell you that the same friends who had opposed my
+marriage now came forward to implore me to allow her to break our
+chains.  I refused.  I swear to you it was from no lingering love
+for her, for her presence drove me mad; it was from no instinct of
+revenge or jealousy, for I should have welcomed the man who would
+have taken her out of my life and memory.  But I could not bear the
+idea of taking her first husband's place in her hideous comedy; I
+could not purchase my freedom at that price--at any price.  I was
+told that I could get a divorce against HER, and stand forth before
+the world untrammeled and unstained.  But I could not stand before
+MYSELF in such an attitude.  I knew that the shackles I had
+deliberately forged could not be loosened except by death.  I knew
+that the stains of her would cling to me and become a part of my
+own sin, even as the sea I plunged into yesterday to escape her,
+though it has dried upon me, has left its bitter salt behind.
+
+"When she knew my resolve, she took her revenge by dragging my name
+through the successive levels to which she descended.  Under the
+plea that the hardly-earned sum I gave to her maintenance apart
+from me was not sufficient, she utilized her undoubted beauty and
+more doubtful talent in amateur entertainments--and, finally, on
+the stage.  She was openly accompanied by her lover, who acted as
+her agent, in the hope of goading me to a divorce.  Suddenly she
+disappeared.  I thought she had forgotten me.  I obtained an
+honorable position in New York.  One night I entered a theater
+devoted to burlesque opera and the exhibition of a popular actress,
+known as the Western Thalia, whose beautiful and audaciously draped
+figure was the talk of the town.  I recognized my wife in this star
+of nudity; more than that, she recognized me.  The next day, in
+addition to the usual notice, the real name of the actress was
+given in the morning papers, with a sympathizing account of her
+romantic and unfortunate marriage.  I renounced my position, and,
+taking advantage of an offer from an old friend in California,
+resolved to join him secretly there.  My mother had died broken-
+hearted; I was alone in the world.  But my wife discovered my
+intention; and when I reached Callao, I heard that she had followed
+me, by way of the Isthmus of Panama, and that probably she would
+anticipate me in Mazatlan, where we were to stop.  The thought of
+suicide haunted me during the rest of that horrible voyage; only my
+belief that she would make it appear as a tacit confession of my
+guilt saved me from that last act of weakness."
+
+He stopped and shuddered.  Padre Esteban again laid his hand softly
+upon him.
+
+"It was God who spared you that sacrifice of soul and body," he
+said gently.
+
+"I thought it was God that suggested to me to take the SIMULATION
+of that act the means of separating myself from her forever.  When
+we neared Mazatlan, I conceived the idea of hiding myself in the
+hold of the Excelsior until she had left that port, in the hope
+that it would be believed that I had fallen overboard.  I succeeded
+in secreting myself, but was discovered at the same time that the
+unexpected change in the ship's destination rendered concealment
+unnecessary.  As we did not put in at Mazatlan, nobody suspected my
+discovery in the hold to be anything but the accident that I gave
+it out to be.  I felt myself saved the confrontation of the woman
+at Mazatlan; but I knew she would pursue me to San Francisco.
+
+"The strange dispensation of Providence that brought us into this
+unknown port gave me another hope of escape and oblivion.  While
+you and the Commander were boarding the Excelsior, I slipped from
+the cabin-window into the water; I was a good swimmer, and reached
+the shore in safety.  I concealed myself in the ditch of the
+Presidio until I saw the passengers' boats returning with them,
+when I sought the safer shelter of this Mission.  I made my way
+through a gap in the hedge and lay under your olive-trees, hearing
+the voices of my companions, beyond the walls, till past midnight.
+I then groped my way along the avenue of pear-trees till I came to
+another wall, and a door that opened to my accidental touch.  I
+entered, and found myself here.  You know the rest."
+
+He had spoken with the rapid and unpent fluency of a man who cared
+more to relieve himself of an oppressive burden than to impress his
+auditor; yet the restriction of a foreign tongue had checked
+repetition or verbosity.  Without imagination he had been eloquent;
+without hopefulness he had been convincing.  Father Esteban rose,
+holding both his hands.
+
+"My son, in the sanctuary which you have claimed there is no
+divorce.  The woman who has ruined your life could not be your
+wife.  As long as her first husband lives, she is forever his wife,
+bound by a tie which no human law can sever!"
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+AN OPEN-AIR PRISON.
+
+
+An hour after mass Father Esteban had quietly installed Hurlstone
+in a small cell-like apartment off the refectory.  The household of
+the priest consisted of an old Indian woman of fabulous age and
+miraculous propriety, two Indian boys who served at mass, a
+gardener, and a muleteer.  The first three, who were immediately in
+attendance upon the priest, were cognizant of a stranger's
+presence, but, under instructions from the reverend Padre, were
+loyally and superstitiously silent; the vocations of the gardener
+and muleteer made any intrusion from them impossible.  A breakfast
+of fruit, tortillas, chocolate, and red wine, of which Hurlstone
+partook sparingly and only to please his entertainer, nevertheless
+seemed to restore his strength, as it did the Padre's equanimity.
+For the old man had been somewhat agitated during mass, and, except
+that his early morning congregation was mainly composed of Indians,
+muleteers, and small venders, his abstraction would have been
+noticed.  With ready tact he had not attempted, by further
+questioning, to break the taciturnity into which Hurlstone had
+relapsed after his emotional confession and the priest's abrupt
+half-absolution.  Was it possible he regretted his confidence, or
+was it possible that his first free and untrammeled expression of
+his wrongs had left him with a haunting doubt of their real
+magnitude?
+
+"Lie down here, my son," said the old ecclesiastic, pointing to a
+small pallet in the corner, "and try to restore in the morning what
+you have taken from the night.  Manuela will bring your clothes
+when they are dried and mended; meantime, shift for yourself in
+Pepito's serape and calzas.  I will betake me to the Comandante and
+the Alcalde, to learn the dispositions of your party, when the ship
+will sail, and if your absence is suspected.  Peace be with you,
+son!  Manuela, attend to the caballero, and see you chatter not."
+
+Without doubting the substantial truth of his guest's story, the
+good Padre Esteban was not unwilling to have it corroborated by
+such details as he thought he could collect among the Excelsior's
+passengers.  His own experience in the confessional had taught him
+the unreliability of human evidence, and the vagaries of both
+conscientious and unconscious suppression.  That a young, good-
+looking, and accomplished caballero should have been the victim of
+not one, but even many, erotic episodes, did not strike the holy
+father as being peculiar; but that he should have been brought by a
+solitary unfortunate attachment to despair and renunciation of the
+world appeared to him marvelous.  He was not unfamiliar with the
+remorse of certain gallants for peccadillos with other men's wives;
+but this Americano's self-abasement for the sins of his own wife--
+as he foolishly claimed her to be--whom he hated and despised,
+struck Father Esteban as a miracle open to suspicion.  Was there
+anything else in these somewhat commonplace details of vulgar and
+low intrigue than what he had told the priest?  Were all these
+Americano husbands as sensitive and as gloomily self-sacrificing
+and expiating?  It did not appear so from the manners and customs
+of the others,--from those easy matrons whose complacent husbands
+had abandoned them to the long companionship of youthful cavaliers
+on adventurous voyages; from those audacious virgins, who had the
+freedom of married women.  Surely, this was not a pious and
+sensitive race, passionately devoted to their domestic affections!
+The young stranger must be either deceiving him--or an exception to
+his countrymen!
+
+And if he was that exception--what then?  An idea which had sprung
+up in Father Esteban's fancy that morning now took possession of it
+with the tenacity of a growth on fertile virgin soil.  The good
+Father had been devoted to the conversion of the heathen with the
+fervor of a one-ideaed man.  But his successes had been among the
+Indians--a guileless, harmless race, who too often confounded the
+practical benefits of civilization with the abstract benefits of
+the Church, and their instruction had been simple and coercive.
+There had been no necessity for argument or controversy; the worthy
+priest's skill in polemical warfare and disputation had never been
+brought into play; the Comandante and Alcalde were as punctiliously
+orthodox as himself, and the small traders and artisans were
+hopelessly docile and submissive.  The march of science, which had
+been stopped by the local fogs of Todos Santos some fifty years,
+had not disturbed the simple Aesculapius of the province with
+heterodox theories: he still purged and bled like Sangrado, and met
+the priest at the deathbed of his victims with a pious satisfaction
+that had no trace of skeptical contention.  In fact, the gentle
+Mission of Todos Santos had hitherto presented no field for the
+good Father's exalted ambition, nor the display of his powers as a
+zealot.  And here was a splendid opportunity.
+
+The conversion of this dark, impulsive, hysterical stranger would
+be a gain to the fold, and a triumph worthy of his steel.  More
+than that, if he had judged correctly of this young man's mind and
+temperament, they seemed to contain those elements of courage and
+sacrificial devotion that indicated the missionary priesthood.
+With such a subaltern, what might not he, Father Esteban,
+accomplish!  Looking further into the future, what a glorious
+successor might be left to his unfinished work on Todos Santos!
+
+Buried in these reflections, Padre Esteban sauntered leisurely up
+the garden, that gradually ascended the slight elevation on which
+the greater part of the pueblo was built.  Through a low gateway in
+the wall he passed on to the crest of the one straggling street of
+Todos Santos.  On either side of him were ranged the low one-
+storied, deep-windowed adobe fondas and artisans' dwellings, with
+low-pitched roofs of dull red pipe-like tiles.  Absorbed in his
+fanciful dreams, he did not at first notice that those dwellings
+appeared deserted, and that even the Posada opposite him, whose
+courtyard was usually filled with lounging muleteers, was empty and
+abandoned.  Looking down the street towards the plaza, he became
+presently aware of some undefined stirring in the peaceful hamlet.
+There was an unusual throng in the square, and afar on that placid
+surface of the bay from which the fog had lifted, the two or three
+fishing-boats of Todos Santos were vaguely pulling.  But the
+strange ship was gone.
+
+A feeling of intense relief and satisfaction followed.  Father
+Esteban pulled out his snuff-box and took a long and complacent
+pinch.  But his relief was quickly changed to consternation as an
+armed cavalcade rapidly wheeled out of the plaza and cantered
+towards him, with the unmistakable spectacle of the male passengers
+of the Excelsior riding two and two, and guarded by double files of
+dragoons on each side.
+
+At a sign from the priest the subaltern reined in his mustang,
+halted the convoy, and saluted respectfully, to the astonishment of
+the prisoners.  The clerical authority of Todos Santos evidently
+dominated the military.  Renewed hope sprang up in the hearts of
+the Excelsior party.
+
+"What have we here?" asked Padre Esteban.
+
+"A revolution, your Reverence, among the Americanos, with robbery
+of the Presidio saluting-gun; a grave affair.  Your Reverence has
+been sent for by the Comandante.  I am taking these men to San
+Antonio to await the decision of the Council."
+
+"And the ship?"
+
+"Gone, your Reverence.  One of the parties has captured it."
+
+"And these?"
+
+"Are the Legitimists, your Reverence: at least they have confessed
+to have warred with Mexico, and invaded California--the brigands."
+
+The priest remained lost for a moment in blank and bitter
+amazement.  Banks took advantage of the pause to edge his way to
+the front.
+
+"Ask him, some of you," he said, turning to Brace and Crosby, "when
+this d----d farce will be over, and where we can find the head man--
+the boss idiot of this foolery."
+
+"Let him put it milder," whispered Winslow.  "You got us into
+trouble enough with your tongue already."
+
+Crosby hesitated a moment.
+
+"Quand finira ce drole representation?--et--et--qui est ce qui est
+l'entrepreneur?" he said dubiously.
+
+The priest stared.  These Americans were surely cooler and less
+excitable than his strange guest.  A thought struck him.
+
+"How many are still in the ship?" he asked gently.
+
+"Nobody but Perkins and that piratical crew of niggers."
+
+"And that infernal Hurlstone," added Winslow.
+
+The priest pricked up his ears.
+
+"Hurlstone?" he repeated.
+
+"Yes--a passenger like ourselves, as we supposed.  But we are
+satisfied now he was in the conspiracy from the beginning,"
+translated Crosby painfully.
+
+"Look at his strange disappearance--a regular put-up job," broke in
+Brace, in English, without reference to the Padre's not
+comprehending him; "so that he and Perkins could shut themselves up
+together without suspicion."
+
+"Never mind Hurlstone now; he's GONE, and we're HERE," said Banks
+angrily.  "Ask the parson, as a gentleman and a Christian, what
+sort of a hole we've got into, anyhow.  How far is the next
+settlement?"
+
+Crosby put the question.  The subaltern lit a cigarette.
+
+"There is no next settlement.  The pueblo ends at San Antonio."
+
+"And what's beyond that?"
+
+"The ocean."
+
+"And what's south?"
+
+"The desert--one cannot pass it."
+
+"And north?"
+
+"The desert."
+
+"And east?"
+
+"The desert too."
+
+"Then how do you get away from here?"
+
+"We do not get away."
+
+"And how do you communicate with Mexico--with your Government?"
+
+"When a ship comes."
+
+"And when does a ship come?"
+
+"Quien sabe?"
+
+The officer threw away his cigarette.
+
+"I say, you'll tell the Commander that all this is illegal; and
+that I'm going to complain to our Government," continued Banks
+hurriedly.
+
+"I go to speak to the Comandante," responded the priest gravely.
+
+"And tell him that if he touches a hair of the ladies' heads we'll
+have his own scalp," interrupted Brace impetuously.
+
+Even Crosby's diplomatic modification of this speech did not appear
+entirely successful.
+
+"The Mexican soldier wars not with women," said the priest coldly.
+"Adieu, messieurs!"
+
+The cavalcade moved on.  The Excelsior passengers at once resumed
+their chorus of complaint, tirade, and aggressive suggestion,
+heedless of the soldiers who rode stolidly on each side.
+
+"To think we haven't got a single revolver among us," said Brace
+despairingly.
+
+"We might each grab a carbine from these nigger fellows," said
+Crosby, eying them contemplatively.
+
+"And if they didn't burst, and we weren't shot by the next patrol,
+and if we'd calculated to be mean enough to run away from the
+women--where would we escape to?" asked Banks curtly.  "Hold on at
+least until we get an ultimatum from that commodious ass at the
+Presidio!  Then we'll anticipate the fool-killer, if you like.  My
+opinion is, they aren't in any great hurry to try ANYTHING on us
+just yet."
+
+"And I say, lie low and keep dark until they show their hand,"
+added Winslow, who had no relish for an indiscriminate scrimmage,
+and had his own ideas of placating their captors.
+
+Nevertheless, by degrees they fell into a silence, partly the
+effect of the strangely enervating air.  The fog had completely
+risen from the landscape, and hung high in mid-air, through which
+an intense sun, shorn of its fierceness, diffused a lambent warmth,
+and a yellowish, unctuous light, as if it had passed through amber.
+The bay gleamed clearly and distinctly; not a shadow flecked its
+surface to the gray impenetrable rampart of fog that stretched like
+a granite wall before its entrance.  On one side of the narrow road
+billows of monstrous grain undulated to the crest of the low hills,
+that looked like larger undulations of the soil, furrowed by bosky
+canadas or shining arroyos.  Banks was startled into a burst of
+professional admiration.
+
+"There's enough grain there to feed a thousand Todos Santos; and
+raised, too, with tools like that," he continued, pointing to a
+primitive plow that lay on the wayside, formed by a single forked
+root.  A passing ox-cart, whose creaking wheels were made of a
+solid circle of wood, apparently sawn from an ordinary log, again
+plunged him into cogitation.  Here and there little areas of the
+rudest cultivation broke into a luxuriousness of orange, lime, and
+fig trees.  The joyous earth at the slightest provocation seemed to
+smile and dimple with fruit and flowers.  Everywhere the rare
+beatitudes of Todos Santos revealed and repeated its simple story.
+The fructifying influence of earth and sky; the intervention of a
+vaporous veil between a fiery sun and fiery soil; the combination
+of heat and moisture, purified of feverish exhalations, and made
+sweet and wholesome by the saline breath of the mighty sea, had
+been the beneficent legacy of their isolation, the munificent
+compensation of their oblivion.
+
+A gradual and gentle ascent at the end of two hours brought the
+cavalcade to a halt upon a rugged upland with semi-tropical
+shrubbery, and here and there larger trees from the tierra templada
+in the evergreens or madrono.  A few low huts and corrals, and a
+rambling hacienda, were scattered along the crest, and in the midst
+arose a little votive chapel, flanked by pear-trees.  Near the
+roadside were the crumbling edges of some long-forgotten excavation.
+Crosby gazed at it curiously.  Touching the arm of the officer, he
+pointed to it.
+
+"Una mina de plata," said the officer sententiously.
+
+"A mine of some kind--silver, I bet!" said Crosby, turning to the
+others.  "Is it good--bueno--you know?" he continued to the
+officer, with vague gesticulations.
+
+"En tiempos pasados," returned the officer gravely.
+
+"I wonder what that means?" said Winslow.
+
+But before Crosby could question further, the subaltern signaled to
+them to dismount.  They did so, and their horses were led away to a
+little declivity, whence came the sound of running water.  Left to
+themselves, the Americans looked around them.  The cavalcade seemed
+to have halted near the edge of a precipitous ridge, the evident
+termination of the road.  But the view that here met their eyes was
+unexpected and startling.
+
+The plateau on which they stood seemed to drop suddenly away,
+leaving them on the rocky shore of a monotonous and far-stretching
+sea of waste and glittering sand.  Not a vestige nor trace of
+vegetation could be seen, except an occasional ridge of straggling
+pallid bushes, raised in hideous simulation of the broken crest of
+a ghostly wave.  On either side, as far as the eye could reach, the
+hollow empty vision extended--the interminable desert stretched and
+panted before them.
+
+"It's the jumping-off place, I reckon," said Crosby, "and they've
+brought us here to show us how small is our chance of getting away.
+But," he added, turning towards the plateau again, "what are they
+doing now?  'Pon my soul!  I believe they're going off--and leaving
+us."
+
+The others turned as he spoke.  It was true.  The dragoons were
+coolly galloping off the way they came, taking with them the horses
+the Americans had just ridden.
+
+"I call that cool," said Crosby.  "It looks deuced like as if we
+were to be left here to graze, like cattle."
+
+"Perhaps that's their idea of a prison in this country," said
+Banks.  "There's certainly no chance of our breaking jail in that
+direction," he added, pointing to the desert; "and we can't follow
+them without horses."
+
+"And I dare say they've guarded the pass in the road lower down,"
+said Winslow.
+
+"We ought to be able to hold our own here until night," said Brace,
+"and then make a dash into Todos Santos, get hold of some arms, and
+join the ladies."
+
+"The women are all right," said Crosby impatiently, "and are better
+treated than if we were with them.  Suppose, instead of maundering
+over them, we reconnoitre and see what WE can do here.  I'm getting
+devilishly hungry; they can't mean to starve us, and if they do, I
+don't intend to be starved as long as there is anything to be had
+by buying or stealing.  Come along.  There's sure to be fruit near
+that old chapel, and I saw some chickens in the bush near those
+huts.  First, let's see if there's any one about.  I don't see a
+soul."
+
+The little plateau, indeed, seemed deserted.  In vain they shouted;
+their voices were lost in the echoless air.  They examined one by
+one the few thatched huts: they were open, contained one or two
+rude articles of furniture--a bed, a bench, and table--were
+scrupulously clean--and empty.  They next inspected the chapel; it
+was tawdry and barbaric in ornament, but the candlesticks and
+crucifix and the basin for holy water were of heavily beaten
+silver.  The same thought crossed their minds--the abandoned mine
+at the roadside!
+
+Bananas, oranges, and prickly-pears growing within the cactus-hedge
+of the chapel partly mollified their thirst and hunger, and they
+turned their steps towards the long, rambling, barrack-looking
+building, with its low windows and red-tiled roof, which they had
+first noticed.  Here, too, the tenement was deserted and abandoned;
+but there was evidence of some previous and more ambitious
+preparation: in a long dormitory off the corridor a number of
+scrupulously clean beds were ranged against the whitewashed walls,
+with spotless benches and tables.  To the complete astonishment and
+bewilderment of the party another room, fitted up as a kitchen,
+with the simpler appliances of housekeeping, revealed a larder
+filled with provisions and meal.  A shout from Winslow, who had
+penetrated the inner courtyard, however, drew them to a more
+remarkable spectacle.  Their luggage and effects from the cabins of
+the Excelsior were there, carefully piled in the antique ox-cart
+that had evidently that morning brought them from Todos Santos!
+
+"There's no mistake," said Brace, with a relieved look, after a
+hurried survey of the trunks.  "They have only brought our baggage.
+The ladies have evidently had the opportunity of selecting their
+own things."
+
+"Crosby told you they'd be all right," said Banks; "and as for
+ourselves, I don't see why we can't be pretty comfortable here, and
+all the better for our being alone.  I shall take an opportunity of
+looking around a bit.  It strikes me that there are some resources
+in this country that might pay to develop."
+
+"And I shall have a look at that played-out mine," said Crosby; "if
+it's been worked as they work the land, they've left about as much
+in it as they've taken out."
+
+"That's all well enough," said Brace, drawing a dull vermilion-
+colored stone from his pocket; "but here's something I picked up
+just now that ain't 'played out,' nor even the value of it
+suspected by those fellows.  That's cinnabar--quicksilver ore--and
+a big per cent. of it too; and if there's as much of it here as the
+indications show, you could buy up all your SILVER mines in the
+country with it."
+
+"If I were you, I'd put up a notice on a post somewhere, as they do
+in California, and claim discovery," said Banks seriously.
+"There's no knowing how this thing may end.  We may not get away
+from here for some time yet, and if the Government will sell the
+place cheap, it wouldn't be a bad spec' to buy it.  Form a kind of
+'Excelsior Company' among ourselves, you know, and go shares."
+
+The four men looked earnestly at each other.  Already the lost
+Excelsior and her mutinous crew were forgotten; even the incidents
+of the morning--their arrest, the uncertainty of their fate, and
+the fact that they were in the hands of a hostile community--
+appeared but as trivial preliminaries to the new life that opened
+before them!  They suddenly became graver than they had ever been--
+even in the moment of peril.
+
+"I don't see why we shouldn't," said Brace quickly.  "We started
+out to do that sort of thing in California, and I reckon if we'd
+found such a spot as this on the Sacramento or American River we'd
+have been content.  We can take turns at housekeeping, prospect a
+little, and enter into negotiations with the Government.  I'm for
+offering them a fair sum for this ridge and all it contains at
+once."
+
+"The only thing against that," said Crosby slowly, "is the
+probability that it is already devoted to some other use by the
+Government.  Ever since we've been here I've been thinking--I don't
+know why--that we've been put in a sort of quarantine.  The
+desertion of the place, the half hospital arrangements of this
+building, and the means they have taken to isolate us from
+themselves, must mean something.  I've read somewhere that in these
+out-of-the-way spots in the tropics they have a place where they
+put the fellows with malarious or contagious diseases.  I don't
+want to frighten you boys: but I've an idea that we're in a sort of
+lazaretto, and the people outside won't trouble us often."
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+TODOS SANTOS SOLVES THE MYSTERY.
+
+
+Notwithstanding his promise, and the summons of the Council, Father
+Esteban, on parting with the Excelsior prisoners in the San Antonio
+Road, did not proceed immediately to the presence of the
+Comandante.  Partly anxious to inform himself more thoroughly
+regarding Hurlstone's antecedents before entering upon legislative
+functions that might concern him, partly uneasy at Brace's allusion
+to any possible ungentleness in the treatment of the fair
+Americanas, and partly apprehensive that Mrs. Brimmer might seek
+him at the Mission in the present emergency, the good Father turned
+his steps towards the Alcalde's house.
+
+Mrs. Brimmer, in a becoming morning wrapper, half reclining in an
+Indian hammock in the corridor, supported by Miss Chubb, started at
+his approach.  So did the young Alcalde, sympathetically seated at
+her side.  Padre Esteban for an instant was himself embarrassed;
+Mrs. Brimmer quickly recovered her usual bewildering naivete.
+
+"I knew you would come; but if you hadn't, I should have mustered
+courage enough to go with Miss Chubb to find you at the Mission,"
+she said, half coquettishly.  "Not but that Don Ramon has been all
+kindness and consideration, but you know one always clings to one's
+spiritual adviser in such an emergency; and although there are
+differences of opinion between us, I think I may speak to you as
+freely as I would speak to my dear friend Dr. Potts, of Trinity
+Chapel.  Of course you don't know HIM; but you couldn't have helped
+liking him, he's so gentle, so tactful, so refined!  But do tell me
+the fullest particulars of this terrible calamity that has happened
+so awkwardly.  Tell me all!  I fear that Don Ramon, out of
+kindness, has not told me everything.  I have been perfectly frank,
+I told him everything--who I am, who Mr. Brimmer is, and given him
+even the connections of my friend Miss Chubb.  I can do no more;
+but you will surely have no difficulty in finding some one in Todos
+Santos who has heard of the Quincys and Brimmers.  I've no doubt
+that there are books in your library that mention them.  Of course
+I can say nothing of the other passengers, except that Mr. Brimmer
+would not have probably permitted me to associate with any
+notorious persons.  I confess now--I think I told you once before,
+Clarissa--that I greatly doubted Captain Bunker's ability"--
+
+"Ah," murmured Don Ramon.
+
+"--To make a social selection," continued Mrs. Brimmer.  "He may
+have been a good sailor, and boxed his compass, but he lacked a
+knowledge of the world.  Of the other passengers I can truly say I
+know nothing; I cannot think that Mr. Crosby's sense of humor led
+him into bad associations, or that he ever went beyond verbal
+impropriety.  Certainly nothing in Miss Keene's character has led
+me to believe she could so far forget what was due to herself and
+to us as to address a lawless mob in the streets as she did just
+now; although her friend Mrs. Markham, as I just told Don Ramon, is
+an advocate of Women's Rights and Female Suffrage, and I believe
+she contemplates addressing the public from the lecturer's
+platform."
+
+"It isn't possible!" interrupted Don Ramon excitedly, in mingled
+horror of the masculinely rampant Mrs. Markham and admiration of
+the fascinatingly feminine Mrs. Brimmer; "a lady cannot be an
+orator--a haranguer of men!"
+
+"Not in society," responded Mrs. Brimmer, with a sigh, "and I do
+not remember to have met the lady before.  The fact is, she does
+not move in our circle--in the upper classes."
+
+The Alcalde exchanged a glance with the Padre.
+
+"Ah! you have classes? and she is of a distinct class, perhaps?"
+
+"Decidedly," said Mrs. Brimmer promptly.
+
+"Pardon me," said Padre Esteban, with gentle persuasiveness, "but
+you are speaking of your fellow-passengers.  Know you not, then, of
+one Hurlstone, who is believed to be still in the ship Excelsior,
+and perhaps of the party who seized it?"
+
+"Mr. Hurlstone?--it is possible; but I know really nothing of him,"
+said Mrs. Brimmer carelessly.  "I don't think Clarissa did, either--
+did you, dear?  Even in our enforced companionship we had to use
+some reserve, and we may have drawn the line at him!  He was a
+friend of Miss Keene's; indeed, she was the only one who seemed to
+know him."
+
+"And she is now here?" asked the Padre eagerly.
+
+"No.  She is with her friend the Senora Markham, at the Presidio.
+The Comandante has given her the disposition of his house," said
+Don Ramon, with a glance of grave archness at Mrs. Brimmer; "it is
+not known which is the most favored, the eloquent orator or the
+beautiful and daring leader!"
+
+"Mrs. Markham is a married woman," said Mrs. Brimmer severely,
+"and, of course, she can do as she pleases; but it is far different
+with Miss Keene.  I should scarcely consider it proper to expose
+Miss Chubb to the hospitality of a single man, without other women,
+and I cannot understand how she could leave the companionship and
+protection of your lovely sisters."
+
+The priest here rose, and, with formal politeness, excused himself,
+urging the peremptory summons of the Council.
+
+"I scarcely expected, indeed, to have had the pleasure of seeing my
+colleague here," he added with quiet suavity, turning to the
+Alcalde.
+
+"I have already expressed my views to the Comandante," said the
+official, with some embarrassment, "and my attendance will hardly
+be required."
+
+The occasional misleading phosphorescence of Mrs. Brimmer's quiet
+eyes, early alluded to in these pages, did not escape Father
+Esteban's quick perception at that moment; however, he preferred to
+leave his companion to follow its aberrations rather than to permit
+that fair ignis fatuus to light him on his way by it.
+
+"But my visit to you, Father Esteban," she began sweetly, "is only
+postponed."
+
+"Until I have the pleasure of anticipating it here," said the
+priest, with paternal politeness bending before the two ladies;
+"but for the present, au revoir!"
+
+"It would be an easy victory to win this discreetly emotional
+Americana to the Church," said Father Esteban to himself, as he
+crossed the plaza; "but, if I mistake not, she would not cease to
+be a disturbing element even there.  However, she is not such as
+would give this Hurlstone any trouble.  It seems I must look
+elsewhere for the brains of this party, and to find a solution of
+this young man's mystery; and, if I judge correctly, it is with
+this beautiful young agitator of revolutions and her oratorical
+duenna I must deal."
+
+He entered the low gateway of the Presidio unchallenged, and even
+traversed the courtyard without meeting a soul.  The guard and
+sentries had evidently withdrawn to their habitual peaceful
+vocations, and the former mediaeval repose of the venerable
+building had returned.  There was no one in the guard-room; but as
+the priest turned back to the corridor, his quick ear was suddenly
+startled by the unhallowed and inconsistent sounds of a guitar.  A
+monotonous voice also--the Comandante's evidently--was raised in a
+thin, high recitative.
