Produced by Donald Lainson
LEGENDS AND TALES
By Bret Harte
CONTENTS
THE LEGEND OF MONTE DEL DIABLO
THE ADVENTURE OF PADRE VINCENTIO
THE LEGEND OF DEVIL'S POINT
THE DEVIL AND THE BROKER
THE OGRESS OF SILVER LAND
THE RUINS OF SAN FRANCISCO
A NIGHT AT WINGDAM
LEGENDS AND TALES.
THE LEGEND OF MONTE DEL DIABLO.
The cautious reader will detect a lack of authenticity in the following
pages. I am not a cautious reader myself, yet I confess with some
concern to the absence of much documentary evidence in support of
the singular incident I am about to relate. Disjointed memoranda, the
proceedings of ayuntamientos and early departmental juntas, with other
records of a primitive and superstitious people, have been my inadequate
authorities. It is but just to state, however, that though this
particular story lacks corroboration, in ransacking the Spanish archives
of Upper California I have met with many more surprising and incredible
stories, attested and supported to a degree that would have placed this
legend beyond a cavil or doubt. I have, also, never lost faith in the
legend myself, and in so doing have profited much from the examples
of divers grant-claimants, who have often jostled me in their more
practical researches, and who have my sincere sympathy at the scepticism
of a modern hard-headed and practical world.
For many years after Father Junipero Serro first rang his bell in
the wilderness of Upper California, the spirit which animated that
adventurous priest did not wane. The conversion of the heathen went
on rapidly in the establishment of Missions throughout the land. So
sedulously did the good Fathers set about their work, that around their
isolated chapels there presently arose adobe huts, whose mud-plastered
and savage tenants partook regularly of the provisions, and occasionally
of the Sacrament, of their pious hosts. Nay, so great was their
progress, that one zealous Padre is reported to have administered
the Lord's Supper one Sabbath morning to “over three hundred heathen
Salvages.” It was not to be wondered that the Enemy of Souls, being
greatly incensed thereat, and alarmed at his decreasing popularity,
should have grievously tempted and embarrassed these Holy Fathers, as we
shall presently see.
Yet they were happy, peaceful days for California. The vagrant keels of
prying Commerce had not as yet ruffled the lordly gravity of her bays.
No torn and ragged gulch betrayed the suspicion of golden treasure.
The wild oats drooped idly in the morning heat, or wrestled with the
afternoon breezes. Deer and antelope dotted the plain. The watercourses
brawled in their familiar channels, nor dreamed of ever shifting their
regular tide. The wonders of the Yosemite and Calaveras were as yet
unrecorded. The Holy Fathers noted little of the landscape beyond the
barbaric prodigality with which the quick soil repaid the sowing. A new
conversion, the advent of a Saint's day, or the baptism of an Indian
baby, was at once the chronicle and marvel of their day.
At this blissful epoch there lived at the Mission of San Pablo Father
Jose Antonio Haro, a worthy brother of the Society of Jesus. He was
of tall and cadaverous aspect. A somewhat romantic history had given a
poetic interest to his lugubrious visage. While a youth, pursuing his
studies at famous Salamanca, he had become enamored of the charms
of Dona Carmen de Torrencevara, as that lady passed to her matutinal
devotions. Untoward circumstances, hastened, perhaps, by a wealthier
suitor, brought this amour to a disastrous issue; and Father Jose
entered a monastery, taking upon himself the vows of celibacy. It was
here that his natural fervor and poetic enthusiasm conceived expression
as a missionary. A longing to convert the uncivilized heathen succeeded
his frivolous earthly passion, and a desire to explore and develop
unknown fastnesses continually possessed him. In his flashing eye and
sombre exterior was detected a singular commingling of the discreet Las
Casas and the impetuous Balboa.
Fired by this pious zeal, Father Jose went forward in the van of
Christian pioneers. On reaching Mexico, he obtained authority to
establish the Mission of San Pablo. Like the good Junipero, accompanied
only by an acolyte and muleteer, he unsaddled his mules in a dusky
canyon, and rang his bell in the wilderness. The savages--a peaceful,
inoffensive, and inferior race--presently flocked around him. The
nearest military post was far away, which contributed much to the
security of these pious pilgrims, who found their open trustfulness and
amiability better fitted to repress hostility than the presence of an
armed, suspicious, and brawling soldiery. So the good Father Jose said
matins and prime, mass and vespers, in the heart of Sin and Heathenism,
taking no heed to himself, but looking only to the welfare of the Holy
Church. Conversions soon followed, and, on the 7th of July, 1760, the
first Indian baby was baptized,--an event which, as Father Jose piously
records, “exceeds the richnesse of gold or precious jewels or the
chancing upon the Ophir of Solomon.” I quote this incident as best
suited to show the ingenious blending of poetry and piety which
distinguished Father Jose's record.
The Mission of San Pablo progressed and prospered until the pious
founder thereof, like the infidel Alexander, might have wept that there
were no more heathen worlds to conquer. But his ardent and enthusiastic
spirit could not long brook an idleness that seemed begotten of sin;
and one pleasant August morning, in the year of grace 1770, Father Jose
issued from the outer court of the Mission building, equipped to explore
the field for new missionary labors.
