When we were again beside the crackling fire, in the shifting shadows

of the great chamber, Altascar told me how he had that morning met the

horse of George Tryan swimming on the prairie; how that, farther on, he

found him lying, quite cold and dead, with no marks or bruises on his

person; that he had probably become exhausted in fording the creek, and

that he had as probably reached the mound only to die for want of that

help he had so freely given to others; that, as a last act, he had freed

his horse. These incidents were corroborated by many who collected

in the great chamber that evening,—women and children,—most of them

succored through the devoted energies of him who lay cold and lifeless

above.

He was buried in the Indian mound,—the single spot of strange perennial

greenness, which the poor aborigines had raised above the dusty plain. A

little slab of sandstone with the initials “G. T.” is his monument,

and one of the bearings of the initial corner of the new survey of the

Espiritu Santo rancho.

WAITING FOR THE SHIP

A FORT POINT IDYL

About an hour’s ride from the Plaza there is a high bluff with the

ocean breaking uninterruptedly along its rocky beach. There are several

cottages on the sands, which look as if they had recently been cast up

by a heavy sea. The cultivated patch behind each tenement is fenced in

by bamboos, broken spars, and driftwood. With its few green cabbages and

turnip-tops, each garden looks something like an aquarium with the water

turned off. In fact you would not be surprised to meet a merman digging

among the potatoes, or a mermaid milking a sea-cow hard by.

Near this place formerly arose a great semaphoric telegraph, with its

gaunt arms tossed up against the horizon. It has been replaced by an

observatory, connected with an electric nerve to the heart of the great

commercial city. From this point the incoming ships are signaled, and

again checked off at the City Exchange. And while we are here, looking

for the expected steamer, let me tell you a story.

Not long ago, a simple, hard-working mechanic had amassed sufficient by

diligent labor in the mines to send home for his wife and two children.

He arrived in San Francisco a month before the time the ship was due,

for he was a Western man, and had made the overland journey, and knew

little of ships or seas or gales. He procured work in the city, but as

the time approached he would go to the shipping office regularly every

day. The month passed, but the ship came not; then a month and a week,

two weeks, three weeks, two months, and then a year. The rough, patient

face, with soft lines overlying its hard features, which had become a

daily apparition at the shipping-agent’s, then disappeared. It turned

up one afternoon at the observatory as the setting sun relieved the

operator from his duties. There was something so childlike and simple

in the few questions asked by this stranger, touching his business, that

the operator spent some time to explain. When the mystery of signals and

telegraphs was unfolded, the stranger had one more question to ask. “How

long might a vessel be absent before they would give up expecting her?”

The operator couldn’t tell; it would depend on circumstances. Would it

be a year? Yes, it might be a year, and vessels had been given up for

lost after two years and had come home. The stranger put his rough hand

on the operator’s, and thanked him for his “troubil,” and went away.

Still the ship came not. Stately clippers swept into the Gate, and

merchantmen went by with colors flying, and the welcoming gun of the

steamer often reverberated among the hills. Then the patient face, with

the old resigned expression, but a brighter, wistful look in the eye,

was regularly met on the crowded decks of the steamer as she disembarked

her living freight. He may have had a dimly defined hope that the

missing ones might yet come this way, as only another road over that

strange unknown expanse. But he talked with ship captains and sailors,

and even this last hope seemed to fail. When the careworn face and

bright eyes were presented again at the observatory, the operator,

busily engaged, could not spare time to answer foolish interrogatories,

so he went away. But as night fell, he was seen sitting on the rocks

with his face turned seaward, and was seated there all that night. When

he became hopelessly insane, for that was what the physicians said made

his eyes so bright and wistful, he was cared for by a fellow craftsman

who had known his troubles. He was allowed to indulge his fancy of going

out to watch for the ship, in which she “and the children” were, at

night, when no one else was watching. He had made up his mind that the

ship would come in at night. This, and the idea that he would relieve

the operator, who would be tired with watching all day, seemed to please

him. So he went out and relieved the operator every night!

For two years the ships came and went. He was there to see the

outward-bound clipper, and greet her on her return. He was known only

by a few who frequented the place. When he was missed at last from his

accustomed spot, a day or two elapsed before any alarm was felt. One

Sunday, a party of pleasure-seekers clambering over the rocks were

attracted by the barking of a dog that had run on before them. When they

came up they found a plainly dressed man lying there dead. There were a

few papers in his pocket,—chiefly slips cut from different journals of

old marine memoranda,—and his face was turned towards the distant sea.

A NIGHT AT WINGDAM

I had been stage-ridden and bewildered all day, and when we swept down

with the darkness into the Arcadian hamlet of Wingdam I resolved to go

no farther, and rolled out in a gloomy and dyspeptic state. The effects

of a mysterious pie, and some sweetened carbonic acid known to the

proprietor of the Half-way House as “lemming sody,” still oppressed

me. Even the facetia of the gallant expressman, who knew everybody’s

Christian name along the route, who rained letters, newspapers, and

bundles from the top of the stage, whose legs frequently appeared in

frightful proximity to the wheels, who got on and off while we were

going at full speed, whose gallantry, energy, and superior knowledge of

travel crushed all us other passengers to envious silence, and who just

then was talking with several persons and manifestly doing something

else at the same time,—even this had failed to interest me. So I stood

gloomily, clutching my shawl and carpetbag, and watched the stage roll

away, taking a parting look at the gallant expressman as he hung on

the top rail with one leg, and lit his cigar from the pipe of a running

footman. I then turned toward the Wingdam Temperance Hotel.

It may have been the weather, or it may have been the pie, but I was not

impressed favorably with the house. Perhaps it was the name extending

the whole length of the building, with a letter under each window,

making the people who looked out dreadfully conspicuous. Perhaps it was

that “Temperance” always suggested to my mind rusks and weak tea. It was

uninviting. It might have been called the “Total Abstinence” Hotel,

from the lack of anything to intoxicate or inthrall the senses. It was

designed with an eye to artistic dreariness. It was so much too large

for the settlement that it appeared to be a very slight improvement

on outdoors. It was unpleasantly new. There was the forest flavor of

dampness about it, and a slight spicing of pine. Nature outraged,

but not entirely subdued, sometimes broke out afresh in little round,

sticky, resinous tears on the doors and windows. It seemed to me that

boarding there must seem like a perpetual picnic. As I entered the door,

a number of the regular boarders rushed out of a long room, and set

about trying to get the taste of something out of their mouths, by

the application of tobacco in various forms. A few immediately ranged

themselves around the fireplace, with their legs over each other’s

chairs, and in that position silently resigned themselves to

indigestion. Remembering the pie, I waived the invitation of the

landlord to supper, but suffered myself to be conducted into the

sitting-room. “Mine host” was a magnificent-looking, heavily bearded

specimen of the animal man. He reminded me of somebody or something

connected with the drama. I was sitting beside the fire, mutely

wondering what it could be, and trying to follow the particular chord

of memory thus touched into the intricate past, when a little

delicate-looking woman appeared at the door, and, leaning heavily

against the casing, said in an exhausted tone, “Husband!” As the

landlord turned toward her, that particular remembrance flashed before

me in a single line of blank verse. It was this: “Two souls with but one

single thought, two hearts that beat as one.”

It was Ingomar and Parthenia his wife. I imagined a different denouement

from the play. Ingomar had taken Parthenia back to the mountains, and

kept a hotel for the benefit of the Alemanni, who resorted there in

large numbers. Poor Parthenia was pretty well fagged out, and did all

the work without “help.” She had two “young barbarians,” a boy and a

girl. She was faded, but still good-looking.

I sat and talked with Ingomar, who seemed perfectly at home, and told

me several stories of the Alemanni, all bearing a strong flavor of

the wilderness, and being perfectly in keeping with the house. How he,

Ingomar, had killed a certain dreadful “b’ar,” whose skin was just up

“yar,” over his bed. How he, Ingomar, had killed several “bucks,” whose

skins had been prettily fringed and embroidered by Parthenia, and even

now clothed him. How he, Ingomar, had killed several “Injins,” and was

once nearly scalped himself. All this with that ingenious candor which

is perfectly justifiable in a barbarian, but which a Greek might feel

inclined to look upon as “blowing.” Thinking of the wearied Parthenia, I

began to consider for the first time that perhaps she had better married

the old Greek. Then she would at least have always looked neat. Then she

would not have worn a woolen dress flavored with all the dinners of the

past year. Then she would not have been obliged to wait on the table

with her hair half down. Then the two children would not have hung about

her skirts with dirty fingers, palpably dragging her down day by day. I

suppose it was the pie which put such heartless and improper ideas in

my head, and so I rose up and told Ingomar I believed I’d go to bed.

