A gentle murmur, as of the distant sea, came from the altar.  In his naive bewilderment he had not seen the few kneeling figures in the shadow of column and aisle; it was not until a man, whom he recognized as a muleteer he had seen that afternoon gambling and drinking in the fonda, slipped by him like a shadow and sank upon his knees in the center of the aisle that he realized the overpowering truth.

He, Stephen Masterton, was looking upon some rite of Popish idolatry!  He was turning quickly away when the keeper of the tienda—­a man of sloth and sin—­gently approached him from the shadow of a column with a mute gesture, which he took to be one of invitation.  A fierce protest of scorn and indignation swelled to his throat, but died upon his lips.  Yet he had strength enough to erect his gaunt emaciated figure, throwing out his long arms and extended palms in the attitude of defiant exorcism, and then rush swiftly from the church.  As he did so he thought he saw a faint smile cross the shopkeeper’s face, and a whispered exchange of words with a neighboring worshiper of more exalted appearance came to his ears.  But it was not intelligible to his comprehension.

The next day he wrote to his doctor in that quaint grandiloquence of written speech with which the half-educated man balances the slips of his colloquial phrasing: 

Do not let the purgation of my flesh be unduly protracted.  What with the sloth and idolatries of Baal and Ashteroth, which I see daily around me, I feel that without a protest not only the flesh but the spirit is mortified.  But my bodily strength is mercifully returning, and I found myself yesterday able to take a long ride at that hour which they here keep sacred for an idolatrous rite, under the beautiful name of “The Angelus.”  Thus do they bear false witness to Him!  Can you tell me the meaning of the Spanish words “Don Keyhotter”?  I am ignorant of these sensuous Southern languages, and am aware that this is not the correct spelling, but I have striven to give the phonetic equivalent.  It was used, I am inclined to think, in reference to myself, by an idolater.

P.S.—­You need not trouble yourself.  I have just ascertained that the words in question were simply the title of an idle novel, and, of course, could not possibly refer to me.

Howbeit it was as “Don Quixote”—­that is, the common Spaniard’s conception of the Knight of La Mancha, merely the simple fanatic and madman—­that Mr. Stephen Masterton ever after rode all unconsciously through the streets of the Mission, amid the half-pitying, half-smiling glances of the people.