Kit smiled.  “I imagine it would have been bad for any Galdarero who had tried to steal away down the road.  But I expect you know me?”

“We have orders about you, senor; you see a servant of yours,” the rural answered with a bow.  “But it might be better if you told us your plans.”

After giving him a cigarette, Kit sent the sailor to tell the others and when the rurales came up offered them a share of the breakfast his men had cooked.  While they ate he told them what had brought him there and where he was going.

“So the American is dead?  I have seen him at the presidio,” one remarked.  “Well, senor, it would be prudent to finish your business at Salinas to-night.  After that, I do not know.  There has been fighting and some of the president’s soldiers have been killed in the swamps.”

“I must finish the business,” Kit replied.  “It does not matter what happens afterwards.”

The rural nodded.  “The American talked like that.  Quick and short, but what he said went.  However, we will go to Salinas with you when you are ready.”

Kit got up and gave his men an order.  “I am ready now.”

They set off soon afterwards and reached the mission as the light was fading.  Two small, mud buildings and a little church stood among some ruins in an opening, and a frail old man met the party at the gate.  He took off his hat when the sailors put down the coffin, and then listened to Kit’s quiet narrative.

“This poor place is yours; it was a prosperous mission long since,” he said.  “In this country, men no longer build, but plot and destroy—­it is easier than the other.  Now we will put the coffin in the church and then I will give you food.”

Father Herman drew back an old leather curtain and the smell of incense met Kit as he stood at the door while the sailors went forward with their load.  The church was nearly dark, but Kit saw it had some beauty and there were objects that hinted at more prosperous days.  At the other end, a ruby lamp glimmered and a wax candle burned with a clear flame before a statue of the Virgin.  Kit knew whence the candle came and that Hattie Askew had knelt on the stones, beneath it, praying that her husband might get well.  Then he looked at Father Herman, with a doubt in his mind.

The other met his glance and smiled.  “The greatest of these is charity,” he said in Latin, and resumed in fine Castilian:  “He was our benefactor, a man who kept his word, and with such a wife I think our faith was his.  It is a gracious sentiment that they should not be parted.”

“In a sense,” Kit said quietly, “I think they have not been parted yet.  At the last he said, with confidence, he was going to meet his wife.”

“Who knows?” said Father Herman.  “There is much that is dark; but one felt that his spirit reached out after hers.  Well, I knew he would come back; I have long expected him.”