Preceded by that redoubtable barbarian and a flaring tallow candle, I

followed him upstairs to my room. It was the only single room he had,

he told me; he had built it for the convenience of married parties who

might stop here, but, that event not happening yet, he had left it half

furnished. It had cloth on one side, and large cracks on the other. The

wind, which always swept over Wingdam at night-time, puffed through the

apartment from different apertures. The window was too small for the

hole in the side of the house where it hung, and rattled noisily.

Everything looked cheerless and dispiriting. Before Ingomar left me,

he brought that “b’arskin,” and throwing it over the solemn bier which

stood in one corner, told me he reckoned that would keep me warm, and

then bade me good-night. I undressed myself, the light blowing out in

the middle of that ceremony, crawled under the “b’arskin,” and tried to

compose myself to sleep.

But I was staringly wide awake. I heard the wind sweep down the

mountain-side, and toss the branches of the melancholy pine, and then

enter the house, and try all the doors along the passage. Sometimes

strong currents of air blew my hair all over the pillow, as with strange

whispering breaths. The green timber along the walls seemed to be

sprouting, and sent a dampness even through the “b’arskin.” I felt like

Robinson Crusoe in his tree, with the ladder pulled up,—or like the

rocked baby of the nursery song. After lying awake half an hour, I

regretted having stopped at Wingdam; at the end of the third quarter, I

wished I had not gone to bed; and when a restless hour passed, I got up

and dressed myself. There had been a fire down in the big room. Perhaps

it was still burning. I opened the door and groped my way along the

passage, vocal with the snores of the Alemanni and the whistling of the

night wind; I partly fell downstairs, and at last entering the big room,

saw the fire still burning. I drew a chair toward it, poked it with

my foot, and was astonished to see, by the upspringing flash, that

Parthenia was sitting there also, holding a faded-looking baby.

I asked her why she was sitting up.

“She did not go to bed on Wednesday night before the mail arrived, and

then she awoke her husband, and there were passengers to ’tend to.”

“Did she not get tired sometimes?”

“A little, but Abner” (the barbarian’s Christian name) “had

promised to get her more help next spring, if business was good.”

“How many boarders had she?”

“She believed about forty came to regular meals, and there was transient

custom, which was as much as she and her husband could ’tend to. But

_he_ did a great deal of work.”

“What work?”

“Oh, bringing in the wood, and looking after the traders’ things.”

“How long had she been married?”

“About nine years. She had lost a little girl and boy. Three children

living. _He_ was from Illinois. She from Boston. Had an education

(Boston Female High School,—Geometry, Algebra, a little Latin and

Greek). Mother and father died. Came to Illinois alone, to teach school.

Saw _him_—yes—a love match.” (“Two souls,” etc., etc.) “Married and

emigrated to Kansas. Thence across the Plains to California. Always on

the outskirts of civilization. _He_ liked it.

“She might sometimes have wished to go home. Would like to on account

of her children. Would like to give them an education. Had taught them

a little herself, but couldn’t do much on account of other work. Hoped

that the boy would be like his father, strong and hearty. Was fearful

the girl would be more like her. Had often thought she was not fit for a

pioneer’s wife.”

“Why?”

“Oh, she was not strong enough, and had seen some of his friends’ wives

in Kansas who could do more work. But he never complained,—he was so

kind.” (“Two souls,” etc.)

Sitting there with her head leaning pensively on one hand, holding the

poor, wearied, and limp-looking baby wearily on the other arm, dirty,

drabbled, and forlorn, with the firelight playing upon her features no

longer fresh or young, but still refined and delicate, and even in her

grotesque slovenliness still bearing a faint reminiscence of birth and

breeding, it was not to be wondered that I did not fall into excessive

raptures over the barbarian’s kindness. Emboldened by my sympathy, she

told me how she had given up, little by little, what she imagined to be

the weakness of her early education, until she found that she acquired

but little strength in her new experience. How, translated to a

backwoods society, she was hated by the women, and called proud and

“fine,” and how her dear husband lost popularity on that account with

his fellows. How, led partly by his roving instincts, and partly from

other circumstances, he started with her to California. An account of

that tedious journey. How it was a dreary, dreary waste in her memory,

only a blank plain marked by a little cairn of stones,—a child’s

grave. How she had noticed that little Willie failed. How she had called

Abner’s attention to it, but, man-like, he knew nothing about children,

and pooh-poohed it, and was worried by the stock. How it happened that

after they had passed Sweetwater she was walking beside the wagon one

night, and looking at the western sky, and she heard a little voice say

“Mother.” How she looked into the wagon and saw that little Willie was

sleeping comfortably and did not wish to wake him. How that in a few

moments more she heard the same voice saying “Mother.” How she came

back to the wagon and leaned down over him, and felt his breath upon her

face, and again covered him up tenderly, and once more resumed her weary

journey beside him, praying to God for his recovery. How with her face

turned to the sky she heard the same voice saying “Mother,” and directly

a great bright star shot away from its brethren and expired. And how

she knew what had happened, and ran to the wagon again only to pillow

a little pinched and cold white face upon her weary bosom. The thin red

hands went up to her eyes here, and for a few moments she sat still. The

wind tore round the house and made a frantic rush at the front door, and

from his couch of skins in the inner room Ingomar, the barbarian, snored

peacefully.

“Of course she always found a protector from insult and outrage in the

great courage and strength of her husband?”

“Oh, yes; when Ingomar was with her she feared nothing. But she was

nervous and had been frightened once!”

“How?”

“They had just arrived in California. They kept house then, and had

to sell liquor to traders. Ingomar was hospitable, and drank with

everybody, for the sake of popularity and business, and Ingomar got to

like liquor, and was easily affected by it. And how one night there was

a boisterous crowd in the bar-room; she went in and tried to get him

away, but only succeeded in awakening the coarse gallantry of the

half-crazed revelers. And how, when she had at last got him in the room

with her frightened children, he sank down on the bed in a stupor, which

made her think the liquor was drugged. And how she sat beside him all

night, and near morning heard a step in the passage, and, looking toward

the door, saw the latch slowly moving up and down, as if somebody were

trying it. And how she shook her husband, and tried to waken him, but

without effect. And how at last the door yielded slowly at the top (it

was bolted below), as if by a gradual pressure without; and how a hand

protruded through the opening. And how as quick as lightning she nailed

that hand to the wall with her scissors (her only weapon), but the point

broke, and somebody got away with a fearful oath. How she never told her

husband of it, for fear he would kill that somebody; but how on one day

a stranger called here, and as she was handing him his coffee, she saw

a queer triangular scar on the back of his hand.” She was still talking,

and the wind was still blowing, and Ingomar was still snoring from his

couch of skins, when there was a shout high up the straggling street,

and a clattering of hoofs and rattling of wheels. The mail had arrived.

Parthenia ran with the faded baby to awaken Ingomar, and almost

simultaneously the gallant expressman stood again before me, addressing

me by my Christian name, and invited me to drink out of a mysterious

black bottle. The horses were speedily watered, and the business of the

gallant expressman concluded, and, bidding Parthenia good by, I got

on the stage, and immediately fell asleep, and dreamt of calling on

Parthenia and Ingomar, and being treated with pie to an unlimited

extent, until I woke up the next morning in Sacramento. I have some

doubts as to whether all this was not a dyspeptic dream, but I never

witness the drama, and hear that noble sentiment concerning “Two souls,”

etc., without thinking of Wingdam and poor Parthenia.

* * * * *

SPANISH AND AMERICAN LEGENDS

* * * * *

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 skepticism

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

canon, 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 his regeneration by acting as guide into the wilds of his

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 canon, charming birds disported upon boughs

and sprays, and sober quails piped from the alders; the willowy

watercourses 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 arquebus,

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 canon 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 jingly 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 breakneck 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 the 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

canon 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 denies. 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 round a pair of lantern-jaws. The

monstrous hat and prodigious feather, the enormous ruff and exaggerated

trunk-hose, contrasted with a frame shriveled and wizened, all

belonged to a century previous. Yet Father Jose was not astonished. His

adventurous life and poetic imagination, continually on the look-out

for the marvelous, 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

marvelously 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 canon 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 canon 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,

Juries 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 traveler 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 this 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 hack 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! Diaholus, 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 nourishing 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 arquebus.”

“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 skepticism 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 RIGHT EYE OF THE COMMANDER

The year of grace 1797 passed away on the coast of California in a

southwesterly gale. The little bay of San Carlos, albeit sheltered by

the headlands of the Blessed Trinity, was rough and turbulent; its foam

clung quivering to the seaward wall of the mission garden; the air

was filled with flying sand and spume, and as the Senor Comandante,

Hermenegildo Salvatierra, looked from the deep embrasured window of the

presidio guardroom, he felt the salt breath of the distant sea buffet a

color into his smoke-dried cheeks.

