, 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 ears; 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 everyone 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 Commandante. 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. Ot