Nothing could exceed the quiet gravity and unpretentiousness of the
little cavalcade. First rode a stout muleteer, leading a pack-mule laden
with the provisions of the party, together with a few cheap crucifixes
and hawks' bells. After him came the devout Padre Jose, bearing his
breviary and cross, with a black serapa thrown around his shoulders;
while on either side trotted a dusky convert, anxious to show a proper
sense of their regeneration by acting as guides into the wilds of their
heathen brethren. Their new condition was agreeably shown by the absence
of the usual mud-plaster, which in their unconverted state they assumed
to keep away vermin and cold. The morning was bright and propitious.
Before their departure, mass had been said in the chapel, and the
protection of St. Ignatius invoked against all contingent evils, but
especially against bears, which, like the fiery dragons of old, seemed
to cherish unconquerable hostility to the Holy Church.
As they wound through the canyon, charming birds disported upon
boughs and sprays, and sober quails piped from the alders; the willowy
water-courses gave a musical utterance, and the long grass whispered on
the hillside. On entering the deeper defiles, above them towered dark
green masses of pine, and occasionally the madrono shook its bright
scarlet berries. As they toiled up many a steep ascent, Father Jose
sometimes picked up fragments of scoria, which spake to his imagination
of direful volcanoes and impending earthquakes. To the less scientific
mind of the muleteer Ignacio they had even a more terrifying
significance; and he once or twice snuffed the air suspiciously, and
declared that it smelt of sulphur. So the first day of their journey
wore away, and at night they encamped without having met a single
heathen face.
It was on this night that the Enemy of Souls appeared to Ignacio in an
appalling form. He had retired to a secluded part of the camp and had
sunk upon his knees in prayerful meditation, when he looked up and
perceived the Arch-Fiend in the likeness of a monstrous bear. The Evil
One was seated on his hind legs immediately before him, with his fore
paws joined together just below his black muzzle. Wisely conceiving this
remarkable attitude to be in mockery and derision of his devotions,
the worthy muleteer was transported with fury. Seizing an arquebuse,
he instantly closed his eyes and fired. When he had recovered from
the effects of the terrific discharge, the apparition had disappeared.
Father Jose, awakened by the report, reached the spot only in time to
chide the muleteer for wasting powder and ball in a contest with one
whom a single ave would have been sufficient to utterly discomfit. What
further reliance he placed on Ignacio's story is not known; but, in
commemoration of a worthy Californian custom, the place was called La
Canada de la Tentacion del Pio Muletero, or “The Glen of the Temptation
of the Pious Muleteer,” a name which it retains to this day.
The next morning the party, issuing from a narrow gorge, came upon a
long valley, sear and burnt with the shadeless heat. Its lower extremity
was lost in a fading line of low hills, which, gathering might and
volume toward the upper end of the valley, upheaved a stupendous bulwark
against the breezy North. The peak of this awful spur was just touched
by a fleecy cloud that shifted to and fro like a banneret. Father Jose
gazed at it with mingled awe and admiration. By a singular coincidence,
the muleteer Ignacio uttered the simple ejaculation “Diablo!”
As they penetrated the valley, they soon began to miss the agreeable
life and companionable echoes of the canyon they had quitted. Huge
fissures in the parched soil seemed to gape as with thirsty mouths. A
few squirrels darted from the earth, and disappeared as mysteriously
before the jingling mules. A gray wolf trotted leisurely along just
ahead. But whichever way Father Jose turned, the mountain always
asserted itself and arrested his wandering eye. Out of the dry and arid
valley, it seemed to spring into cooler and bracing life. Deep cavernous
shadows dwelt along its base; rocky fastnesses appeared midway of its
elevation; and on either side huge black hills diverged like massy roots
from a central trunk. His lively fancy pictured these hills peopled with
a majestic and intelligent race of savages; and looking into futurity,
he already saw a monstrous cross crowning the dome-like summit. Far
different were the sensations of the muleteer, who saw in those awful
solitudes only fiery dragons, colossal bears and break-neck trails.
The converts, Concepcion and Incarnacion, trotting modestly beside the
Padre, recognized, perhaps, some manifestation of their former weird
mythology.
At nightfall they reached the base of the mountain. Here Father Jose
unpacked his mules, said vespers, and, formally ringing his bell, called
upon the Gentiles within hearing to come and accept the Holy Faith.
The echoes of the black frowning hills around him caught up the pious
invitation, and repeated it at intervals; but no Gentiles appeared that
night. Nor were the devotions of the muleteer again disturbed, although
he afterward asserted, that, when the Father's exhortation was ended,
a mocking peal of laughter came from the mountain. Nothing daunted by
these intimations of the near hostility of the Evil One, Father Jose
declared his intention to ascend the mountain at early dawn; and before
the sun rose the next morning he was leading the way.