The commander, I have said, was gazing thoughtfully from the window of

the guardroom. He may have been reviewing the events of the year now

about to pass away. But, like the garrison at the Presidio, there

was little to review. The year, like its predecessors, had been

uneventful,—the days had slipped by in a delicious monotony of simple

duties, unbroken by incident or interruption. The regularly recurring

feasts and saints’ days, the half-yearly courier from San Diego, the

rare transport-ship and rarer foreign vessel, were the mere details of

his patriarchal life. If there was no achievement, there was certainly

no failure. Abundant harvests and patient industry amply supplied the

wants of presidio and mission. Isolated from the family of nations,

the wars which shook the world concerned them not so much as the last

earthquake; the struggle that emancipated their sister colonies on the

other side of the continent to them had no suggestiveness. In short, it

was that glorious Indian summer of Californian history around which

so much poetical haze still lingers,—that bland, indolent autumn of

Spanish rule, so soon to be followed by the wintry storms of Mexican

independence and the reviving spring of American conquest.

The commander turned from the window and walked toward the fire that

burned brightly on the deep oven-like hearth. A pile of copy-books, the

work of the presidio school, lay on the table. As he turned over the

leaves with a paternal interest, and surveyed the fair round Scripture

text,—the first pious pothooks of the pupils of San Carlos, an audible

commentary fell from his lips: “‘Abimelech took her from Abraham’—ah,

little one, excellent!—‘Jacob sent to see his brother’—body of Christ!

that upstroke of thine, Paquita, is marvelous; the governor shall see

it!” A film of honest pride dimmed the commander’s left eye,—the right,

alas! twenty years before had been sealed by an Indian arrow. He rubbed

it softly with the sleeve of his leather jacket, and continued: “‘The

Ishmaelites having arrived’”—

He stopped, for there was a step in the courtyard, a foot upon the

threshold, and a stranger entered. With the instinct of an old soldier,

the commander, after one glance at the intruder, turned quickly toward

the wall, where his trusty Toledo hung, or should have been hanging. But

it was not there, and as he recalled that the last time he had seen that

weapon it was being ridden up and down the gallery by Pepito, the infant

son of Bautista, the tortilio-maker, he blushed, and then contented

himself with frowning upon the intruder.

But the stranger’s air, though irreverent, was decidedly peaceful. He

was unarmed, and wore the ordinary cape of tarpaulin and sea-boots of

a mariner. Except a villainous smell of codfish, there was little about

him that was peculiar.

His name, as he informed the commander in Spanish that was more fluent

than elegant or precise,—his name was Peleg Scudder. He was master of

the schooner General Court, of the port of Salem, in Massachusetts, on

a trading voyage to the South Seas, but now driven by stress of weather

into the bay of San Carlos. He begged permission to ride out the gale

under the headlands of the Blessed Trinity, and no more. Water he

did not need, having taken in a supply at Bodega. He knew the strict

surveillance of the Spanish port regulations in regard to foreign

vessels, and would do nothing against the severe discipline and good

order of the settlement. There was a slight tinge of sarcasm in his tone

as he glanced toward the desolate parade ground of the presidio and the

open unguarded gate. The fact was that the sentry, Felipe Gomez, had

discreetly retired to shelter at the beginning of the storm, and was

then sound asleep in the corridor.

The commander hesitated. The port regulations were severe, but he was

accustomed to exercise individual authority, and beyond an old order

issued ten years before, regarding the American ship Columbia, there

was no precedent to guide him. The storm was severe, and a sentiment of

humanity urged him to grant the stranger’s request. It is but just to

the commander to say that his inability to enforce a refusal did not

weigh with his decision. He would have denied with equal disregard of

consequences that right to a seventy-four-gun ship which he now yielded

so gracefully to this Yankee trading schooner. He stipulated only

that there should be no communication between the ship and shore. “For

yourself, Senor Captain,” he continued, “accept my hospitality. The

fort is yours as long as you shall grace it with your distinguished

presence,” and with old-fashioned courtesy he made the semblance of

withdrawing from the guardroom.

Master Peleg Scudder smiled as he thought of the half-dismantled fort,

the two mouldy brass cannon, cast in Manila a century previous, and the

shiftless garrison. A wild thought of accepting the commander’s offer

literally, conceived in the reckless spirit of a man who never let

slip an offer for trade, for a moment filled his brain, but a timely

reflection of the commercial unimportance of the transaction checked

him. He only took a capacious quid of tobacco, as the commander gravely

drew a settle before the fire, and in honor of his guest untied the

black silk handkerchief that bound his grizzled brows.

What passed between Salvatierra and his guest that night it becomes me

not, as a grave chronicler of the salient points of history, to relate.

I have said that Master Peleg Scudder was a fluent talker, and under

the influence of divers strong waters, furnished by his host, he became

still more loquacious. And think of a man with a twenty years’ budget

of gossip! The commander learned, for the first time, how Great Britain

lost her colonies; of the French Revolution; of the great Napoleon,

whose achievements, perhaps, Peleg colored more highly than the

commander’s superiors would have liked. And when Peleg turned

questioner, the commander was at his mercy. He gradually made himself

master of the gossip of the mission and presidio, the “small beer”

chronicles of that pastoral age, the conversion of the heathen, the

presidio schools, and even asked the commander how he had lost his eye.

It is said that at this point of the conversation Master Peleg produced

from about his person divers small trinkets, kickshaws and new-fangled

trifles, and even forced some of them upon his host. It is further

alleged that under the malign influence of Peleg and several glasses of

aguardiente the commander lost somewhat of his decorum, and behaved in

a manner unseemly for one in his position, reciting high-flown Spanish

poetry, and even piping in a thin high voice divers madrigals and

heathen canzonets of an amorous complexion, chiefly in regard to a

“little one” who was his, the commander’s, “soul.” These allegations,

perhaps unworthy the notice of a serious chronicler, should be received

with great caution, and are introduced here as simple hearsay. That the

commander, however, took a handkerchief and attempted to show his guest

the mysteries of the sembi cuacua, capering in an agile but indecorous

manner about the apartment, has been denied. Enough for the purposes

of this narrative, that at midnight Peleg assisted his host to bed with

many protestations of undying friendship, and then, as the gale had

abated, took his leave of the presidio, and hurried aboard the General

Court. When the day broke the ship was gone.

I know not if Peleg kept his word with his host. It is said that the

holy Fathers at the mission that night heard a loud chanting in the

plaza, as of the heathens singing psalms through their noses; that for

many days after an odor of salt codfish prevailed in the settlement;

that a dozen hard nutmegs, which were unfit for spice or seed, were

found in the possession of the wife of the baker, and that several

bushels of shoe-pegs, which bore a pleasing resemblance to oats, but

were quite inadequate to the purposes of provender, were discovered in

the stable of the blacksmith.

But when the reader reflects upon the sacredness of a Yankee trader’s

word, the stringent discipline of the Spanish port regulations, and the

proverbial indisposition of my countrymen to impose upon the confidence

of a simple people, he will at once reject this part of the story.

A roll of drums, ushering in the year 1798, awoke the commander. The sun

was shining brightly, and the storm had ceased. He sat up in bed, and

through the force of habit rubbed his left eye. As the remembrance of

the previous night came back to him, he jumped from his couch and ran

to the window. There was no ship in the bay. A sudden thought seemed to

strike him, and he rubbed both of his eyes. Not content with this, he

consulted the metallic mirror which hung beside his crucifix. There was

no mistake; the commander had a visible second eye,—a right one,—as

good, save for the purposes of vision, as the left.

Whatever might have been the true secret of this transformation, but

one opinion prevailed at San Carlos. It was one of those rare miracles

vouchsafed a pious Catholic community as an evidence to the heathen,

through the intercession of the blessed San Carlos himself. That their

beloved commander, the temporal defender of the Faith, should be the

recipient of this miraculous manifestation was most fit and seemly. The

commander himself was reticent; he could not tell a falsehood,—he dared

not tell the truth. After all, if the good folk of San Carlos believed

that the powers of his right eye were actually restored, was it wise and

discreet for him to undeceive them? For the first time in his life the

commander thought of policy,—for the first time he quoted that text

which has been the lure of so many well-meaning but easy Christians, of

being “all things to all men.” Infeliz Hermenegildo Salvatierra!

For by degrees an ominous whisper crept through the little settlement.

The right eye of the commander, although miraculous, seemed to exercise

a baleful effect upon the beholder. No one could look at it without

winking. It was cold, hard, relentless, and unflinching. More than that,

it seemed to be endowed with a dreadful prescience,—a faculty of seeing

through and into the inarticulate thoughts of those it looked upon. The

soldiers of the garrison obeyed the eye rather than the voice of their

commander, and answered his glance rather than his lips in questioning.