+
+The Padre passed hastily through the guard-room, and opened the
+door of the passage leading to the garden slope.  Here an
+extraordinary group presented itself to his astonished eyes.  In
+the shadow of a palm-tree, Mrs. Markham, seated on her Saratoga
+trunk as on a throne, was gazing blandly down upon the earnest
+features of the Commander, who, at her feet, guitar in hand, was
+evidently repeating some musical composition.  His subaltern sat
+near him, divided in admiration of his chief and the guest.  Miss
+Keene, at a little distance, aided by the secretary, was holding an
+animated conversation with a short, stout, Sancho Panza-looking
+man, whom the Padre recognized as the doctor of Todos Santos.
+
+At the apparition of the reverend Father, the Commander started,
+the subaltern stared, and even the secretary and the doctor looked
+discomposed.
+
+"I am decidedly de trop this morning," soliloquized the
+ecclesiastic; but Miss Keene cut short his reflection by running to
+him frankly, with outstretched hand.
+
+"I am so glad that you have come," she said, with a youthful,
+unrestrained earnestness that was as convincing as it was
+fascinating, "for you will help me to persuade this gentleman that
+poor Captain Bunker is suffering more from excitement of mind than
+body, and that bleeding him is more than folly."
+
+"The man's veins are in a burning fever and delirium from
+aguardiente," said the little doctor excitedly, "and the fire must
+first be put out by the lancet."
+
+"He is only crazy with remorse for having lost his ship through his
+own carelessness and the treachery of others," said Miss Keene
+doughtily.
+
+"He is a maniac and will kill himself, unless his fever is
+subdued," persisted the doctor.
+
+"And you would surely kill him by your way of subduing it," said
+the young girl boldly.  "Better for him, a disgraced man of honor,
+to die by his own hand, than to be bled like a calf into a feeble
+and helpless dissolution.  I would, if I were in his place--if I
+had to do it by tearing off the bandages."
+
+She made a swift, half unconscious gesture of her little hand, and
+stopped, her beautiful eyes sparkling, her thin pink nostrils
+dilated, her red lips parted, her round throat lifted in the air,
+and one small foot advanced before her.  The men glanced hurriedly
+at each other, and then fixed their eyes upon her with a rapt yet
+frightened admiration.  To their simple minds it was Anarchy and
+Revolution personified, beautiful, and victorious.
+
+"Ah!" said the secretary to Padre Esteban, in Spanish, "it is true!
+she knows not fear!  She was in the room alone with the madman; he
+would let none approach but her!  She took a knife from him--else
+the medico had suffered!"
+
+"He recognized her, you see!  Ah! they know her power," said the
+Comandante, joining the group.
+
+"You will help me, Father Esteban?" said the young girl, letting
+the fire of her dark eyes soften to a look of almost childish
+appeal--"you will help me to intercede for him?  It is the
+restraint only that is killing him--that is goading him to madness!
+Think of him, Father--think of him: ruined and disgraced, dying to
+retrieve himself by any reckless action, any desperate chance of
+recovery, and yet locked up where he can do nothing--attempt
+nothing--not even lift a hand to pursue the man who has helped to
+bring him to this!"
+
+"But he CAN do nothing!  The ship is gone!" remonstrated the
+Comandante.
+
+"Yes, the ship is gone; but the ocean is still there," said Miss
+Keene.
+
+"But he has no boat."
+
+"He will find or make one."
+
+"And the fog conceals the channel."
+
+"He can go where THEY have gone, or meet their fate.  You do not
+know my countrymen, Senor Comandante," she said proudly.
+
+"Ah, yes--pardon!  They are at San Antonio--the baker, the buffoon,
+the two young men who dig.  They are already baking and digging and
+joking.  We have it from my officer, who has just returned."
+
+Miss Keene bit her pretty lips.
+
+"They think it is a mistake; they cannot believe that any intentional
+indignity is offered them," she said quietly.  "Perhaps it is well
+they do not."
+
+"They desired me to express their condolences to the Senora," said
+the Padre, with exasperating gentleness, "and were relieved to be
+assured by me of your perfect security in the hands of these
+gentlemen."
+
+Miss Keene raised her clear eyes to the ecclesiastic.  That
+accomplished diplomat of Todos Santos absolutely felt confused
+under the cool scrutiny of this girl's unbiased and unsophisticated
+intelligence.
+
+"Then you HAVE seen them," she said, "and you know their innocence,
+and the utter absurdity of this surveillance?"
+
+"I have not seen them ALL," said the priest softly.  "There is
+still another--a Senor Hurlstone--who is missing?  Is he not?"
+
+It was not in the possibility of Eleanor Keene's truthful blood to
+do other than respond with a slight color to this question.  She
+had already concealed from every one the fact of having seen the
+missing man in the Mission garden the evening before.  It did not,
+however, prevent her the next moment from calmly meeting the glance
+of the priest as she answered gravely,--
+
+"I believe so.  But I cannot see what that has to do with the
+detention of the others."
+
+"Much, perhaps.  It has been said that you alone, my child, were in
+the confidence of this man."
+
+"Who dared say that?" exclaimed Miss Keene in English, forgetting
+herself in her indignation.
+
+"If it's anything mean--it's Mrs. Brimmer, I'll bet a cooky," said
+Mrs. Markham, whose linguistic deficiencies had debarred her from
+the previous conversation.
+
+"You have only," continued the priest, without noticing the
+interruption, "to tell us what you know of this Hurlstone's plans,--
+of his complicity with Senor Perkins, or," he added significantly,
+"his opposition to them--to insure that perfect justice shall be
+done to all."
+
+Relieved that the question involved no disclosure of her only
+secret regarding Hurlstone, Miss Keene was about to repeat the
+truth that she had no confidential knowledge of him, or of his
+absurd alleged connection with Senor Perkins, when, with an
+instinct of tact, she hesitated.  Might she not serve them all--
+even Hurlstone himself--by saying nothing, and leaving the burden
+of proof to their idiotic accusers?  Was she altogether sure that
+Hurlstone was entirely ignorant of Senor Perkins' plans, or might
+he not have refused, at the last moment, to join in the conspiracy,
+and so left the ship?
+
+"I will not press you for your answer now," said the priest gently.
+"But you will not, I know, keep back anything that may throw a
+light on this sad affair, and perhaps help to reinstate your friend
+Mr. Hurlstone in his REAL position."
+
+"If you ask me if I believe that Mr. Hurlstone had anything to do
+with this conspiracy, I should say, unhesitatingly, that I do NOT.
+And more, I believe that he would have jumped overboard rather than
+assent to so infamous an act," said the young girl boldly.
+
+"Then you think he had no other motive for leaving the ship?" said
+the priest slowly.
+
+"Decidedly not."  She stopped; a curious anxious look in the
+Padre's persistent eyes both annoyed and frightened her.  "What
+other motive could he have?" she said coldly.
+
+Father Esteban's face lightened.
+
+"I only ask because I think you would have known it.  Thank you for
+the assurance all the same, and in return I promise you I will use
+my best endeavors with the Comandante for your friend the Captain
+Bunker.  Adieu, my daughter.  Adieu, Madame Markham," he said, as,
+taking the arm of Don Miguel, he turned with him and the doctor
+towards the guard-room.  The secretary lingered behind for a
+moment.
+
+"Fear nothing," he said, in whispered English to Miss Keene.  "I,
+Ruy Sanchez, shall make you free of Capitano Bunker's cell," and
+passed on.
+
+"Well," said Mrs. Markham, when the two women were alone again.  "I
+don't pretend to fathom the befogged brains of Todos Santos; but as
+far as I can understand their grown-up child's play, they are
+making believe this unfortunate Mr. Hurlstone, who may be dead for
+all we know, is in revolt against the United States Government,
+which is supposed to be represented by Senor Perkins and the
+Excelsior--think of that!"
+
+"But Perkins signed himself of the Quinquinambo navy!" said Miss
+Keene wonderingly.
+
+"That is firmly believed by those idiots to be one of OUR States.
+Remember they know nothing of what has happened anywhere in the
+last fifty years.  I dare say they never heard of filibusters like
+Perkins, and they couldn't comprehend him if they had.  I've given
+up trying to enlighten them, and I think they're grateful for it.
+It makes their poor dear heads ache."
+
+"And it is turning mine!  But, for Heaven's sake, tell me what part
+I am supposed to act in this farce!" said Miss Keene.
+
+"You are the friend and colleague of Hurlstone, don't you see?"
+said Mrs. Markham.  "You are two beautiful young patriots--don't
+blush, my dear!--endeared to each other and a common cause, and
+ready to die for your country in opposition to Perkins, and the
+faint-heartedness of such neutrals as Mrs. Brimmer, Miss Chubb, the
+poor Captain, and all the men whom they have packed off to San
+Antonio."
+
+"Impossible!" said Miss Keene, yet with an uneasy feeling that it
+not only was possible, but that she herself had contributed
+something to the delusion.  "But how do they account for my
+friendship with YOU--you, who are supposed to be a correspondent--
+an accomplice of Perkins?"
+
+"No, no," returned Mrs. Markham, with a half serious smile, "I am
+not allowed that honor.  I am presumed to be only the disconsolate
+Dulcinea of Perkins, abandoned by HIM, pitied by you, and converted
+to the true faith--at least, that is what I make out from the
+broken English of that little secretary of the Commander."
+
+Miss Keene winced.
+
+"That's all my fault, dear," she said, suddenly entwining her arms
+round Mrs. Markham, and hiding her half embarrassed smile on the
+shoulder of her strong-minded friend; "they suggested it to me, and
+I half assented, to save you.  Please forgive me."
+
+"Don't think I am blaming you, my dear Eleanor," said Mrs. Markham.
+"For Heaven's sake assent to the wildest and most extravagant
+hypothesis they can offer, if it will leave us free to arrange our
+own plans for getting away.  I begin to think we were not a very
+harmonious party on the Excelsior, and most of our troubles here
+are owing to that.  We forget we have fallen among a lot of
+original saints, as guileless and as unsophisticated as our first
+parents, who know nothing of our customs and antecedents.  They
+have accepted us on what they believe to be our own showing.  From
+first to last we've underrated them, forgetting they are in the
+majority.  We can't expect to correct the ignorance of fifty years
+in twenty-four hours, and I, for one, sha'n't attempt it.  I'd much
+rather trust to the character those people would conceive of me
+from their own consciousness than to one Mrs. Brimmer or Mr.
+Winslow would give of me.  From this moment I've taken a firm
+resolve to leave my reputation and the reputation of my friends
+entirely in their hands.  If you are wise you will do the same.
+They are inclined to worship you--don't hinder them.  My belief is,
+if we only take things quietly, we might find worse places to be
+stranded on than Todos Santos.  If Mrs. Brimmer and those men of
+ours, who, I dare say, have acted as silly as the Mexicans
+themselves, will only be quiet, we can have our own way here yet."
+
+"And poor Captain Bunker?" said Miss Keene.
+
+"It seems hard to say it, but, in my opinion, he is better under
+lock and key, for everybody's good, at present.  He'd be a
+firebrand in the town if he got away.  Meantime, let us go to our
+room.  It is about the time when everybody is taking a siesta, and
+for two hours, thank Heaven! we're certain nothing more can
+happen."
+
+"I'll join you in a moment," said Miss Keene.
+
+Her quick ear had caught the sound of voices approaching.  As Mrs.
+Markham disappeared in the passage, the Commander and his party
+reappeared from the guard-room, taking leave of Padre Esteban.  The
+secretary, as he passed Miss Keene, managed to add to his formal
+salutation the whispered words,--"When the Angelus rings I will
+await you before the grating of his prison."
+
+Padre Esteban was too preoccupied to observe this incident.  As
+soon as he quitted the Presidio, he hastened to the Mission with a
+disquieting fear that his strange guest might have vanished.  But,
+crossing the silent refectory, and opening the door of the little
+apartment, he was relieved to find him stretched on the pallet in a
+profound slumber.  The peacefulness of the venerable walls had laid
+a gentle finger on his weary eyelids.
+
+The Padre glanced round the little cell, and back again at the
+handsome suffering face that seemed to have found surcease and rest
+in the narrow walls, with a stirring of regret.  But the next
+moment he awakened the sleeper, and in the briefest, almost frigid,
+sentences, related the events of the morning.
+
+The young man rose to his feet with a bitter laugh.
+
+"You see," he said, "God is against me!  And yet a few hours ago I
+dared to think that He had guided me to a haven of rest and
+forgetfulness!
+
+"Have you told the truth to him and to me?" said the priest
+sternly, "or have you--a mere political refugee--taken advantage of
+an old man's weakness to forge a foolish lie of sentimental
+passion?"
+
+"What do you mean?" said Hurlstone, turning upon him almost
+fiercely.
+
+The priest rose, and drawing a folded paper from his bosom, opened
+it before the eyes of his indignant guest.
+
+"Remember what you told me last night in the sacred confidences of
+yonder holy church, and hear what you really are from the lips of
+the Council of Todos Santos."
+
+Smoothing out the paper, he read slowly as follows:--
+
+
+"Whereas, it being presented to an Emergency Council, held at the
+Presidio of Todos Santos, that the foreign barque Excelsior had
+mutinied, discharged her captain and passengers, and escaped from
+the waters of the bay, it was, on examination, found and decreed
+that the said barque was a vessel primarily owned by a foreign
+Power, then and there confessed and admitted to be at war with
+Mexico and equipped to invade one of her northern provinces.  But
+that the God of Liberty and Justice awakening in the breasts of
+certain patriots--to wit, the heroic Senor Diego Hurlstone and the
+invincible Dona Leonor--the courage and discretion to resist the
+tyranny and injustice of their oppressors, caused them to mutiny
+and abandon the vessel rather than become accomplices, in the
+company of certain neutral and non-combatant traders and artisans,
+severally known as Brace, Banks, Winslow, and Crosby; and certain
+aristocrats, known as Senoras Brimmer and Chubb.  In consideration
+thereof, it is decreed by the Council of Todos Santos that asylum,
+refuge, hospitality, protection, amity, and alliance be offered and
+extended to the patriots, Senor Diego Hurlstone, Dona Leonor, and a
+certain Duenna Susana Markham, particularly attached to Dona
+Leonor's person; and that war, reprisal, banishment, and death be
+declared against Senor Perkins, his unknown aiders and abettors.
+And that for the purposes of probation, and in the interests of
+clemency, provisional parole shall be extended to the alleged
+neutrals--Brace, Banks, Crosby, and Winslow--within the limits and
+boundaries of the lazaretto of San Antonio, until their neutrality
+shall be established, and pending the further pleasure of the
+Council.  And it is further decreed and declared that one Capitano
+Bunker, formerly of the Excelsior, but now a maniac and lunatic--
+being irresponsible and visited of God, shall be exempted from the
+ordinances of this decree until his reason shall be restored; and
+during that interval subjected to the ordinary remedial and
+beneficent restraint of civilization and humanity.  By order of the
+Council,--
+
+"The signatures and rubrics of--
+
+"DON MIGUEL BRIONES,
+
+   Comandante.
+
+"PADRE ESTEBAN,
+
+   of the Order of San Francisco d'Assisis.
+
+"DON RAMON RAMIREZ,
+
+   Alcalde of the Pueblo of Todos Santos."
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE CAPTAIN FOLLOWS HIS SHIP.
+
+
+When Padre Esteban had finished reading the document he laid it
+down and fixed his eyes on the young man.  Hurlstone met his look
+with a glance of impatient disdain.
+
+"What have you to say to this?" asked the ecclesiastic, a little
+impressed by his manner.
+
+"That as far as it concerns myself it is a farrago of absurdity.
+If I were the person described there, why should I have sought you
+with what you call a lie of 'sentimental passion,' when I could
+have claimed protection openly with my SISTER PATRIOT," he added,
+with a bitter laugh.
+
+"Because you did not know THEN the sympathy of the people nor the
+decision of the Council," said the priest.
+
+"But I know it NOW, and I refuse to accept it."
+
+"You refuse--to--to accept it?" echoed the priest.
+
+"I do."  He walked towards the door.  "Before I go, let me thank
+you for the few hours' rest and security that you have given to one
+who may be a cursed man, yet is no impostor.  But I do not blame
+you for doubting one who talks like a desperate man, yet lacks the
+courage of desperation.  Good-by!"
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"What matters?  There is a safer protection and security to be
+found than even that offered by the Council of Todos Santos."
+
+His eyes were averted, but not before the priest had seen them
+glaze again with the same gloomy absorption that had horrified him
+in the church the evening before.  Father Esteban stepped forward
+and placed his soft hand on Hurlstone's shoulder.
+
+"Look at me.  Don't turn your face aside, but hear me; for I
+believe your story."
+
+Without raising his eyes, the young man lifted Father Esteban's
+hand from his shoulder, pressed it lightly, and put it quietly
+aside.
+
+"I thank you," he said, "for keeping at least that unstained memory
+of me.  But it matters little now.  Good-by!"
+
+He had his hand upon the door, but the priest again withheld him.
+
+"When I tell you I believe your story, it is only to tell you more.
+I believe that God has directed your wayward, wandering feet here
+to His house, that you may lay down the burden of your weak and
+suffering manhood before His altar, and become once more a child of
+His.  I stand here to offer you, not a refuge of a day or a night,
+but for all time; not a hiding-place from man or woman, but from
+yourself, my son--yourself, your weak and mortal self, more fatal
+to you than all.  I stand here to open for you not only the door of
+this humble cell, but that of His yonder blessed mansion.  You
+shall share my life with me; you shall be one of my disciples; you
+shall help me strive for other souls as I have striven for yours;
+the protection of the Church, which is all-powerful, shall be
+around you if you wish to be known; you shall hide yourself in its
+mysteries if you wish to be forgotten.  You shall be my child, my
+companion, my friend; all that my age can give you shall be yours
+while I live, and it shall be your place one day to take up my
+unfinished work when it falls from these palsied hands forever."
+
+"You are mistaken," said the young man coldly.  "I came to you for
+human aid, and thank you for what you have granted me: I have not
+been presumptuous enough to ask more, nor to believe myself a
+fitting subject for conversion.  I am weak, but not weak enough to
+take advantage of the mistaken kindness of either the temporal
+Council of Todos Santos or its spiritual head."  He opened the door
+leading into the garden.  "Forget and forgive me, Father Esteban,
+and let me say farewell."
+
+"Stop!" said the ecclesiastic, raising himself to his full height
+and stepping before Hurlstone.  "Then if you will not hear me in
+the name of your Father who lives, in the name of your father who
+is dead I command you to stay!  I stand here to-day in the place of
+that man I never knew--to hold back his son from madness and crime.
+Think of me as of him whom you loved, and grant to an old man who
+might have had a son as old as you the right of throwing a father's
+protecting arm around you."
+
+There was a moment's silence.
+
+"What do you want me to do?" said Hurlstone, suddenly lifting his
+now moist and glistening eyes upon the old man.
+
+"Give me your word of honor that for twenty-four hours you will
+remain as you are--pledging yourself to nothing--only promising to
+commit no act, take no step, without consulting me.  You will not
+be sought here, nor yet need you keep yourself a prisoner in these
+gloomy walls--except that, by exposing yourself to the people now,
+you might be compromised to some course that you are not ready to
+take."
+
+"I promise," said Hurlstone.
+
+He turned and held out both his hands; but Father Esteban
+anticipated him with a paternal gesture of uplifted and opened
+arms, and for an instant the young man's forehead was bowed on the
+priest's shoulder.
+
+Father Esteban gently raised the young man's head.
+
+"You will take a pasear in the garden until the Angelus rings, my
+son, while the air is sweet and wholesome, and think this over.
+Remember that you may accept the hospitality of the Council without
+sin of deception.  You were not in sympathy with either the captors
+of the Excelsior or their defeated party; for you would have flown
+from both.  You, of all your party now in Todos Santos, are most in
+sympathy with us.  You have no cause to love your own people; you
+have abandoned them for us.  Go, my son; and meditate upon my
+words.  I will fetch you from yonder slope in time for the evening
+refection."
+
+Hurlstone bowed his head and turned his irresolute feet towards the
+upper extremity of the garden, indicated by the priest, which
+seemed to offer more seclusion and security than the avenue of
+pear-trees.  He was dazed and benumbed.  The old dogged impulses of
+self-destruction--revived by the priest's reproaches, but checked
+by the vision of his dead and forgotten father, which the priest's
+words had called up--gave way, in turn, to his former despair.
+With it came a craving for peace and rest so insidious that in some
+vague fear of yielding to it he quickened his pace, as if to
+increase his distance from the church and its apostle.  He was
+almost out of breath when he reached the summit, and turned to look
+back upon the Mission buildings and the straggling street of the
+pueblo, which now for the first time he saw skirted the wall of the
+garden in its descent towards the sea.  He had not known the full
+extent of Todos Santos before; when he swam ashore he had landed
+under a crumbling outwork of the fort; he gazed now with curious
+interest over the hamlet that might have been his home.  He looked
+over the red-tiled roofs, and further on to the shining bay, shut
+in by the impenetrable rampart of fog.  He might have found rest
+and oblivion here but for the intrusion of those fellow-passengers
+to share his exile and make it intolerable.  How he hated and
+loathed them all!  Yet the next moment he found himself
+scrutinizing the street and plaza below him for a glimpse of his
+countrywomen, whom he knew were still in the town or vainly
+endeavoring to locate their habitation among the red-tiled roofs.
+And that frank, clear-eyed girl--Miss Keene!--she who had seemed to
+vaguely pity him--she was somewhere here too--selected by the irony
+of fate to be his confederate!  He could not help thinking of her
+beauty and kindness now, with a vague curiosity that was half an
+uneasiness.  It had not struck him before, but if he were to accept
+the ridiculous attitude forced upon him by Todos Santos, its
+absurdity, as well as its responsibility, would become less odious
+by sharing it with another.  Perhaps it might be to HER advantage--
+and if so, would he be justified in exposing its absurdity?  He
+would have to see her first--and if he did, how would he explain
+his real position?  A returning wave of bitterness threw him back
+into his old despair.
+
+The twilight had slowly gathered over the view as he gazed--or,
+rather a luminous concentration above the pueblo and bay had left
+the outer circle of fog denser and darker.  Emboldened by the
+apparent desertion of the Embarcadero, he began to retrace his
+steps down the slope, keeping close to the wall so as to avoid
+passing before the church again, or a closer contact with the
+gardener among the vines.  In this way he reached the path he had
+skirted the night before, and stopped almost under the shadow of
+the Alcalde's house.  It was here he had rested and hidden,--here
+he had tasted the first sweets of isolation and oblivion in the
+dreamy garden,--here he had looked forward to peace with the
+passing of the ship,--and now?  The sound of voices and laughter
+suddenly grated upon his ear.  He had heard those voices before.
+Their distinctness startled him until he became aware that he was
+standing before a broken, half-rotting door that permitted a
+glimpse of the courtyard of the neighboring house.  He glided
+quickly past it without pausing, but in that glimpse beheld Mrs.
+Brimmer and Miss Chubb half reclining in the corridor--in the
+attitude he had often seen them on the deck of the ship--talking
+and laughing with a group of Mexican gallants.  A feeling of
+inconceivable loathing and aversion took possession of him.  Was it
+to THIS he was returning after his despairing search for oblivion?
+Their empty, idle laughter seemed to ring mockingly in his ears as
+he hurried on, scarce knowing whither, until he paused before the
+broken cactus hedge and crumbling wall that faced the Embarcadero.
+A glance over the hedge showed him that the strip of beach was
+deserted.  He looked up the narrow street; it was empty.  A few
+rapid strides across it gained him the shadow of the sea-wall of
+the Presidio, unchecked and unhindered.  The ebbing tide had left a
+foot or two of narrow shingle between the sea and the wall.  He
+crept along this until, a hundred yards distant, the sea-wall
+reentered inland around a bastion at the entrance of a moat half
+filled at high tide by the waters of the bay, but now a ditch of
+shallow pools, sand, and debris.  He leaned against the bastion,
+and looked over the softly darkening water.
+
+How quiet it looked, and, under that vaporous veil, how profound
+and inscrutable!  How easy to slip into its all-embracing arms, and
+sink into its yielding bosom, leaving behind no stain, trace, or
+record!  A surer oblivion than the Church, which could not absolve
+memory, grant forgetfulness, nor even hide the ghastly footprints
+of its occupants.  Here was obliteration.  But was he sure of that?
+He thought of the body of the murdered Peruvian, laid out at the
+feet of the Council by this same fickle and uncertain sea; he
+thought of his own distorted face subjected to the cold curiosity
+of these aliens or the contemptuous pity of his countrymen.  But
+that could be avoided.  It was easy for him--a good swimmer--to
+reach a point far enough out in the channel for the ebbing tides to
+carry him past that barrier of fog into the open and obliterating
+ocean.  And then, at least, it might seem as if he had attempted to
+ESCAPE--indeed, if he cared, he might be able to keep afloat until
+he was picked up by some passing vessel, bound to a distant land!
+The self-delusion pleased him, and seemed to add the clinching
+argument to his resolution.  It was not suicide; it was escape--
+certainly no more than escape--he intended!  And this miserable
+sophism of self-apology, the last flashes of expiring conscience,
+helped to light up his pale, determined face with satisfaction.  He
+began coolly to divest himself of his coat.
+
+What was that?--the sound of some dislodged stones splashing in one
+of the pools further up!  He glanced hurriedly round the wall of
+the bastion.  A figure crouching against the side of the ditch, as
+if concealing itself from observation on the glacis above, was
+slowly approaching the sea.  Suddenly, when within a hundred yards
+of Hurlstone, it turned, crossed the ditch, rapidly mounted its
+crumbling sides, and disappeared over the crest.  But in that
+hurried glimpse he had recognized Captain Bunker!
+
+The sudden and mysterious apparition of this man produced on
+Hurlstone an effect that the most violent opposition could not have
+created.  Without a thought of the terrible purpose it had
+interrupted, and obeying some stronger instinct that had seized
+him, he dashed down into the ditch and up to the crest again after
+Captain Bunker.  But he had completely disappeared.  A little
+lagoon, making in from the bay, on which a small fishing-boat was
+riding, and a solitary fisherman mending his nets on the muddy
+shore a few feet from it, were all that was to be seen.
+
+He was turning back, when he saw the object of his search creeping
+from some reeds, on all fours, with a stealthy, panther-like
+movement towards the unconscious fisherman.  Before Hurlstone could
+utter a cry, Bunker had sprung upon the unfortunate man, thrown him
+to the earth, rapidly rolled him over and over, enwrapping him hand
+and foot in his own net, and involving him hopelessly in its
+meshes.  Tossing the helpless victim--who was apparently too
+stupefied to call out--to one side, he was rushing towards the boat
+when, with a single bound, Hurlstone reached his side and laid his
+hand upon his shoulder.
+
+"Captain Bunker, for God's sake! what are you doing?"
+
+Captain Bunker turned slowly and without apparent concern towards
+his captor.  Hurlstone fell back before the vacant, lack-lustre
+eyes that were fixed upon him.
+
+"Captain Bunker's my name," said the madman, in a whisper.  "Lemuel
+Bunker, of Nantucket!  Hush! don't waken him," pointing to the
+prostrate fisherman; "I've put him to sleep.  I'm Captain Bunker--
+old drunken Bunker--who stole one ship from her owners, and
+disgraced himself, and now is going to steal another--ha, ha!  Let
+me go."
+
+"Captain Bunker," said Hurlstone, recovering himself in time to
+prevent the maniac from dashing into the water.  "Look at me.
+Don't you know me?"
+
+"Yes, yes; you're one of old Bunker's dogs kicked overboard by
+Perkins.  I'm one of Perkins' dogs gone mad, and locked up by
+Perkins!  Ha, ha!  But I got out!  Hush!  SHE let me out.  SHE
+thought I was going to see the boys at San Antonio.  But I'm going
+off to see the old barque out there in the fog.  I'm going to chuck
+Perkins overboard and the two mates.  Let me go."
+
+He struggled violently.  Hurlstone, fearful of quitting his hold to
+release the fisherman, whom Captain Bunker no longer noticed, and
+not daring to increase the Captain's fury by openly calling to him,
+beckoned the pinioned man to make an effort.  But, paralyzed by
+fear, the wretched captive remained immovable, staring at the
+struggling men.  With the strength of desperation Hurlstone at last
+forced the Captain down upon his knees.
+
+"Listen, Captain!  We'll go together--you understand.  I'll help
+you--but we must get a larger boat first--you know."
+
+"But they won't give it," said Captain Bunker mysteriously.
+"Didn't you hear the Council--the owners--the underwriters say: 'He
+lost his ship, he's ruined and disgraced, for rum, all for rum!'
+And we want rum, you know, and it's all over there, in the
+Excelsior's locker!"
+
+"Yes, yes," said Hurlstone soothingly; "but there's more in the
+bigger boat.  Come with me.  We'll let the man loose, and we'll
+make him show us his bigger boat."
+
+It was an unfortunate suggestion; for the Captain, who had listened
+with an insane chuckle, and allowed himself to be taken lightly by
+the hand, again caught sight of the prostrate fisherman.  A yell
+broke from him--his former frenzy returned.  With a cry of
+"Treachery! all hands on deck!" he threw off Hurlstone and rushed
+into the water.
+
+"Help!" cried the young man, springing after him, "It is madness.
+He will kill himself!"
+
+The water was shallow, they were both wading, they both reached the
+boat at the same time; but the Captain had scrambled into the
+stern-sheets, and cast loose the painter, as Hurlstone once more
+threw his arms about him.
+
+"Hear me, Captain.  I'll go with you.  Listen!  I know the way
+through the fog.  You understand: I'll pilot you!"  He was
+desperate, but no longer from despair of himself, but of another;
+he was reckless, but only to save a madman from the fate that but a
+moment before he had chosen for himself.