The ascent was in many places difficult and dangerous. Huge fragments
of rock often lay across the trail, and after a few hours' climbing they
were forced to leave their mules in a little gully, and continue the
ascent afoot. Unaccustomed to such exertion, Father Jose often stopped
to wipe the perspiration from his thin cheeks. As the day wore on, a
strange silence oppressed them. Except the occasional pattering of a
squirrel, or a rustling in the chimisal bushes, there were no signs of
life. The half-human print of a bear's foot sometimes appeared before
them, at which Ignacio always crossed himself piously. The eye was
sometimes cheated by a dripping from the rocks, which on closer
inspection proved to be a resinous oily liquid with an abominable
sulphurous smell. When they were within a short distance of the summit,
the discreet Ignacio, selecting a sheltered nook for the camp, slipped
aside and busied himself in preparations for the evening, leaving
the Holy Father to continue the ascent alone. Never was there a more
thoughtless act of prudence, never a more imprudent piece of caution.
Without noticing the desertion, buried in pious reflection, Father Jose
pushed mechanically on, and, reaching the summit, cast himself down and
gazed upon the prospect.
Below him lay a succession of valleys opening into each other like
gentle lakes, until they were lost to the southward. Westerly the
distant range hid the bosky canada which sheltered the mission of San
Pablo. In the farther distance the Pacific Ocean stretched away, bearing
a cloud of fog upon its bosom, which crept through the entrance of the
bay, and rolled thickly between him and the northeastward; the same fog
hid the base of mountain and the view beyond. Still, from time to time
the fleecy veil parted, and timidly disclosed charming glimpses of
mighty rivers, mountain defiles, and rolling plains, sear with ripened
oats, and bathed in the glow of the setting sun. As Father Jose gazed,
he was penetrated with a pious longing. Already his imagination, filled
with enthusiastic conceptions, beheld all that vast expanse gathered
under the mild sway of the Holy Faith, and peopled with zealous
converts. Each little knoll in fancy became crowned with a chapel; from
each dark canyon gleamed the white walls of a mission building. Growing
bolder in his enthusiasm, and looking farther into futurity, he beheld
a new Spain rising on these savage shores. He already saw the spires
of stately cathedrals, the domes of palaces, vineyards, gardens, and
groves. Convents, half hid among the hills, peeping from plantations of
branching limes; and long processions of chanting nuns wound through the
defiles. So completely was the good Father's conception of the
future confounded with the past, that even in their choral strain the
well-remembered accents of Carmen struck his ear. He was busied in
these fanciful imaginings, when suddenly over that extended prospect
the faint, distant tolling of a bell rang sadly out and died. It was the
Angelus. Father Jose listened with superstitious exaltation. The mission
of San Pablo was far away, and the sound must have been some miraculous
omen. But never before, to his enthusiastic sense, did the sweet
seriousness of this angelic symbol come with such strange significance.
With the last faint peal, his glowing fancy seemed to cool; the fog
closed in below him, and the good Father remembered he had not had his
supper. He had risen and was wrapping his serapa around him, when he
perceived for the first time that he was not alone.
Nearly opposite, and where should have been the faithless Ignacio, a
grave and decorous figure was seated. His appearance was that of an
elderly hidalgo, dressed in mourning, with mustaches of iron-gray
carefully waxed and twisted around a pair of lantern-jaws. The
monstrous hat and prodigious feather, the enormous ruff and exaggerated
trunk-hose, contrasted with a frame shrivelled and wizened, all
belonged to a century previous. Yet Father Jose was not astonished. His
adventurous life and poetic imagination, continually on the lookout
for the marvellous, gave him a certain advantage over the practical and
material minded. He instantly detected the diabolical quality of his
visitant, and was prepared. With equal coolness and courtesy he met the
cavalier's obeisance.
“I ask your pardon, Sir Priest,” said the stranger, “for disturbing
your meditations. Pleasant they must have been, and right fanciful, I
imagine, when occasioned by so fair a prospect.”
“Worldly, perhaps, Sir Devil,--for such I take you to be,” said the Holy
Father, as the stranger bowed his black plumes to the ground; “worldly,
perhaps; for it hath pleased Heaven to retain even in our regenerated
state much that pertaineth to the flesh, yet still, I trust, not without
some speculation for the welfare of the Holy Church. In dwelling upon
yon fair expanse, mine eyes have been graciously opened with prophetic
inspiration, and the promise of the heathen as an inheritance hath
marvellously recurred to me. For there can be none lack such diligence
in the True Faith, but may see that even the conversion of these
pitiful salvages hath a meaning. As the blessed St. Ignatius discreetly
observes,” continued Father Jose, clearing his throat and slightly
elevating his voice, “'the heathen is given to the warriors of Christ,
even as the pearls of rare discovery which gladden the hearts of
shipmen.' Nay, I might say--”
But here the stranger, who had been wrinkling his brows and twisting
his mustaches with well-bred patience, took advantage of an oratorical
pause:--
“It grieves me, Sir Priest, to interrupt the current of your eloquence
as discourteously as I have already broken your meditations; but the day
already waneth to night. I have a matter of serious import to make with
you, could I entreat your cautious consideration a few moments.”
Father Jose hesitated. The temptation was great, and the prospect
of acquiring some knowledge of the Great Enemy's plans not the least
trifling object. And if the truth must be told, there was a certain
decorum about the stranger that interested the Padre. Though well aware
of the Protean shapes the Arch-Fiend could assume, and though free from
the weaknesses of the flesh, Father Jose was not above the temptations
of the spirit. Had the Devil appeared, as in the case of the pious St.