The servants could not evade the ever-watchful but cold attention that

seemed to pursue them. The children of the presidio school smirched

their copy-books under the awful supervision, and poor Paquita, the

prize pupil, failed utterly in that marvelous up-stroke when her patron

stood beside her. Gradually distrust, suspicion, self-accusation, and

timidity took the place of trust, confidence, and security throughout

San Carlos. Wherever the right eye of the commander fell, a shadow fell

with it.

Not was Salvatierra entirely free from the baleful influence of his

miraculous acquisition. Unconscious of its effect upon others, he only

saw in their actions evidence of certain things that the crafty Peleg

had hinted on that eventful New Year’s eve. His most trusty retainers

stammered, blushed, and faltered before him. Self-accusations,

confessions of minor faults and delinquencies, or extravagant excuses

and apologies met his mildest inquiries. The very children that he

loved—his pet pupil, Paquita—seemed to be conscious of some hidden

sin. The result of this constant irritation showed itself more plainly.

For the first half-year the commander’s voice and eye were at variance.

He was still kind, tender, and thoughtful in speech. Gradually, however,

his voice took upon itself the hardness of his glance and its skeptical,

impassive quality, and as the year again neared its close it was plain

that the commander had fitted himself to the eye, and not the eye to the

commander.

It may be surmised that these changes did not escape the watchful

solicitude of the Fathers. Indeed, the few who were first to ascribe the

right eye of Salvatierra to miraculous origin and the special grace of

the blessed San Carlos, now talked openly of witchcraft and the agency

of Luzbel, the evil one. It would have fared ill with Hermenegildo

Salvatierra had he been aught but commander or amenable to local

authority. But the reverend Father, Friar Manuel de Cortes, had no

power over the political executive, and all attempts at spiritual

advice failed signally. He retired baffled and confused from his first

interview with the commander, who seemed now to take a grim satisfaction

in the fateful power of his glance. The holy Father contradicted

himself, exposed the fallacies of his own arguments, and even, it is

asserted, committed himself to several undoubted heresies. When the

commander stood up at mass, if the officiating priest caught that

skeptical and searching eye, the service was inevitably ruined. Even the

power of the Holy Church seemed to be lost, and the last hold upon the

affections of the people and the good order of the settlement departed

from San Carlos.

As the long dry summer passed, the low hills that surrounded the white

walls of the presidio grew more and more to resemble in hue the leathern

jacket of the commander, and Nature herself seemed to have borrowed his

dry, hard glare. The earth was cracked and seamed with drought; a blight

had fallen upon the orchards and vineyards, and the rain, long delayed

and ardently prayed for, came not. The sky was as tearless as the

right eye of the commander. Murmurs of discontent, insubordination, and

plotting among the Indians reached his ear; he only set his teeth the

more firmly, tightened the knot of his black silk handkerchief, and

looked up his Toledo.

The last day of the year 1798 found the commander sitting, at the hour

of evening prayers, alone in the guardroom. He no longer attended

the services of the Holy Church, but crept away at such times to some

solitary spot, where he spent the interval in silent meditation. The

firelight played upon the low beams and rafters, but left the bowed

figure of Salvatierra in darkness. Sitting thus, he felt a small hand

touch his arm, and, looking down, saw the figure of Paquita, his little

Indian pupil, at his knee. “Ah! littlest of all,” said the commander,

with something of his old tenderness, lingering over the endearing

diminutives of his native speech,—“sweet one, what doest thou here?

Art thou not afraid of him whom every one shuns and fears?”

“No,” said the little Indian readily, “not in the dark. I hear your

voice,—the old voice; I feel your touch,—the old touch; but I see not

your eye, Senor Comandante. That only I fear,—and that, O senor, O my

father,” said the child, lifting her little arms towards his,—“that I

know is not thine own!”

The commander shuddered and turned away. Then, recovering himself, he

kissed Paquita gravely on the forehead and bade her retire. A few hours

later, when silence had fallen upon the presidio, he sought his own

couch and slept peacefully.

At about the middle watch of the night a dusky figure crept through the

low embrasure of the commander’s apartment. Other figures were flitting

through the parade-ground, which the commander might have seen had he

not slept so quietly. The intruder stepped noiselessly to the couch and

listened to the sleeper’s deep-drawn respiration. Something glittered in

the firelight as the savage lifted his arm; another moment and the sore

perplexities of Hermenegildo Salvatierra would have been over, when

suddenly the savage started and fell back in a paroxysm of terror. The

commander slept peacefully, but his right eye, widely opened, fixed and

unaltered, glared coldly on the would-be assassin. The man fell to the

earth in a fit, and the noise awoke the sleeper.

To rise to his feet, grasp his sword, and deal blows thick and fast

upon the mutinous savages who now thronged the room, was the work of

a moment. Help opportunely arrived, and the undisciplined Indians were

speedily driven beyond the walls; but in the scuffle the commander

received a blow upon his right eye, and, lifting his hand to that

mysterious organ, it was gone. Never again was it found, and never

again, for bale or bliss, did it adorn the right orbit of the commander.

With it passed away the spell that had fallen upon San Carlos. The rain

returned to invigorate the languid soil, harmony was restored between

priest and soldier, the green grass presently waved over the sere

hillsides, the children flocked again to the side of their martial

preceptor, a Te Deum was sung in the mission church, and pastoral

content once more smiled upon the gentle valleys of San Carlos. And

far southward crept the General Court with its master. Peleg Scudder,

trafficking in heads and peltries with the Indians, and offering glass

eyes, wooden legs, and other Boston notions to the chiefs.

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 rowlocks 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 farther 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.

It was very cold. The insidious fog penetrated his tightly buttoned

coat, and set his teeth to chattering in spite of the aid he sometimes

drew from a pocket-flask. His clothes were wet, and the stern-sheets

were covered with spray. The comforts of fire and shelter continually

rose before his fancy as he gazed wistfully on the rocks. In sheer

despair he finally drew the boat toward the most accessible part of the

cliff and essayed to ascend. This was less difficult than it appeared,

and in a few moments he had gained the hill above. A dark object at a

little distance attracted his attention, and on approaching it proved

to be a deserted cabin. The story goes on to say that, having built a

roaring fire of stakes pulled from the adjoining corral, with the aid

of a flask of excellent brandy, he managed to pass the early part of the

evening with comparative comfort. There was no door in the cabin, and

the windows were simply square openings, which freely admitted the

searching fog. But in spite of these discomforts,—being a man of

cheerful, sanguine temperament,—he amused himself by poking the fire

and watching the ruddy glow which the flames threw on the fog from the

open door. In this innocent occupation a great weariness overcame him,

and he fell asleep.

He was awakened at midnight by a loud “halloo,” which seemed to proceed

directly from the sea. Thinking it might be the cry of some boatman lost

in the fog, he walked to the edge of the cliff, but the thick veil that

covered sea and land rendered all objects at the distance of a few feet

indistinguishable. He heard, however, the regular strokes of oars rising

and falling on the water. The halloo was repeated. He was clearing his

throat to reply, when to his surprise an answer came apparently from the

very cabin he had quitted. Hastily retracing his steps, he was the more

amazed, on reaching the open door, to find a stranger warming himself by

the fire. Stepping back far enough to conceal his own person, he took a

good look at the intruder.

He was a man of about forty, with a cadaverous face. But the oddity

of his dress attracted the broker’s attention more than his lugubrious

physiognomy. His legs were hid in enormously wide trousers descending

to his knee, where they met long boots of sealskin. A pea-jacket with

exaggerated cuffs, almost as large as the breeches, covered his chest,

and around his waist a monstrous belt, with a buckle like a dentist’s

sign, supported two trumpet-mouthed pistols and a curved hanger. He wore

a long queue, which depended halfway down his back. As the firelight

fell on his ingenuous countenance the broker observed with some concern

that this queue was formed entirely of a kind of tobacco known as

pigtail or twist. Its effect, the broker remarked, was much heightened

when in a moment of thoughtful abstraction the apparition bit off a

portion of it and rolled it as a quid into the cavernous recesses of his

jaws.

Meanwhile the nearer splash of oars indicated the approach of the unseen

boat. The broker had barely time to conceal himself behind the cabin

before a number of uncouth-looking figures clambered up the hill toward

the ruined rendezvous. They were dressed like the previous comer, who,

as they passed through the open door, exchanged greetings with each in

antique phraseology, bestowing at the same time some familiar nickname.

Flash-in-the-Pan, Spitter-of-Frogs, Malmsey Butt, Latheyard Will, and

Mark-the-Pinker, were the few sobriquets the broker remembered. Whether

these titles were given to express some peculiarity of their owner he

could not tell, for a silence followed as they slowly ranged themselves

upon the floor of the cabin in a semicircle around their cadaverous

host.