+
+Captain Bunker seemed to soften.  "Get in for'ard," he said, in a
+lower voice.  Hurlstone released his grasp, but still clinging to
+the boat, which had now drifted into deeper water, made his way to
+the bow.  He was climbing over the thwarts when a horrified cry
+from the fisherman ashore and a jarring laugh in his ear caused him
+to look up.  But not in time to save himself!  The treacherous
+maniac had suddenly launched a blow from an oar at the unsuspecting
+man as he was rising to his knees.  It missed his head, but fell
+upon his arm and shoulder, precipitating him violently into the sea.
+
+Stunned by the shock, he sank at first like lead to the bottom.
+When he rose again, with his returning consciousness, he could see
+that Captain Bunker had already hoisted sail, and, with the
+assistance of his oars, was rapidly increasing his distance from
+the shore.  With his returning desperation he turned to strike out
+after him, but groaned as his one arm sank powerless to his side.
+A few strokes showed him the madness of the attempt; a few more
+convinced him that he himself could barely return to the shore.  A
+sudden torpor had taken possession of him--he was sinking!
+
+With this thought, a struggle for life began; and this man who had
+just now sought death so eagerly--with no feeling of inconsistency,
+with no physical fear of dissolution, with only a vague, blind,
+dogged determination to live for some unknown purpose--a
+determination as vague and dogged as his former ideas of self-
+destruction--summoned all his energies to reach the shore.  He
+struck out wildly, desperately; once or twice he thought he felt
+his feet touch the bottom, only to find himself powerlessly dragged
+back towards the sea.  With a final superhuman effort he gained at
+last a foothold on the muddy strand, and, half scrambling, half
+crawling, sank exhaustedly beside the fisherman's net.  But the
+fisherman was gone!  He attempted again to rise to his feet, but a
+strange dizziness attacked him.  The darkening landscape, with its
+contracting wall of fog; the gloomy flat; the still, pale sea, as
+yet unruffled by the faint land breeze that was slowly wafting the
+escaping boat into the shadowy offing--all swam round him!  Through
+the roaring in his ears he thought he heard drumbeats, and the
+fanfare of a trumpet, and voices.  The next moment he had lost all
+consciousness.
+
+When he came to, he was lying in the guard-room of the Presidio.
+Among the group of people who surrounded him he recognized the
+gaunt features of the Commander, the sympathetic eyes of Father
+Esteban, and the fisherman who had disappeared.  When he rose on
+his elbow, and attempted to lift himself feebly, the fisherman,
+with a cry of gratitude, threw himself on his knees, and kissed his
+helpless hand.
+
+"He lives, he lives! your Excellencies!  Saints be praised, he
+lives!  The hero--the brave Americano--the noble caballero who
+delivered me from the madman."
+
+"Who are you? and whence come you?" demanded the Commander of
+Hurlstone, with grave austerity.
+
+Hurlstone hesitated; the priest leaned forward with a half anxious,
+half warning gesture.  There was a sudden rustle in the passage;
+the crowd gave way as Miss Keene, followed by Mrs. Markham,
+entered.  The young girl's eyes caught those of the prostrate man.
+With an impulsive cry she ran towards him.
+
+"Mr. Hurlstone!"
+
+"Hurlstone," echoed the group, pressing nearer the astonished man.
+
+The Comandante lifted his hand gravely with a gesture of silence,
+and then slowly removed his plumed hat.  Every head was instantly
+uncovered.
+
+"Long live our brave and noble ally, Don Diego!  Long live the
+beautiful Dona Leonor!"
+
+A faint shade of sadness passed over the priest's face.  He glanced
+from Hurlstone to Miss Keene.
+
+"Then you have consented?" he whispered.
+
+Hurlstone cast a rapid glance at Eleanor Keene.
+
+"I consent!"
+
+
+
+PART II.  FREED.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE MOURNERS AT SAN FRANCISCO.
+
+
+The telegraph operator at the Golden Gate of San Francisco had long
+since given up hope of the Excelsior.  During the months of
+September and October, 1854, stimulated by the promised reward, and
+often by the actual presence of her owners, he had shown zeal and
+hope in his scrutiny of the incoming ships.  The gaunt arms of the
+semaphore at Fort Point, turned against the sunset sky, had
+regularly recorded the smallest vessel of the white-winged fleet
+which sought the portal of the bay during that eventful year of
+immigration; but the Excelsior was not amongst them.  At the close
+of the year 1854 she was a tradition; by the end of January, 1855,
+she was forgotten.  Had she been engulfed in her own element she
+could not have been more completely swallowed up than in the
+changes of that shore she never reached.  Whatever interest or hope
+was still kept alive in solitary breasts the world never knew.  By
+the significant irony of Fate, even the old-time semaphore that
+should have signaled her was abandoned and forgotten.
+
+The mention of her name--albeit in a quiet, unconcerned voice--in
+the dress-circle of a San Francisco theatre, during the performance
+of a popular female star, was therefore so peculiar that it could
+only have come from the lips of some one personally interested in
+the lost vessel.  Yet the speaker was a youngish, feminine-looking
+man of about thirty, notable for his beardlessness, in the crowded
+circle of bearded and moustachioed Californians, and had been one
+of the most absorbed of the enthusiastic audience.  A weak smile of
+vacillating satisfaction and uneasiness played on his face during
+the plaudits of his fellow-admirers, as if he were alternately
+gratified and annoyed.  It might have passed for a discriminating
+and truthful criticism of the performance, which was a classical
+burlesque, wherein the star displayed an unconventional frankness
+of shapely limbs and unrestrained gestures and glances; but he
+applauded the more dubious parts equally with the audience.  He was
+evidently familiar with the performance, for a look of eager
+expectation greeted most of the "business."  Either he had not
+come for the entire evening, or he did not wish to appear as if he
+had, as he sat on one of the back benches near the passage, and
+frequently changed his place.  He was well, even foppishly, dressed
+for the period, and appeared to be familiarly known to the loungers
+in the passage as a man of some social popularity.
+
+He had just been recognized by a man of apparently equal importance
+and distinction, who had quietly and unconsciously taken a seat by
+his side, and the recognition appeared equally unexpected and
+awkward.  The new-comer was the older and more decorous-looking,
+with an added formality of manner and self-assertion that did not,
+however, conceal a certain habitual shrewdness of eye and lip.  He
+wore a full beard, but the absence of a moustache left the upper
+half of his handsome and rather satirical mouth uncovered.  His
+dress was less pronounced than his companion's, but of a type of
+older and more established gentility.
+
+"I was a little late coming from the office to-night," said the
+younger man, with an embarrassed laugh, "and I thought I'd drop in
+here on my way home.  Pretty rough outside, ain't it?"
+
+"Yes, it's raining and blowing; so I thought I wouldn't go up to
+the plaza for a cab, but wait here for the first one that dropped a
+fare at the door, and take it on to the hotel."
+
+"Hold on, and I'll go with you," said the young man carelessly.  "I
+say, Brimmer," he added, after a pause, with a sudden assumption of
+larger gayety, "there's nothing mean about Belle Montgomery, eh?
+She's a whole team and the little dog under the wagon, ain't she?
+Deuced pretty woman!--no make-up there, eh?"
+
+"She certainly is a fine woman," said Brimmer gravely, borrowing
+his companion's lorgnette.  "By the way, Markham, do you usually
+keep an opera-glass in your office in case of an emergency like
+this?"
+
+"I reckon it was forgotten in my overcoat pocket," said Markham,
+with an embarrassed smile.
+
+"Left over from the last time," said Brimmer, rising from his seat.
+"Well, I'm going now--I suppose I'll have to try the plaza."
+
+"Hold on a moment.  She's coming on now--there she is!"  He
+stopped, his anxious eyes fixed upon the stage.  Brimmer turned at
+the same moment in no less interested absorption.  A quick hush ran
+through the theatre; the men bent eagerly forward as the Queen of
+Olympus swept down to the footlights, and, with a ravishing smile,
+seemed to envelop the whole theatre in a gracious caress.
+
+"You know, 'pon my word, Brimmer, she's a very superior woman,"
+gasped Markham excitedly, when the goddess had temporarily
+withdrawn.  "These fellows here," he said, indicating the audience
+contemptuously, "don't know her,--think she's all that sort of
+thing, you know,--and come here just to LOOK at her.  But she's
+very accomplished--in fact, a kind of literary woman.  Writes
+devilish good poetry--only took up the stage on account of domestic
+trouble: drunken husband that beat her--regular affecting story,
+you know.  These sap-headed fools don't, of course, know THAT.  No,
+sir; she's a remarkable woman!  I say, Brimmer, look here!  I"--he
+hesitated, and then went on more boldly, as if he had formed a
+sudden resolution.  "What have you got to do to-night?"
+
+Brimmer, who had been lost in abstraction, started slightly, and
+said,--
+
+"I--oh! I've got an appointment with Keene.  You know he's off by
+the steamer--day after to-morrow?"
+
+"What!  He's not going off on that wild-goose chase, after all?
+Why, the man's got Excelsior on the brain!"  He stopped as he
+looked at Brimmer's cold face, and suddenly colored.  "I mean his
+plan--his idea's all nonsense--you know that!"
+
+"I certainly don't agree with him," began Brimmer gravely; "but"--
+
+"The idea," interrupted Markham, encouraged by Brimmer's beginning,
+"of his knocking around the Gulf of California, and getting up an
+expedition to go inland, just because a mail-steamer saw a barque
+like the Excelsior off Mazatlan last August.  As if the Excelsior
+wouldn't have gone into Mazatlan if it had been her!  I tell you
+what it is, Brimmer: it's mighty rough on you and me, and it ain't
+the square thing at all--after all we've done, and the money we've
+spent, and the nights we've sat up over the Excelsior--to have this
+young fellow Keene always putting up the bluff of his lost sister
+on us!  His lost sister, indeed! as if WE hadn't any feelings."
+
+The two men looked at each other, and each felt it incumbent to
+look down and sigh deeply--not hypocritically, but perfunctorily,
+as over a past grief, although anger had been the dominant
+expression of the speaker.
+
+"I was about to remark," said Brimmer practically, "that the
+insurance on the Excelsior having been paid, her loss is a matter
+of commercial record; and that, in a business point of view, this
+plan of Keene's ain't worth looking at.  As a private matter of our
+own feelings--purely domestic--there's no question but that we must
+sympathize with him, although he refuses to let us join in the
+expenses."
+
+"Oh, as to that," said Markham hurriedly, "I told him to draw on me
+for a thousand dollars last time I saw him.  No, sir; it ain't
+that.  What gets me is this darned nagging and simpering around,
+and opening old sores, and putting on sentimental style, and doing
+the bereaved business generally.  I reckon he'd be even horrified
+to see you and me here--though it was just a chance with both of us."
+
+"I think not," said Brimmer dryly.  "He knows Miss Montgomery
+already.  They're going by the same steamer."
+
+Markham looked up quickly.
+
+"Impossible!  She's going by the other line to Panama; that is"--he
+hesitated--"I heard it from the agent."
+
+"She's changed her mind, so Keene says," returned Brimmer.  "She's
+going by way of Nicaragua.  He stops at San Juan to reconnoitre the
+coast up to Mazatlan.  Good-night.  It's no use waiting here for a
+cab any longer, I'm off."
+
+"Hold on!" said Markham, struggling out of a sudden uneasy
+reflection.  "I say, Brimmer," he resumed, with an enforced smile,
+which he tried to make playful, "your engagement with Keene won't
+keep you long.  What do you say to having a little supper with Miss
+Montgomery, eh?--perfectly proper, you know--at our hotel?  Just a
+few friends, eh?"
+
+Brimmer's eyes and lips slightly contracted.
+
+"I believe I am already invited," he said quietly.  "Keene asked
+me.  In fact, that's the appointment.  Strange he didn't speak of
+you," he added dryly.
+
+"I suppose it's some later arrangement," Markham replied, with
+feigned carelessness.  "Do you know her?"
+
+"Slightly."
+
+"You didn't say so!"
+
+"You didn't ask me," said Brimmer.  "She came to consult me about
+South American affairs.  It seems that filibuster General Leonidas,
+alias Perkins, whose little game we stopped by that Peruvian
+contract, actually landed in Quinquinambo and established a
+government.  It seems she knows him, has a great admiration for him
+as a Liberator, as she calls him.  I think they correspond!"
+
+"She's a wonderful woman, by jingo, Brimmer!  I'd like to hear whom
+she don't know," said Markham, beaming with a patronizing vanity.
+"There's you, and there's that filibuster, and old Governor Pico,
+that she's just snatched bald-headed--I mean, you know, that he
+recognizes her worth, don't you see?  Not like this cattle you see
+here."
+
+"Are you coming with me?" said Brimmer, gravely buttoning up his
+coat, as if encasing himself in a panoply of impervious
+respectability.
+
+"I'll join you at the hotel," said Markham hurriedly.  "There's a
+man over there in the parquet that I want to say a word to; don't
+wait for me."
+
+With a slight inclination of the head Mr. Brimmer passed out into
+the lobby, erect, self-possessed, and impeccable.  One or two of
+his commercial colleagues of maturer age, who were loitering
+leisurely by the wall, unwilling to compromise themselves by
+actually sitting down, took heart of grace at this correct
+apparition.  Brimmer nodded to them coolly, as if on 'Change, and
+made his way out of the theatre.  He had scarcely taken a few steps
+before a furious onset of wind and rain drove him into a doorway
+for shelter.  At the same moment a slouching figure, with a turned-
+up coat-collar, slipped past him and disappeared in a passage at
+his right.  Partly hidden by his lowered umbrella, Mr. Brimmer
+himself escaped notice, but he instantly recognized his late
+companion, Markham.  As he resumed his way up the street he glanced
+into the passage.  Halfway down, a light flashed upon the legend
+"Stage Entrance."  Quincy Brimmer, with a faint smile, passed on to
+his hotel.
+
+It was striking half-past eleven when Mr. Brimmer again issued from
+his room in the Oriental and passed down a long corridor.  Pausing
+a moment before a side hall that opened from it, he cast a rapid
+look up and down the corridor, and then knocked hastily at a door.
+It was opened sharply by a lady's maid, who fell back respectfully
+before Mr. Brimmer's all-correct presence.
+
+Half reclining on a sofa in the parlor of an elaborate suite of
+apartments was the woman whom Mr. Brimmer had a few hours before
+beheld on the stage of the theatre.  Lifting her eyes languidly
+from a book that lay ostentatiously on her lap, she beckoned her
+visitor to approach.  She was a woman still young, whose statuesque
+beauty had but slightly suffered from cosmetics, late hours, and
+the habitual indulgence of certain hysterical emotions that were
+not only inconsistent with the classical suggestions of her figure,
+but had left traces not unlike the grosser excitement of alcoholic
+stimulation.  She looked like a tinted statue whose slight
+mutations through stress of time and weather had been unwisely
+repaired by freshness of color.
+
+"I am such a creature of nerves," she said, raising a superb neck
+and extending a goddess-like arm, "that I am always perfectly
+exhausted after the performance.  I fly, as you see, to my first
+love--poetry--as soon as Rosina has changed my dress.  It is not
+generally known--but I don't mind telling YOU--that I often nerve
+myself for the effort of acting by reading some well-remembered
+passage from my favorite poets, as I stand by the wings.  I quaff,
+as one might say, a single draught of the Pierian spring before I
+go on."
+
+The exact relations between the humorous "walk round," in which
+Miss Montgomery usually made her first entrance, and the volume of
+Byron she held in her hand, did not trouble Mr. Brimmer so much as
+the beautiful arm with which she emphasized it.  Neither did it
+strike him that the distinguishing indications of a poetic
+exaltation were at all unlike the effects of a grosser stimulant
+known as "Champagne cocktail" on the less sensitive organization of
+her colleagues.  Touched by her melancholy but fascinating smile,
+he said gallantly that he had observed no sign of exhaustion, or
+want of power in her performance that evening.
+
+"Then you were there!" she said, fixing her eyes upon him with an
+expression of mournful gratitude.  "You actually left your business
+and the calls of public duty to see the poor mountebank perform her
+nightly task."
+
+"I was there with a friend of yours," answered Brimmer soberly,
+"who actually asked me to the supper to which Mr. Keene had already
+invited me, and which YOU had been kind enough to suggest to me a
+week ago."
+
+"True, I had forgotten," said Miss Montgomery, with a large
+goddess-like indifference that was more effective with the man
+before her than the most elaborate explanation.  "You don't mind
+them--do you?--for we are all friends together.  My position, you
+know," she added sadly, "prevents my always following my own
+inclinations or preferences.  Poor Markham, I fear the world does
+not do justice to his gentle, impressible nature.  I sympathize
+with him deeply; we have both had our afflictions, we have both--
+lost.  Good heavens!" she exclaimed, with a sudden exaggerated
+start of horror, "what have I done?  Forgive my want of tact, dear
+friend; I had forgotten, wretched being that I am, that YOU, too"--
+
+She caught his hand in both hers, and bowed her head over it as if
+unable to finish her sentence.
+
+Brimmer, who had been utterly mystified and amazed at this picture
+of Markham's disconsolate attitude to the world, and particularly
+to the woman before him, was completely finished by this later
+tribute to his own affliction.  His usually composed features,
+however, easily took upon themselves a graver cast as he kept, and
+pressed, the warm hands in his own.
+
+"Fool that I was," continued Miss Montgomery; "in thinking of poor
+Markham's childlike, open grief, I forgot the deeper sorrow that
+the more manly heart experiences under an exterior that seems cold
+and impassible.  Yes," she said, raising her languid eyes to
+Brimmer, "I ought to have felt the throb of that volcano under its
+mask of snow.  You have taught me a lesson."
+
+Withdrawing her hands hastily, as if the volcano had shown some
+signs of activity, she leaned back on the sofa again.
+
+"You are not yet reconciled to Mr. Keene's expedition, then?" she
+asked languidly.
+
+"I believe that everything has been already done," said Brimmer,
+somewhat stiffly; "all sources of sensible inquiry have been
+exhausted by me.  But I envy Keene the eminently practical
+advantages his impractical journey gives him," he added, arresting
+himself, gallantly; "he goes with you."
+
+"Truly!" said Miss Montgomery, with the melancholy abstraction of a
+stage soliloquy.  "Beyond obeying the dictates of his brotherly
+affection, he gains no real advantage in learning whether his
+sister is alive or dead.  The surety of her death would not make
+him freer than he is now--freer to absolutely follow the dictates
+of a new affection; free to make his own life again.  It is a
+sister, not a wife, he seeks."
+
+Mr. Brimmer's forehead slightly contracted.  He leaned back a
+little more rigidly in his chair, and fixed a critical, half
+supercilious look upon her.  She did not seem to notice his almost
+impertinent scrutiny, but sat silent, with her eyes bent on the
+carpet, in gloomy abstraction.
+
+"Can you keep a secret?" she said, as if with a sudden resolution.
+
+"Yes," said Brimmer briefly, without changing his look.
+
+"You know I am a married woman.  You have heard the story of my
+wrongs?"
+
+"I have heard them," said Brimmer dryly.
+
+"Well, the husband who abused and deserted me was, I have reason to
+believe, a passenger on the Excelsior."
+
+"M'Corkle!--impossible.  There was no such name on the passenger
+list."
+
+"M'Corkle!" repeated Miss Montgomery, with a dissonant tone in her
+voice and a slight flash in her eyes.  "What are you thinking of?
+There never was a Mr. M'Corkle; it was one of my noms de plume.
+And where did YOU hear it?"
+
+"I beg your pardon, I must have got it from the press notices of
+your book of poetry.  I knew that Montgomery was only a stage name,
+and as it was necessary that I should have another in making the
+business investments you were good enough to charge me with, I used
+what I thought was your real name.  It can be changed, or you can
+sign M'Corkle."
+
+"Let it go," said Miss Montgomery, resuming her former manner.
+"What matters?  I wish there was no such thing as business.  Well,"
+she resumed, after a pause, "my husband's name is Hurlstone."
+
+"But there was no Hurlstone on the passenger list either," said
+Brimmer.  "I knew them all, and their friends."
+
+"Not in the list from the States; but if he came on board at
+Callao, you wouldn't have known it.  I knew that he arrived there
+on the Osprey a few days before the Excelsior sailed."
+
+Mr. Brimmer's eyes changed their expression.
+
+"And you want to find him?"
+
+"No," she said, with an actress's gesture.  "I want to know the
+truth.  I want to know if I am still tied to this man, or if I am
+free to follow the dictates of my own conscience,--to make my life
+anew,--to become--you see I am not ashamed to say it--to become the
+honest wife of some honest man."
+
+"A divorce would suit your purpose equally," said Brimmer coldly.
+"It can be easily obtained."
+
+"A divorce!  Do you know what that means to a woman in my
+profession?  It is a badge of shame,--a certificate of disgrace,--
+an advertisement to every miserable wretch who follows me with his
+advances that I have no longer the sanctity of girlhood, nor the
+protection of a wife."
+
+There was tragic emotion in her voice, there were tears in her
+eyes. Mr. Brimmer, gazing at her with what he firmly thought to be
+absolute and incisive penetration, did not believe either.  But
+like most practical analysts of the half-motived sex, he was only
+half right.  The emotion and the tears were as real as anything
+else in the woman under criticism, notwithstanding that they were
+not as real as they would have been in the man who criticised.  He,
+however, did her full justice on a point where most men and all
+women misjudged her: he believed that, through instinct and
+calculation, she had been materially faithful to her husband; that
+this large goddess-like physique had all the impeccability of a
+goddess; that the hysterical dissipation in which she indulged
+herself was purely mental, and usurped and preoccupied all other
+emotions.  In this public exposition of her beauty there was no
+sense of shame, for there was no sense of the passion it evoked.
+And he was right.  But there he should have stopped. Unfortunately,
+his masculine logic forced him to supply a reason for her coldness
+in the existence of some more absorbing passion. He believed her
+ambitious and calculating: she was neither.  He believed she might
+have made him an admirable copartner and practical helpmeet: he was
+wrong.
+
+"You know my secret now," she continued.  "You know why I am
+anxious to know my fate.  You understand now why I sympathize
+with"--she stopped, and made a half contemptuous gesture--"with
+these men Markham and Keene.  THEY do not know it; perhaps they
+prefer to listen to their own vanity--that's the way of most men;
+but you do know it, and you have no excuse for misjudging me, or
+undeceiving them."  She stopped and looked at the clock.  "They
+will be here in five minutes; do you wish them to find you already
+here?"
+
+"It is as YOU wish," stammered Brimmer, completely losing his self-
+possession.
+
+"I have no wish," she said, with a sublime gesture of indifference.
+"If you wait you can entertain them here, while Rosina is dressing
+me in the next room.  We sup in the larger room across the hall."
+
+As she disappeared, Quincy Brimmer rose irresolutely from his seat
+and checked a half uttered exclamation.  Then he turned nervously
+to the parlor-door.  What a senseless idiot he had become!  He had
+never for an instant conceived the idea of making this preliminary
+confidential visit known to the others; he had no wish to suggest
+the appearance of an assignation with the woman, who, rightly or
+wrongly, was notorious; he had nothing to gain by this voluntary
+assumption of a compromising attitude; yet here he was, he--Mr.
+Brimmer--with the appearance of being installed in her parlor,
+receiving her visitors, and dispensing her courtesies.  Only a man
+recklessly in love would be guilty of such an indiscretion--even
+Markham's feebleness had never reached this absurdity.  In the
+midst of his uneasiness there was a knock at the door; he opened it
+himself nervously and sharply.  Markham's self-satisfied face drew
+back in alarm and embarrassment at the unexpected apparition.  The
+sight restored Brimmer's coolness and satirical self-possession.
+
+"I--I--didn't know you were here," stammered Markham.  "I left
+Keene in your room."
+
+"Then why didn't you bring him along with you?" said Brimmer
+maliciously.  "Go and fetch him."
+
+"Yes; but he said you were to meet him there," continued Markham,
+glancing around the empty room with a slight expression of relief.
+
+"My watch was twenty minutes fast, and I had given him up," said
+Brimmer, with mendacious effrontery.  "Miss Montgomery is dressing.
+You can bring him here before she returns."
+
+Markham flew uneasily down the corridor and quickly returned with a
+handsome young fellow of five-and-twenty, whose frank face was
+beaming with excitement and youthful energy.  The two elder men
+could not help regarding him with a mingled feeling of envy and
+compassion.
+
+"Did you tell Brimmer yet?" said Keene, with animation.
+
+"I haven't had time," hesitated Markham.  "The fact is, Brimmer, I
+think of going with Keene on this expedition."
+
+"Indeed!" said Brimmer superciliously.
+
+"Yes," said Markham, coloring slightly.  "You see, we've got news.
+Tell him, Dick."
+
+"The Storm Cloud got in yesterday from Valparaiso and Central
+American ports," said Keene, with glowing cheeks.  "I boarded her,
+as usual, last night, for information.  The mate says there is a
+story of a man picked up crazy, in an open fishing-boat, somewhere
+off the peninsula, and brought into hospital at San Juan last
+August.  He recovered enough lately to tell his story and claim to
+be Captain Bunker of the Excelsior, whose crew mutinied and ran her
+ashore in a fog.  But the boat in which he was picked up was a
+Mexican fishing-boat, and there was something revolutionary and
+political about the story, so that the authorities detained him.
+The consul has just been informed of the circumstances, and has
+taken the matter in hand."
+
+"It's a queer story," said Brimmer, gazing from the one to the
+other, "and I will look into it also to-morrow.  If it is true," he
+added slowly, "I will go with you."
+
+Richard Keene extended his hand impulsively to his two elders.
+
+"You'll excuse me for saying it, Brimmer--and you, too, Markham--
+but this is just what I've been looking forward to.  Not but what
+I'd have found Nell without your assistance; but you see, boys, it
+DID look mighty mean in me to make more fuss about a sister than
+you would for your wives!  But now that it's all settled"--
+
+"We'll go to supper," said Miss Montgomery theatrically, appearing
+at the door.  "Dick will give me his arm."
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE MOURNERS AT TODOS SANTOS.
+
+
+There was a breath of spring in the soft morning air of Todos
+Santos--a breath so subtle and odorous that it penetrated the veil
+of fog beyond the bay, and for a moment lingered on the deck of a
+passing steamer like an arresting memory.  But only for an instant;
+the Ometepe, bound from San Francisco to San Juan del Norte, with
+its four seekers of the Excelsior, rolled and plunged on its way
+unconsciously.
+
+Within the bay and over the restful pueblo still dwelt the golden
+haze of its perpetual summer; the two towers of the old Mission
+church seemed to dissolve softly into the mellow upper twilight,
+and the undulating valleys rolled their green waves up to the
+wooded heights of San Antonio, that still smiled down upon the
+arid, pallid desert.  But although Nature had not changed in the
+months that had passed since the advent of the Excelsior, there
+appeared some strange mutations in the town and its inhabitants.
+On the beach below the Presidio was the unfinished skeleton of a
+small sea-going vessel on rude stocks; on the plaza rose the framed
+walls and roofless rafters of a wooden building; near the
+Embarcadero was the tall adobe chimney of some inchoate manufactory
+whose walls had half risen from their foundations; but all of these
+objects had evidently succumbed to the drowsy influence of the
+climate, and already had taken the appearances of later and less
+picturesque ruins of the past.  There were singular innovations in
+the costumes: one or two umbrellas, used as sunshades, were seen
+upon the square; a few small chip hats had taken the place of the
+stiff sombreros, with an occasional tall white beaver; while linen
+coat and nankeen trousers had, at times, usurped the short velvet
+jacket and loose calzas of the national costume.
+
+At San Antonio the change was still more perceptible.  Beside the
+yawning pit of the abandoned silver mine a straggling building
+arose, filled with rude machinery, bearing the legend, painted in
+glowing letters, "Excelsior Silver Mining Co., J. Crosby,
+Superintendent;" and in the midst of certain excavations assailing
+the integrity of the cliff itself was another small building,
+scarcely larger than a sentry-box, with the inscription, "Office:
+Eleanor Quicksilver Smelting Works."
+
+Basking in that yellow morning sunlight, with his back against his
+office, Mr. Brace was seated on the ground, rolling a cigarette.  A
+few feet from him Crosby, extended on his back on the ground, was
+lazily puffing rings of smoke into the still air.  Both of these
+young gentlemen were dressed in exaggerated Mexican costumes; the
+silver buttons fringing the edge of Crosby's calza, open from the
+knee down to show a glimpse of the snowy under-trouser, were richer
+and heavier than those usually worn; while Brace, in addition to
+the crimson silk sash round his waist, wore a crimson handkerchief
+around his head, under his sombrero.
+
+"Pepe's falling off in his tobacco," said Brace.  "I think I'll
+have to try some other Fonda."
+
+"How's Banks getting on with his crop?" asked Crosby.  "You know he
+was going to revolutionize the business, and cut out Cuba on that
+hillside."
+
+"Oh, the usual luck!  He couldn't get proper cultivators, and the
+Injins wouldn't work regular.  I must try and get hold of some of
+the Comandante's stock; but I'm out of favor with the old man since
+Winslow and I wrecked that fishing-boat on the rocks off yonder.
+He always believed we were trying to run off, like Captain Bunker.
+That's why he stopped our shipbuilding, I really believe."
+
+"All the same, we might have had it built and ready now but for our
+laziness.  We might have worked on it nights without their knowing
+it, and slipped off some morning in the fog."