Anthony, in the likeness of a comely damsel, the good Father, with his
certain experience of the deceitful sex, would have whisked her away
in the saying of a paternoster. But there was, added to the security of
age, a grave sadness about the stranger,--a thoughtful consciousness as
of being at a great moral disadvantage,--which at once decided him on a
magnanimous course of conduct.
The stranger then proceeded to inform him, that he had been diligently
observing the Holy Father's triumphs in the valley. That, far from
being greatly exercised thereat, he had been only grieved to see so
enthusiastic and chivalrous an antagonist wasting his zeal in a hopeless
work. For, he observed, the issue of the great battle of Good and Evil
had been otherwise settled, as he would presently show him. “It wants
but a few moments of night,” he continued, “and over this interval of
twilight, as you know, I have been given complete control. Look to the
West.”
As the Padre turned, the stranger took his enormous hat from his head,
and waved it three times before him. At each sweep of the prodigious
feather, the fog grew thinner, until it melted impalpably away, and the
former landscape returned, yet warm with the glowing sun. As Father Jose
gazed, a strain of martial music arose from the valley, and issuing
from a deep canyon, the good Father beheld a long cavalcade of gallant
cavaliers, habited like his companion. As they swept down the plain,
they were joined by like processions, that slowly defiled from every
ravine and canyon of the mysterious mountain. From time to time the peal
of a trumpet swelled fitfully upon the breeze; the cross of Santiago
glittered, and the royal banners of Castile and Aragon waved over the
moving column. So they moved on solemnly toward the sea, where, in the
distance, Father Jose saw stately caravels, bearing the same familiar
banner, awaiting them. The good Padre gazed with conflicting emotions,
and the serious voice of the stranger broke the silence.
“Thou hast beheld, Sir Priest, the fading footprints of adventurous
Castile. Thou hast seen the declining glory of old Spain,--declining as
yonder brilliant sun. The sceptre she hath wrested from the heathen is
fast dropping from her decrepit and fleshless grasp. The children she
hath fostered shall know her no longer. The soil she hath acquired shall
be lost to her as irrevocably as she herself hath thrust the Moor from
her own Granada.”
The stranger paused, and his voice seemed broken by emotion; at the same
time, Father Jose, whose sympathizing heart yearned toward the departing
banners, cried in poignant accents,--
“Farewell, ye gallant cavaliers and Christian soldiers! Farewell, thou,
Nunes de Balboa! thou, Alonzo de Ojeda! and thou, most venerable Las
Casas! Farewell, and may Heaven prosper still the seed ye left behind!”
Then turning to the stranger, Father Jose beheld him gravely draw his
pocket-handkerchief from the basket-hilt of his rapier, and apply it
decorously to his eyes.
“Pardon this weakness, Sir Priest,” said the cavalier, apologetically;
“but these worthy gentlemen were ancient friends of mine, and have
done me many a delicate service,--much more, perchance, than these poor
sables may signify,” he added, with a grim gesture toward the mourning
suit he wore.
Father Jose was too much preoccupied in reflection to notice the
equivocal nature of this tribute, and, after a few moments' silence,
said, as if continuing his thought,--
“But the seed they have planted shall thrive and prosper on this
fruitful soil.”
As if answering the interrogatory, the stranger turned to the opposite
direction, and, again waving his hat, said, in the same serious tone,--
“Look to the East!”
The Father turned, and, as the fog broke away before the waving plume,
he saw that the sun was rising. Issuing with its bright beams through
the passes of the snowy mountains beyond, appeared a strange and motley
crew. Instead of the dark and romantic visages of his last phantom
train, the Father beheld with strange concern the blue eyes and flaxen
hair of a Saxon race. In place of martial airs and musical utterance,
there rose upon the ear a strange din of harsh gutturals and singular
sibilation. Instead of the decorous tread and stately mien of the
cavaliers of the former vision, they came pushing, bustling, panting,
and swaggering. And as they passed, the good Father noticed that giant
trees were prostrated as with the breath of a tornado, and the bowels
of the earth were torn and rent as with a convulsion. And Father Jose
looked in vain for holy cross or Christian symbol; there was but one
that seemed an ensign, and he crossed himself with holy horror as he
perceived it bore the effigy of a bear.
“Who are these swaggering Ishmaelites?” he asked, with something of
asperity in his tone.
The stranger was gravely silent.
“What do they here, with neither cross nor holy symbol?” he again
demanded.
“Have you the courage to see, Sir Priest?” responded the stranger,
quietly.
Father Jose felt his crucifix, as a lonely traveller might his rapier,
and assented.
“Step under the shadow of my plume,” said the stranger.
Father Jose stepped beside him, and they instantly sank through the
earth.
When he opened his eyes, which had remained closed in prayerful
meditation during his rapid descent, he found himself in a vast vault,
bespangled overhead with luminous points like the starred firmament. It
was also lighted by a yellow glow that seemed to proceed from a mighty
sea or lake that occupied the centre of the chamber. Around this
subterranean sea dusky figures flitted, bearing ladles filled with the
yellow fluid, which they had replenished from its depths. From this lake
diverging streams of the same mysterious flood penetrated like mighty
rivers the cavernous distance. As they walked by the banks of this
glittering Styx, Father Jose perceived how the liquid stream at certain
places became solid. The ground was strewn with glittering flakes. One
of these the Padre picked up and curiously examined. It was virgin gold.