At length Malmsey Butt, a spherical-bodied man-of-war’s-man, with

a rubicund nose, got on his legs somewhat unsteadily, and addressed

himself to the company. They had met that evening, said the speaker, in

accordance with a time-honored custom. This was simply to relieve that

one of their number who for fifty years had kept watch and ward over

the locality where certain treasures had been buried. At this point the

broker pricked up his ears. “If so be, camarados and brothers all,”

he continued, “ye are ready to receive the report of our excellent and

well-beloved brother, Master Slit-the-Weazand, touching his search for

this treasure, why, marry, to ’t and begin.”

A murmur of assent went around the circle as the speaker resumed his

seat. Master Slit-the-Weazand slowly opened his lantern jaws and began.

He had spent much of his time in determining the exact location of the

treasure. He believed—nay, he could state positively—that its position

was now settled. It was true he had done some trifling little business

outside. Modesty forbade his mentioning the particulars, but he would

simply state that of the three tenants who had occupied the cabin during

the past ten years, none were now alive. [Applause, and cries of “Go to!

thou wast always a tall fellow!” and the like.]

Mark-the-Pinker next arose. Before proceeding to business he had a duty

to perform in the sacred name of friendship. It ill became him to pass

a eulogy upon the qualities of the speaker who had preceded him, for

he had known him from “boyhood’s hour.” Side by side they had wrought

together in the Spanish war. For a neat hand with a Toledo he challenged

his equal, while how nobly and beautifully he had won his present title

of Slit-the-Weazand all could testify. The speaker, with some show of

emotion, asked to be pardoned if he dwelt too freely on passages of

their early companionship; he then detailed, with a fine touch of

humor, his comrade’s peculiar manner of slitting the ears and lips of a

refractory Jew who had been captured in one of their previous voyages.

He would not weary the patience of his hearers, but would briefly

propose that the report of Slit-the-Weazand be accepted, and that the

thanks of the company be tendered him.

A breaker of strong spirits was then rolled into the hut, and cans

of grog were circulated freely from hand to hand. The health of

Slit-the-Weazand was proposed in a neat speech by Mark-the-Pinker, and

responded to by the former gentleman in a manner that drew tears to the

eyes of all present. To the broker, in his concealment, this momentary

diversion from the real business of the meeting occasioned much anxiety.

As yet nothing had been said to indicate the exact locality of the

treasure to which they had mysteriously alluded. Fear restrained him

from open inquiry, and curiosity kept him from making good his escape

during the orgy which followed. But his situation was beginning to

become critical. Flash-in-the-Pan, who seemed to have been a man of

choleric humor, taking fire during some hotly contested argument,

discharged both his pistols at the breast of his opponent. The balls

passed through on each side immediately below his armpits, making a

clean hole, through which the horrified broker could see the firelight

behind him. The wounded man, without betraying any concern, excited

the laughter of the company by jocosely putting his arms akimbo, and

inserting his thumbs into the orifices of the wounds as if they had been

armholes. This having in a measure restored good humor, the party

joined hands and formed a circle preparatory to dancing. The dance was

commenced by some monotonous stanzas hummed in a very high key by one

of the party, the rest joining in the following chorus, which seemed to

present a familiar sound to the broker’s ear:—

“Her Majesty is very sicke, Lord Essex hath the measles, Our Admiral

hath licked ye French—Poppe! saith ye weasel!”

At the regular recurrence of the last line, the party discharged their

loaded pistols in all directions, rendering the position of the unhappy

broker one of extreme peril and perplexity.

When the tumult had partially subsided, Flash-in-the-Pan called the

meeting to order, and most of the revelers returned to their places,

Malmsey Butt, however, insisting upon another chorus, and singing at the

top of his voice:—

“I am ycleped J. Keyser—I was born at Spring, hys Garden, My father

toe make me ane clerke erst did essaye, But a fico for ye offis—I

spurn ye losels offeire; For I fain would be ane butcher by’r

ladykin alwaye.”

Flash-in-the-Pan drew a pistol from his belt, and bidding some one gag

Malmsey Butt with the stock of it, proceeded to read from a portentous

roll of parchment that he held in his hand. It was a semi-legal

document, clothed in the quaint phraseology of a bygone period. After a

long preamble, asserting their loyalty as lieges of her most bountiful

Majesty and Sovereign Lady the Queen, the document declared that

they then and there took possession of the promontory, and all the

treasure-trove therein contained, formerly buried by Her Majesty’s

most faithful and devoted Admiral Sir Francis Drake, with the right to

search, discover, and appropriate the same; and for the purpose thereof

they did then and there form a guild or corporation to so discover,

search for, and disclose said treasures, and by virtue thereof they

solemnly subscribed their names. But at this moment the reading of the

parchment was arrested by an exclamation from the assembly, and the

broker was seen frantically struggling at the door in the strong arms of

Mark-the-Pinker.

“Let me go!” he cried, as he made a desperate attempt to reach the side

of Master Flash-in-the-Pan. “Let me go! I tell you, gentlemen, that

document is not worth the parchment it is written on. The laws of

the State, the customs of the country, the mining ordinances, are all

against it. Don’t, by all that’s sacred, throw away such a capital

investment through ignorance and informality. Let me go! I assure you,

gentlemen, professionally, that you have a big thing,—a remarkably big

thing, and even if I ain’t in it, I’m not going to see it fall through.

Don’t, for God’s sake, gentlemen, I implore you, put your names to such

a ridiculous paper. There isn’t a notary”—

He ceased. The figures around him, which were beginning to grow fainter

and more indistinct as he went on, swam before his eyes, flickered,

reappeared again, and finally went out. He rubbed his eyes and gazed

around him. The cabin was deserted. On the hearth the red embers of

his fire were fading away in the bright beams of the morning sun, that

looked aslant through the open window. He ran out to the cliff. The

sturdy sea-breeze fanned his feverish cheeks and tossed the white caps

of waves that beat in pleasant music on the beach below. A stately

merchantman with snowy canvas was entering the Gate. The voices of

sailors came cheerfully from a bark at anchor below the point. The

muskets of the sentries gleamed brightly on Alcatraz, and the rolling

of drums swelled on the breeze. Farther on, the hills of San Francisco,

cottage-crowned and bordered with wharves and warehouses, met his

longing eye.

Such is the legend of Devil’s Point. Any objections to its reliability

may be met with the statement that the broker who tells the story has

since incorporated a company under the title of “Flash-in-the-Pan Gold

and Silver Treasure Mining Company,” and that its shares are already

held at a stiff figure. A copy of the original document is said to be on

record in the office of the company, and on any clear day the locality

of the claim may be distinctly seen from the hills of San Francisco.

THE ADVENTURE OF PADRE VICENTIO

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 whale-ships—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

traveler 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 fulfillment of his

rash vow; and Concepcion still scoured the coast on a phantom steed,

beguiling the monotony of his eternal pursuit by lassoing travelers,

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 stranger,

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 DEVIL AND THE BROKER

A MEDIAEVAL LEGEND

The church clocks in San Francisco were striking ten. The Devil, who had

been flying over the city that evening, just then alighted on the roof

of a church near the corner of Bush and Montgomery streets. It will be

perceived that the popular belief that the Devil avoids holy edifices,

and vanishes at the sound of a credo or paternoster, is long since

exploded. Indeed, modern skepticism asserts that he is not averse to

these orthodox discourses, which particularly bear reference to himself,

and in a measure recognize his power and importance.

I am inclined to think, however, that his choice of a resting-place was

a good deal influenced by its contiguity to a populous thoroughfare.

When he was comfortably seated, he began pulling out the joints of a

small rod which he held in his hand, and which presently proved to be an

extraordinary fishing-pole, with a telescopic adjustment that permitted

its protraction to a marvelous extent. Affixing a line thereto, he

selected a fly of a particular pattern from a small box which he carried

with him, and, making a skillful cast, threw his line into the very

centre of that living stream which ebbed and flowed through Montgomery

Street.

Either the people were very virtuous that evening, or the bait was not a

taking one. In vain the Devil whipped the stream at an eddy in front

of the Occidental, or trolled his line into the shadows of the

Cosmopolitan; five minutes passed without even a nibble. “Dear me!”

quoth the Devil, “that’s very singular; one of my most popular flies,

too! Why, they’d have risen by shoals in Broadway or Beacon Street

for that. Well, here goes another.” And fitting a new fly from his

well-filled box, he gracefully recast his line.

For a few moments there was every prospect of sport. The line was

continually bobbing and the nibbles were distinct and gratifying. Once

or twice the bait was apparently gorged and carried off to the upper

stories of the hotels, to be digested at leisure. At such times the

professional manner in which the Devil played out his line would have

thrilled the heart of Izaak Walton. But his efforts were unsuccessful;

the bait was invariably carried off without hooking the victim, and

the Devil finally lost his temper. “I’ve heard of these San Franciscans

before,” he muttered. “Wait till I get hold of one, that’s all!” he

added malevolently, as he rebaited his hook. A sharp tug and a wriggle

followed his next trial, and finally, with considerable effort, he

landed a portly two-hundred-pound broker upon the church roof.