+
+"And we wouldn't have got one of the women to go with us!  If we
+are getting shiftless here--and I don't say we're not--these women
+have just planted themselves and have taken root.  But that ain't
+all: there's the influence of that infernal sneak Hurlstone!  He's
+set the Comandante against us, you know; he, and the priest, the
+Comandante, and Nelly Keene make up the real Council of Todos
+Santos.  Between them they've shoved out the poor little Alcalde,
+who's ready to give up everything to dance attendance on Mrs.
+Brimmer.  They run the whole concern, and they give out that it's
+owing to them that we're given parole of the town, and the
+privilege of spending our money and working these mines.  Who'd
+have thought that sneak Hurlstone would have played his cards so
+well?  It makes me regularly sick to hear him called 'Don Diego.'"
+
+"Yet you're mightily tickled when that black-eyed sister of the
+Alcalde calls you 'Don Carlos,'" said Crosby, yawning.
+
+"Dona Isabel," said Brace, with some empressement, "is a lady of
+position, and these are only her national courtesies."
+
+"She just worships Miss Keene, and I reckon she knows by this time
+all about your old attentions to her friend," said Crosby, with
+lazy mischief.
+
+"My attentions to Miss Keene were simply those of an ordinary
+acquaintance, and were never as strongly marked as yours to Mrs.
+Brimmer."
+
+"Who has deserted ME as Miss Keene did YOU," rejoined Crosby.
+
+Brace's quick color had risen again, and he would have made some
+sharp retort, but the jingling of spurs caught his ear.  They both
+turned quickly, and saw Banks approaching.  He was dressed as a
+vaquero, but with his companions' like exaggeration of detail; yet,
+while his spurs were enormous, and his sombrero unusually
+expansive, he still clung to his high shirt-collars and accurately
+tied check cravat.
+
+"Well?" he said, approaching them.
+
+"Well?" said Crosby.
+
+"Well?" repeated Brace.
+
+After this national salutation, the three Americans regarded each
+other silently.
+
+"Knocked off cultivating to-day?" queried Crosby, lighting a fresh
+cigarette.
+
+"The peons have," said Banks; "it's another saint's day.  That's
+the fourth in two weeks.  Leaves about two clear working days in
+each week, counting for the days off, when they're getting over the
+effects of the others.  I tell you what, sir, the Catholic religion
+is not suited to a working civilization, or else the calendar ought
+to be overhauled and a lot of these saints put on the retired list.
+It's hard enough to have all the Apostles on your pay-roll, so to
+speak, but to have a lot of fellows run in on you as saints, and
+some of them not even men or women, but IDEAS, is piling up the
+agony!  I don't wonder they call the place 'All Saints.'  The only
+thing to do," continued Banks severely, "is to open communication
+with the desert, and run in some of the heathen tribes outside.
+I've made a proposition to the Council offering to take five
+hundred of them in the raw, unregenerate state, and turn 'em over
+after a year to the Church.  If I could get Hurlstone to do some
+log-rolling with that Padre, his friend, I might get the bill
+through.  But I'm always put off till to-morrow.  Everything here
+is 'Hasta manana; hasta manana,' always.  I believe when the last
+trump is sounded, they'll say, 'Hasta manana.'  What are YOU
+doing?" he said, after a pause.
+
+"Waiting for your ship," answered Crosby sarcastically.
+
+"Well, you can laugh, gentlemen--but you won't have to wait long.
+According to my calculations that Mexican ship is about due now.
+And I ain't basing my figures on anything the Mexican Government is
+going to do, or any commercial speculation.  I'm reckoning on the
+Catholic Church."
+
+The two men languidly looked towards him.  Banks continued
+gravely,--
+
+"I made the proper inquiries, and I find that the stock of
+rosaries, scapularies, blessed candles, and other ecclesiastical
+goods, is running low.  I find that just at the nick of time a
+fresh supply always comes from the Bishop of Guadalajara, with
+instructions from the Church.  Now, gentlemen, my opinion is that
+the Church, and the Church only, knows the secret of the passage
+through the foggy channel, and keeps it to itself.  I look at this
+commercially, as a question of demand and supply.  Well, sir; the
+only real trader here at Todos Santos is the Church."
+
+"Then you don't take in account the interests of Brimmer, Markham,
+and Keene," said Brace.  "Do you suppose they're doing nothing?"
+
+"I don't say they're not; but you're confounding interests with
+INSTINCTS.  They haven't got the instinct to find this place, and
+all that they've done and are doing is blind calculation.  Just
+look at the facts.  As the filibuster who captured the Excelsior of
+course changed her name, her rig-out, and her flag, and even got up
+a false register for her, she's as good as lost, as far as the
+world knows, until she lands at Quinquinambo.  Then supposing she's
+found out, and the whole story is known--although everything's
+against such a proposition--the news has got to go back to San
+Francisco before the real search will be begun.  As to any clue
+that might come from Captain Bunker, that's still more remote.
+Allowing he crossed the bar and got out of the channel, he wasn't
+at the right time for meeting a passing steamer; and the only
+coasters are Mexican.  If he didn't die of delirium tremens or
+exposure, and was really picked up in his senses by some other
+means, he would have been back with succor before this, if only to
+get our evidence to prove the loss of the vessel.  No, sir sooner
+or later, of course, the San Francisco crowd are bound to find us
+here.  And if it wasn't for my crops and our mine, I wouldn't be in
+a hurry for them; but our FIRST hold is the Church."
+
+He stopped.  Crosby was asleep.  Brace arose lazily, lounged into
+his office, and closed his desk.
+
+"Going to shut for the day?" said Banks, yawning.
+
+"I reckon," said Brace dubiously; "I don't know but I'd take a
+little pasear into the town if I had my horse ready."
+
+"Take mine, and I'll trapse over on foot to the Ranche with Crosby--
+after a spell.  You'll find him under that big madrono, if he has
+not already wound himself up with his lariat by walking round it.
+Those Mexican horses can't go straight even when they graze--they
+must feed in a circle.  He's a little fresh, so look out for him!"
+
+"All the better.  I'd like to get into town just after the siesta."
+
+"Siesta!" echoed Banks, lying comfortably down in the shade just
+vacated by Brace; "that's another of their shiftless practices.
+Two hours out of every day--that's a day out of the week--spent in
+a hammock; and during business hours too!  It's disgraceful, sir,
+simply disgraceful."
+
+He turned over and closed his eyes, as if to reflect on its
+enormity.
+
+Brace had no difficulty in finding the mare, although some trouble
+in mounting her.  But, like his companions, having quickly adopted
+the habits of the country, he had become a skillful and experienced
+horseman, and the mustang, after a few springless jumps, which
+failed to unseat him, submitted to his rider.  The young man
+galloped rapidly towards Todos Santos; but when within a few miles
+of the pueblo he slackened his pace.  From the smiles and greetings
+of wayfarers--among whom were some pretty Indian girls and
+mestizas--it was evident that the handsome young foreigner, who had
+paid them the compliment of extravagantly adopting their national
+costume, was neither an unfamiliar nor an unpleasing spectacle.
+When he reached the posada at the top of the hilly street, he even
+carried his simulation of the local customs to the point of
+charging the veranda at full speed, and pulling up suddenly at the
+threshold, after the usual fashion of vaqueros.  The impetuous
+apparition brought a short stout man to the door, who, welcoming
+him with effusive politeness, conducted him to an inner room that
+gave upon a green grass courtyard.  Seated before a rude table,
+sipping aguardiente, was his countryman Winslow and two traders of
+the pueblo.  They were evidently of the number already indicated
+who had adopted the American fashions.  Senor Ruiz wore a linen
+"duster" in place of his embroidered jacket, and Senor Martinez had
+an American beard, or "goatee," in imitation of Mr. Banks.  The air
+was yellow with the fumes of tobacco, through which the shrewd eyes
+of Winslow gleamed murkily.
+
+"This," he said to his countryman, in fluent if not elegant
+Spanish, indicating the gentleman who had imitated Banks, "is a man
+of ideas, and a power in Todos Santos.  He would control all the
+votes in his district if there were anything like popular suffrage
+here, and he understands the American policy."
+
+Senor Martinez here hastened to inform Mr. Brace that he had long
+cherished a secret and enthusiastic admiration for that grand and
+magnanimous nation of which his friend was such a noble
+representative; that, indeed, he might say it was an inherited
+taste, for had not his grandfather once talked with the American
+whaling Capitano Coffino and partaken of a subtle spirit known as
+"er-r-rum" on his ship at Acapulco?
+
+"There's nothing mean about Martinez," said Winslow to Brace
+confidentially, in English.  "He's up to anything, and ready from
+the word 'Go.'  Don't you think he's a little like Banks, you know--
+a sort of Mexican edition.  And there is Ruiz, he's a cattle
+dealer; he'd be a good friend of Banks if Banks wasn't so
+infernally self-opinionated.  But Ruiz ain't a fool, either.  He's
+picked up a little English--good American, I mean--from me already."
+
+Senor Ruiz here smiled affably, to show his comprehension; and
+added slowly, with great gravity,--
+
+"It is of twenty-four year I have first time the Amencano of your
+beautiful country known.  He have buy the hides and horns of the
+cattle--for his ship--here."
+
+"Here?" echoed Brace.  "I thought no American ship--no ship at all--
+had been in here for fifty years."
+
+Ruiz shrugged his shoulders, and cast a glance at his friend
+Martinez, lowered his voice and lifted his eyelashes at the same
+moment, and, jerking his yellow, tobacco-stained thumb over his
+arm, said,--
+
+"Ah--of a verity--on the beach--two leagues away."
+
+"Do you hear that?" said Winslow, turning complacently to Brace and
+rising to his feet.  "Don't you see now what hogwash the Commander,
+Alcalde, and the priest have been cramming down our throats about
+this place being sealed up for fifty years.  What he says is all
+Gospel truth.  That's what I wanted you fellows to hear, and you
+might have heard before, only you were afraid of compromising
+yourselves by talking with the people.  You get it into your heads--
+and the Comandante helped you to get it there--that Todos Santos
+was a sort of Sleepy Hollow, and that no one knew anything of the
+political changes for the last fifty years.  Well, what's the fact?
+Ask Ruiz there, and Martinez, and they'll both tell you they know
+that Mexico got her independence in 1826, and that the Council keep
+it dark that they may perpetuate themselves.  They know," he
+continued, lowering his voice, "that the Commander's commission
+from the old Viceroy isn't worth the paper it is stamped upon."
+
+"But what about the Church?" asked Brace hesitatingly, remembering
+Banks' theory.
+
+"The Church--caramba! the priests were ever with the Escossas, the
+aristocrats, and against the Yorkenos, the men of the Republic--the
+people," interrupted Martinez vehemently; "they will not accept,
+they will not proclaim the Republic to the people.  They shut their
+eyes, so--.  They fold their hands, so--.  They say, 'Sicut era
+principio et nunc et semper in secula seculorum!'  Look you, Senor,
+I am not of the Church--no, caramba!  I snap my fingers at the
+priests.  Ah! what they give one is food for the bull's horns,
+believe me--I have read 'Tompano,' the American 'Tompano.'"
+
+"Who's he?" asked Brace.
+
+"He means Tom Paine!  'The Age of Reason'--you know," said Winslow,
+gazing with a mixture of delight and patronizing pride at the
+Radicals of Todos Santos.  "Oh! he's no fool--is Martinez, nor Ruiz
+either!  And while you've been flirting with Dona Isabel, and Banks
+has been trying to log-roll the Padre, and Crosby going in for
+siestas, I'VE found them out.  And there are a few more--aren't
+there, Ruiz?"
+
+Ruiz darted a mysterious glance at Brace, and apparently not
+trusting himself to speak, checked off his ten fingers dramatically
+in the air thrice.
+
+"As many of a surety!  God and liberty!"
+
+"But, if this is so, why haven't they DONE something?"
+
+Senor Martinez glanced at Senor Ruiz.
+
+"Hasta manana!" he said slowly.
+
+"Oh, this is a case of 'Hasta manana!'" said Brace, somewhat
+relieved.
+
+"They can wait," returned Winslow hurriedly.  "It's too big a thing
+to rush into without looking round.  You know what it means?
+Either Todos Santos is in rebellion against the present Government
+of Mexico, or she is independent of any.  Her present Government,
+in any event, don't represent either the Republic of Mexico or the
+people of Todos Santos--don't you see?  And in that case WE'VE got
+as good a right here as any one."
+
+"He speaks the truth," said Ruiz, grasping a hand of Brace and
+Winslow each; "in this we are--as brothers."
+
+"God and liberty!" ejaculated Martinez, in turn seizing the other
+disengaged hands of the Americans, and completing the mystic
+circle.
+
+"God and liberty!" echoed a thin chorus from their host and a few
+loungers who had entered unperceived.
+
+Brace felt uneasy.  He was not wanting in the courage or daring of
+youth, but it struck him that his attitude was by no means
+consistent with his attentions to Dona Isabel.  He managed to get
+Winslow aside.
+
+"This is all very well as a 'free lunch' conspiracy; but you're
+forgetting your parole," he said, in a low voice.
+
+"We gave our parole to the present Government.  When it no longer
+exists, there will be no parole--don't you see?"
+
+"Then these fellows prefer waiting"--
+
+"Until we can get OUTSIDE help, you understand.  The first American
+ship that comes in here--eh?"
+
+Brace felt relieved.  After all, his position in regard to the
+Alcalde's sister would not be compromised; he might even be able to
+extend some protection over her; and it would be a magnanimous
+revenge if he could even offer it to Miss Keene.
+
+"I see you don't swear anybody to secrecy," he said, with a laugh;
+"shall I speak to Crosby, or will you?"
+
+"Not yet; he'll only see something to laugh at.  And Banks and
+Martinez would quarrel at once, and go back on each other.  No; my
+idea is to let some outsider do for Todos Santos what Perkins did
+for Quinquinambo.  Do you take?"
+
+His long, thin, dyspeptic face lit up with a certain small
+political cunning and shrewdness that struck Brace with a half-
+respect.
+
+"I say, Winslow; you'd have made a first-class caucus leader in San
+Francisco."
+
+Winslow smiled complacently.  "There's something better to play on
+here than ward politics," he replied.  "There's a material here
+that--like the mine and the soil--ain't half developed.  I reckon I
+can show Banks something that beats lobbying and log-rolling for
+contracts.  I've let you into this thing to show you a sample of my
+prospecting.  Keep it to yourself if you want it to pay.  Dat's me,
+George!  Good-by!  I'll be out to the office to-morrow!"
+
+He turned back towards his brother politicians with an expression
+of satisfied conceit that Brace for a moment envied.  The latter
+even lingered on the veranda, as if he would have asked Winslow
+another question; but, looking at his watch, he suddenly
+recollected himself, and, mounting his horse, cantered down towards
+the plaza.
+
+The hour of siesta was not yet over, and the streets were still
+deserted--probably the reason why the politicians of Todos Santos
+had chosen that hour for their half secret meeting.  At the corner
+of the plaza he dismounted and led his horse to the public
+hitching-post--gnawn and nibbled by the teeth of generations of
+mustangs--and turned into the narrow lane flanked by the walls of
+the Alcalde's garden.  Halfway down he stopped before a slight
+breach in the upper part of the adobe barrier, and looked
+cautiously around.  The long, shadowed vista of the lane was
+unobstructed by any moving figure as far as the yellow light of the
+empty square beyond.  With a quick leap he gained the top of the
+wall and disappeared on the other aide.
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+INTERNATIONAL COURTESIES.
+
+
+The garden over whose wall Brace had mysteriously vanished was
+apparently as deserted as the lane and plaza without.  But its
+solitude was one of graceful shadow and restful loveliness.  A
+tropical luxuriance, that had perpetuated itself year after year,
+until it was half suffocated in its own overgrowth and strangled
+with its own beauty, spread over a variegated expanse of starry
+flowers, shimmering leaves, and slender inextricable branches,
+pierced here and there by towering rigid cactus spikes or the
+curved plumes of palms.  The repose of ages lay in its hushed
+groves, its drooping vines, its lifeless creepers; the dry dust of
+its decaying leaves and branches mingled with the living perfumes
+like the spiced embalmings of a forgotten past.
+
+Nevertheless, this tranquillity, after a few moments, was
+singularly disturbed.  There was no breeze stirring, and yet the
+long fronds of a large fan palm, that stood near the breach in the
+wall, began to move gently from right to left, like the arms of
+some graceful semaphore, and then as suddenly stopped.  Almost at
+the same moment a white curtain, listlessly hanging from a canopied
+balcony of the Alcalde's house, began to exhibit a like rhythmical
+and regular agitation.  Then everything was motionless again; an
+interval of perfect peace settled upon the garden.  It was broken
+by the apparition of Brace under the balcony, and the black-veiled
+and flowered head of Dona Isabel from the curtain above.
+
+"Crazy boy!"
+
+"Senorita!"
+
+"Hush!  I am coming down!"
+
+"You?  But Dona Ursula!"
+
+"There is no more Dona Ursula!"
+
+"Well--your duenna, whoever she is!"
+
+"There is no duenna!"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Hush up your tongue, idiot boy!" (this in English.)
+
+The little black head and the rose on top of it disappeared.  Brace
+drew himself up against the wall and waited.  The time seemed
+interminable.  Impatiently looking up and down, he at last saw Dona
+Isabel at a distance, quietly and unconcernedly moving among the
+roses, and occasionally stooping as if to pick them.  In an instant
+he was at her side.
+
+"Let me help you," he said.
+
+She opened her little brownish palm,--
+
+"Look!"  In her hand were a few leaves of some herb.  "It is for
+you."
+
+Brace seized and kissed the hand.
+
+"Is it some love-test?"
+
+"It is for what you call a julep-cocktail," she replied gravely.
+"He will remain in a glass with aguardiente; you shall drink him
+with a straw.  My sister has said that ever where the Americans go
+they expect him to arrive."
+
+"I prefer to take him straight," said Brace, laughing, as he
+nibbled a limp leaf bruised by the hand of the young girl.  "He's
+pleasanter, and, on the whole, more wildly intoxicating this way!
+But what about your duenna? and how comes this blessed privilege of
+seeing you alone?"
+
+Dona Isabel lifted her black eyes suddenly to Brace.
+
+"You do not comprehend, then?  Is it not, then, the custom of the
+Americans?  Is it not, then, that there is no duenna in your
+country?"
+
+"There are certainly no duennas in my country.  But who has changed
+the custom here?"
+
+"Is it not true that in your country any married woman shall duenna
+the young senorita?" continued Dona Isabel, without replying; "that
+any caballero and senorita shall see each other in the patio, and
+not under a balcony?--that they may speak with the lips, and not
+the fan?"
+
+"Well--yes," said Brace.
+
+"Then my brother has arranged it as so.  He have much hear the Dona
+Barbara Brimmer when she make talk of these things frequently, and
+he is informed and impressed much.  He will truly have that you
+will come of the corridor, and not the garden, for me, and that I
+shall have no duenna but the Dona Barbara.  This does not make you
+happy, you American idiot boy!"
+
+It did not.  The thought of carrying on a flirtation under the
+fastidious Boston eye of Mrs. Brimmer, instead of under the
+discreet and mercenarily averted orbs of Dona Ursula, did not
+commend itself pleasantly to Brace.
+
+"Oh, yes," he returned quickly.  "We will go into the corridor, in
+the fashion of my country"--
+
+"Yes," said Dona Isabel dubiously.
+
+"AFTER we have walked in the garden in the fashion of YOURS.
+That's only fair, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes," said Dona Isabel gravely; "that's what the Comandante will
+call 'internation-al courtesy.'"
+
+The young man slipped his arm around the young diplomatist's waist,
+and they walked on in decorous silence under the orange-trees.
+
+"It seems to me," said Brace presently, "that Mrs. Brimmer has a
+good deal to say up your way?"
+
+"Ah, yes; but what will you?  It is my brother who has love for
+her."
+
+"But," said Brace, stopping suddenly, "doesn't he know that she has
+a husband living?"
+
+Dona Isabel lifted her lashes in childlike wonder.
+
+"Always! you idiot American boy.  That is why.  Ah, Mother of God!
+my brother is discreet.  He is not a maniac, like you, to come
+after a silly muchacha like me."
+
+The response which Brace saw fit to make to this statement elicited
+a sharp tap upon the knuckles from Dona Isabel.
+
+"Tell to me," she said suddenly, "is not that a custom of your
+country?"
+
+"What?  THAT?"
+
+"No, insensate.  To attend a married senora?"
+
+"Not openly."
+
+"Ah, that is wrong," said Dona Isabel meditatively, moving the
+point of her tiny slipper on the gravel.  "Then it is the young
+girl that shall come in the corridor and the married lady on the
+balcony?"
+
+"Well, yes."
+
+"Good-by, ape!"
+
+She ran swiftly down the avenue of palms to a small door at the
+back of the house, turned, blew a kiss over the edge of her fan to
+Brace, and disappeared.  He hesitated a moment or two, then quickly
+rescaling the wall, dropped into the lane outside, followed it to
+the gateway of the casa, and entered the patio as Dona Isabel
+decorously advanced from a darkened passage to the corridor.
+Although the hour of siesta had passed, her sister, Miss Chubb, the
+Alcalde, and Mrs. Brimmer were still lounging here on sofas and
+hammocks.
+
+It would have been difficult for a stranger at a first glance to
+discover the nationality of the ladies.  Mrs. Brimmer and her
+friend Miss Chubb had entirely succumbed to the extreme dishabille
+of the Spanish toilet--not without a certain languid grace on the
+part of Mrs. Brimmer, whose easy contour lent itself to the
+stayless bodice; or a certain bashful, youthful naivete on the part
+of Miss Chubb, the rounded dazzling whiteness of whose neck and
+shoulders half pleased and half frightened her in her low, white,
+plain camisa--under the lace mantilla.
+
+"It is SUCH a pleasure to see you again, Mr. Brace," said Mrs.
+Brimmer, languidly observing the young man through the sticks of
+her fan; "I was telling Don Ramon that I feared Dona Ursula had
+frightened you away.  I told him that your experience of American
+society might have caused you to misinterpret the habitual reserve
+of the Castilian," she continued with the air of being already an
+alien of her own country, "and I should be only too happy to
+undertake the chaperoning of both these young ladies in their
+social relations with our friends.  And how is dear Mr. Banks? and
+Mr. Crosby? whom I so seldom see now.  I suppose, however, business
+has its superior attractions."
+
+But Don Ramon, with impulsive gallantry, would not--nay, COULD not--
+for a moment tolerate a heresy so alarming.  It was simply wildly
+impossible.  For why?  In the presence of Dona Barbara--it exists
+not in the heart of man!
+
+"YOU cannot, of course, conceive it, Don Ramon," said Mrs. Brimmer,
+with an air of gentle suffering; "but I fear it is sadly true of
+the American gentlemen.  They become too absorbed in their
+business.  They forget their duty to our sex in their selfish
+devotion to affairs in which we are debarred from joining them, and
+yet they wonder that we prefer the society of men who are removed
+by birth, tradition, and position from this degrading kind of
+selfishness."
+
+"But that was scarcely true of your own husband.  HE was not only a
+successful man in business, but we can see that he was equally
+successful in his relations to at least one of the fastidious sex,"
+said Brace, maliciously glancing at Don Ramon.
+
+Mrs. Brimmer received the innuendo with invulnerable simplicity.
+
+"Mr. Brimmer is, I am happy to say, NOT a business man.  He entered
+into certain contracts having more or less of a political
+complexion, and carrying with them the genius but not the material
+results of trade.  That he is not a business man--and a successful
+one--my position here at the present time is a sufficient proof,"
+she said triumphantly.  "And I must also protest," she added, with
+a faint sigh, "against Mr. Brimmer being spoken of in the past
+tense by anybody.  It is painfully premature and ominous!"
+
+She drew her mantilla across her shoulders with an expression of
+shocked sensitiveness which completed the humiliation of Brace and
+the subjugation of Don Ramon.  But, unlike most of her sex, she was
+wise in the moment of victory.  She cast a glance over her fan at
+Brace, and turned languidly to Dona Isabel.
+
+"Mr. Brace must surely want some refreshment after his long ride.
+Why don't you seize this opportunity to show him the garden and let
+him select for himself the herbs he requires for that dreadful
+American drink; Miss Chubb and your sister will remain with me to
+receive the Comandante's secretary and the Doctor when they come."
+
+"She's more than my match," whispered Brace to Dona Isabel, as they
+left the corridor together.  "I give in.  I don't understand her:
+she frightens me."
+
+"That is of your conscience!  It is that you would understand the
+Dona Leonor--your dear Miss Keene--better!  Ah! silence, imbecile!
+this Dona Barbara is even as thou art--a talking parrot.  She will
+have that the Comandante's secretary, Manuel, shall marry Mees
+Chubb, and that the Doctor shall marry my sister.  But she knows
+not that Manuel--listen so that you shall get sick at your heart
+and swallow your moustachio!--that Manuel loves the beautiful
+Leonor, and that Leonor loves not him, but Don Diego; and that my
+sister loathes the little Doctor.  And this Dona Barbara, that
+makes your liver white, would be a feeder of chickens with such
+barley as this!  Ah! come along!"
+
+The arrival of the Doctor and the Comandante's secretary created
+another diversion, and the pairing off of the two couples indicated
+by Dona Isabel for a stroll in the garden, which was now beginning
+to recover from the still heat of mid-day.  This left Don Ramon and
+Mrs. Brimmer alone in the corridor; Mrs. Brimmer's indefinite
+languor, generally accepted as some vague aristocratic condition of
+mind and body, not permitting her to join them.
+
+There was a moment of dangerous silence; the voices of the young
+people were growing fainter in the distance.  Mrs. Brimmer's eyes,
+in the shadow of her fan, were becoming faintly phosphorescent.
+Don Ramon's melancholy face, which had grown graver in the last few
+moments, approached nearer to her own.
+
+"You are unhappy, Dona Barbara.  The coming of this young cavalier,
+your countryman, revives your anxiety for your home.  You are
+thinking of this husband who comes not.  Is it not so?"
+
+"I am thinking," said Mrs. Brimmer, with a sudden revulsion of
+solid Boston middle-class propriety, shown as much in the dry New
+England asperity of voice that stung even through her drawling of
+the Castilian speech, as in anything she said,--"I am thinking
+that, unless Mr. Brimmer comes soon, I and Miss Chubb shall have to
+abandon the hospitality of your house, Don Ramon.  Without looking
+upon myself as a widow, or as indefinitely separated from Mr.
+Brimmer, the few words let fall by Mr. Brace show me what might be
+the feelings of my countrymen on the subject.  However charming and
+considerate your hospitality has been--and I do not deny that it
+has been MOST grateful to ME--I feel I cannot continue to accept it
+in those equivocal circumstances.  I am speaking to a gentleman
+who, with the instincts and chivalrous obligations of his order,
+must sympathize with my own delicacy in coming to this conclusion,
+and who will not take advantage of my confession that I do it with
+pain."
+
+She spoke with a dry alacrity and precision so unlike her usual
+languor and the suggestions of the costume, and even the fan she
+still kept shading her faintly glowing eyes, that the man before
+her was more troubled by her manner than her words, which he had
+but imperfectly understood.
+
+"You will leave here--this house?" he stammered.
+
+"It is necessary," she returned.
+
+"But you shall listen to me first!" he said hurriedly.  "Hear me,
+Dona Barbara--I have a secret--I will to you confess"--
+
+"You must confess nothing," said Mrs. Brimmer, dropping her feet
+from the hammock, and sitting up primly, "I mean--nothing I may not
+hear."
+
+The Alcalde cast a look upon her at once blank and imploring.
+
+"Ah, but you will hear," he said, after a pause.  "There is a ship
+coming here.  In two weeks she will arrive.  None know it but
+myself, the Comandante, and the Padre.  It is a secret of the
+Government.  She will come at night; she will depart in the
+morning, and no one else shall know.  It has ever been that she
+brings no one to Todos Santos, that she takes no one from Todos
+Santos.  That is the law.  But I swear to you that she shall take
+you, your children, and your friend to Acapulco in secret, where
+you will be free.  You will join your husband; you will be happy.
+I will remain, and I will die."
+
+It would have been impossible for any woman but Mrs. Brimmer to
+have regarded the childlike earnestness and melancholy simplicity
+of this grown-up man without a pang.  Even this superior woman
+experienced a sensible awkwardness as she slipped from the hammock
+and regained an upright position.
+
+"Of course," she, began, "your offer is exceedingly generous; and
+although I should not, perhaps, take a step of this kind without
+the sanction of Mr. Brimmer, and am not sure that he would not
+regard it as rash and premature, I will talk it over with Miss
+Chubb, for whom I am partially responsible.  Nothing," she
+continued, with a sudden access of feeling, "would induce me, for
+any selfish consideration, to take any step that would imperil the
+future of that child, towards whom I feel as a sister."  A slight
+suffusion glistened under her pretty brown lashes.  "If anything
+should happen to her, I would never forgive myself; if I should be
+the unfortunate means of severing any ties that SHE may have
+formed, I could never look her in the face again.  Of course, I can
+well understand that our presence here must be onerous to you, and
+that you naturally look forward to any sacrifice--even that of the
+interests of your country, and the defiance of its laws--to relieve
+you from a position so embarrassing as yours has become.  I only
+trust, however, that the ill effects you allude to as likely to
+occur to yourself after our departure may be exaggerated by your
+sensitive nature.  It would be an obligation added to the many that
+we owe you, which Mr. Brimmer would naturally find he could not
+return--and that, I can safely say, he would not hear of for a
+single moment."
+
+While speaking, she had unconsciously laid aside her fan, lifted
+her mantilla from her head with both hands, and, drawing it around
+her shoulders and under her lifted chin, had crossed it over her
+bosom with a certain prim, automatic gesture, as if it had been the
+starched kerchief of some remote Puritan ancestress.  With her arms
+still unconsciously crossed, she stooped rigidly, picked up her fan
+with three fingers, as if it had been a prayer-book, and, with a
+slight inclination of her bared head, with its accurately parted
+brown hair, passed slowly out of the corridor.
