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 sea-shore 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 farther 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 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.”