As the victim lay there gasping, it was evident that the Devil was in

no hurry to remove the hook from his gills; nor did he exhibit in this

delicate operation that courtesy of manner and graceful manipulation

which usually distinguished him.

“Come,” he said gruffly, as he grasped the broker by the waistband,

“quit that whining and grunting. Don’t flatter yourself that you’re a

prize, either. I was certain to have had you. It was only a question of

time.”

“It is not that, my lord, which troubles me,” whined the unfortunate

wretch, as he painfully wriggled his head, “but that I should have been

fooled by such a paltry bait. What will they say of me down there? To

have let ‘bigger things’ go by, and to be taken in by this cheap trick,”

he added, as he groaned and glanced at the fly which the Devil was

carefully rearranging, “is what,—pardon me, my lord,—is what gets me!”

“Yes,” said the Devil philosophically, “I never caught anybody yet who

didn’t say that; but tell me, ain’t you getting somewhat fastidious

down there? Here is one of my most popular flies, the greenback,” he

continued, exhibiting an emerald-looking insect, which he drew from his

box. “This, so generally considered excellent in election season, has

not even been nibbled at. Perhaps your sagacity, which, in spite of

this unfortunate contretemps, no one can doubt,” added the Devil, with

a graceful return to his usual courtesy, “may explain the reason or

suggest a substitute.”

The broker glanced at the contents of the box with a supercilious smile.

“Too old-fashioned, my lord,—long ago played out. Yet,” he added,

with a gleam of interest, “for a consideration I might offer

something—ahem!—that would make a taking substitute for these trifles.

Give me,” he continued, in a brisk, business-like way, “a slight

percentage and a bonus down, and I’m your man.”

“Name your terms,” said the Devil earnestly.

“My liberty and a percentage on all you take, and the thing’s done.”

The Devil caressed his tail thoughtfully for a few moments. He was

certain of the broker anyway, and the risk was slight. “Done!” he said.

“Stay a moment,” said the artful broker. “There are certain

contingencies. Give me your fishing-rod and let me apply the bait

myself. It requires a skillful hand, my lord: even your well-known

experience might fail. Leave me alone for half an hour, and if you have

reason to complain of my success I will forfeit my deposit,—I mean my

liberty.”

The Devil acceded to his request, bowed, and withdrew. Alighting

gracefully in Montgomery Street, he dropped into Meade & Co.’s clothing

store, where, having completely equipped himself a la mode, he sallied

forth intent on his personal enjoyment. Determining to sink his

professional character, he mingled with the current of human life,

and enjoyed, with that immense capacity for excitement peculiar to his

nature, the whirl, hustle, and feverishness of the people, as a purely

aesthetic gratification unalloyed by the cares of business. What he did

that evening does not belong to our story. We return to the broker, whom

we left on the roof.

When he made sure that the Devil had retired, he carefully drew from

his pocketbook a slip of paper and affixed it on the hook. The line

had scarcely reached the current before he felt a bite. The hook was

swallowed. To bring up his victim rapidly, disengage him from the hook,

and reset his line, was the work of a moment. Another bite and the same

result. Another, and another. In a very few minutes the roof was covered

with his panting spoil. The broker could himself distinguish that

many of them were personal friends; nay, some of them were familiar

frequenters of the building on which they were now miserably stranded.

That the broker felt a certain satisfaction in being instrumental in

thus misleading his fellow-brokers no one acquainted with human nature

will for a moment doubt. But a stronger pull on his line caused him

to put forth all his strength and skill. The magic pole bent like a

coach-whip. The broker held firm, assisted by the battlements of the

church. Again and again it was almost wrested from his hand, and again

and again he slowly reeled in a portion of the tightening line. At last,

with one mighty effort, he lifted to the level of the roof a struggling

object. A howl like Pandemonium rang through the air as the broker

successfully landed at his feet—the Devil himself!

The two glared fiercely at each other. The broker, perhaps mindful

of his former treatment, evinced no haste to remove the hook from his

antagonist’s jaw. When it was finally accomplished, he asked quietly

if the Devil was satisfied. That gentleman seemed absorbed in the

contemplation of the bait which he had just taken from his mouth. “I

am,” he said finally, “and forgive you; but what do you call this?”

“Bend low,” replied the broker, as he buttoned up his coat ready to

depart. The Devil inclined his ear. “I call it WILD CAT!”

THE OGRESS OF SILVER LAND

OR

THE DIVERTING HISTORY OF PRINCE BADFELLAH AND PRINCE BULLEBOYE

In the second year of the reign of the renowned Caliph Lo there dwelt

in Silver Land, adjoining his territory, a certain terrible Ogress. She

lived in the bowels of a dismal mountain, where she was in the habit of

confining such unfortunate travelers as ventured within her domain. The

country for miles around was sterile and barren. In some places it was

covered with a white powder, which was called in the language of the

country Al Ka Li, and was supposed to be the pulverized bones of those

who had perished miserably in her service.

In spite of this, every year great numbers of young men devoted

themselves to the service of the Ogress, hoping to become her godsons,

and to enjoy the good fortune which belonged to that privileged class.

For these godsons had no work to perform, neither at the mountain

nor elsewhere, but roamed about the world with credentials of their

relationship in their pockets, which they called stokh, which was

stamped with the stamp and sealed with the seal of the Ogress, and which

enabled them at the end of each moon to draw large quantities of gold

and silver from her treasury. And the wisest and most favored of those

godsons were the Princes Badfellah and Bulleboye. They knew all the

secrets of the Ogress, and how to wheedle and coax her. They were also

the favorites of Soopah Intendent, who was her Lord High Chamberlain and

Prime Minister, and who dwelt in Silver Land.

One day, Soopah Intendent said to his servants, “Whan is that which

travels the most surely, the most secretly, and the most swiftly?”

And they all answered as one man, “Lightning, my lord, travels the most

surely, the most swiftly, and the most secretly!”

Then said Soopah Intendent, “Let Lightning carry this message secretly,

swiftly, and surely to my beloved friends the Princes Badfellah and

Bulleboye, and tell them that their godmother is dying, and bid

them seek some other godmother or sell their stokh ere it becomes

_badjee_,—worthless.”

“Bekhesm! On our heads be it!” answered the servants; and they ran to

Lightning with the message, who flew with it to the City by the Sea,

and delivered it, even at that moment, into the hands of the Princes

Badfellah and Bulleboye.

Now the Prince Badfellah was a wicked young man; and when he had

received this message he tore his beard and rent his garment and reviled

his godmother and his friend Soopah Intendent. But presently he arose,

and dressed himself in his finest stuffs, and went forth into the

bazaars and among the merchants, capering and dancing as he walked, and

crying in a loud voice, “Oh, happy day! Oh, day worthy to be marked with

a white stone!”

This he said cunningly, thinking the merchants and men of the bazaars

would gather about him, which they presently did, and began to question

him: “What news, Then O most worthy and serene Highness? Tell us that we

may make merry too!”

Then replied the cunning prince, “Good news, O my brothers, for I have

heard this day that my godmother in Silver Land is well” The merchants,

who were not aware of the substance of the real message, envied him

greatly, and said one to another, “Surely our brother the Prince

Badfellah is favored by Allah above all men;” and they were about to

retire, when the prince checked them, saying, “Tarry for a moment. Here

are my credentials or stokh. The same I will sell you for fifty thousand

sequins, for I have to give a feast to-day, and need much gold. Who will

give fifty thousand?” And he again fell to capering and dancing. But

this time the merchants drew a little apart, and some of the oldest and

wisest said, “What dirt is this which the prince would have us swallow?

If his godmother were well, why should he sell his stokh? Bismillah! The

olives are old and the jar is broken!” When Prince Badfellah perceived

them whispering, his countenance fell, and his knees smote against each

other through fear,—but, dissembling again, he said, “Well, so be it!

Lo! I have much more than shall abide with me, for my days are many and

my wants are few. Say forty thousand sequins for my stokh and let me

depart, in Allah’s name. Who will give forty thousand sequins to become

the godson of such a healthy mother?” And he again fell to capering and

dancing, but not as gayly as before, for his heart was troubled. The

merchants, however, only moved farther away. “Thirty thousand sequins,”

cried Prince Badfellah; but even as he spoke they fled before his face,

crying, “His godmother is dead. Lo! the jackals are defiling her

grave. Mashallah! he has no godmother.” And they sought out Panik, the

swift-footed messenger, and bade him shout through the bazaars that the

godmother of Prince Badfellah was dead. When he heard this, the prince

fell upon his face, and rent his garments, and covered himself with the

dust of the marketplace. As he was sitting thus, a porter passed him

with jars of wine on his shoulders, and the prince begged him to give

him a jar, for he was exceeding thirsty and faint.