+
+Astounded, bewildered, yet conscious of some vague wound, Don Ramon
+remained motionless, staring after her straight, retreating figure.
+Unable to follow closely either the meaning of her words or the
+logic of her reasoning, he nevertheless comprehended the sudden
+change in her manner, her voice, and the frigid resurrection of a
+nature he had neither known nor suspected.  He looked blankly at
+the collapsed hammock, as if he expected to find in its depths
+those sinuous graces, languid fascinations, and the soft, half
+sensuous contour cast off by this vanishing figure of propriety.
+
+In the eight months of their enforced intimacy and platonic
+seclusion he had learned to love this naive, insinuating woman,
+whose frank simplicity seemed equal to his own, without thought of
+reserve, secrecy, or deceit.  He had gradually been led to think of
+the absent husband with what he believed to be her own feelings--as
+of some impalpable, fleshless ancestor from whose remote presence
+she derived power, wealth, and importance, but to whom she owed
+only respect and certain obligations of honor equal to his own.  He
+had never heard her speak of her husband with love, with sympathy,
+with fellowship, with regret.  She had barely spoken of him at all,
+and then rather as an attractive factor in her own fascinations
+than a bar to a free indulgence in them.  He was as little in her
+way as--his children.  With what grace she had adapted herself to
+his--Don Ramon's--life--she who frankly confessed she had no
+sympathy with her husband's!  With what languid enthusiasm she had
+taken up the customs of HIS country, while deploring the habits of
+her own!  With what goddess-like indifference she had borne this
+interval of waiting!  And yet this woman--who had seemed the
+embodiment of romance--had received the announcement of his
+sacrifice--the only revelation he allowed himself to make of his
+hopeless passion--with the frigidity of a duenna!  Had he wounded
+her in some other unknown way?  Was she mortified that he had not
+first declared his passion--he who had never dared to speak to her
+of love before?  Perhaps she even doubted it!  In his ignorance of
+the world he had, perhaps, committed some grave offense!  He should
+not have let her go!  He should have questioned, implored her--
+thrown himself at her feet!  Was it too late yet?
+
+He passed hurriedly into the formal little drawing-room, whose
+bizarre coloring was still darkened by the closed blinds and
+dropped awnings that had shut out the heat of day.  She was not
+there.  He passed the open door of her room; it was empty.  At the
+end of the passage a faint light stole from a door opening into the
+garden that was still ajar.  She must have passed out that way.  He
+opened it, and stepped out into the garden.
+
+The sound of voices beside a ruined fountain a hundred yards away
+indicated the vicinity of the party; but a single glance showed him
+that she was not among them.  So much the better--he would find her
+alone.  Cautiously slipping beside the wall of the house, under the
+shadow of a creeper, he gained the long avenue without attracting
+attention.  She was not there.  Had she effectively evaded contact
+with the others by leaving the garden through the little gate in
+the wall that entered the Mission enclosure?  It was partly open,
+as if some one had just passed through.  He followed, took a few
+steps, and stopped abruptly.  In the shadow of one of the old pear-
+trees a man and woman were standing.  An impulse of wild jealousy
+seized him; he was about to leap forward, but the next moment the
+measured voice of the Comandante, addressing Mrs. Markham, fell
+upon his ear.  He drew back with a sudden flush upon his face.  The
+Comandante of Todos Santos, in grave, earnest accents, was actually
+offering to Mrs. Markham the same proposal that he, Don Ramon, had
+made to Mrs. Brimmer but a moment ago!
+
+"No one," said the Comandante sententiously, "will know it but
+myself.  You will leave the ship at Acapulco; you will rejoin your
+husband in good time; you will be happy, my child; you will forget
+the old man who drags out the few years of loneliness still left to
+him in Todos Santos."
+
+Forgetting himself, Don Ramon leaned breathlessly forward to hear
+Mrs. Markham's reply.  Would she answer the Comandante as Dona
+Barbara had answered HIM?  Her words rose distinctly in the evening
+air.
+
+"You're a gentleman, Don Miguel Briones; and the least respect I
+can show a man of your kind is not to pretend that I don't
+understand the sacrifice you're making.  I shall always remember it
+as about the biggest compliment I ever received, and the biggest
+risk that any man--except one--ever ran for me.  But as the man who
+ran that bigger risk isn't here to speak for himself, and generally
+trusts his wife, Susan Markham, to speak for him--it's all the same
+as if HE thanked you.  There's my hand, Don Miguel: shake it.
+Well--if you prefer it--kiss it then.  There--don't be a fool--but
+let's go back to Miss Keene."
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+A GLEAM OF SUNSHINE.
+
+
+While these various passions had been kindled by her compatriots in
+the peaceful ashes of Todos Santos, Eleanor Keene had moved among
+them indifferently and, at times, unconsciously.  The stranding of
+her young life on that unknown shore had not drawn her towards her
+fellow-exiles, and the circumstances which afterwards separated her
+from daily contact with them completed the social estrangement.
+She found herself more in sympathy with the natives, to whom she
+had shown no familiarity, than with her own people, who had mixed
+with them more or less contemptuously.  She found the naivete of
+Dona Isabel more amusing than the doubtful simplicity of that
+married ingenue Mrs. Brimmer, although she still met the young
+girl's advances with a certain reserve.  She found herself often
+pained by the practical brusqueness with which Mrs. Markham put
+aside the Comandante's delicate attentions, and she was moved with
+a strange pity for his childlike trustfulness, which she knew was
+hopeless.  As the months passed, on the few occasions that she
+still met the Excelsior's passengers she was surprised to find how
+they had faded from her memory, and to discover in them the
+existence of qualities that made her wonder how she could have ever
+been familiar with them.  She reproached herself with this
+fickleness; she wondered if she would have felt thus if they had
+completed their voyage to San Francisco together; and she recalled,
+with a sad smile, the enthusiastic plans they had formed during the
+passage to perpetuate their fellowship by anniversaries and
+festivals.  But she, at last, succumbed, and finally accepted their
+open alienation as preferable to the growing awkwardness of their
+chance encounters.
+
+For a few weeks following the flight of Captain Bunker and her
+acceptance of the hospitality and protection of the Council, she
+became despondent.  The courage that had sustained her, and the
+energy she had shown in the first days of their abandonment,
+suddenly gave way, for no apparent reason.  She bitterly regretted
+the brother whom she scarcely remembered; she imagined his suspense
+and anguish on her account, and suffered for both; she felt the
+dumb pain of homesickness for a home she had never known.  Her
+loneliness became intolerable.  Her condition at last affected Mrs.
+Markham, whose own idleness had been beguiled by writing to her
+husband an exhaustive account of her captivity, which had finally
+swelled to a volume on Todos Santos, its resources, inhabitants,
+and customs.  "Good heavens!" she said, "you must do something,
+child, to occupy your mind--if it is only a flirtation with that
+conceited Secretary."  But this terrible alternative was happily
+not required.  The Comandante had still retained as part of the old
+patriarchal government of the Mission the Presidio school, for the
+primary instruction of the children of the soldiers,--dependants of
+the garrison.  Miss Keene, fascinated by several little pairs of
+beady black eyes that had looked up trustingly to hers from the
+playground on the glacis, offered to teach English to the
+Comandante's flock.  The offer was submitted to the spiritual head
+of Todos Santos, and full permission given by Padre Esteban to the
+fair heretic.  Singing was added to the Instruction, and in a few
+months the fame of the gracious Dona Leonor's pupils stirred to
+emulation even the boy choristers of the Mission.
+
+Her relations with James Hurlstone during this interval were at
+first marked by a strange and unreasoning reserve.  Whether she
+resented the singular coalition forced upon them by the Council and
+felt the awkwardness of their unintentional imposture when they
+met, she did not know, but she generally avoided his society.  This
+was not difficult, as he himself had shown no desire to intrude his
+confidences upon her; and even in her shyness she could not help
+thinking that if he had treated the situation lightly or
+humorously--as she felt sure Mr. Brace or Mr. Crosby would have
+done--it would have been less awkward and unpleasant.  But his
+gloomy reserve seemed to the high-spirited girl to color their
+innocent partnership with the darkness of conspiracy.
+
+"If your conscience troubles you, Mr. Hurlstone, in regard to the
+wretched infatuation of those people," she had once said,
+"undeceive them, if you can, and I will assist you.  And don't let
+that affair of Captain Bunker worry you either.  I have already
+confessed to the Comandante that he escaped through my
+carelessness."
+
+"You could not have done otherwise without sacrificing the poor
+Secretary, who must have helped you," Hurlstone returned quietly.
+
+Miss Keene bit her lip and dropped the subject.  At their next
+meeting Hurlstone himself resumed it.
+
+"I hope you don't allow that absurd decree of the Council to
+disturb you; I imagine they're quite convinced of their folly.  I
+know that the Padre is; and I know that he thinks you've earned a
+right to the gratitude of the Council in your gracious task at the
+Presidio school that is far beyond any fancied political service."
+
+"I really haven't thought about it at all," said Miss Keene coolly.
+"I thought it was YOU who were annoyed."
+
+"I? not at all," returned Hurlstone quickly.  "I have been able to
+assist the Padre in arranging the ecclesiastical archives of the
+church, and in suggesting some improvement in codifying the
+ordinances of the last forty years.  No; I believe I'm earning my
+living here, and I fancy they think so."
+
+"Then it isn't THAT that troubles you?" said Miss Keene carelessly,
+but glancing at him under the shade of her lashes.
+
+"No," he said coldly, turning away.
+
+Yet unsatisfactory as these brief interviews were, they revived in
+Miss Keene the sympathizing curiosity and interest she had always
+felt for this singular man, and which had been only held in
+abeyance at the beginning of their exile; in fact, she found
+herself thinking of him more during the interval when they seldom
+saw each other, and apparently had few interests in common, than
+when they were together on the Excelsior.  Gradually she slipped
+into three successive phases of feeling towards him, each of them
+marked with an equal degree of peril to her peace of mind.  She
+began with a profound interest in the mystery of his secluded
+habits, his strange abstraction, and a recognition of the evident
+superiority of a nature capable of such deep feeling--uninfluenced
+by those baser distractions which occupied Brace, Crosby, and
+Winslow.  This phase passed into a settled conviction that some
+woman was at the root of his trouble, and responsible for it.  With
+an instinctive distrust of her own sex, she was satisfied that it
+must be either a misplaced or unworthy attachment, and that the
+unknown woman was to blame.  This second phase--which hovered
+between compassion and resentment--suddenly changed to the latter--
+the third phase of her feelings.  Miss Keene became convinced that
+Mr. Hurlstone had a settled aversion to HERSELF.  Why and
+wherefore, she did not attempt to reason, yet she was satisfied
+that from the first he disliked her.  His studious reserve on the
+Excelsior, compared with the attentions of the others, ought then
+to have convinced her of the fact; and there was no doubt now that
+his present discontent could be traced to the unfortunate
+circumstances that brought them together.  Having given herself up
+to that idea, she vacillated between a strong impulse to inform him
+that she knew his real feelings and an equally strong instinct to
+avoid him hereafter entirely.  The result was a feeble compromise.
+On the ground that Mr. Hurlstone could "scarcely be expected to
+admire her inferior performances," she declined to invite him with
+Father Esteban to listen to her pupils.  Father Esteban took a huge
+pinch of snuff, examined Miss Keene attentively, and smiled a sad
+smile.  The next day he begged Hurlstone to take a volume of old
+music to Miss Keene with his compliments.  Hurlstone did so, and
+for some reason exerted himself to be agreeable.  As he made no
+allusion to her rudeness, she presumed he did not know of it, and
+speedily forgot it herself.  When he suggested a return visit to
+the boy choir, with whom he occasionally practiced, she blushed and
+feared she had scarcely the time.  But she came with Mrs. Markham,
+some consciousness, and a visible color!
+
+And then, almost without her knowing how or why, and entirely
+unexpected and unheralded, came a day so strangely and
+unconsciously happy, so innocently sweet and joyous, that it seemed
+as if all the other days of her exile had only gone before to
+create it, and as if it--and it alone--were a sufficient reason for
+her being there.  A day full of gentle intimations, laughing
+suggestions, childlike surprises and awakenings; a day delicious
+for the very incompleteness of its vague happiness.  And this
+remarkable day was simply marked in Mrs. Markham's diary as
+follows:--"Went with E. to Indian village; met Padre and J. H.
+J. H. actually left shell and crawled on beach with E.  E. chatty."
+
+The day itself had been singularly quiet and gracious, even for
+that rare climate of balmy days and recuperating nights.  At times
+the slight breath of the sea which usually stirred the morning air
+of Todos Santos was suspended, and a hush of expectation seemed to
+arrest land and water.  When Miss Keene and Mrs. Markham left the
+Presidio, the tide was low, and their way lay along the beach past
+the Mission walls.  A walk of two or three miles brought them to
+the Indian village--properly a suburban quarter of Todos Santos--a
+collection of adobe huts and rudely cultivated fields.  Padre
+Esteban and Mr. Hurlstone were awaiting them in the palm-thatched
+veranda of a more pretentious cabin, that served as a school-room.
+"This is Don Diego's design," said the Padre, beaming with a
+certain paternal pride on Hurlstone, "built by himself and helped
+by the heathen; but look you: my gentleman is not satisfied with
+it, and wishes now to bring his flock to the Mission school, and
+have them mingle with the pure-blooded races on an equality.  That
+is the revolutionary idea of this sans culotte reformer," continued
+the good Father, shaking his yellow finger with gentle archness at
+the young man.  "Ah, we shall yet have a revolution in Todos Santos
+unless you ladies take him in hand.  He has already brought the
+half-breeds over to his side, and those heathens follow him like
+dumb cattle anywhere.  There, take him away and scold him, Dona
+Leonor, while I speak to the Senora Markham of the work that her
+good heart and skillful fingers may do for my poor muchachos."
+
+Eleanor Keene lifted her beautiful eyes to Hurlstone with an
+artless tribute in their depths that brought the blood faintly into
+his cheek.  She was not thinking of the priest's admonishing words;
+she was thinking of the quiet, unselfish work that this gloomy
+misanthrope had been doing while his companions had been engaged in
+lower aims and listless pleasures, and while she herself had been
+aimlessly fretting and diverting herself.  What were her few hours
+of applauded instruction with the pretty Murillo-like children of
+the Fort compared to his silent and unrecognized labor!  Yet even
+at this moment an uneasy doubt crossed her mind.
+
+"I suppose Mrs. Brimmer and Miss Chubb interest themselves greatly
+in your--in the Padre's charities?"
+
+The first playful smile she had seen on Hurlstone's face lightened
+in his eyes and lips, and was becoming.
+
+"I am afraid my barbarians are too low and too near home for Mrs.
+Brimmer's missionary zeal.  She and Miss Chubb patronize the
+Mexican school with cast-off dresses, old bonnets retrimmed,
+flannel petticoats, some old novels and books of poetry--of which
+the Padre makes an auto-da-fe--and their own patronizing presence
+on fete days.  Providence has given them the vague impression that
+leprosy and contagious skin-disease are a peculiarity of the
+southern aborigine, and they have left me severely alone."
+
+"I wish you would prevail upon the Padre to let ME help you," said
+Miss Keene, looking down.
+
+"But you already have the Commander's chickens--which you are
+bringing up as swans, by the way," said Hurlstone mischievously.
+"You wouldn't surely abandon the nest again?"
+
+"You are laughing at me," said Miss Keene, putting on a slight pout
+to hide the vague pleasure that Hurlstone's gayer manner was giving
+her.  "But, really, I've been thinking that the Presidio children
+are altogether too pretty and picturesque for me, and that I enjoy
+them too much to do them any good.  It's like playing with them,
+you know!"
+
+Hurlstone laughed, but suddenly looking down upon her face he was
+struck with its youthfulness.  She had always impressed him before--
+through her reserve and independence--as older, and more matured
+in character.  He did not know how lately she was finding her lost
+youth as he asked her, quite abruptly, if she ever had any little
+brothers and sisters.
+
+The answer to this question involved the simple story of Miss
+Keene's life, which she gave with naive detail.  She told him of
+her early childhood, and the brother who was only an indistinct
+memory; of her school days, and her friendships up to the moment of
+her first step into the great world that was so strangely arrested
+at Todos Santos.  He was touched with the almost pathetic blankness
+of this virgin page.  Encouraged by his attention, and perhaps
+feeling a sympathy she had lately been longing for, she confessed
+to him the thousand little things which she had reserved from even
+Mrs. Markham during her first apathetic weeks at Todos Santos.
+
+"I'm sure I should have been much happier if I had had any one to
+talk to," she added, looking up into his face with a naivete of
+faint reproach; "it's very different for men, you know.  They can
+always distract themselves with something.  Although," she
+continued hesitatingly, "I've sometimes thought YOU would have been
+happier if you had had somebody to tell your troubles to--I don't
+mean the Padre; for, good as he is, he is a foreigner, you know,
+and wouldn't look upon things as WE do--but some one in sympathy
+with you."
+
+She stopped, alarmed at the change of expression in his face.  A
+quick flush had crossed his cheek; for an instant he had looked
+suspiciously into her questioning eyes.  But the next moment the
+idea of his quietly selecting this simple, unsophisticated girl as
+the confidant of his miserable marriage, and the desperation that
+had brought him there, struck him as being irresistibly ludicrous
+and he smiled.  It was the first time that the habitual morbid
+intensity of his thoughts on that one subject had ever been
+disturbed by reaction; it was the first time that a clear ray of
+reason had pierced the gloom in which he had enwrapped it.  Seeing
+him smile, the young girl smiled too.  Then they smiled together
+vaguely and sympathetically, as over some unspoken confidence.
+But, unknown and unsuspected by himself, that smile had completed
+his emancipation and triumph.  The next moment, when he sought with
+a conscientious sigh to reenter his old mood, he was half shocked
+to find it gone.  Whatever gradual influence--the outcome of these
+few months of rest and repose--may have already been at work to
+dissipate his clouded fancy, he was only vaguely conscious that the
+laughing breath of the young girl had blown it away forever.
+
+The perilous point passed, unconsciously to both of them, they fell
+into freer conversation, tacitly avoiding the subject of Mr.
+Hurlstone's past reserve only as being less interesting.  Hurlstone
+did not return Miss Keene's confidences--not because he wished to
+deceive her, but that he preferred to entertain her; while she did
+not care to know his secret now that it no longer affected their
+sympathy in other things.  It was a pleasant, innocent selfishness,
+that, however, led them along, step by step, to more uncertain and
+difficult ground.
+
+In their idle, happy walk they had strayed towards the beach, and
+had come upon a large stone cross with its base half hidden in
+sand, and covered with small tenacious, sweet-scented creepers,
+bearing a pale lilac blossom that exhaled a mingled odor of sea and
+shore.  Hurlstone pointed out the cross as one of the earliest
+outposts of the Church on the edge of the unclaimed heathen
+wilderness.  It was hung with strings of gaudy shells and feathers,
+which Hurlstone explained were votive offerings in which their
+pagan superstitions still mingled with their new faith.
+
+"I don't like to worry that good old Padre," he continued, with a
+light smile, "but I'm afraid that they prefer this cross to the
+chapel for certain heathenish reasons of their own.  I am quite
+sure that they still hold some obscure rites here under the good
+Father's very nose, and that, in the guise of this emblem of our
+universal faith, they worship some deity we have no knowledge of."
+
+"It's a shame," said Miss Keene quickly.
+
+To her surprise, Hurlstone did not appear so shocked as she, in her
+belief of his religious sympathy with the Padre, had imagined.
+
+"They're a harmless race," he said carelessly.  "The place is much
+frequented by the children--especially the young girls; a good many
+of these offerings came from them."
+
+The better to examine these quaint tributes, Miss Keene had thrown
+herself, with an impulsive, girlish abandonment, on the mound by
+the cross, and Hurlstone sat down beside her.  Their eyes met in an
+innocent pleasure of each other's company.  She thought him very
+handsome in the dark, half official Mexican dress that necessity
+alone had obliged him to assume, and much more distinguished-
+looking than his companions in their extravagant foppery; he
+thought her beauty more youthful and artless than he had imagined
+it to be, and with his older and graver experiences felt a certain
+protecting superiority that was pleasant and reassuring.
+
+Nevertheless, seated so near each other, they were very quiet.
+Hurlstone could not tell whether it was the sea or the flowers, but
+the dress of the young girl seemed to exhale some subtle perfume of
+her own freshness that half took away his breath.  She had scraped
+up a handful of sand, and was allowing it to escape through her
+slim fingers in a slender rain on the ground.  He was watching the
+operation with what he began to fear was fatuous imbecility.
+
+"Miss Keene?--I beg your pardon"--
+
+"Mr. Hurlstone?--Excuse me, you were saying"--
+
+They had both spoken at the same moment, and smiled forgivingly at
+each other.  Hurlstone gallantly insisted upon the precedence of
+her thought--the scamp had doubted the coherency of his own.
+
+"I used to think," she began--"you won't be angry, will you?"
+
+"Decidedly not."
+
+"I used to think you had an idea of becoming a priest."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because--you are sure you won't be angry--because I thought you
+hated women!"
+
+"Father Esteban is a priest," said Hurlstone, with a faint smile,
+"and you know he thinks kindly of your sex."
+
+"Yes; but perhaps HIS life was never spoiled by some wicked woman
+like--like yours."
+
+For an instant he gazed intently into her eyes.
+
+"Who told you that?"
+
+"No one."
+
+She was evidently speaking the absolute truth.  There was no deceit
+or suppression in her clear gaze; if anything, only the faintest
+look of wonder at his astonishment.  And he--this jealously guarded
+secret, the curse of his whole wretched life, had been guessed by
+this simple girl, without comment, without reserve, without horror!
+And there had been no scene, no convulsion of Nature, no tragedy;
+he had not thrown himself into yonder sea; she had not fled from
+him shrinking, but was sitting there opposite to him in gentle
+smiling expectation, the golden light of Todos Santos around them,
+a bit of bright ribbon shining in her dark hair, and he, miserable,
+outcast, and recluse, had not even changed his position, but was
+looking up without tremulousness or excitement, and smiling, too.
+
+He raised himself suddenly on his knee.
+
+"And what if it were all true?" he demanded.
+
+"I should be very sorry for you, and glad it were all over now,"
+she said softly.
+
+A faint pink flush covered her cheek the next moment, as if she had
+suddenly become aware of another meaning in her speech, and she
+turned her head hastily towards the village.  To her relief she
+discerned that a number of Indian children had approached them from
+behind and had halted a few paces from the cross.  Their hands were
+full of flowers and shells as they stood hesitatingly watching the
+couple.
+
+"They are some of the school-children," said Hurlstone, in answer
+to her inquiring look; "but I can't understand why they come here
+so openly."
+
+"Oh, don't scold them!" said Eleanor, forgetting her previous
+orthodox protest; "let us go away, and pretend we don't notice
+them."
+
+But as she was about to rise to her feet the hesitation of the
+little creatures ended in a sudden advance of the whole body, and
+before she comprehended what they were doing they had pressed the
+whole of their floral tributes in her lap.  The color rose again
+quickly to her laughing face as she looked at Hurlstone.
+
+"Do you usually get up this pretty surprise for visitors?" she said
+hesitatingly.
+
+"I assure you I have nothing to do with it," he answered, with
+frank amazement; "it's quite spontaneous.  And look--they are even
+decorating ME."
+
+It was true; they had thrown a half dozen strings of shells on
+Hurlstone's unresisting shoulders, and, unheeding the few words he
+laughingly addressed them in their own dialect, they ran off a few
+paces, and remained standing, as if gravely contemplating their
+work.  Suddenly, with a little outcry of terror, they turned, fled
+wildly past them, and disappeared in the bushes.
+
+Miss Keene and Hurlstone rose at the same moment, but the young
+girl, taking a step forward, suddenly staggered, and was obliged to
+clasp one of the arms of the cross to keep herself from falling.
+Hurlstone sprang to her side.
+
+"Are you ill?" he asked hurriedly.  "You are quite white.  What is
+the matter?"
+
+A smile crossed her colorless face.
+
+"I am certainly very giddy; everything seems to tremble."
+
+"Perhaps it is the flowers," he said anxiously.  "Their heavy
+perfume in this close air affects you.  Throw them away, for
+Heaven's sake!"
+
+But she clutched them tighter to her heart as she leaned for a
+moment, pale yet smiling, against the cross.
+
+"No, no!" she said earnestly; "it was not that.  But the children
+were frightened, and their alarm terrified me.  There, it is over
+now."
+
+She let him help her to her seat again as he glanced hurriedly
+around him.  It must have been sympathy with her, for he was
+conscious of a slight vertigo himself.  The air was very close and
+still.  Even the pleasant murmur of the waves had ceased.
+
+"How very low the tide is!" said Eleanor Keene, resting her elbow
+on her knees and her round chin upon her hand.  "I wonder if that
+could have frightened those dear little midgets?"  The tide, in
+fact, had left the shore quite bare and muddy for nearly a quarter
+of a mile to seaward.
+
+Hurlstone arose, with grave eyes, but a voice that was unchanged.
+
+"Suppose we inquire?  Lean on my arm, and we'll go up the hill
+towards the Mission garden.  Bring your flowers with you."
+
+The color had quite returned to her cheek as she leant on his
+proffered arm.  Yet perhaps she was really weaker than she knew,
+for he felt the soft pressure of her hand and the gentle
+abandonment of her figure against his own as they moved on.  But
+for some preoccupying thought, he might have yielded more
+completely to the pleasure of that innocent contact and have drawn
+her closer towards him; yet they moved steadily on, he contenting
+himself from time to time with a hurried glance at the downcast
+fringes of the eyes beside him.  Presently he stopped, his
+attention disturbed by what appeared to be the fluttering of a
+black-winged, red-crested bird, in the bushes before him.  The next
+moment he discovered it to be the rose-covered head of Dona Isabel,
+who was running towards them.  Eleanor withdrew her arm from
+Hurlstone's.
+
+"Ah, imbecile!" said Dona Isabel, pouncing upon Eleanor Keene like
+an affectionate panther.  "They have said you were on the seashore,
+and I fly for you as a bird.  Tell to me quick," she whispered,
+hastily putting her own little brown ear against Miss Keene's
+mouth, "immediatamente, are you much happy?"
+
+"Where is Mr. Brace?" said Miss Keene, trying to effect a
+diversion, as she laughed and struggled to get free from her
+tormentor.
+
+"He, the idiot boy!  Naturally, when he is for use, he comes not.
+But as a maniac--ever!  I would that I have him no more.  You will
+to me presently give your--brother!  I have since to-day a
+presentimiento that him I shall love!  Ah!"
+
+She pressed her little brown fist, still tightly clutching her fan,
+against her low bodice, as if already transfixed with a secret and
+absorbing passion.
+
+"Well, you shall have Dick then," said Miss Keene, laughing; "but
+was it for THAT you were seeking me?"
+
+"Mother of God! you know not then what has happened?  You are a
+blind--a deaf--to but one thing all the time?  Ah!" she said
+quickly, unfolding her fan and modestly diving her little head
+behind it, "I have ashamed for you, Miss Keene."
+
+"But WHAT has happened?" said Hurlstone, interposing to relieve his
+companion.  "We fancied something"--
+
+"Something! he says something!--ah, that something was a temblor!
+An earthquake!  The earth has shaken himself.  Look!"
+
+She pointed with her fan to the shore, where the sea had suddenly
+returned in a turbulence of foam and billows that was breaking over
+the base of the cross they had just quitted.
+
+Miss Keene drew a quick sigh.  Dona Isabel had ducked again
+modestly behind her fan, but this time dragging with her other arm
+Miss Keene's head down to share its discreet shadow as she
+whispered,--
+
+"And--infatuated one!--you two never noticed it!"
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+CLOUDS AND CHANGE.
+
+
+The earthquake shock, although the first experienced by the
+Americans, had been a yearly phenomenon to the people of Todos
+Santos, and was so slight as to leave little impression upon either
+the low adobe walls of the pueblo or the indolent population.  "If
+it's a provision of Nature for shaking up these Rip Van Winkle
+Latin races now and then, it's a dead failure, as far as Todos
+Santos is concerned," Crosby had said, with a yawn.  "Brace, who's
+got geology on the brain ever since he struck cinnabar ore, says he
+isn't sure the Injins ain't right when they believe that the
+Pacific Ocean used to roll straight up to the Presidio, and there
+wasn't any channel--and that reef of rocks was upheaved in their
+time.  But what's the use of it? it never really waked them up."
+"Perhaps they're waiting for another kind of earthquake," Winslow
+had responded sententiously.
+
+In six weeks it had been forgotten, except by three people--Miss
+Keene, James Hurlstone, and Padre Esteban.  Since Hurlstone had
+parted with Miss Keene on that memorable afternoon he had
+apparently lapsed into his former reserve.  Without seeming to
+avoid her timid advances, he met her seldom, and then only in the
+presence of the Padre or Mrs. Markham.  Although uneasy at the
+deprivation of his society, his present shyness did not affect her
+as it had done at first: she knew it was no longer indifference;
+she even fancied she understood it from what had been her own
+feelings.  If he no longer raised his eyes to hers as frankly as he
+had that day, she felt a more delicate pleasure in the
+consciousness of his lowered eyelids when they met, and the
+instinct that told her when his melancholy glance followed her
+unobserved.  The sex of these lovers--if we may call them so who
+had never exchanged a word of love--seemed to be changed.  It was
+Miss Keene who now sought him with a respectful and frank
+admiration; it was Hurlstone who now tried to avoid it with a
+feminine dread of reciprocal display.  Once she had even adverted
+to the episode of the cross.  They were standing under the arch of
+the refectory door, waiting for Padre Esteban, and looking towards
+the sea.
