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 copybooks under the awful supervision, and poor Paquita, the prize
pupil, failed utterly in that marvelous upstroke when her patron stood
beside her. Gradually distrust, suspicion, self-accusation, and timidity
took the place of trust, confidence, and security throughout San Carlos.
Whenever the Right Eye of the Commander fell, a shadow fell with it.

Nor 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