An expression of discomfiture overcast the good Father's face at this
discovery; but there was trace neither of malice nor satisfaction in the
stranger's air, which was still of serious and fateful contemplation.
When Father Jose recovered his equanimity, he said, bitterly,--
“This, then, Sir Devil, is your work! This is your deceitful lure for
the weak souls of sinful nations! So would you replace the Christian
grace of holy Spain!”
“This is what must be,” returned the stranger, gloomily. “But listen,
Sir Priest. It lies with you to avert the issue for a time. Leave me
here in peace. Go back to Castile, and take with you your bells, your
images, and your missions. Continue here, and you only precipitate
results. Stay! promise me you will do this, and you shall not lack that
which will render your old age an ornament and a blessing;” and the
stranger motioned significantly to the lake.
It was here, the legend discreetly relates, that the Devil showed--as he
always shows sooner or later--his cloven hoof. The worthy Padre, sorely
perplexed by his threefold vision, and, if the truth must be told,
a little nettled at this wresting away of the glory of holy Spanish
discovery, had shown some hesitation. But the unlucky bribe of the Enemy
of Souls touched his Castilian spirit. Starting back in deep disgust,
he brandished his crucifix in the face of the unmasked Fiend, and in a
voice that made the dusky vault resound, cried,--
“Avaunt thee, Sathanas! Diabolus, I defy thee! What! wouldst thou bribe
me,--me, a brother of the Sacred Society of the Holy Jesus, Licentiate
of Cordova and Inquisitor of Guadalaxara? Thinkest thou to buy me with
thy sordid treasure? Avaunt!”
What might have been the issue of this rupture, and how complete might
have been the triumph of the Holy Father over the Arch-Fiend, who was
recoiling aghast at these sacred titles and the flourishing symbol,
we can never know, for at that moment the crucifix slipped through his
fingers.
Scarcely had it touched the ground before Devil and Holy Father
simultaneously cast themselves toward it. In the struggle they clinched,
and the pious Jose, who was as much the superior of his antagonist in
bodily as in spiritual strength, was about to treat the Great Adversary
to a back somersault, when he suddenly felt the long nails of the
stranger piercing his flesh. A new fear seized his heart, a numbing
chillness crept through his body, and he struggled to free himself, but
in vain. A strange roaring was in his ears; the lake and cavern danced
before his eyes and vanished; and with a loud cry he sank senseless to
the ground.
When he recovered his consciousness he was aware of a gentle swaying
motion of his body. He opened his eyes, and saw it was high noon, and
that he was being carried in a litter through the valley. He felt stiff,
and, looking down, perceived that his arm was tightly bandaged to his
side.
He closed his eyes and after a few words of thankful prayer, thought how
miraculously he had been preserved, and made a vow of candlesticks to
the blessed Saint Jose. He then called in a faint voice, and presently
the penitent Ignacio stood beside him.
The joy the poor fellow felt at his patron's returning consciousness
for some time choked his utterance. He could only ejaculate, “A miracle!
Blessed Saint Jose, he lives!” and kiss the Padre's bandaged hand.
Father Jose, more intent on his last night's experience, waited for his
emotion to subside, and asked where he had been found.
“On the mountain, your Reverence, but a few varas from where he attacked
you.”
“How?--you saw him then?” asked the Padre, in unfeigned astonishment.
“Saw him, your Reverence! Mother of God, I should think I did! And your
Reverence shall see him too, if he ever comes again within range of
Ignacio's arquebuse.”
“What mean you, Ignacio?” said the Padre, sitting bolt-upright in his
litter.
“Why, the bear, your Reverence,--the bear, Holy Father, who attacked
your worshipful person while you were meditating on the top of yonder
mountain.”
“Ah!” said the Holy Father, lying down again. “Chut, child! I would be
at peace.”
When he reached the Mission, he was tenderly cared for, and in a few
weeks was enabled to resume those duties from which, as will be seen,
not even the machinations of the Evil One could divert him. The news
of his physical disaster spread over the country; and a letter to the
Bishop of Guadalaxara contained a confidential and detailed account of
the good Father's spiritual temptation. But in some way the story leaked
out; and long after Jose was gathered to his fathers, his mysterious
encounter formed the theme of thrilling and whispered narrative. The
mountain was generally shunned. It is true that Senor Joaquin Pedrillo
afterward located a grant near the base of the mountain; but as Senora
Pedrillo was known to be a termagant half-breed, the Senor was not
supposed to be over-fastidious.
Such is the Legend of Monte del Diablo. As I said before, it may seem
to lack essential corroboration. The discrepancy between the Father's
narrative and the actual climax has given rise to some scepticism on the
part of ingenious quibblers. All such I would simply refer to that part
of the report of Senor Julio Serro, Sub-Prefect of San Pablo, before
whom attest of the above was made. Touching this matter, the worthy
Prefect observes, “That although the body of Father Jose doth show
evidence of grievous conflict in the flesh, yet that is no proof that
the Enemy of Souls, who could assume the figure of a decorous elderly
caballero, could not at the same time transform himself into a bear for
his own vile purposes.”