+
+"Do you think we were ever in any real danger, down there, on the
+shore--that day?" she said timidly.
+
+"No; not from the sea," he replied, looking at her with a half
+defiant resolution.
+
+"From what then?" she asked, with a naivete that was yet a little
+conscious.
+
+"Do you remember the children giving you their offerings that day?"
+he asked abruptly.
+
+"I do," she replied, with smiling eyes.
+
+"Well, it appears that it is the custom for the betrothed couples
+to come to the cross to exchange their vows.  They mistook us for
+lovers."
+
+All the instinctive delicacy of Miss Keene's womanhood resented the
+rude infelicity of this speech and the flippant manner of its
+utterance.  She did not blush, but lifted her clear eyes calmly to
+his.
+
+"It was an unfortunate mistake," she said coldly, "the more so as
+they were your pupils.  Ah! here is Father Esteban," she added,
+with a marked tone of relief, as she crossed over to the priest's
+side.
+
+When Father Esteban returned to the refectory that evening,
+Hurlstone was absent.  When it grew later, becoming uneasy, the
+good Father sought him in the garden.  At the end of the avenue of
+pear-trees there was a break in the sea-wall, and here, with his
+face to the sea, Hurlstone was leaning gloomily.  Father Esteban's
+tread was noiseless, and he had laid his soft hand on the young
+man's shoulder before Hurlstone was aware of his presence.  He
+started slightly, his gloomy eyes fell before the priest's.
+
+"My son," said the old man gravely, "this must go on no longer."
+
+"I don't understand you," Hurlstone replied coldly.
+
+"Do not try to deceive yourself, nor me.  Above all, do not try to
+deceive HER.  Either you are or are not in love with this
+countrywoman of yours.  If you are not, my respect for her and my
+friendship for you prompts me to save you both from a foolish
+intimacy that may ripen into a misplaced affection; if you are
+already in love with her"--
+
+"I have never spoken a word of love to her!" interrupted Hurlstone
+quickly.  "I have even tried to avoid her since"--
+
+"Since you found that you loved her!  Ah, foolish boy! and you
+think that because the lips speak not, the passions of the heart
+are stilled!  Do you think your silence in her presence is not a
+protestation that she, even she, child as she is, can read, with
+the cunning of her sex?"
+
+"Well--if I am in love with her, what then?" said Hurlstone
+doggedly.  "It is no crime to love a pure and simple girl.  Am I
+not free?  You yourself, in yonder church, told me"--
+
+"Silence, Diego," said the priest sternly.  "Silence, before you
+utter the thought that shall disgrace you to speak and me to hear!"
+
+"Forgive me, Father Esteban," said the young man hurriedly,
+grasping both hands of the priest.  "Forgive me--I am mad--
+distracted--but I swear to you I only meant"--
+
+"Hush!" interrupted the priest more gently.  "So; that will do."
+He stopped, drew out his snuff-box, rapped the lid, and took a
+pinch of snuff slowly.  "We will not recur to that point.  Then you
+have told her the story of your life?"
+
+"No; but I will, She shall know all--everything--before I utter a
+word of love to her,"
+
+"Ah! bueno! muy bueno!" said the Padre, wiping his nose
+ostentatiously.  "Ah! let me see!  Then, when we have shown her
+that we cannot possibly marry her, we will begin to make love to
+her!  Eh, eh! that is the American fashion.  Ah, pardon!" he
+continued, in response to a gesture of protestation from Hurlstone;
+"I am wrong.  It is when we have told her that we cannot marry her
+as a Protestant, that we will make love as a Catholic.  Is that
+it?"
+
+"Hear me," said Hurlstone passionately.  "You have saved me from
+madness and, perhaps, death.  Your care--your kindness--your
+teachings have given me life again.  Don't blame me, Father
+Esteban, if, in casting off my old self, you have given me hopes of
+a new and fresher life--of"--
+
+"A newer and fresher love, you would say," said the Padre, with a
+sad smile.  "Be it so.  You will at least do justice to the old
+priest, when you remember that he never pressed you to take vows
+that would have prevented this forever."
+
+"I know it," said Hurlstone, taking the old man's hand.  "And you
+will remember, too, that I was happy and contented before this came
+upon me.  Tell me what I shall do.  Be my guide--my friend, Father
+Esteban.  Put me where I was a few months ago--before I learned to
+love her."
+
+"Do you mean it, Diego?" said the old man, grasping his hand
+tightly, and fixing his eyes upon him.
+
+"I do."
+
+"Then listen to me, for it is my turn to speak.  When, eight months
+ago, you sought the shelter of that blessed roof, it was for refuge
+from a woman that had cursed your life.  It was given you.  You
+would leave it now to commit an act that would bring another woman,
+as mad as yourself, clamoring at its doors for protection from YOU.
+For what you are proposing to this innocent girl is what you
+accepted from the older and wickeder woman.  You have been cursed
+because a woman divided for you what was before God an indivisible
+right; and you, Diego, would now redivide that with another, whom
+you dare to say you LOVE!  You would use the opportunity of her
+helplessness and loneliness here to convince her; you would tempt
+her with sympathy, for she is unhappy; with companionship, for she
+has no longer the world to choose from--with everything that should
+make her sacred from your pursuit."
+
+"Enough," said Hurlstone hoarsely; "say no more.  Only I implore
+you tell me what to do now to save her.  I will--if you tell me to
+do it--leave her forever."
+
+"Why should YOU go?" said the priest quietly.  "HER absence will be
+sufficient."
+
+"HER absence?" echoed Hurlstone.
+
+"Hers alone.  The conditions that brought YOU here are unchanged.
+You are still in need of an asylum from the world and the wife you
+have repudiated.  Why should you abandon it?  For the girl, there
+is no cause why she should remain--beyond yourself.  She has a
+brother whom she loves--who wants her--who has the right to claim
+her at any time.  She will go to him."
+
+"But how?"
+
+"That has been my secret, and will be my sacrifice to you, Diego,
+my son.  I have foreseen all this; I have expected it from the day
+that girl sent you her woman's message, that was half a challenge,
+from her school--I have known it from the day you walked together
+on the sea-shore.  I was blind before that--for I am weak in my
+way, too, and I had dreamed of other things.  God has willed it
+otherwise."  He paused, and returning the pressure of Hurlstone's
+hand, went on.  "My secret and my sacrifice for you is this.  For
+the last two hundred years the Church has had a secret and trusty
+messenger from the See at Guadalajara--in a ship that touches here
+for a few hours only every three years.  Her arrival and departure
+is known only to myself and my brothers of the Council.  By this
+wisdom and the provision of God, the integrity of the Holy Church
+and the conversion of the heathen have been maintained without
+interruption and interference.  You know now, my son, why your
+comrades were placed under surveillance; why it was necessary that
+the people should believe in a political conspiracy among
+yourselves, rather than the facts as they existed, which might have
+bred a dangerous curiosity among them.  I have given you our
+secret, Diego--that is but a part of my sacrifice.  When that ship
+arrives, and she is expected daily, I will secretly place Miss
+Keene and her friend on board, with explanatory letters to the
+Archbishop, and she will be assisted to rejoin her brother.  It
+will be against the wishes of the Council; but my will," continued
+the old man, with a gesture of imperiousness, "is the will of the
+Church, and the law that overrides all."
+
+He had stopped, with a strange fire in his eyes.  It still
+continued to burn as he went on rapidly,--
+
+"You will understand the sacrifice I am making in telling you this,
+when you know that I could have done all that I propose without
+your leave or hindrance.  Yes, Diego; I had but to stretch out my
+hand thus, and that foolish fire-brand of a heretic muchacha would
+have vanished from Todos Santos forever.  I could have left you in
+your fool's paradise, and one morning you would have found her
+gone.  I should have condoled with you, and consoled you, and you
+would have forgotten her as you did the other.  I should not have
+hesitated; it is the right of the Church through all time to break
+through those carnal ties without heed of the suffering flesh, and
+I ought to have done so.  This, and this alone, would have been
+worthy of Las Casas and Junipero Serra!  But I am weak and old--I
+am no longer fit for His work.  Far better that the ship which
+takes her away should bring back my successor and one more worthy
+Todos Santos than I."
+
+He stopped, his eyes dimmed, he buried his face in his hands.
+
+"You have done right, Father Esteban," said Hurlstone, gently
+putting his arm round the priest's shoulders, "and I swear to you
+your secret is as safe as if you had never revealed it to me.
+Perhaps," he added, with a sigh, "I should have been happier if I
+had not known it--if she had passed out of my life as mysteriously
+as she had entered it; but you will try to accept my sacrifice as
+some return for yours.  I shall see her no more."
+
+"But will you swear it?" said the priest eagerly.  "Will you swear
+that you will not even seek her to say farewell; for in that moment
+the wretched girl may shake your resolution?"
+
+"I shall not see her," repeated the young man slowly.
+
+"But if she asks an interview," persisted the priest, "on the
+pretense of having your advice?"
+
+"She will not," returned Hurlstone, with a half bitter recollection
+of their last parting.  "You do not know her pride."
+
+"Perhaps," said the priest musingly.  "But I have YOUR word, Diego.
+And now let us return to the Mission, for there is much to prepare,
+and you shall assist me."
+
+Meantime, Hurlstone was only half right in his estimate of Miss
+Keene's feelings, although the result was the same.  The first
+shock to her delicacy in his abrupt speech had been succeeded by a
+renewal of her uneasiness concerning his past life or history.
+While she would, in her unselfish attachment for him, have
+undoubtingly accepted any explanation he might have chosen to give
+her, his continued reserve and avoidance of her left full scope to
+her imaginings.  Rejecting any hypothesis of his history except
+that of some unfortunate love episode, she began to think that
+perhaps he still loved this nameless woman.  Had anything occurred
+to renew his affection?  It was impossible, in their isolated
+condition, that he would hear from her.  But perhaps the priest
+might have been a confidant of his past, and had recalled the old
+affection in rivalry of her?  Or had she herself been unfortunate
+through any idle word to reopen the wound?  Had there been any
+suggestion?--she checked herself suddenly at a thought that
+benumbed and chilled her!--perhaps that happy hour at the cross
+might have reminded him of some episode with another?  That was the
+real significance of his rude speech.  With this first taste of the
+poison of jealousy upon her virgin lips, she seized the cup and
+drank it eagerly.  Ah, well--he should keep his blissful
+recollections of the past undisturbed by her.  Perhaps he might
+even see--though SHE had no past--that her present life might be as
+disturbing to him!  She recalled, with a foolish pleasure, his
+solitary faint sneer at the devotion of the Commander's Secretary.
+Why shouldn't she, hereafter, encourage that devotion as well as
+that sneer from this complacently beloved Mr. Hurlstone?  Why
+should he be so assured of her past?  The fair and gentle reader
+who may be shocked at this revelation of Eleanor Keene's character
+will remember that she has not been recorded as an angel in these
+pages--but as a very human, honest, inexperienced girl, for the
+first time struggling with the most diplomatic, Machiavellian, and
+hypocritical of all the passions.
+
+In pursuance of this new resolution, she determined to accept an
+invitation from Mrs. Markham to accompany her and the Commander to
+a reception at the Alcalde's house--the happy Secretary being of
+the party.  Mrs. Markham, who was under promise to the Comandante
+not to reveal his plan for the escape of herself and Miss Keene
+until the arrival of the expected transport, had paid little
+attention to the late vagaries of her friend, and had contented
+herself by once saying, with a marked emphasis, that the more free
+they kept themselves from any entanglements with other people, the
+more prepared they would be for A CHANGE.
+
+"Perhaps it's just as well not to be too free, even with those
+Jesuits over at the Mission.  Your brother, you know, might not
+like it."
+
+"THOSE JESUITS!" repeated Miss Keene indignantly.  "Father Esteban,
+to begin with, is a Franciscan, and Mr. Hurlstone is as orthodox as
+you or I."
+
+"Don't be too sure of that, my dear," returned Mrs. Markham
+sententiously.  "Heaven only knows what disguises they assume.
+Why, Hurlstone and the priest are already as thick as two peas; and
+you can't make me believe they didn't know of each other before we
+came here.  He was the first one ashore, you remember, before the
+mutiny; and where did he turn up?--at the Mission, of course!  And
+have you forgotten that sleepwalking affair--all Jesuitical!  Why,
+poor dear Markham used to say we were surrounded by ramifications
+of that society--everywhere.  The very waiter at your hotel table
+might belong to the Order."
+
+The hour of the siesta was just past, and the corridor and gardens
+of the Alcalde's house were grouped with friends and acquaintances
+as the party from the Presidio entered.  Mrs. Brimmer, who had
+apparently effected a temporary compromise with her late instincts
+of propriety, was still doing the honors of the Alcalde's house,
+and had once more assumed the Mexican dishabille, even to the
+slight exposure of her small feet, stockingless, in white satin
+slippers.  The presence of the Comandante and his Secretary
+guaranteed the two ladies of their party a reception at least
+faultless in form and respect, whatever may have been the secret
+feelings of the hostess and her friends.  The Alcalde received Mrs.
+Markham and Miss Keene with unruffled courtesy, and conducted them
+to the place of honor beside him.
+
+As Eleanor Keene, slightly flushed and beautiful in her unwonted
+nervous excitement, took her seat, a flutter went around the
+corridor, and, with the single exception of Dona Isabel, an almost
+imperceptible drawing together of the other ladies, in offensive
+alliance.  Miss Keene had never abandoned her own style of dress;
+and that afternoon her delicate and closely-fitting white muslin,
+gathered in at the waist with a broad blue belt of ribbon, seemed
+to accentuate somewhat unflatteringly the tropical neglige of Mrs.
+Brimmer and Miss Chubb.  Brace, who was in attendance, with Crosby,
+on the two Ramirez girls, could not help being uneasily conscious
+of this, in addition to the awkwardness of meeting Miss Keene after
+the transfer of his affections elsewhere.  Nor was his embarrassment
+relieved by Crosby's confidences to him, in a half audible whisper,--
+
+"I say, old man, after all, the regular straight-out American style
+lays over all their foreign flops and fandoodles.  I wonder what
+old Brimmer would say to his wife's full-dress nightgown--eh?"
+
+But at this moment the long-drawn, slightly stridulous utterances
+of Mrs. Brimmer rose through the other greetings like a lazy east
+wind.
+
+"I shall never forgive the Commander for making the Presidio so
+attractive to you, dear Miss Keene, that you cannot really find
+time to see your own countrymen.  Though, of course, you're not to
+blame for not coming to see two frights as we must look--not having
+been educated to be able to do up our dresses in that faultless
+style--and perhaps not having the entire control over an
+establishment like you; yet, I suppose that, even if the Alcalde
+did give us carte blanche of the laundry HERE, we couldn't do it,
+unaided even by Mrs. Markham.  Yes, dear; you must let me
+compliment you on your skill, and the way you make things last.  As
+for me and Miss Chubb, we've only found our things fit to be given
+away to the poor of the Mission.  But I suppose even that charity
+would look as shabby to you as our clothes, in comparison with the
+really good missionary work you and Mr. Hurlstone--or is it Mr.
+Brace?--I always confound your admirers, my dear--are doing now.
+At least, so says that good Father Esteban."
+
+But with the exception of the Alcalde and Miss Chubb, Mrs.
+Brimmer's words fell on unheeding ears, and Miss Keene did not
+prejudice the triumph of her own superior attractions by seeming to
+notice Mrs. Brimmer's innuendo.  She answered briefly, and entered
+into lively conversation with Crosby and the Secretary, holding the
+hand of Dona Isabel in her own, as if to assure her that she was
+guiltless of any design against her former admirer.  This was quite
+unnecessary, as the gentle Isabel, after bidding Brace, with a rap
+on the knuckles, to "go and play," contented herself with curling
+up like a kitten beside Miss Keene, and left that gentleman to
+wander somewhat aimlessly in the patio.
+
+Nevertheless, Miss Keene, whose eyes and ears were nervously alert,
+and who had indulged a faint hope of meeting Padre Esteban and
+hearing news of Hurlstone, glanced from time to time towards the
+entrance of the patio.  A singular presentiment that some outcome
+of this present visit would determine her relations with Hurlstone
+had already possessed her.  Consequently she was conscious, before
+it had attracted the attention of the others, of some vague
+stirring in the plaza beyond.  Suddenly the clatter of hoofs was
+heard before the gateway.  There was a moment's pause of
+dismounting, a gruff order given in Spanish, and the next moment
+three strangers entered the patio.
+
+They were dressed in red shirts, their white trousers tucked in
+high boots, and wore slouched hats.  They were so travel-stained,
+dusty, and unshaven, that their features were barely
+distinguishable.  One, who appeared to be the spokesman of the
+party, cast a perfunctory glance around the corridor, and, in
+fluent Spanish, began with the mechanical air of a man repeating
+some formula,--
+
+"We are the bearers of a despatch to the Comandante of Todos Santos
+from the Governor of Mazatlan.  The officer and the escort who came
+with us are outside the gate.  We have been told that the
+Comandante is in this house.  The case is urgent, or we would not
+intrude"--
+
+He was stopped by the voice of Mrs. Markham from the corridor.
+"Well, I don't understand Spanish much--I may be a fool, or crazy,
+or perhaps both--but if that isn't James Markham's VOICE, I'll bet
+a cooky!"
+
+The three strangers turned quickly toward the corridor.  The next
+moment the youngest of their party advanced eagerly towards Miss
+Keene, who had arisen with a half frightened joy, and with the cry
+of "Why, it's Nell!" ran towards her.  The third man came slowly
+forward as Mrs. Brimmer slipped hastily from the hammock and stood
+erect.
+
+"In the name of goodness, Barbara," said Mr. Brimmer, closing upon
+her, in a slow, portentous whisper, "where ARE your stockings?"
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+A MORE IMPORTANT ARRIVAL.
+
+
+The Commander was the first to recover his presence of mind.
+Taking the despatch from the hands of the unlooked-for husband of
+the woman he loved, he opened it with an immovable face and
+habitual precision.  Then, turning with a military salute to the
+strangers, he bade them join him in half an hour at the Presidio;
+and, bowing gravely to the assembled company, stepped from the
+corridor.  But Mrs. Markham was before him, stopped him with a
+gesture, and turned to her husband.
+
+"James Markham--where's your hand?"
+
+Markham, embarrassed but subjugated, disengaged it timidly from his
+wife's waist.
+
+"Give it to that gentleman--for a gentleman he is, from the crown
+of his head to the soles of his boots!  There!  Shake his hand!
+You don't get such a chance every day.  You can thank him again,
+later."
+
+As the two men's hands parted, after this perfunctory grasp, and
+the Commander passed on, she turned again to her husband.
+
+"Now, James, I am ready to hear all about it.  Perhaps you'll tell
+me where you HAVE been?"
+
+There was a moment of embarrassing silence.  The Doctor and
+Secretary had discreetly withdrawn; the Alcalde, after a brief
+introduction to Mr. Brimmer, and an incomprehensible glance from
+the wife, had retired with a colorless face.  Dona Isabel had
+lingered last to blow a kiss across her fan to Eleanor Keene that
+half mischievously included her brother.  The Americans were alone.
+
+Thus appealed to, Mr. Markham hastily began his story.  But, as he
+progressed, a slight incoherency was noticeable: he occasionally
+contradicted himself, and was obliged to be sustained, supplemented,
+and, at times, corrected, by Keene and Brimmer. Substantially, it
+appeared that they had come from San Francisco to Mazatlan, and,
+through the influence of Mr. Brimmer on the Mexican authorities,
+their party, with an escort of dragoons, had been transported across
+the gulf and landed on the opposite shore, where they had made a
+forced march across the desert to Todos Santos. Literally
+interpreted, however, by the nervous Markham, it would seem that
+they had conceived this expedition long ago, and yet had
+difficulties because they only thought of it the day before the
+steamer sailed; that they had embarked for the isthmus of Nicaragua,
+and yet had stopped at Mazatlan; that their information was complete
+in San Francisco, and only picked up at Mazatlan; that "friends"--
+sometimes contradictorily known as "he" and "she"--had overpowering
+influence with the Mexican Government, and alone had helped them,
+and yet that they were utterly dependent upon the efforts of Senor
+Perkins, who had compromised matters with the Mexican Government and
+everybody.
+
+"Do you mean to say, James Markham, that you've seen Perkins, and
+it was he who told you we were here?"
+
+"No--not HIM exactly."
+
+"Let me explain," said Mr. Brimmer hastily.  "It appears," he
+corrected his haste with practical businesslike precision, "that
+the filibuster Perkins, after debarking you here, and taking the
+Excelsior to Quinquinambo, actually established the Quinquinambo
+Government, and got Mexico and the other confederacies to recognize
+its independence.  Quinquinambo behaved very handsomely, and not
+only allowed the Mexican Government indemnity for breaking the
+neutrality of Todos Santos by the seizure, but even compromised
+with our own Government their claim to confiscate the Excelsior for
+treaty violation, and paid half the value of the vessel, besides
+giving information to Mexico and Washington of your whereabouts.
+We consequently represent a joint commission from both countries to
+settle the matter and arrange for your return."
+
+"But what I want to know is this: Is it to Senor Perkins that we
+ought to be thankful for seeing you here at all?" asked Mrs.
+Markham impatiently.
+
+"No, no--not that, exactly," stammered Markham.  "Oh, come now,
+Susannah"--
+
+"No," said Richard Keene earnestly; "by Jove! some thanks ought to
+go to Belle Montgomery"--He checked himself in sudden consternation.
+
+There was a chilly silence.  Even Miss Keene looked anxiously at
+her brother, as the voice of Mrs. Brimmer for the first time broke
+the silence.
+
+"May we be permitted to know who is this person to whom we owe so
+great an obligation?"
+
+"Certainly," said Brimmer, "She was--as I have already intimated--a
+friend; possibly, you know," he added, turning lightly to his
+companions, as if to corroborate an impression that had just struck
+him, "perhaps a--a--a sweetheart of the Senor Perkins."
+
+"And how was she so interested in us, pray?" said Mrs. Markham,
+
+"Well, you see, she had an idea that a former husband was on board
+of the Excelsior."
+
+He stopped suddenly, remembering from the astonished faces of Keene
+and Markham that the secret was not known to them, while they,
+impressed with the belief that the story was a sudden invention of
+Brimmer's, with difficulty preserved their composure.  But the
+women were quick to notice their confusion, and promptly
+disbelieved Brimmer's explanation.
+
+"Well, as there's no Mister Montgomery here, she's probably
+mistaken," said Mrs. Markham, with decision, "though it strikes ME
+that she's very likely had the same delusion on board of some other
+ship.  Come along, James; perhaps after you've had a bath and some
+clean clothes, you may come out a little more like the man I once
+knew.  I don't know how Mrs. Brimmer feels, but I feel more as if I
+required to be introduced to you--than your friend's friend, Mrs.
+Montgomery.  At any rate, try and look and behave a little more
+decent when you go over to the Presidio."
+
+With these words she dragged him away.  Mr. Brimmer, after a futile
+attempt to appear at his ease, promptly effected the usual marital
+diversion of carrying the war into the enemy's camp.
+
+"For heaven's sake, Barbara," he said, with ostentatious
+indignation, "go and dress yourself properly.  Had you neither
+money nor credit to purchase clothes?  I declare I didn't know you
+at first; and when I did, I was shocked; before Mrs. Markham, too!"
+
+"Mrs. Markham, I fear, has quite enough to occupy her now," said
+Mrs. Brimmer shortly, as she turned away, with hysterically moist
+eyes, leaving her husband to follow her.
+
+Oblivious of this comedy, Richard Keene and Eleanor had already
+wandered back, hand in hand, to their days of childhood.  But even
+in the joy that filled the young girl's heart in the presence of
+her only kinsman, there was a strange reservation.  The meeting
+that she had looked forward to with eager longing had brought all
+she expected; more than that, it seemed to have been providentially
+anticipated at the moment of her greatest need, and yet it was
+incomplete.  She was ashamed that after the first recognition, a
+wild desire to run to Hurlstone and tell HIM her happiness was her
+only thought.  She was shocked that the bright joyous face of this
+handsome lovable boy could not shut out the melancholy austere
+features of Hurlstone, which seemed to rise reproachfully between
+them.  When, for the third and fourth time, they had recounted
+their past history, exchanged their confidences and feelings, Dick,
+passing his arm around his sister's waist, looked down smilingly in
+her eyes.
+
+"And so, after all, little Nell, everybody has been good to you,
+and you have been happy!"
+
+"Everybody has been kind to me, Dick, far kinder than I deserved.
+Even if I had really been the great lady that little Dona Isabel
+thought I was, or the important person the Commander believed me to
+be, I couldn't have been treated more kindly.  I have met with
+nothing but respect and attention.  I have been very happy, Dick,
+very happy."
+
+And with a little cry she threw herself on her brother's neck and
+burst into a childlike flood of inconsistent tears.
+
+Meantime the news of the arrival of the relief-party had penetrated
+even the peaceful cloisters of the Mission, and Father Esteban had
+been summoned in haste to the Council.  He returned with an eager
+face to Hurlstone, who had been anxiously awaiting him.  When the
+Padre had imparted the full particulars of the event to his
+companion, he added gravely,--
+
+"You see, my son, how Providence, which has protected you since you
+first claimed the Church's sanctuary, has again interfered to spare
+me the sacrifice of using the power of the Church in purely mundane
+passions.  I weekly accept the rebuke of His better-ordained ways,
+and you, Diego, may comfort yourself that this girl is restored
+directly to her brother's care, without any deviousness of plan or
+human responsibility.  You do not speak, my son!" continued the
+priest anxiously; "can it be possible that, in the face of this
+gracious approval of Providence to your resolution, you are
+regretting it?"
+
+The young man replied, with a half reproachful gesture:
+
+"Do you, then, think me still so weak?  No, Father Esteban; I have
+steeled myself against my selfishness for her sake.  I could have
+resigned her to the escape you had planned, believing her happier
+for it, and ignorant of the real condition of the man she had
+learnt to--to--pity.  But," he added, turning suddenly and almost
+rudely upon the priest, "do you know the meaning of this irruption
+of the outer world to ME?  Do you reflect that these men probably
+know my miserable story?--that, as one of the passengers of the
+Excelsior, they will be obliged to seek me and to restore me," he
+added, with a bitter laugh, "to MY home, MY kindred--to the world I
+loathe?"
+
+"But you need not follow them.  Remain here."
+
+"Here!--with the door thrown open to any talebearer OR PERHAPS TO
+MY WIFE HERSELF?  Never!  Hear me, Father," he went on hurriedly:
+"these men have come from San Francisco--have been to Mazatlan.
+Can you believe that it is possible that they have never heard of
+this woman's search for me?  No!  The quest of hate is as strong as
+the quest of love, and more merciless to the hunted."
+
+"But if that were so, foolish boy, she would have accompanied
+them."
+
+"You are wrong!  It would have been enough for her to have sent my
+exposure by them--to have driven me from this refuge."
+
+"This is but futile fancy, Diego," said Father Esteban, with a
+simulated assurance he was far from feeling.  "Nothing has yet been
+said--nothing may be said.  Wait, my child."
+
+"Wait!" he echoed bitterly.  "Ay, wait until the poor girl shall
+hear--perhaps from her brother's lips--the story of my marriage as
+bandied about by others; wait for her to know that the man who
+would have made her love him was another's, and unworthy of her
+respect?  No! it is I who must leave this place, and at once."
+
+"YOU?" echoed the Padre.  "How?"
+
+"By the same means you would have used for her departure.  I must
+take her place in that ship you are expecting.  You will give ME
+letters to your friends.  Perhaps, when this is over, I may return--
+if I still live."
+
+Padre Esteban became thoughtful.
+
+"You will not refuse me?" said the young man, taking the Padre's
+hand.  "It is for the best, believe me.  I will remain secret here
+until then.  You will invent some excuse--illness, or what you
+like--to keep them from penetrating here.  Above all, to spare me
+from the misery of ever reading my secret in her face."
+
+Father Esteban remained still absorbed in thought.
+
+"You will take a letter from me to the Archbishop, and put yourself
+under his care?" he asked at last, after a long pause.  "You will
+promise me that?"
+
+"I do!"
+
+"Then we shall see what can be done.  They talk, those Americanos,"
+continued the priest, "of making their way up the coast to Punta
+St. Jago, where the ship they have already sent for to take them
+away can approach the shore; and the Comandante has orders to
+furnish them escort and transport to that point.  It is a foolish
+indiscretion of the Government, and I warrant without the sanction
+of the Church.  Already there is curiosity, discontent, and wild
+talk among the people.  Ah! thou sayest truly, my son," said the
+old man, gloomily; "the doors of Todos Santos are open.  The
+Comandante will speed these heretics quickly on their way; but the
+doors by which they came and whence they go will never close again.
+But God's will be done!  And if the open doors bring thee back, my
+son, I shall not question His will!"
+
+It would seem, however, as if Hurlstone's fears had been groundless.
+For in the excitement of the succeeding days, and the mingling of
+the party from San Antonio with the new-comers, the recluse had been
+forgotten.  So habitual, had been his isolation from the others,
+that, except for the words of praise and gratitude hesitatingly
+dropped by Miss Keene to her brother, his name was not mentioned,
+and it might have been possible for the relieving party to have left
+him behind--unnoticed.  Mr. Brimmer, for domestic reasons, was quite
+willing to allow the episode of Miss Montgomery's connection with
+their expedition to drop for the present.  Her name was only
+recalled once by Miss Keene.  When Dick had professed a sudden and
+violent admiration for the coquettish Dona Isabel, Eleanor had
+looked up in her brother's face with a half troubled air.