But the porter said, “What will my lord give me first?” And the prince,

in very bitterness of spirit, said, “Take this,” and handed him his

stokh, and so exchanged it for a jar of wine.

Now the Prince Bulleboye was of a different disposition. When he

received the message of Soopah Intendent he bowed his head, and said,

“It is the will of God.” Then he rose, and without speaking a word

entered the gates of his palace. But his wife, the peerless Maree

Jahann, perceiving the gravity of his countenance, said, “Why is my

lord cast down and silent? Why are those rare and priceless pearls,

his words, shut up so tightly between those gorgeous oyster-shells, his

lips?” But to this he made no reply. Thinking further to divert him,

she brought her lute into the chamber and stood before him, and sang

the song and danced the dance of Ben Kotton, which is called Ibrahim’s

Daughter, but she could not lift the veil of sadness from his brow.

When she had ceased, the Prince Bulleboye arose and said, “Allah is

great, and what am I, his servant, but the dust of the earth! Lo! this

day has my godmother sickened unto death, and my stokh become as a

withered palm-leaf. Call hither my servants and camel drivers, and the

merchants that have furnished me with stuffs, and the beggars who have

feasted at my table, and bid them take all that is here, for it is mine

no longer!” With these words he buried his face in his mantle and wept

aloud.

But Maree Jahann, his wife, plucked him by the sleeve. “Prithee, my

lord,” said she, “bethink thee of the Brokah or scrivener who besought

thee but yesterday to share thy stokh with him and gave thee his bond

for fifty thousand sequins.” But the noble Prince Bulleboye, raising his

head, said, “Shall I sell to him for fifty thousand sequins that which I

know is not worth a Soo Markee? For is not all the Brokah’s wealth, even

his wife and children, pledged on that bond? Shall I ruin him to save

myself? Allah forbid! Bather let me eat the salt fish of honest penury

than the kabobs of dishonorable affluence; rather let me wallow in

the mire of virtuous oblivion than repose on the divan of luxurious

wickedness!”

When the prince had given utterance to this beautiful and edifying

sentiment, a strain of gentle music was heard, and the rear wall of the

apartment, which had been ingeniously constructed like a flat, opened

and discovered the Ogress of Silver Land in the glare of blue fire,

seated on a triumphal car attached to two ropes which were connected

with the flies, in the very act of blessing the unconscious prince.

When the walls closed again without attracting his attention, Prince

Bulleboye arose, dressed himself in his coarsest and cheapest stuffs,

and sprinkled ashes on his head, and in this guise, having embraced

his wife, went forth into the bazaars. In this it will be perceived

how differently the good Prince Bulleboye acted from the wicked Prince

Badfellah, who put on his gayest garments, to simulate and deceive.

Now when Prince Bulleboye entered the chief bazaar, where the merchants

of the city were gathered in council, he stood up in his accustomed

place, and all that were there held their breath, for the noble Prince

Bulleboye was much respected. “Let the Brokah whose bond I hold for

fifty thousand sequins stand forth!” said the prince. And the Brokah

stood forth from among the merchants. Then said the prince, “Here is thy

bond for fifty thousand sequins, for which I was to deliver unto thee

one half of my stokh. Know, then, O my brother,—and thou, too, O Aga of

the Brokahs,—that this my stokh which I pledged to thee is worthless.

For my godmother, the Ogress of silver Land, is dying. Thus do I release

thee from thy bond, and from the poverty which might overtake thee, as

it has even me, thy brother, the Prince Bulleboye.” And with that the

noble Prince Bulleboye tore the bond of the Brokah into pieces and

scattered it to the four winds.

Now when the Prince tore up the bond there was a great commotion, and

some said, “Surely the Prince Bulleboye is drunken with wine;”

and others, “He is possessed of an evil spirit;” and his friends

expostulated with him, saying, “What thou hast done is not the custom

of the bazaars,—behold, it is not Biz!” But to all the prince answered

gravely, “It is right; on my own head be it!”

But the oldest and wisest of the merchants, they who had talked with

Prince Badfellah the same morning, whispered together, and gathered

round the Brokah whose bond the Prince Bulleboye had torn up. “Hark ye,”

said they, “our brother the Prince Bulleboye is cunning as a jackal.

What bosh is this about ruining himself to save thee? Such a thing was

never heard before in the bazaars. It is a trick, O thou mooncalf of

a Brokah! Dost thou not see that he has heard good news from his

godmother, the same that was even now told us by the Prince Badfellah,

his confederate, and that he would destroy thy bond for fifty thousand

sequins because his stokh is worth a hundred thousand! Be not deceived,

O too credulous Brokah! for this that our brother the prince doeth is

not in the name of Allah, but of Biz, the only god known in the bazaars

of the city.”

When the foolish Brokah heard these things he cried, “Justice, Aga of

the Brokahs,—justice and the fulfillment of my bond! Let the prince

deliver unto me the stokh. Here are my fifty thousand sequins.” But the

prince said, “Have I not told thee that my godmother is dying, and that

my stokh is valueless?” At this the Brokah only clamored the more for

justice and the fulfillment of his bond. Then the Aga of the Brokahs

said, “Since the bond is destroyed, behold thou hast no claim. Go thy

ways!” But the Brokah again cried, “Justice, my lord Aga! Behold, I

offer the prince seventy thousand sequins for his stokh!” But the prince

said, “It is not worth one sequin!” Then the Aga said, “Bismillah! I

cannot understand this. Whether thy godmother be dead, or dying, or

immortal, does not seem to signify. Therefore, O prince, by the laws

of Biz and Allah, though art released. Give the Brokah thy stokh for

seventy thousand sequins, and bid him depart in peace. On his own head

be it!” When the prince heard this command, he handed the stokh to the

Brokah, who counted out to him seventy thousand sequins. But the heart

of the virtuous prince did not rejoice, nor did the Brokah when he found

his stokh was valueless; but the merchants lifted their hands in wonder

at the sagacity and wisdom of the famous Prince Bulleboye. For none

would believe that it was the law of Allah that the prince followed, and

not the rules of Biz.

THE CHRISTMAS GIFT THAT CAME TO RUPERT

A STORY FOR LITTLE SOLDIERS

It was the Christmas season in California,—a season of falling rain and

springing grasses. There were intervals when, through driving clouds and

flying scud, the sun visited the haggard hills with a miracle, and death

and resurrection were as one, and out of the very throes of decay a

joyous life struggled outward and upward. Even the storms that swept

down the dead leaves nurtured the tender buds that took their places.

There were no episodes of snowy silence; over the quickening fields the

farmer’s ploughshare hard followed the furrows left by the latest rains.

Perhaps it was for this reason that the Christmas evergreens which

decorated the drawing-room took upon themselves a foreign aspect, and

offered a weird contrast to the roses, seen dimly through the windows,

as the southwest wind beat their soft faces against the panes.

“Now,” said the doctor, drawing his chair closer to the fire, and

looking mildly but firmly at the semicircle of flaxen heads around him,

“I want it distinctly understood before I begin my story, that I am not

to be interrupted by any ridiculous questions. At the first one I shall

stop. At the second, I shall feel it my duty to administer a dose

of castor-oil all round. The boy that moves his legs or arms will be

understood to invite amputation. I have brought my instruments with me,

and never allow pleasure to interfere with my business. Do you promise?”

“Yes, sir,” said six small voices simultaneously. The volley was,

however, followed by half a dozen dropping questions.

“Silence! Bob, put your feet down, and stop rattling that sword. Flora

shall sit by my side, like a little lady, and be an example to the rest.

Fung Tang shall stay, too, if he likes. Now, turn down the gas a little;

there, that will do—just enough to make the fire look brighter, and to

show off the Christmas candles. Silence, everybody! The boy who cracks

an almond, or breathes too loud over his raisins, will be put out of the

room.”

There was a profound silence. Bob laid his sword tenderly aside and

nursed his leg thoughtfully. Flora, after coquettishly adjusting the

pockets of her little apron, put her arm upon the doctor’s shoulder, and

permitted herself to be drawn beside him. Fung Tang, the little heathen

page, who was permitted, on this rare occasion, to share the Christmas

revels in the drawing-room, surveyed the group with a smile that was at

once sweet and philosophical. The light ticking of a French clock on the

mantel, supported by a young shepherdess of bronze complexion and great

symmetry of limb, was the only sound that disturbed the Christmas-like

peace of the apartment,—a peace which held the odors of evergreens, new

toys, cedar boxes, glue, and varnish in a harmonious combination that

passed all understanding.

“About four years ago at this time,” began the doctor, “I attended a

course of lectures in a certain city. One of the professors, who was a

sociable, kindly man—though somewhat practical and hard-headed—invited

me to his house on Christmas night. I was very glad to go, as I was

anxious to see one of his sons, who, though only twelve years old, was

said to be very clever. I dare not tell you how many Latin verses this

little fellow could recite, or how many English ones he had composed. In

the first place, you’d want me to repeat them; secondly, I’m not a judge

of poetry—Latin or English. But there were judges who said they were

wonderful for a boy, and everybody predicted a splendid future for him.