THE ADVENTURE OF PADRE VINCENTIO
A LEGEND OF SAN FRANCISCO.
One pleasant New Year's Eve, about forty years ago, Padre Vicentio was
slowly picking his way across the sand-hills from the Mission Dolores.
As he climbed the crest of the ridge beside Mission Creek, his broad,
shining face might have been easily mistaken for the beneficent image of
the rising moon, so bland was its smile and so indefinite its features.
For the Padre was a man of notable reputation and character; his
ministration at the mission of San Jose had been marked with cordiality
and unction; he was adored by the simple-minded savages, and had
succeeded in impressing his individuality so strongly upon them that the
very children were said to have miraculously resembled him in feature.
As the holy man reached the loneliest portion of the road, he naturally
put spurs to his mule as if to quicken that decorous pace which the
obedient animal had acquired through long experience of its master's
habits. The locality had an unfavorable reputation. Sailors--deserters
from whaleships--had been seen lurking about the outskirts of the town,
and low scrub oaks which everywhere beset the trail might have easily
concealed some desperate runaway. Besides these material obstructions,
the devil, whose hostility to the church was well known, was said to
sometimes haunt the vicinity in the likeness of a spectral whaler, who
had met his death in a drunken bout, from a harpoon in the hands of a
companion. The ghost of this unfortunate mariner was frequently observed
sitting on the hill toward the dusk of evening, armed with his favorite
weapon and a tub containing a coil of line, looking out for some belated
traveller on whom to exercise his professional skill. It is related
that the good Father Jose Maria of the Mission Dolores had been twice
attacked by this phantom sportsman; that once, on returning from San
Francisco, and panting with exertion from climbing the hill, he was
startled by a stentorian cry of “There she blows!” quickly followed by
a hurtling harpoon, which buried itself in the sand beside him; that on
another occasion he narrowly escaped destruction, his serapa having
been transfixed by the diabolical harpoon and dragged away in triumph.
Popular opinion seems to have been divided as to the reason for the
devil's particular attention to Father Jose, some asserting that the
extreme piety of the Padre excited the Evil One's animosity, and others
that his adipose tendency simply rendered him, from a professional
view-point, a profitable capture.
Had Father Vicentio been inclined to scoff at this apparition as a
heretical innovation, there was still the story of Concepcion, the
Demon Vaquero, whose terrible riata was fully as potent as the whaler's
harpoon. Concepcion, when in the flesh, had been a celebrated herder of
cattle and wild horses, and was reported to have chased the devil in
the shape of a fleet pinto colt all the way from San Luis Obispo to San
Francisco, vowing not to give up the chase until he had overtaken the
disguised Arch-Enemy. This the devil prevented by resuming his own
shape, but kept the unfortunate vaquero to the fulfilment of his
rash vow; and Concepcion still scoured the coast on a phantom steed,
beguiling the monotony of his eternal pursuit by lassoing travellers,
dragging them at the heels of his unbroken mustang until they were
eventually picked up, half-strangled, by the roadside. The Padre
listened attentively for the tramp of this terrible rider. But no
footfall broke the stillness of the night; even the hoofs of his own
mule sank noiselessly in the shifting sand. Now and then a rabbit
bounded lightly by him, or a quail ran into the bushes. The melancholy
call of plover from the adjoining marshes of Mission Creek came to him
so faintly and fitfully that it seemed almost a recollection of the past
rather than a reality of the present.
To add to his discomposure one of those heavy sea-fogs peculiar to the
locality began to drift across the hills and presently encompassed
him. While endeavoring to evade its cold embraces, Padre Vicentio
incautiously drove his heavy spurs into the flanks of his mule as that
puzzled animal was hesitating on the brink of a steep declivity. Whether
the poor beast was indignant at this novel outrage, or had been for some
time reflecting on the evils of being priest-ridden, has not transpired;
enough that he suddenly threw up his heels, pitching the reverend man
over his head, and, having accomplished this feat, coolly dropped on his
knees and tumbled after his rider.
Over and over went the Padre, closely followed by his faithless mule.
Luckily the little hollow which received the pair was of sand that
yielded to the superincumbent weight, half burying them without further
injury. For some moments the poor man lay motionless, vainly endeavoring
to collect his scattered senses. A hand irreverently laid upon his
collar, and a rough shake, assisted to recall his consciousness. As the
Padre staggered to his feet he found himself confronted by a stranger.
Seen dimly through the fog, and under circumstances that to say the
least were not prepossessing, the new-comer had an inexpressibly
mysterious and brigand-like aspect. A long boat-cloak concealed his
figure, and a slouched hat hid his features, permitting only his eyes
to glisten in the depths. With a deep groan the Padre slipped from the
stranger's grasp and subsided into the soft sand again.
“Gad's life!” said the stranger, pettishly, “hast no more bones in thy
fat carcass than a jellyfish? Lend a hand, here! Yo, heave ho!” and he
dragged the Padre into an upright position. “Now, then, who and what art
thou?”