+
+"Who was this queer Montgomery woman, Dick?" she said.
+
+Dick laughed--a frank, reassuring, heart-free laugh.
+
+"Perfectly stunning, Nell.  Such a figure in tights!  You ought to
+have seen her dance--my!"
+
+"Hush!  I dare say she was horrid!"
+
+"Not at all!  She wasn't such a bad fellow, if you left out her
+poetry and gush, which I didn't go in for much,--though the other
+fellows"--he stopped, from a sudden sense of loyalty to Brimmer and
+Markham.  "No; you see, Nell, she was regularly ridiculously struck
+after that man Perkins,--whom she'd never seen,--a kind of
+schoolgirl worship for a pirate.  You know how you women go in for
+those fellows with a mystery about 'em."
+
+"No, I don't!" said Miss Keene sharply, with a slight rise of
+color; "and I don't see what that's got to do with you and her."
+
+"Everything!  She was in correspondence with Perkins, and knows
+about the Excelsior affair, and wants to help him get out of it
+with clean hands, don't you see!  That's why she made up to us.
+There, Nell; she ain't your style, of course; but you owe a heap to
+her for giving us points as to where you were.  But that's all over
+now; she left us at Mazatlan, and went on to Nicaragua to meet
+Perkins somewhere there--for the fellow has always got some Central
+American revolution on hand, it appears.  Until they garrote or
+shoot him some day, he'll go on in the liberating business forever."
+
+"Then there wasn't any Mr. Montgomery, of course?" said Eleanor.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Montgomery," said Dick, hesitating.  "Well, you see, Nell,
+I think that, knowing how correct and all that sort of thing
+Brimmer is, she sort of invented the husband to make her interest
+look more proper."
+
+"It's shameful!" said Miss Keene indignantly.
+
+"Come, Nell; one would think you had a personal dislike to her.
+Let her go; she won't trouble you--nor, I reckon, ANYBODY, much
+longer."
+
+"What do you mean, Dick?"
+
+"I mean she has regularly exhausted and burnt herself out with her
+hysterics and excitements, and the drugs she's taken to subdue
+them--to say nothing of the Panama fever she got last spring.  If
+she don't go regularly crazy at last she'll have another attack of
+fever, hanging round the isthmus waiting for Perkins."
+
+Meanwhile, undisturbed by excitement or intrusion of the outer
+world, the days had passed quietly at the Mission.  But one
+evening, at twilight, a swift-footed, lightly-clad Indian glided
+into the sacristy as if he had slipped from the outlying fog, and
+almost immediately as quietly glided away again and disappeared.
+The next moment Father Esteban's gaunt and agitated face appeared
+at Hurlstone's door.
+
+"My son, God has been merciful, and cut short your probation.  The
+signal of the ship has just been made.  Her boat will be waiting on
+the beach two leagues from here an hour hence.  Are you ready? and
+are you still resolved?"
+
+"I am," said Hurlstone, rising.  "I have been prepared since you
+first assented."
+
+The old man's lips quivered slightly, and the great brown hand laid
+upon the table trembled for an instant; with a strong effort he
+recovered himself, and said hurriedly,--
+
+"Concho's mule is saddled and ready for you at the foot of the
+garden.  You will follow the beach a league beyond the Indians'
+cross.  In the boat will await you the trusty messenger of the
+Church.  You will say to him, 'Guadalajara,' and give him these
+letters.  One is to the captain.  You will require no other
+introduction."  He laid the papers on the table, and, turning to
+Hurlstone, lifted his tremulous hands in the air.  "And now, my
+son, may the grace of God"--
+
+He faltered and stopped, his uplifted arms falling helplessly on
+Hurlstone's shoulders.  For an instant the young man supported him
+in his arms, then placed him gently in the chair he had just
+quitted, and for the first time in their intimacy dropped upon his
+knee before him.  The old man, with a faint smile, placed his hand
+upon his companion's head.  A breathless pause followed; Father
+Esteban's lips moved silently.  Suddenly the young man rose,
+pressed his lips hurriedly to the Father's hand, and passed out
+into the night.
+
+The moon was already suffusing the dropping veil of fog above him
+with that nebulous, mysterious radiance he had noticed the first
+night he had approached the Mission.  When he reached the cross he
+dismounted, and gathering a few of the sweet-scented blossoms that
+crept around its base, placed them in his breast.  Then,
+remounting, he continued his way until he came to the spot
+designated by Concho as a fitting place to leave his tethered mule.
+This done, he proceeded on foot about a mile further along the
+hard, wet sand, his eyes fixed on the narrow strip of water and
+shore before him that was yet uninvaded by the fog on either side.
+
+The misty, nebulous light, the strange silence, broken only by the
+occasional low hurried whisper of some spent wave that sent its
+film of spume across his path, or filled his footprints behind him,
+possessed him with vague presentiments and imaginings.  At times he
+fancied he heard voices at his side; at times indistinct figures
+loomed through the mist before him.  At last what seemed to be his
+own shadow faintly impinged upon the mist at one side impressed him
+so strongly that he stopped; the apparition stopped too.
+Continuing a few hundred paces further, he stopped again; but this
+time the ghostly figure passed on, and convinced him that it was no
+shadow, but some one actually following him.  With an angry
+challenge he advanced towards it.  It quickly retreated inland, and
+was lost.  Irritated and suspicious he turned back towards the
+water, and was amazed to see before him, not twenty yards away, the
+object of his quest--a boat, with two men in it, kept in position
+by the occasional lazy dip of an oar.  In the pursuit of his
+mysterious shadow he had evidently overlooked it.  As his own
+figure emerged from the fog, the boat pulled towards him.  The
+priest's password was upon his lips, when he perceived that the TWO
+men were common foreign sailors; the messenger of the Church was
+evidently not there.  Could it have been he who had haunted him?
+He paused irresolutely.  "Is there none other coming?" he asked.
+The two men looked at each other.  One said, "Quien sabe!" and
+shrugged his shoulders.  Hurlstone without further hesitation
+leaped aboard.
+
+The same dull wall of vapor--at times thickening to an almost
+impenetrable barrier, and again half suffocating him in its soft
+embrace--which he had breasted on the night he swam ashore, carried
+back his thoughts to that time, now so remote and unreal.  And
+when, after a few moments' silent rowing, the boat approached a
+black hulk that seemed to have started forward out of the gloom to
+meet them, his vague recollection began to take a more definite
+form.  As he climbed up the companion-ladder and boarded the
+vessel, an inexplicable memory came over him.  A petty officer on
+the gangway advanced silently and ushered him, half dazed and
+bewildered, into the cabin.  He glanced hurriedly around: the door
+of a state-room opened, and disclosed the indomitable and affable
+Senor Perkins!  A slight expression of surprise, however, crossed
+the features of the Liberator of Quinquinambo as he advanced with
+outstretched hand.
+
+"This is really a surprise, my dear fellow!  I had no idea that YOU
+were in this affair.  But I am delighted to welcome you once more
+to the Excelsior!"
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE RETURN OF THE EXCELSIOR.
+
+
+Amazed and disconcerted, Hurlstone, nevertheless, retained his
+presence of mind.
+
+"There must be some mistake," he said coolly; "I am certainly not
+the person you seem to be expecting."
+
+"Were you not sent here by Winslow?" demanded Perkins.
+
+"No.  The person you are looking for is probably one I saw on the
+shore.  He no doubt became alarmed at my approach, and has allowed
+me quite unwittingly to take his place in the boat."
+
+Perkins examined Hurlstone keenly for a moment, stepped to the
+door, gave a brief order, and returned.
+
+"Then, if you did not intend the honor of this visit for me," he
+resumed, with a smile, "may I ask, my dear fellow, whom you
+expected to meet, and on what ship?  There are not so many at Todos
+Santos, if my memory serves me right, as to create confusion."
+
+"I must decline to answer that question," said Hurlstone curtly.
+
+The Senor smiled, with an accession of his old gentleness.
+
+"My dear young friend," he said, "have you forgotten that on a far
+more important occasion to YOU, I showed no desire to pry into your
+secret?"  Hurlstone made a movement of deprecation.  "Nor have I
+any such desire now.  But for the sake of our coming to an
+understanding as friends, let me answer the question for you.  You
+are here, my dear fellow, as a messenger from the Mission of Todos
+Santos to the Ecclesiastical Commission from Guadalajara, whose
+ship touches here every three years.  It is now due.  You have
+mistaken this vessel for theirs."
+
+Hurlstone remained silent.
+
+"It is no secret," continued Senor Perkins blandly; "nor shall I
+pretend to conceal MY purpose here, which is on the invitation of
+certain distressed patriots of Todos Santos, to assist them in
+their deliverance from the effete tyranny of the Church and its
+Government.  I have been fortunate enough to anticipate the arrival
+of your vessel, as you were fortunate enough to anticipate the
+arrival of my messenger.  I am doubly fortunate, as it gives me the
+pleasure of your company this evening, and necessitates no further
+trouble than the return of the boat for the other gentleman--which
+has already gone.  Doubtless you may know him."
+
+"I must warn you again, Senor Perkins," said Hurlstone sternly,
+"that I have no connection with any political party; nor have I any
+sympathy with your purpose against the constituted authorities."
+
+"I am willing to believe that you have no political affinities at
+all, my dear Mr. Hurlstone," returned Perkins, with unruffled
+composure, "and, consequently, we will not argue as to what is the
+constituted authority of Todos Santos.  Perhaps to-morrow it may be
+on board THIS SHIP, and I may still have the pleasure of making you
+at home here!"
+
+"Until then," said Hurlstone dryly, "at least you will allow me to
+repair my error by returning to the shore."
+
+"For the moment I hardly think it would be wise," replied Perkins
+gently.  "Allowing that you escaped the vigilance of my friends on
+the shore, whose suspicions you have aroused, and who might do you
+some injury, you would feel it your duty to inform those who sent
+you of the presence of my ship, and thus precipitate a collision
+between my friends and yours, which would be promotive of ill-
+feeling, and perhaps bloodshed.  You know my peaceful disposition,
+Mr. Hurlstone; you can hardly expect me to countenance an act of
+folly that would be in violation of it."
+
+"In other words, having decoyed me here on board your ship, you
+intend to detain me," said Hurlstone insultingly.
+
+"'Decoy,'" said Perkins, in gentle deprecation, "'decoy' is hardly
+the word I expected from a gentleman who has been so unfortunate as
+to take, unsolicited and of his own free will, another person's
+place in a boat.  But," he continued, assuming an easy
+argumentative attitude, "let us look at it from your view-point.
+Let us imagine that YOUR ship had anticipated mine, and that MY
+messenger had unwittingly gone on board of HER.  What do you think
+they would have done to him?"
+
+"They would have hung him at the yard-arm, as he deserved," said
+Hurlstone unflinchingly.
+
+"You are wrong," said Perkins gently.  "They would have given him
+the alternative of betraying his trust, and confessing everything--
+which he would probably have accepted.  Pardon me!--this is no
+insinuation against you," he interrupted,--"but I regret to say
+that my experience with the effete Latin races of this continent
+has not inspired me with confidence in their loyalty to trust.  Let
+me give you an instance," he continued, smiling: "the ship you are
+expecting is supposed to be an inviolable secret of the Church, but
+it is known to me--to my friends ashore--and even to you, my poor
+friend, a heretic!  More than that, I am told that the Comandante,
+the Padre, and Alcalde are actually arranging to deport some of the
+American women by this vessel, which has been hitherto sacred to
+the emissaries of the Church alone.  But you probably know this--it
+is doubtless part of your errand.  I only mention it to convince
+you that I have certainly no need either to know your secrets, to
+hang you from the yard-arm if you refused to give them up, or to
+hold you as hostage for my messenger, who, as I have shown you, can
+take care of himself.  I shall not ask you for that secret despatch
+you undoubtedly carry next your heart, because I don't want it.
+You are at liberty to keep it until you can deliver it, or drop it
+out of that port-hole into the sea--as you choose.  But I hear the
+boat returning," continued Perkins, rising gently from his seat as
+the sound of oars came faintly alongside, "and no doubt with
+Winslow's messenger.  I am sorry you won't let me bring you
+together.  I dare say he knows all about you, and it really need
+not alter your opinions."
+
+"One moment," said Hurlstone, stunned, yet incredulous of Perkins's
+revelations.  "You said that both the Comandante and Alcalde had
+arranged to send away certain ladies--are you not mistaken?"
+
+"I think not," said Perkins quietly, looking over a pile of papers
+on the table before him.  "Yes, here it is," he continued, reading
+from a memorandum: "'Don Ramon Ramirez arranged with Pepe for the
+secret carrying off of Dona Barbara Brimmer.'  Why, that was six
+weeks ago, and here we have the Comandante suborning one Marcia, a
+dragoon, to abduct Mrs. Markham--by Jove, my old friend!--and Dona
+Leonor--our beauty, was she not?  Yes, here it is: in black and
+white.  Read it, if you like,--and pardon me for one moment, while
+I receive this unlucky messenger."
+
+Left to himself, Hurlstone barely glanced at the memorandum, which
+seemed to be the rough minutes of some society.  He believed
+Perkins; but was it possible that the Padre could be ignorant of
+the designs of his fellow-councilors?  And if he were not--if he
+had long before been in complicity with them for the removal of
+Eleanor, might he not also have duped him, Hurlstone, and sent him
+on this mission as a mere blind; and--more infamously--perhaps even
+thus decoyed him on board the wrong ship?  No--it was impossible!
+His honest blood quickly flew to his cheek at that momentary
+disloyal suspicion.
+
+Nevertheless, the Senor's bland revelations filled him with vague
+uneasiness.  SHE was safe with her brother now; but what if he and
+the other Americans were engaged in this ridiculous conspiracy,
+this pot-house rebellion that Father Esteban had spoken of, and
+which he had always treated with such contempt?  It seemed strange
+that Perkins had said nothing of the arrival of the relieving party
+from the Gulf, and its probable effect on the malcontents.  Did he
+know it? or was the news now being brought by this messenger whom
+he, Hurlstone, had supplanted?  If so, when and how had Perkins
+received the intelligence that brought him to Todos Santos?  The
+young man could scarcely repress a bitter smile as he remembered
+the accepted idea of Todos Santos' inviolability--that inaccessible
+port that had within six weeks secretly summoned Perkins to its
+assistance!  And it was there he believed himself secure!  What
+security had he at all?  Might not this strange, unimpassioned,
+omniscient man already know HIS secret as he had known the others'?
+
+The interview of Perkins with the messenger in the next cabin was a
+long one, and apparently a stormy one on the part of the newcomer.
+Hurlstone could hear his excited foreign voice, shrill with the
+small vehemence of a shallow character; but there was no change in
+the slow, measured tones of the Senor.  He listlessly began to turn
+over the papers on the table.  Presently he paused.  He had taken
+up a sheet of paper on which Senor Perkins had evidently been
+essaying some composition in verse.  It seemed to have been of a
+lugubrious character.  The titular line at the top of the page,
+"Dirge," had been crossed out for the substituted "In Memoriam."
+He read carelessly:
+
+
+     "O Muse unmet--but not unwept--
+        I seek thy sacred haunt in vain.
+      Too late, alas! the tryst is kept--
+        We may not meet again!
+
+     "I sought thee 'midst the orange bloom,
+        To find that thou hadst grasped the palm
+      Of martyr, and the silent tomb
+        Had hid thee in its calm.
+
+     "By fever racked, thou languishest
+        On Nicaragua's"--
+
+
+Hurlstone threw the paper aside.  Although he had not forgotten the
+Senor's reputation for sentimental extravagance, and on another
+occasion might have laughed at it, there was something so monstrous
+in this hysterical, morbid composition of the man who was even then
+contemplating bloodshed and crime, that he was disgusted.  Like
+most sentimental egotists, Hurlstone was exceedingly intolerant of
+that quality in others, and he turned for relief to his own
+thoughts of Eleanor Keene and his own unfortunate passion.  HE
+could not have written poetry at such a moment!
+
+But the cabin-door opened, and Senor Perkins appeared.  Whatever
+might have been the excited condition of his unknown visitor, the
+Senor's round, clean-shaven face was smiling and undisturbed by
+emotion.  As his eye fell on the page of manuscript Hurlstone had
+just cast down, a slight shadow crossed his beneficent expanse of
+forehead, and deepened in his soft dark eyes; but the next moment
+it was chased away by his quick recurring smile.  Even thus
+transient and superficial was his feeling, thought Hurlstone.
+
+"I have some news for you," said Perkins affably, "which may alter
+your decision about returning.  My friends ashore," he continued,
+"judging from the ingenuous specimen which has just visited me, are
+more remarkable for their temporary zeal and spasmodic devotion
+than for prudent reserve or lasting discretion.  They have
+submitted a list to me of those whom they consider dangerous to
+Mexican liberty, and whom they are desirous of hanging.  I regret
+to say that the list is illogical, and the request inopportune.
+Our friend Mr. Banks is put down as an ally of the Government and
+an objectionable business rival of that eminent patriot and well-
+known drover, Senor Martinez, who just called upon me.  Mr.
+Crosby's humor is considered subversive of a proper respect for all
+patriotism; but I cannot understand why they have added YOUR name
+as especially 'dangerous.'"
+
+Hurlstone made a gesture of contempt.
+
+"I suppose they pay me the respect of considering me a friend of
+the old priest.  So be it!  I hope they will let the responsibility
+fall on me alone."
+
+"The Padre is already proscribed as one of the Council," said Senor
+Perkins quietly.
+
+"Do you mean to say," said Hurlstone impetuously, "that you will
+permit a hair of that innocent old man's head to be harmed by those
+wretches?"
+
+"You are generous but hasty, my friend," said Senor Perkins, in
+gentle deprecation.  "Allow me to put your question in another way.
+Ask me if I intend to perpetuate the Catholic Church in Todos
+Santos by adding another martyr to its roll, and I will tell you--
+No!  I need not say that I am equally opposed to any proceedings
+against Banks, Crosby, and yourself, for diplomatic reasons, apart
+from the kindly memories of our old associations on this ship.  I
+have therefore been obliged to return to the excellent Martinez his
+little list, with the remark that I should hold HIM personally
+responsible if any of you are molested.  There is, however, no
+danger.  Messrs. Banks and Crosby are with the other Americans,
+whom we have guaranteed to protect, at the Mission, in the care of
+your friend the Padre.  You are surprised!  Equally so was the
+Padre.  Had you delayed your departure an hour you would have met
+them, and I should have been debarred the pleasure of your company.
+
+"By to-morrow," continued Perkins, placing the tips of his fingers
+together reflectively, "the Government of Todos Santos will have
+changed hands, and without bloodshed.  You look incredulous!  My
+dear young friend, it has been a part of my professional pride to
+show the world that these revolutions can be accomplished as
+peacefully as our own changes of administration.  But for a few
+infelicitous accidents, this would have been the case of the late
+liberation of Quinquinambo.  The only risk run is to myself--the
+leader, and that is as it should be.  But all this personal
+explanation is, doubtless, uninteresting to you, my young friend.
+I meant only to say that, if you prefer not to remain here, you can
+accompany me when I leave the ship at nine o'clock with a small
+reconnoitring party, and I will give you safe escort back to your
+friends at the Mission."
+
+This amicable proposition produced a sudden revulsion of feeling in
+Hurlstone.  To return to those people from whom he was fleeing, in
+what was scarcely yet a serious emergency, was not to be thought
+of!  Yet, where could he go?  How could he be near enough to assist
+HER without again openly casting his lot among them?  And would
+they not consider his return an act of cowardice?  He could not
+restrain a gesture of irritation as he rose impatiently to his
+feet.
+
+"You are agitated, my dear fellow.  It is not unworthy of your
+youth; but, believe me, it is unnecessary," said Perkins, in his
+most soothing manner.  "Sit down.  You have an hour yet to make
+your decision.  If you prefer to remain, you will accompany the
+ship to Todos Santos and join me."
+
+"I don't comprehend you," interrupted Hurlstone suspiciously.
+
+"I forgot," said Perkins, with a bland smile, "that you are unaware
+of our plan of campaign.  After communicating with the insurgents,
+I land here with a small force to assist them.  I do this to
+anticipate any action and prevent the interference of the Mexican
+coaster, now due, which always touches here through ignorance of
+the channel leading to the Bay of Todos Santos and the Presidio.  I
+then send the Excelsior, that does know the channel, to Todos
+Santos, to appear before the Presidio, take the enemy in flank, and
+cooperate with us.  The arrival of the Excelsior there is the last
+move of this little game, if I may so call it: it is 'checkmate to
+the King,' the clerical Government of Todos Santos."
+
+A little impressed, in spite of himself, with the calm forethought
+and masterful security of the Senor, Hurlstone thanked him with a
+greater show of respect than he had hitherto evinced.  The Senor
+looked gratified, but unfortunately placed that respect the next
+moment in peril.
+
+"You were possibly glancing over these verses," he said, with a
+hesitating and almost awkward diffidence, indicating the manuscript
+Hurlstone had just thrown aside.  "It is merely the first rough
+draft of a little tribute I had begun to a charming friend.  I
+sometimes," he interpolated, with an apologetic smile, "trifle with
+the Muse.  Perhaps I ought not to use the word 'trifle' in
+connection with a composition of a threnodial and dirge-like
+character," he continued deprecatingly.  "Certainly not in the
+presence of a gentleman as accomplished and educated as yourself,
+to whom recreation of this kind is undoubtedly familiar.  My
+occupations have been, unfortunately, of a nature not favorable to
+the indulgence of verse.  As a college man yourself, my dear sir,
+you will probably forgive the lucubrations of an old graduate of
+William and Mary's, who has forgotten his 'ars poetica.'  The
+verses you have possibly glanced at are crude, I am aware, and
+perhaps show the difficulty of expressing at once the dictates of
+the heart and the brain.  They refer to a dear friend now at peace.
+You have perhaps, in happier and more careless hours, heard me
+speak of Mrs. Euphemia M'Corkle, of Illinois?"
+
+Hurlstone remembered indistinctly to have heard, even in his
+reserved exclusiveness on the Excelsior, the current badinage of
+the passengers concerning Senor Perkins' extravagant adulation of
+this unknown poetess.  As a part of the staple monotonous humor of
+the voyage, it had only disgusted him.  With a feeling that he was
+unconsciously sharing the burlesque relief of the passengers, he
+said, with a polite attempt at interest,
+
+"Then the lady is--no more?"
+
+"If that term can be applied to one whose work is immortal,"
+corrected Senor Perkins gently.  "All that was finite of this
+gifted woman was lately forwarded by Adams's Express Company from
+San Juan, to receive sepulture among her kindred at Keokuk, Iowa."
+
+"Did she say she was from that place?" asked Hurlstone, with half
+automatic interest.
+
+"The Consul says she gave that request to the priest."
+
+"Then you were not with her when she died?" said Hurlstone
+absently.
+
+"I was NEVER with her, neither then nor before," returned Senor
+Perkins gravely.  Seeing Hurlstone's momentary surprise, he went
+on, "The late Mrs. M'Corkle and I never met--we were personally
+unknown to each other.  You may have observed the epithet 'unmet'
+in the first line of the first stanza; you will then understand
+that the privation of actual contact with this magnetic soul would
+naturally impart more difficulty into elegiac expression."
+
+"Then you never really saw the lady you admire?" said Hurlstone
+vacantly.
+
+"Never.  The story is a romantic one," said Perkins, with a smile
+that was half complacent and yet half embarrassed.  "May I tell it
+to you?  Thanks.  Some three years ago I contributed some verses to
+the columns of a Western paper edited by a friend of mine.  The
+subject chosen was my favorite one, 'The Liberation of Mankind,' in
+which I may possibly have expressed myself with some poetic fervor
+on a theme so dear to my heart.  I may remark without vanity, that
+it received high encomiums--perhaps at some more opportune moment
+you may be induced to cast your eyes over a copy I still retain--
+but no praise touched me as deeply as a tribute in verse in another
+journal from a gifted unknown, who signed herself 'Euphemia.'  The
+subject of the poem, which was dedicated to myself, was on the
+liberation of women--from--er--I may say certain domestic shackles;
+treated perhaps vaguely, but with grace and vigor.  I replied a
+week later in a larger poem, recording more fully my theories and
+aspirations regarding a struggling Central American confederacy,
+addressed to 'Euphemia.'  She rejoined with equal elaboration and
+detail, referring to a more definite form of tyranny in the
+relations of marriage, and alluding with some feeling to
+uncongenial experiences of her own.  An instinct of natural
+delicacy, veiled under the hyperbole of 'want of space,' prevented
+my editorial friend from encouraging the repetition of this
+charming interchange of thought and feeling.  But I procured the
+fair stranger's address; we began a correspondence, at once
+imaginative and sympathetic in expression, if not always poetical
+in form.  I was called to South America by the Macedonian cry of
+'Quinquinambo!'  I still corresponded with her.  When I returned to
+Quinquinambo I received letters from her, dated from San Francisco.
+I feel that my words could only fail, my dear Hurlstone, to convey
+to you the strength and support I derived from those impassioned
+breathings of aid and sympathy at that time.  Enough for me to
+confess that it was mainly due to the deep womanly interest that
+SHE took in the fortunes of the passengers of the Excelsior that I
+gave the Mexican authorities early notice of their whereabouts.
+But, pardon me,"--he stopped hesitatingly, with a slight flush, as
+he noticed the utterly inattentive face and attitude of Hurlstone,--
+"I am boring you.  I am forgetting that this is only important to
+myself," he added, with a sigh.  "I only intended to ask your
+advice in regard to the disposition of certain manuscripts and
+effects of hers, which are unconnected with our acquaintance.  I
+thought, perhaps, I might entrust them to your delicacy and
+consideration.  They are here, if you choose to look them over; and
+here is also what I believe to be a daguerreotype of the lady
+herself, but in which I fail to recognize her soul and genius."
+
+He laid a bundle of letters and a morocco case on the table with a
+carelessness that was intended to hide a slight shade of
+disappointment in his face--and rose.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Hurlstone, in confused and remorseful
+apology; "but I frankly confess that my thoughts WERE preoccupied.
+Pray forgive me.  If you will leave these papers with me, I promise
+to devote myself to them another time."
+
+"As you please," said the Senor, with a slight return of his old
+affability.  "But don't bore yourself now.  Let us go on deck."
+
+He passed out of the cabin as Hurlstone glanced, half mechanically,
+at the package before him.  Suddenly his cheek reddened; he
+stopped, looked hurriedly at the retreating form of Perkins, and
+picked up a manuscript from the packet.  It was in his wife's
+handwriting.  A sudden idea flashed across his mind, and seemed to
+illuminate the obscure monotony of the story he had just heard.  He
+turned hurriedly to the morocco case, and opened it with trembling
+fingers.  It was a daguerreotype, faded and silvered; but the
+features were those of his wife!
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+HOSTAGE.
+
+
+The revolution of Todos Santos had to all appearances been effected
+as peacefully as the gentle Liberator of Quinquinambo could have
+wished.  Two pronunciamientos, rudely printed and posted in the
+Plaza, and saluted by the fickle garrison of one hundred men, who
+had, however, immediately reappointed their old commander as
+Generalissimo under the new regime, seemed to leave nothing to be
+desired.  A surging mob of vacant and wondering peons, bearing a
+singular resemblance to the wild cattle and horses which
+intermingled with them in blind and unceasing movement across the
+Plaza and up the hilly street, and seemingly as incapable of self-
+government, were alternately dispersed and stampeded or allowed to
+gather again as occasion required.  Some of these heterogeneous
+bands were afterwards found--the revolution accomplished--gazing
+stupidly on the sea, or ruminating in bovine wantonness on the
+glacis before the Presidio.
+
+Eleanor Keene, who with her countrywomen had been hurried to the
+refuge of the Mission, was more disturbed and excited at the
+prospect of meeting Hurlstone again than by any terror of the
+insurrection.  But Hurlstone was not there, and Father Esteban
+received her with a coldness she could not attribute entirely to
+her countrymen's supposed sympathy with the insurgents.  When
+Richard Keene, who would not leave his sister until he had seen her
+safe under the Mission walls, ventured at her suggestion to ask
+after the American recluse, Father Esteban replied dryly that,
+being a Christian gentleman, Hurlstone was the only one who had the
+boldness to seek out the American filibuster Perkins, on his own
+ship, and remonstrate with him for his unholy crusade.  For the old
+priest had already become aware of Hurlstone's blunder, and he
+hated Eleanor as the primary cause of the trouble.  But for her,
+Diego would be still with him in this emergency.
+
+"Never mind, Nell," said Dick, noticing the disappointed eyes of
+his sister as they parted, "you'll all be safe here until we
+return.  Between you and me, Banks, Brimmer, and I think that Brace
+and Winslow have gone too far in this matter, and we're going to
+stop it, unless the whole thing is over now, as they say."
+
+"Don't believe that," said Crosby.  "It's like their infernal
+earthquakes; there's always a second shock, and a tidal wave to
+follow.  I pity Brace, Winslow, and Perkins if they get caught in
+it."
+
+There seemed to be some reason for his skepticism, for later the
+calm of the Mission Garden was broken upon by the monotonous tread
+of banded men on the shell-strewn walks, and the door of the
+refectory opened to the figure of Senor Perkins.  A green silk sash
+across his breast, a gold-laced belt, supporting a light dress-
+sword and a pair of pistols, buckled around the jaunty waist of his
+ordinary black frock-coat, were his scant martial suggestions.  But
+his hat, albeit exchanged for a soft felt one, still reposed on the
+back of his benevolent head, and seemed to accent more than ever
+the contrast between his peaceful shoulders and the military
+smartness of his lower figure.  He bowed with easy politeness to
+the assembled fugitives; but before he could address them, Father
+Esteban had risen to his feet,--
+
+"I thought that this house, at least, was free from the desecrating
+footsteps of lawlessness and impiety," said the priest sternly.