Everybody but his father. He shook his head doubtingly whenever it was

mentioned, for, as I have told you, he was a practical, matter-of-fact

man.

“There was a pleasant party at the professor’s that night. All the

children of the neighborhood were there, and among them the professor’s

clever son, Rupert, as they called him—a thin little chap, about as

tall as Bobby there, and fair and delicate as Flora by my side. His

health was feeble, his father said; he seldom ran about and played with

other boys—preferring to stay at home and brood over his books, and

compose what he called his verses.

“Well, we had a Christmas-tree just like this, and we had been laughing

and talking, calling the names of the children who had presents on the

tree, and everybody was very happy and joyous, when one of the children

suddenly uttered a cry of mingled surprise and hilarity, and said,

‘Here’s something for Rupert—and what do you think it is?’

“We all guessed. ‘A desk;’ ‘A copy of Milton;’ ‘A gold pen;’ ‘A rhyming

dictionary.’ ‘No? what then?’

“‘A drum!’

“‘A what?’ asked everybody.

“‘A drum! with Rupert’s name on it.’

“Sure enough, there it was. A good-sized, bright, new, brass-bound drum,

with a slip of paper on it, with the inscription, ‘For RUPERT.’

“Of course we all laughed, and thought it a good joke. ‘You see you’re

to make a noise in the world, Rupert!’ said one. ‘Here’s parchment for

the poet,’ said another. ‘Rupert’s last work in sheepskin covers,’ said

a third. ‘Give us a classical tune, Rupert,’ said a fourth, and so on.

But Rupert seemed too mortified to speak; he changed color, bit his

lips, and finally burst into a passionate fit of crying and left the

room. Then those who had joked him felt ashamed, and everybody began to

ask who had put the drum there. But no one knew, or, if they did, the

unexpected sympathy awakened for the sensitive boy kept them silent.

Even the servants were called up and questioned, but no one could give

any idea where it came from. And what was still more singular, everybody

declared that up to the moment it was produced, no one had seen it

hanging on the tree. What do I think? Well, I have my own opinion. But

no questions! Enough for you to know that Rupert did not come downstairs

again that night, and the party soon after broke up.

“I had almost forgotten those things, for the war of the Rebellion

broke out the next spring, and I was appointed surgeon in one of the

new regiments, and was on my way to the seat of war. But I had to pass

through the city where the professor lived, and there I met him. My

first question was about Rupert. The professor shook his head sadly.

‘He’s not so well’ he said; ‘he has been declining since last Christmas,

when you saw him. A very strange case,’ he added, giving it a long Latin

name, ‘a very singular case. But go and see him yourself’ he urged; ‘it

may distract his mind and do him good.’

“I went accordingly to the professor’s house, and found Rupert lying

on a sofa propped up with pillows. Around him were scattered his books,

and, what seemed in singular contrast, that drum I told you about was

hanging on a nail just above his head. His face was thin and wasted;

there was a red spot on either cheek, and his eyes were very bright and

widely opened. He was glad to see me, and when I told him where I was

going, he asked a thousand questions about the war. I thought I had

thoroughly diverted his mind from its sick and languid fancies, when he

suddenly grasped my hand and drew me towards him.

“‘Doctor,’ said he, in a low whisper, ‘you won’t laugh at me if I tell

you something?’

“‘No, certainly not,’ I said.

“‘You remember that drum?’ he said, pointing to the glittering toy that

hung against the wall. ‘You know, too, how it came to me. A few weeks

after Christmas I was lying half asleep here, and the drum was hanging

on the wall, when suddenly I heard it beaten; at first low and slowly,

then faster and louder, until its rolling filled the house. In the

middle of the night I heard it again. I did not dare to tell anybody

about it, but I have heard it every night ever since.’

“He paused and looked anxiously in my face. ‘Sometimes,’ he continued,

‘it is played softly, sometimes loudly, but always quickening to a long

roll, so loud and alarming that I have looked to see people coming into

my room to ask what was the matter. But I think, doctor—I think,’ he

repeated slowly, looking up with painful interest into my face, ‘that no

one hears it but myself.’

“I thought so, too, but I asked him if he had heard it at any other

time.

“‘Once or twice in the daytime,’ he replied, ‘when I have been reading

or writing; then very loudly, as though it were angry, and tried in that

way to attract my attention away from my books.’

“I looked into his face and placed my hand upon his pulse. His eyes were

very bright and his pulse a little flurried and quick. I then tried

to explain to him that he was very weak, and that his senses were very

acute, as most weak people’s are; and how that when he read, or grew

interested and excited, or when he was tired at night, the throbbing of

a big artery made the beating sound he heard. He listened to me with

a sad smile of unbelief, but thanked me, and in a little while I went

away. But as I was going downstairs I met the professor. I gave him my

opinion of the case—well, no matter what it was.

“‘He wants fresh air and exercise’ said the professor, ‘and some

practical experience of life, sir.’ The professor was not a bad man, but

he was a little worried and impatient, and thought—as clever people are

apt to think—that things which he didn’t understand were either silly

or improper.

“I left the city that very day, and in the excitement of battlefields

and hospitals I forgot all about little Rupert, nor did I hear of him

again, until one day, meeting an old classmate in the army, who had

known the professor, he told me that Rupert had become quite insane, and

that in one of his paroxysms he had escaped from the house, and as he

had never been found, it was feared that he had fallen into the river

and was drowned. I was terribly shocked for the moment, as you may

imagine; but, dear me, I was living just then among scenes as terrible

and shocking, and I had little time to spare to mourn over poor Rupert.

“It was not long after receiving this intelligence that we had a

terrible battle, in which a portion of our army was slaughtered. I was

detached from my brigade to ride over to the battlefield and assist the

surgeons of the beaten division, who had more on their hands than they

could attend to. When I reached the barn that served for a temporary

hospital, I went at once to work. Ah! Bob,” said the doctor

thoughtfully, taking the bright sword from the hands of the

half-frightened Bob, and holding it gravely before him, “these pretty

playthings are symbols of cruel, ugly realities.”

“I turned to a tall, stout Vermonter,” he continued, very slowly,

tracing a pattern on the rug with the point of the scabbard, “who was

badly wounded in both thighs, but he held up his hands and begged me to

help others first who needed it more than he. I did not at first heed

his request, for this kind of unselfishness was very common in the

army; but he went on, ‘For God’s sake, doctor, leave me here; there is a

drummer boy of our regiment—a mere child—dying, if he isn’t dead now.

Go and see him first. He lies over there. He saved more than one life.

He was at his post in the panic of this morning, and saved the honor of

the regiment.’ I was so much more impressed by the man’s manner than

by the substance of his speech, which was, however, corroborated by the

other poor fellows stretched around me, that I passed over to where

the drummer lay, with his drum beside him. I gave one glance at his

face—and—yes, Bob—yes, my children—it _was_ Rupert.

“Well! well! it needed not the chalked cross which my brother surgeons

had left upon the rough board whereon he lay to show how urgent was the

relief he sought; it needed not the prophetic words of the Vermonter,

nor the damp that mingled with the brown curls that clung to his pale

forehead, to show how hopeless it was now. I called him by name. He

opened his eyes—larger, I thought, in the new vision that was beginning

to dawn upon him—and recognized me. He whispered, ‘I’m glad you are

come, but I don’t think you can do me any good.’

“I could not tell him a lie. I could not say anything. I only pressed

his hand in mine as he went on.

“‘But you will see father, and ask him to forgive me. Nobody is to blame

but myself. It was a long time before I understood why the drum came to

me that Christmas night, and why it kept calling to me every night, and

what it said. I know it now. The work is done, and I am content. Tell

father it is better as it is. I should have lived only to worry and

perplex him, and something in me tells me this is right.’

“He lay still for a moment, and then grasping my hand, said,—

“‘Hark!’

“I listened, but heard nothing but the suppressed moans of the wounded

men around me. ‘The drum’ he said faintly; ‘don’t you hear it?—the drum

is calling me.’

“He reached out his arm to where it lay, as though he would embrace it.

“‘Listen’—he went on—‘it’s the reveille. There are the ranks drawn

up in review. Don’t you see the sunlight flash down the long line of

bayonets? Their faces are shining—they present arms—there comes the

General—but his face I cannot look at for the glory round his head. He

sees me; he smiles, it is’—and with a name upon his lips that he had

learned long ago, he stretched himself wearily upon the planks and lay

quite still.

“That’s all.

“No questions now—never mind what became of the drum.

“Who’s that sniveling?

“Bless my soul! where’s my pill-box?”

THE END