The Padre could not help thinking that the question might have more
properly been asked by himself; but with an odd mixture of dignity and
trepidation he began enumerating his different titles, which were by no
means brief, and would have been alone sufficient to strike awe in the
bosom of an ordinary adversary. The stranger irreverently broke in upon
his formal phrases, and assuring him that a priest was the very person
he was looking for, coolly replaced the old man's hat, which had tumbled
off, and bade him accompany him at once on an errand of spiritual
counsel to one who was even then lying in extremity. “To think,” said
the stranger, “that I should stumble upon the very man I was seeking!
Body of Bacchus! but this is lucky! Follow me quickly, for there is no
time to lose.”
Like most easy natures the positive assertion of the stranger, and
withal a certain authoritative air of command, overcame what slight
objections the Padre might have feebly nurtured during this remarkable
interview. The spiritual invitation was one, also, that he dared
not refuse; not only that; but it tended somewhat to remove the
superstitious dread with which he had begun to regard the mysterious
stranger. But, following at a respectful distance, the Padre could not
help observing with a thrill of horror that the stranger's footsteps
made no impression on the sand, and his figure seemed at times to blend
and incorporate itself with the fog, until the holy man was obliged to
wait for its reappearance. In one of these intervals of embarrassment he
heard the ringing of the far-off Mission bell, proclaiming the hour of
midnight. Scarcely had the last stroke died away before the announcement
was taken up and repeated by a multitude of bells of all sizes, and
the air was filled with the sound of striking clocks and the pealing of
steeple chimes. The old man uttered a cry of alarm. The stranger sharply
demanded the cause. “The bells! did you not hear them?” gasped Padre
Vicentio. “Tush! tush!” answered the stranger, “thy fall hath set triple
bob-majors ringing in thine ears. Come on!”
The Padre was only too glad to accept the explanation conveyed in
this discourteous answer. But he was destined for another singular
experience. When they had reached the summit of the eminence now known
as Russian Hill, an exclamation again burst from the Padre. The stranger
turned to his companion with an impatient gesture; but the Padre heeded
him not. The view that burst upon his sight was such as might well have
engrossed the attention of a more enthusiastic temperament. The fog
had not yet reached the hill, and the long valleys and hillsides of the
embarcadero below were glittering with the light of a populous
city. “Look!” said the Padre, stretching his hand over the spreading
landscape. “Look, dost thou not see the stately squares and brilliantly
lighted avenues of a mighty metropolis. Dost thou not see, as it were,
another firmament below?”
“Avast heaving, reverend man, and quit this folly,” said the strange;
dragging the bewildered Padre after him. “Behold rather the stars
knocked out of thy hollow noddle by the fall thou hast had. Prithee, get
over thy visions and rhapsodies, for the time is wearing apace.”
The Padre humbly followed without another word. Descending the hill
toward the north, the stranger leading the way, in a few moments the
Padre detected the wash of waves, and presently his feet struck the
firmer sand of the beach. Here the stranger paused, and the Padre
perceived a boat lying in readiness hard by. As he stepped into the
stern sheets, in obedience to the command of his companion, he noticed
that the rowers seemed to partake of the misty incorporeal texture of
his companion, a similarity that became the more distressing when he
perceived also that their oars in pulling together made no noise. The
stranger, assuming the helm, guided the boat on quietly, while the fog,
settling over the face of the water and closing around them, seemed to
interpose a muffled wall between themselves and the rude jarring of
the outer world. As they pushed further into this penetralia, the Padre
listened anxiously for the sound of creaking blocks and the rattling of
cordage, but no vibration broke the veiled stillness or disturbed the
warm breath of the fleecy fog. Only one incident occurred to break the
monotony of their mysterious journey. A one-eyed rower, who sat in front
of the Padre, catching the devout father's eye, immediately grinned
such a ghastly smile, and winked his remaining eye with such diabolical
intensity of meaning that the Padre was constrained to utter a pious
ejaculation, which had the disastrous effect of causing the marine
Cocles to “catch a crab,” throwing his heels in the air and his head
into the bottom of the boat. But even this accident did not disturb the
gravity of the rest of the ghastly boat's crew.
When, as it seemed to the Padre, ten minutes had elapsed, the outline of
a large ship loomed up directly across their bow. Before he could utter
the cry of warning that rose to his lips, or brace himself against the
expected shock, the boat passed gently and noiselessly through the sides
of the vessel, and the holy man found himself standing on the berth deck
of what seemed to be an ancient caravel. The boat and boat's crew had
vanished. Only his mysterious friend, the stranger, remained. By the
light of a swinging lamp the Padre beheld him standing beside a
hammock, whereon, apparently, lay the dying man to whom he had been so
mysteriously summoned. As the Padre, in obedience to a sign from his
companion, stepped to the side of the sufferer, he feebly opened his
eyes and thus addressed him:--
“Thou seest before thee, reverend father, a helpless mortal, struggling
not only with the last agonies of the flesh, but beaten down and tossed
with sore anguish of the spirit. It matters little when or how I became
what thou now seest me. Enough that my life has been ungodly and sinful,
and that my only hope of absolution lies in my imparting to thee a
secret which is of vast importance to the holy Church, and affects
greatly her power, wealth, and dominion on these shores. But the terms
of this secret and the conditions of my absolution are peculiar. I
have but five minutes to live. In that time I must receive the extreme
unction of the Church.”
“And thy secret?” said the holy father.
