That night Father Pedro dreamed a strange dream.How much of it was reality, how long it lasted, or when he awoke from it, he could not tell.The morbid excitement of the previous day culminated in a febrile exaltation in which he lived and moved as in a separate existence.
This is what he remembered.He thought he had risen at night in a sudden horror of remorse, and making his way to the darkened church had fallen upon his knees before the high altar, when all at once the acolyte's voice broke from the choir, but in accents so dissonant and unnatural that it seemed a sacrilege, and he trembled.He thought he had confessed the secret of the child's sex to Cranch, but whether the next morning or a week later he did not know.He fancied, too, that Cranch had also confessed some trifling deception to him, but what, or why, he could not remember;so much greater seemed the enormity of his own transgression.He thought Cranch had put in his hands the letter he had written to the Father Superior, saying that his secret was still safe, and that he had been spared the avowal and the scandal that might have ensued.But through all, and above all, he was conscious of one fixed idea: to seek the seashore with Sanchicha, and upon the spot where she had found Francisco, meet the young girl who had taken his place, and so part from her forever.He had a dim recollection that this was necessary to some legal identification of her, as arranged by Cranch, but how or why he did not understand; enough that it was a part of his penance.
It was early morning when the faithful Antonio, accompanied by Sanchicha and Jose, rode forth with him from the Mission of San Carmel.Except on the expressionless features of the old woman, there was anxiety and gloom upon the faces of the little cavalcade.
He did not know how heavily his strange abstraction and hallucinations weighed upon their honest hearts.As they wound up the ascent of the mountain he noticed that Antonio and Jose conversed with bated breath and many pious crossings of themselves, but with eyes always wistfully fixed upon him.He wondered if, as part of his penance, he ought not to proclaim his sin and abase himself before them; but he knew that his devoted followers would insist upon sharing his punishment; and he remembered his promise to Cranch, that for HER sake he would say nothing.Before they reached the summit he turned once or twice to look back upon the Mission.How small it looked, lying there in the peaceful valley, contrasted with the broad sweep of the landscape beyond, stopped at the further east only by the dim, ghost-like outlines of the Sierras.But the strong breath of the sea was beginning to be felt; in a few moments more they were facing it with lowered sombreros and flying serapes, and the vast, glittering, illimitable Pacific opened out beneath them.
Dazed and blinded, as it seemed to him, by the shining, restless expanse, Father Pedro rode forward as if still in a dream.
Suddenly he halted, and called Antonio to his side.
"Tell me, child, didst thou not say that this coast was wild and desolate of man, beast, and habitation?""Truly I did, reverend father."
"Then what is that?" pointing to the shore.
Almost at their feet nestled a cluster of houses, at the head of an arroyo reaching up from the beach.They looked down upon the smoke of a manufactory chimney, upon strange heaps of material and curious engines scattered along the sands, with here and there moving specks of human figures.In a little bay a schooner swung at her cables.
The vaquero crossed himself in stupefied alarm."I know not, your reverence; it is only two years ago, before the rodeo, that I was here for strayed colts, and I swear by the blessed bones of San Antonio that it was as I said.""Ah! it is like these Americanos," responded the muleteer."I have it from my brother Diego that he went from San Jose to Pescadero two months ago, across the plains, with never a hut nor fonda to halt at all the way.He returned in seven days, and in the midst of the plain there were three houses and a mill, and many people.
and why was it? Ah! Mother of God! one had picked up in the creek where he drank that much of gold;" and the muleteer tapped one of the silver coins that fringed his jacket sleeves in place of buttons.
"And they are washing the sands for gold there now," said Antonio, eagerly pointing to some men gathered round a machine like an enormous cradle."Let us hasten on."Father Pedro's momentary interest had passed.The words of his companions fell dull and meaningless upon his dreaming ears.He was conscious only that the child was more a stranger to him as an outcome of this hard, bustling life, than when he believed her borne to him over the mysterious sea.It perplexed his dazed, disturbed mind to think that if such an antagonistic element could exist within a dozen miles of the Mission, and he not know it, could not such an atmosphere have been around him, even in his monastic isolation, and he remain blind to it? Had he really lived in the world without knowing it? Had it been in his blood? Had it impelled him to-- He shuddered and rode on.