+"How dare YOU enter here?"
+
+"Nothing but the desire to lend my assistance to the claims of
+beauty, innocence, helplessness, and--if you will allow me to add,"
+with a low bow to the priest--"sanctity, caused this intrusion.
+For I regret to say that, through the ill-advised counsels of some
+of my fellow-patriots, the Indian tribes attached to this Mission
+are in revolt, and threaten even this sacred building."
+
+"It is false!" said Father Esteban indignantly.  "Even under the
+accursed manipulation of your emissaries, the miserable heathen
+would not dare to raise a parricidal hand against the Church that
+fostered him!"
+
+Senor Perkins smiled gently, but sadly.
+
+"Your belief, reverend sir, does you infinite credit.  But, to save
+time, let me give way to a gentleman who, I believe, possesses your
+confidence.  He will confirm my statement."
+
+He drew aside, and allowed Hurlstone, who had been standing
+unperceived behind, to step forward.  The Padre uttered an
+exclamation of pleasure.  Miss Keene colored quickly.  Hurlstone
+cast a long and lingering glance at her, which seemed to the
+embarrassed girl full of a new, strange meaning, and then advanced
+quickly with outstretched hands towards Father Esteban.
+
+"He speaks truly," he said, hurriedly, "and in the interests of
+humanity alone.  The Indians have been tampered with treacherously,
+against his knowledge and consent.  He only seeks now to prevent
+the consequences of this folly by placing you and these ladies out
+of reach of harm aboard of the Excelsior."
+
+"A very proper and excellent idea," broke in Mrs. Brimmer, with
+genteel precision.  "You see these people evidently recognize the
+fact of Mr. Brimmer's previous ownership of the Excelsior, and the
+respect that is due to him.  I, for one, shall accept the offer,
+and insist upon Miss Chubb accompanying me."
+
+"I shall be charmed to extend the hospitality of the Excelsior to
+you on any pretext," said the Senor gallantly, "and, indeed, should
+insist upon personally accompanying you and my dear friends Mrs.
+Markham and Miss Keene; but, alas! I am required elsewhere.  I
+leave," he continued, turning towards Hurlstone, who was already
+absorbed in a whispered consultation with Padre Esteban--"I leave a
+sufficient escort with you to protect your party to the boats which
+have brought us here.  You will take them to the Excelsior, and
+join me with the ship off Todos Santos in the morning.  Adieu, my
+friends!  Good-night, and farewell!"
+
+The priest made a vehement movement of protestation, but he was
+checked by Hurlstone, as, with a low bow, Senor Perkins passed out
+into the darkness.  The next moment his voice was heard raised in
+command, and the measured tramp of his men gradually receded and
+was lost in the distance.
+
+"Does he think," said the priest indignantly, "that I, Padre
+Esteban, would desert my sacred trust, and leave His Holy Temple a
+prey to sacrilegious trespass?  Never, while I live, Diego!  Call
+him back and tell him so!"
+
+"Rather listen to me, Father Esteban," said the young man
+earnestly.  "I have a plan by which this may be avoided.  From my
+knowledge of these Indians, I am convinced that they have been
+basely tricked and cajoled by some one.  I believe that they are
+still amenable to reason and argument, and I am so certain that I
+am ready to go down among them and make the attempt.  The old Chief
+and part of his band are still encamped on the shore; we could hear
+them as we passed in the boats.  I will go and meet them.  If I
+succeed in bringing them to reason I will return; if I find them
+intractable, I will at least divert their attention from the
+Mission long enough for you to embark these ladies with their
+escort, which you will do at the end of two hours if I do not
+return."
+
+"In two hours?" broke in Mrs. Brimmer, in sharp protest.  "I
+positively object.  I certainly understood that Senor Perkins'
+invitation, which, under the circumstances, I shall consider equal
+to a command from Mr. Brimmer, was to be accepted at once and
+without delay; and I certainly shall not leave Miss Chubb exposed
+to imminent danger for two hours to meet the caprice of an entire
+stranger to Mr. Brimmer."
+
+"I am willing to stay with Father Esteban, if he will let me," said
+Eleanor Keene quietly, "for I have faith in Mr. Hurlstone's
+influence and courage, and believe he will be successful."
+
+The young man thanked her with another demonstrative look that
+brought the warm blood to her cheek.
+
+"Well," said Mrs. Markham promptly; "I suppose if Nell stays I must
+see the thing through and stay with her--even if I haven't orders
+from Jimmy."
+
+"There is no necessity that either Mr. or Mrs. Brimmer should be
+disobeyed in their wishes," said Hurlstone grimly.  "Luckily there
+are two boats; Mrs. Brimmer and Miss Chubb can take one of them
+with half the escort, and proceed at once to the Excelsior.  I will
+ride with them as far as the boat.  And now," he continued, turning
+to the old priest, with sparkling eyes, "I have only to ask your
+blessing, and the good wishes of these ladies, to go forth on my
+mission of peace.  If I am successful," he added, with a light
+laugh, "confess that a layman and a heretic may do some service for
+the Church."  As the old man laid his half detaining, half
+benedictory hands upon his shoulders, the young man seized the
+opportunity to whisper in his ear, "Remember your promise to tell
+her ALL I have told you," and, with an other glance at Miss Keene,
+he marshalled Mrs. Brimmer and Miss Chubb before him, and hurried
+them to the boat.
+
+Miss Keene looked after him with a vague felicity in the change
+that seemed to have come on him, a change that she could as little
+account for as her own happiness.  Was it the excitement of danger
+that had overcome his reserve, and set free his compressed will and
+energy?  She longed for her brother to see him thus--alert, strong,
+and chivalrous.  In her girlish faith, she had no fear for his
+safety; he would conquer, he would succeed; he would come back to
+them victorious!  Looking up from her happy abstraction, at the
+side of Mrs. Markham, who had calmly gone to sleep in an arm-chair,
+she saw Father Esteban's eyes fixed upon her.  With a warning
+gesture of the hand towards Mrs. Markham, he rose, and, going to
+the door of the sacristy, beckoned to her.  The young girl
+noiselessly crossed the room and followed him into the sanctuary.
+
+Half an hour later, and while Mrs. Markham was still asleep, Father
+Esteban appeared at the door of the sacristy ostentatiously taking
+snuff, and using a large red handkerchief to wipe his more than
+usually humid eyes.  Eleanor Keene, with her chin resting on her
+hand, remained sitting as he had left her, with her abstracted eyes
+fixed vacantly on the lamp before the statue of the Virgin and the
+half-lit gloom of the nave.
+
+Padre Esteban had told her ALL!  She now knew Hurlstone's history
+even as he had hesitatingly imparted it to the old priest in this
+very church--perhaps upon the very seat where she sat.  She knew
+the peace that he had sought for and found within these walls,
+broken only by his passion for her!  She knew his struggles against
+the hopelessness of this new-born love, even the desperate remedy
+that had been adopted against herself, and the later voluntary
+exile of her lover.  She knew the providential culmination of his
+trouble in the news brought unconsciously by Perkins, which, but a
+few hours ago, he had verified by the letters, records, and even
+the certificate of death that had thus strangely been placed in his
+hands!  She knew all this so clearly now, that, with the instinct
+of a sympathetic nature, she even fancied she had heard it before.
+She knew that all the obstacles to an exchange of their affection
+had been removed; that her lover only waited his opportunity to
+hear from her own lips the answer that was even now struggling at
+her heart.  And yet she hesitated and drew back, half frightened in
+the presence of her great happiness.  How she longed, and yet
+dreaded, to meet him!  What if anything should have happened to
+him?--what if he should be the victim of some treachery?--what if
+he did not come?--what if?--"Good heavens! what was that?"
+
+She was near the door of the sacristy, gazing into the dim and
+shadowy church.  Either she was going mad, or else the grotesque
+Indian hangings of the walls were certainly moving towards her.
+She rose in speechless terror, as what she had taken for an
+uncouthly swathed and draped barbaric pillar suddenly glided to the
+window.  Crouching against the wall, she crept breathlessly towards
+the entrance to the garden.  Casting a hurried glance above her,
+she saw the open belfry that was illuminated by the misty radiance
+of the moon, darkly shadowed by hideously gibbering faces that
+peered at her through the broken tracery.  With a cry of horror she
+threw open the garden-door; but the next moment was swallowed up in
+the tumultuous tide of wild and half naked Indians who surged
+against the walls of the church, and felt herself lifted from her
+feet, with inarticulate cries, and borne along the garden.  Even in
+her mortal terror, she could recognize that the cries were not
+those of rage, but of vacant satisfaction; that although she was
+lifted on lithe shoulders, the grasp of her limbs was gentle, and
+the few dark faces she could see around her were glistening in
+childlike curiosity.  Presently she felt herself placed upon the
+back of a mule, that seemed to be swayed hither and thither in the
+shifting mass, and the next moment the misty, tossing cortege moved
+forward with a new and more definite purpose.  She called aloud for
+Father Esteban and Mrs. Markham; her voice appeared to flow back
+upon her from the luminous wall of fog that closed around her.
+Then the inarticulate, irregular outcries took upon themselves a
+measured rhythm, the movement of the mass formed itself upon the
+monotonous chant, the intervals grew shorter, the mule broke into a
+trot, and then the whole vast multitude fell into a weird,
+rhythmical, jogging quick step at her side.
+
+Whatever was the intent of this invasion of the Mission and her own
+strange abduction, she was relieved by noticing that they were
+going in the same direction as that taken by Hurlstone an hour
+before.  Either he was cognizant of their movements, and, being
+powerless to prevent their attack on the church, had stipulated
+they were to bring her to him in safety, or else he was calculating
+to intercept them on the way.  The fog prevented her from forming
+any estimation of the numbers that surrounded her, or if the Padre
+and Mrs. Markham were possibly preceding her as captives in the
+vanguard.  She felt the breath of the sea, and knew they were
+traveling along the shore; the monotonous chant and jogging motion
+gradually dulled her active terror to an apathetic resignation, in
+which occasionally her senses seemed to swoon and swim in the
+dreamy radiance through which they passed; at times it seemed a
+dream or nightmare with which she was hopelessly struggling; at
+times she was taking part in an unhallowed pageant, or some heathen
+sacrificial procession of which she was the destined victim.
+
+She had no consciousness of how long the hideous journey lasted.
+Her benumbed senses were suddenly awakened by a shock; the chant
+had ceased, the moving mass in which she was imbedded rolled
+forward once more as if by its own elasticity, and then receded
+again with a jar that almost unseated her.  Then the inarticulate
+murmur was overborne by a voice.  It was HIS!  She turned blindly
+towards it; but before she could utter the cry that rose to her
+lips, she was again lifted from the saddle, carried forward, and
+gently placed upon what seemed to be a moss-grown bank.  Opening
+her half swimming eyes she recognized the Indian cross.  The crowd
+seemed to recede before her.  Her eyes closed again as a strong arm
+passed around her waist.
+
+"Speak to me, Miss Keene--Eleanor--my darling!" said Hurlstone's
+voice.  "O my God! they have killed her!"
+
+With an effort she moved her head and tried to smile.  Their eyes,
+and then their lips met; she fainted.
+
+When she struggled to her senses again, she was lying in the stern-
+sheets of the Excelsior's boat, supported on Mrs. Markham's
+shoulder.  For an instant the floating veil of fog around her, and
+the rhythmical movement of the boat, seemed a part of her
+mysterious ride, and she raised her head with a faint cry for
+Hurlstone.
+
+"It's all right, my dear," said Mrs. Markham, soothingly; "he's
+ashore with the Padre, and everything else is all right too.  But
+it's rather ridiculous to think that those idiotic Indians believed
+the only way they could show Mr. Hurlstone that they meant us no
+harm was to drag us all up to THEIR Mission, as they call that half
+heathen cross of theirs--for safety against--who do you think,
+dear?--the dreadful AMERICANS!  And imagine all the while the Padre
+and I were just behind you, bringing up the rear of the procession--
+only they wouldn't let us join you because they wanted to show you
+special honor as"--she sank her voice to a whisper in Eleanor's
+ear--"as the future Mrs. Hurlstone!  It appears they must have
+noticed something about you two, the last time you were there, my
+dear.  And--to think--YOU never told me anything about it!"
+
+When they reached the Excelsior, they found that Mrs. Brimmer,
+having already settled herself in the best cabin, was inclined to
+extend the hospitalities of the ship with the air of a hostess.
+But the arrival of Hurlstone at midnight with some delegated
+authority from Senor Perkins, and the unexpected getting under way
+of the ship, disturbed her complacency.
+
+"We are going through the channel into the bay of Todos Santos,"
+was the brief reply vouchsafed her by Hurlstone.
+
+"But why can't we remain here and wait for Mr. Brimmer?" she asked
+indignantly.
+
+"Because," responded Hurlstone grimly, "the Excelsior is expected
+off the Presidio to-morrow morning to aid the insurgents."
+
+"You don't mean to say that Miss Chubb and myself are to be put in
+the attitude of arraying ourselves against the constituted
+authorities--and, perhaps, Mr. Brimmer himself?" asked Mrs.
+Brimmer, in genuine alarm.
+
+"It looks so," said Hurlstone, a little maliciously; "but, no
+doubt, your husband and the Senor will arrange it amicably."
+
+To Mrs. Markham and Miss Keene he explained more satisfactorily
+that the unexpected disaffection of the Indians had obliged Perkins
+to so far change his plans as to disembark his entire force from
+the Excelsior, and leave her with only the complement of men
+necessary to navigate her through the channel of Todos Santos,
+where she would peacefully await his orders, or receive his men in
+case of defeat.
+
+Nevertheless, as the night was nearly spent, Mrs. Markham and
+Eleanor preferred to await the coming day on deck, and watch the
+progress of the Excelsior through the mysterious channel.  In a few
+moments the barque began to feel the combined influence of the tide
+and the slight morning breeze, and, after rounding an invisible
+point, she presently rose and fell on the larger ocean swell.  The
+pilot, whom Hurlstone recognized as the former third mate of the
+Excelsior, appeared to understand the passage perfectly; and even
+Hurlstone and the ladies, who had through eight months' experience
+become accustomed to the luminous obscurity of Todos Santos, could
+detect the faint looming of the headland at the entrance.  The same
+soothing silence, even the same lulling of the unseen surf, which
+broke in gentle undulations over the bar, and seemed to lift the
+barque in rocking buoyancy over the slight obstruction, came back
+to them as on the day of their fateful advent.  The low orders of
+the pilot, the cry of the leadsman in the chains, were but a part
+of the restful past.
+
+Under the combined influence of the hour and the climate, the
+conversation fell into monosyllables, and Mrs. Markham dozed.  The
+lovers sat silently together, but the memory of a kiss was between
+them.  It spanned the gulf of the past with an airy bridge, over
+which their secret thoughts and fancies passed and repassed with a
+delicious security; henceforth they could not flee from that
+memory, even if they wished; they read it in each other's lightest
+glance; they felt it in the passing touch of each other's hands; it
+lingered, with vague tenderness, on the most trivial interchange of
+thought.  Yet they spoke a little of the future.  Eleanor believed
+that her brother would not object to their union; he had spoken of
+entering into business at Todos Santos, and perhaps when peace and
+security were restored they might live together.  Hurlstone did not
+tell her that a brief examination of his wife's papers had shown
+him that the property he had set aside for her maintenance, and
+from which she had regularly drawn an income, had increased in
+value, and left him a rich man.  He only pressed her hand, and
+whispered that her wishes should be his.  They had become tenderly
+silent again, as the Excelsior, now fairly in the bay, appeared to
+be slowly drifting, with listless sails and idle helm, in languid
+search of an anchorage.  Suddenly they were startled by a cry from
+the lookout.
+
+"Sail ho!"
+
+There was an incredulous start on the deck.  The mate sprang into
+the fore-rigging with an oath of protestation.  But at the same
+moment the tall masts and spars of a vessel suddenly rose like a
+phantom out of the fog at their side.  The half disciplined foreign
+crew uttered a cry of rage and trepidation, and huddled like sheep
+in the waist, with distracted gestures; even the two men at the
+wheel forsook their post to run in dazed terror to the taffrail.
+Before the mate could restore order to this chaos, the Excelsior
+had drifted, with a scarcely perceptible concussion, against the
+counter of the strange vessel.  In an instant a dozen figures
+appeared on its bulwarks, and dropped unimpeded upon the
+Excelsior's deck.  As the foremost one approached the mate, the
+latter shrank back in consternation.
+
+"Captain Bunker!"
+
+"Yes," said the figure, advancing with a mocking laugh; "Captain
+Bunker it is.  Captain Bunker, formerly of this American barque
+Excelsior, and now of the Mexican ship La Trinidad.  Captain Bunker
+ez larnt every foot of that passage in an open boat last August,
+and didn't forget it yesterday in a big ship!  Captain Bunker ez
+has just landed a company of dragoons to relieve the Presidio.
+What d'ye say to that, Mr. M'Carthy--eh?"
+
+"I say," answered M'Carthy, raising his voice with a desperate
+effort to recover his calmness, "I say that Perkins landed with
+double that number of men yesterday around that point, and that
+he'll be aboard here in half an hour to make you answer for this
+insult to his ship and his Government."
+
+"His Government!" echoed Bunker, with a hoarser laugh; "hear him!--
+HIS Government!  His Government died at four o'clock this morning,
+when his own ringleaders gave him up to the authorities.  Ha!  Why,
+this yer revolution is played out, old man; and Generalissimo
+Leonidas Perkins is locked up in the Presidio."
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+LIBERATED.
+
+
+The revolution was, indeed, ended.  The unexpected arrival of a
+relieving garrison in the bay of Todos Santos had completed what
+the dissensions in the insurgents' councils had begun; the
+discontents, led by Brace and Winslow, had united with the
+Government against Perkins and his aliens; but a compromise had
+been effected by the treacherous giving up of the Liberator himself
+in return for an amnesty granted to his followers.  The part that
+Bunker had played in bringing about this moral catastrophe was,
+however, purely adventitious.  When he had recovered his health,
+and subsequent events had corroborated the truth of his story, the
+Mexican Government, who had compromised with Quinquinambo, was
+obliged to recognize his claims by offering him command of the
+missionary ship, and permission to rediscover the channel, the
+secret of which had been lost for half a century to the Government.
+He had arrived at the crucial moment when Perkins' command were
+scattered along the seashore, and the dragoons had invested Todos
+Santos without opposition.
+
+Such was the story substantially told to Hurlstone and confirmed on
+his debarkation with the ladies at Todos Santos, the Excelsior
+being now in the hands of the authorities.  Hurlstone did not
+hesitate to express to Padre Esteban his disgust at the treachery
+which had made a scapegoat of Senor Perkins.  But to his surprise
+the cautious priest only shrugged his shoulders as he took a
+complacent pinch of snuff.
+
+"Have a care, Diego!  You are of necessity grateful to this man for
+the news he has brought--nay, more, for possibly being the
+instrument elected by Providence to precipitate the denouement of
+that miserable woman's life--but let it not close your eyes to his
+infamous political career.  I admit that he was opposed to the
+revolt of the heathen against us, but it was his emissaries and his
+doctrines that poisoned with heresy the fountains from which they
+drank.  Enough!  Be grateful! but do not expect ME to intercede for
+Baal and Ashtaroth!"
+
+"Intercede!" echoed Hurlstone, alarmed at the sudden sacerdotal
+hardness that had overspread the old priest's face.  "Surely the
+Council will not be severe with the man who was betrayed into their
+power by others equally guilty?"
+
+Padre Esteban avoided Hurlstone's eyes as he answered with affected
+coolness,--"Quien sabe?  There will be expulsados, no doubt.  The
+Excelsior, which is confiscated, will be sent to Mexico with them."
+
+"I must see Senor Perkins," said Hurlstone suddenly.
+
+The priest hesitated.
+
+"When?" he asked cautiously.
+
+"At once."
+
+"Good."  He wrote a hurried line on a piece of paper, folded it,
+sealed it, and gave it to Hurlstone.  "You will hand that to the
+Comandante.  He will give you access to the prisoner."
+
+In less than half an hour Hurlstone presented himself before the
+Commander.  The events of the last twenty-four hours had evidently
+affected Don Miguel, for although he received Hurlstone courteously,
+there was a singular reflection of the priest's harshness in his
+face as he glanced over the missive.  He took out his watch.
+
+"I give you ten minutes with the prisoner, Don Diego.  More, I
+cannot."
+
+A little awed by the manner of the Commander, Hurlstone bowed and
+followed him across the courtyard.  It was filled with soldiers,
+and near the gateway a double file of dragoons, with loaded
+carbines, were standing at ease.  Two sentries were ranged on each
+side of an open door which gave upon the courtyard.  The Commander
+paused before it, and with a gesture invited him to enter.  It was
+a large square apartment, lighted only by the open door and a
+grated enclosure above it.  Seated in his shirtsleeves, before a
+rude table, Senor Perkins was quietly writing.  The shadow of
+Hurlstone's figure falling across his paper caused him to look up.
+
+Whatever anxiety Hurlstone had begun to feel, it was quickly
+dissipated by the hearty, affable, and even happy greeting of the
+prisoner.
+
+"Ah! what! my young friend Hurlstone!  Again an unexpected
+pleasure," he said, extending his white hands.  "And again you find
+me wooing the Muse, in, I fear, hesitating numbers."  He pointed to
+the sheet of paper before him, which showed some attempts at
+versification.  "But I confess to a singular fascination in the
+exercise of poetic composition, in instants of leisure like this--a
+fascination which, as a man of imagination yourself, you can
+appreciate."
+
+"And I am sorry to find you here, Senor Perkins," began Hurlstone
+frankly; "but I believe it will not be for long."
+
+"My opinion," said the Senor, with a glance of gentle contemplation
+at the distant Comandante, "as far as I may express it, coincides
+with your own."
+
+"I have come," continued Hurlstone earnestly, "to offer you my
+services.  I am ready," he raised his voice, with a view of being
+overheard, "to bear testimony that you had no complicity in the
+baser part of the late conspiracy,--the revolt of the savages, and
+that you did your best to counteract the evil, although in doing so
+you have sacrificed yourself.  I shall claim the right to speak
+from my own knowledge of the Indians and from their admission to me
+that they were led away by the vague representations of Martinez,
+Brace, and Winslow."
+
+"Pardon--pardon me," said Senor Perkins deprecatingly, "you are
+mistaken.  My general instructions, no doubt, justified these young
+gentlemen in taking, I shall not say extreme, but injudicious
+measures."  He glanced meaningly in the direction of the Commander,
+as if to warn Hurlstone from continuing, and said gently, "But let
+us talk of something else.  I thank you for your gracious
+intentions, but you remember that we agreed only yesterday that you
+knew nothing of politics, and did not concern yourself with them.
+I do not know but you are wise.  Politics and the science of self-
+government, although dealing with general principles, are apt to be
+defined by the individual limitations of the enthusiast.  What is
+good for HIMSELF he too often deems is applicable to the general
+public, instead of wisely understanding that what is good for THEM
+must be good for himself.  But," said the Senor lightly, "we are
+again transgressing.  We were to choose another topic.  Let it be
+yourself, Mr. Hurlstone.  You are looking well, sir; indeed, I may
+say I never saw you looking so well!  Let me congratulate you.
+Health is the right of youth.  May you keep both!"
+
+He shook Hurlstone's hand again with singular fervor.
+
+There was a slight bustle and commotion at the door of the guard-
+room, and the Commander's attention was called in that direction.
+Hurlstone profited by the opportunity to say in a hurried whisper:
+
+"Tell me what I can do for you;" and he hesitated to voice his
+renewed uneasiness--"tell me if--if--if your case is--urgent!"
+
+Senor Perkins lifted his shoulders and smiled with grateful
+benevolence.
+
+"You have already promised me to deliver those papers and
+manuscripts of my deceased friend, and to endeavor to find her
+relations.  I do not think it is urgent, however."
+
+"I do not mean that," said Hurlstone eagerly.  "I"--but Perkins
+stopped him with a sign that the Commander was returning.
+
+Don Miguel approached them with disturbed and anxious looks.
+
+"I have yielded to the persuasions of two ladies, Dona Leonor and
+the Senora Markham, to ask you to see them for a moment," he said
+to Senor Perkins.  "Shall it be so?  I have told them the hour is
+nearly spent."
+
+"You have told them--NOTHING MORE?" asked the Senor, in a whisper
+unheard by Hurlstone.
+
+"No."
+
+"Let them come, then."
+
+The Commander made a gesture to the sentries at the guard-room, who
+drew back to allow Mrs. Markham and Eleanor to pass.  A little
+child, one of Eleanor's old Presidio pupils, who, recognizing her,
+had followed her into the guard-room, now emerged with her, and
+momentarily disconcerted at the presence of the Commander, ran,
+with the unerring instinct of childhood, to the Senor for
+protection.  The filibuster smiled, and lifting the child with a
+paternal gesture to his shoulder by one hand, he extended the other
+to the ladies.
+
+"The Commander," said Mrs. Markham briskly, "says it's against the
+rules; that visiting time is up; and you've already got a friend
+with you, and all that sort of thing; but I told him that I was
+bound to see you, if only to say that if there's any meanness going
+on, Susannah and James Markham ain't in it!  No!  But we're going
+to see you put right and square in the matter; and if we can't do
+it here, we'll do it, if we have to follow you to Mexico!--that's
+all!"
+
+"And I," said Eleanor, grasping the Senor's hand, and half blushing
+as she glanced at Hurlstone, "see that I have already a friend here
+who will help me to put in action all the sympathy I feel."
+
+Senor Perkins drew himself up, and cast a faint look of pride
+towards the Commander.
+
+"To HEAR such assurances from beautiful and eloquent lips like
+those before me," he said, with his old oratorical wave of the
+hand, but a passing shadow across his mild eyes, "is more than
+sufficient.  In my experience of life I have been favored, at
+various emergencies, by the sympathy and outspoken counsel of your
+noble sex; the last time by Mrs. Euphemia M'Corkle, of Peoria,
+Illinois, a lady of whom you have heard me speak--alas! now lately
+deceased.  A few lines at present lying on yonder table--a tribute
+to her genius--will be forwarded to you, dear Mrs. Markham.  But
+let us change the theme.  You are looking well--and you, too, Miss
+Keene.  From the roses that bloom on your cheeks--nourished by the
+humid air of Todos Santos--I am gratified in thinking you have
+forgiven me your enforced detention here."
+
+At a gesture from the Commander he ceased, stepped back, bowed
+gravely, and the ladies recognized that their brief audience had
+terminated.  As they passed through the gateway, looking back they
+saw Perkins still standing with the child on his shoulder and
+smiling affably upon them.  Then the two massive doors of the
+gateway swung to with a crash, the bolts were shot, and the
+courtyard was impenetrable.
+
+        .        .        .        .        .        .
+
+A few moments later, the three friends had passed the outermost
+angle of the fortifications, and were descending towards the beach.
+By the time they had reached the sands they had fallen into a vague
+silence.
+
+A noise like the cracking and fall of some slight scaffolding
+behind them arrested their attention.  Hurlstone turned quickly.  A
+light smoke, drifting from the courtyard, was mingling with the
+fog.  A faint cry of "Dios y Libertad!" rose with it.
+
+With a hurried excuse to his companions, Hurlstone ran rapidly
+back, and reached the gate as it slowly rolled upon its hinges to a
+file of men that issued from the courtyard.  The first object that
+met his eyes was the hat of Senor Perkins lying on the ground near
+the wall, with a terrible suggestion in its helpless and pathetic
+vacuity.  A few paces further lay its late owner, with twenty
+Mexican bullets in his breast, his benevolent forehead bared meekly
+to the sky, as if even then mutely appealing to the higher
+judgment.  He was dead!  The soul of the Liberator of Quinquinambo,
+and of various other peoples more or less distressed and more or
+less ungrateful, was itself liberated!
+
+        .        .        .        .        .        .
+
+With the death of Senor Perkins ended the Crusade of the Excelsior.
+Under charge of Captain Bunker the vessel was sent to Mazatlan by
+the authorities, bearing the banished and proscribed Americans,
+Banks, Brace, Winslow, and Crosby; and, by permission of the
+Council, also their friends, Markham and Brimmer, and the ladies,
+Mrs. Brimmer, Chubb, and Markham.  Hurlstone and Miss Keene alone
+were invited to remain, but, on later representations, the Council
+graciously included Richard Keene in the invitation, with the
+concession of the right to work the mines and control the ranches
+he and Hurlstone had purchased from their proscribed countrymen.
+The complacency of the Council of Todos Santos may be accounted for
+when it is understood that on the day the firm of Hurlstone & Keene
+was really begun under the title of Mr. and Mrs. Hurlstone, Richard
+had prevailed upon the Alcalde to allow him to add the piquant Dona
+Isabel also to the firm under the title of Mrs. Keene.  Although
+the port of Todos Santos was henceforth open to all commerce, the
+firm of Hurlstone & Keene long retained the monopoly of trade, and
+was a recognized power of intelligent civilization and honest
+progress on the Pacific coast.  And none contributed more to that
+result than the clever and beautiful hostess of Excelsior Lodge,
+the charming country home of James Hurlstone, Esq., senior partner
+of the firm.  Under the truly catholic shelter of its veranda Padre
+Esteban and the heretic stranger mingled harmoniously, and the
+dissensions of local and central Government were forgotten.
+
+"I said that you were a dama de grandeza, you remember," said the
+youthful Mrs. Keene to Mrs. Hurlstone, "and, you see, you are!"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg Etext The Crusade of the Excelsior, by Harte
+
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