“Shall be told afterwards,” answered the dying man. “Come, my time is
short. Shrive me quickly.”
The Padre hesitated. “Couldst thou not tell this secret first?”
“Impossible!” said the dying man, with what seemed to the Padre a
momentary gleam of triumph. Then, as his breath grew feebler, he called
impatiently, “Shrive me! shrive me!”
“Let me know at least what this secret concerns?” suggested the Padre,
insinuatingly.
“Shrive me first,” said the dying man.
But the priest still hesitated, parleying with the sufferer until the
ship's bell struck, when, with a triumphant, mocking laugh from the
stranger, the vessel suddenly fell to pieces, amid the rushing of waters
which at once involved the dying man, the priest, and the mysterious
stranger.
The Padre did not recover his consciousness until high noon the next
day, when he found himself lying in a little hollow between the Mission
Hills, and his faithful mule a few paces from him, cropping the sparse
herbage. The Padre made the best of his way home, but wisely abstained
from narrating the facts mentioned above, until after the discovery of
gold, when the whole of this veracious incident was related, with the
assertion of the padre that the secret which was thus mysteriously
snatched from his possession was nothing more than the discovery of
gold, years since, by the runaway sailors from the expedition of Sir
Francis Drake.
THE LEGEND OF DEVIL'S POINT.
On the northerly shore of San Francisco Bay, at a point where the Golden
Gate broadens into the Pacific stands a bluff promontory. It affords
shelter from the prevailing winds to a semicircular bay on the east.
Around this bay the hillside is bleak and barren, but there are traces
of former habitation in a weather-beaten cabin and deserted corral. It
is said that these were originally built by an enterprising squatter,
who for some unaccountable reason abandoned them shortly after. The
“Jumper” who succeeded him disappeared one day, quite as mysteriously.
The third tenant, who seemed to be a man of sanguine, hopeful
temperament, divided the property into building lots, staked off the
hillside, and projected the map of a new metropolis. Failing, however,
to convince the citizens of San Francisco that they had mistaken the
site of their city, he presently fell into dissipation and despondency.
He was frequently observed haunting the narrow strip of beach at low
tide, or perched upon the cliff at high water. In the latter position
a sheep-tender one day found him, cold and pulseless, with a map of his
property in his hand, and his face turned toward the distant sea.
Perhaps these circumstances gave the locality its infelicitous
reputation. Vague rumors were bruited of a supernatural influence that
had been exercised on the tenants. Strange stories were circulated of
the origin of the diabolical title by which the promontory was known. By
some it was believed to be haunted by the spirit of one of Sir Francis
Drake's sailors who had deserted his ship in consequence of stories told
by the Indians of gold discoveries, but who had perished by starvation
on the rocks. A vaquero who had once passed a night in the ruined cabin,
related how a strangely dressed and emaciated figure had knocked at
the door at midnight and demanded food. Other story-tellers, of more
historical accuracy, roundly asserted that Sir Francis himself had
been little better than a pirate, and had chosen this spot to conceal
quantities of ill-gotten booty, taken from neutral bottoms, and had
protected his hiding-place by the orthodox means of hellish incantation
and diabolic agencies. On moonlight nights a shadowy ship was sometimes
seen standing off-and-on, or when fogs encompassed sea and shore the
noise of oars rising and falling in their row-locks could be heard
muffled and indistinctly during the night. Whatever foundation there
might have been for these stories, it was certain that a more weird and
desolate-looking spot could not have been selected for their theatre.
High hills, verdureless and enfiladed with dark canadas, cast their
gaunt shadows on the tide. During a greater portion of the day the wind,
which blew furiously and incessantly, seemed possessed with a spirit of
fierce disquiet and unrest. Toward nightfall the sea-fog crept with
soft step through the portals of the Golden Gate, or stole in noiseless
marches down the hillside, tenderly soothing the wind-buffeted face
of the cliff, until sea and sky were hid together. At such times the
populous city beyond and the nearer settlement seemed removed to an
infinite distance. An immeasurable loneliness settled upon the cliff.
The creaking of a windlass, or the monotonous chant of sailors on
some unseen, outlying ship, came faint and far, and full of mystic
suggestion.
About a year ago a well-to-do middle-aged broker of San Francisco found
himself at nightfall the sole occupant of a “plunger,” encompassed in
a dense fog, and drifting toward the Golden Gate. This unexpected
termination of an afternoon's sail was partly attributable to his want
of nautical skill, and partly to the effect of his usually sanguine
nature. Having given up the guidance of his boat to the wind and tide,
he had trusted too implicitly for that reaction which his business
experience assured him was certain to occur in all affairs, aquatic
as well as terrestrial. “The tide will turn soon,” said the broker,
confidently, “or something will happen.” He had scarcely settled himself
back again in the stern-sheets, before the bow of the plunger, obeying
some mysterious impulse, veered slowly around and a dark object loomed
up before him. A gentle eddy carried the boat further in shore, until
at last it was completely embayed under the lee of a rocky point now
faintly discernible through the fog. He looked around him in the vain
hope of recognizing some familiar headland. The tops of the high hills
which rose on either side were hidden in the fog. As the boat swung
around, he succeeded in fastening a line to the rocks, and sat down
again with a feeling of renewed confidence and security.