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