Thunder of cannon, passionate swell of voices:  the molten silver was about to be poured into the mould.  The crowd hushed and parted.  Down the way made for her came Delfina de Capalleja.  Her black hair hung over her long white gown.  Her body bent under the weight of jewels—­the jewels of generations and the jewels of troth.  Her arms hung at her sides.  In her eyes was the peace of the dead.

She walked to the caldron, and taking a heavy gold chain from her neck flung it into the silver.  It swirled like a snake, then disappeared.  One by one, amidst quivering silence, the magnificent jewels followed the chain.  Then, as she took the last bracelet from her arm, madness possessed the breathless crowd.  The indifferent self-conscious men, the lanquid coquetting women, the fat drowsy old dowagers, all rushed, scrambling and screaming, to the caldron, tore from their heads and bodies the superb jewels and ropes of gold with which they were bedecked, and flung them into the molten mass, which rose like a tide.  The electric current sprang to the people; their baubles sped like hail through the air.  So great was the excitement that a sudden convulsing of the earth was unfelt.  When not a jewel was left to sacrifice, the caldron held enough element for five bells—­the five sweet-voiced bells which rang in the Mission of San Gabriel for more than a century.

Exhausted with shouting, the multitude was silent.  Delfina de Capalleja, who had stood with panting chest and dilating nostrils, turned from the sacrificial caldron, the crowd parting for her again, the Laudate Dominum swelling.  As she reached the cathedral, a man who loved her, noting a change in her face, sprang to her side.  She raised her bewildered eyes to his and thrust out her hands blankly, then fell dead across the threshold.

WHEN THE DEVIL WAS WELL

The Devil locked the copper gates of Hell one night, and sauntered down a Spacian pathway.  The later arrivals from the planet Earth had been of a distressingly commonplace character to his Majesty—­a gentleman of originality and attainments, whatever his disagreements with the conventions.  He was become seriously disturbed about the moral condition of the sensational little twinkler.

“What are my own about?” he thought, as he drifted past planets which yielded up their tributes with monotonous regularity.  “What a squeezed old orange would Earth become did I forsake it!  I must not neglect it so long again; my debt of gratitude is too great.  Let me see.  Where shall I begin?  It is some years since I have visited America in person, and unquestionably she has most need of my attention; Europe is in magnificent running order.  This is a section of her, if my geography does not fail me; but what?  I do not recall it.”