distant tolling of a bell rang sadly out and died.  It was the Angelus.  Father Jose listened with superstitious exaltation.  The Mission of San Pablo was far away, and the sound must have been some miraculous omen.  But never before, to his enthusiastic sense, did the sweet seriousness of this angelic symbol come with such strange significance.  With the last faint peal, his glowing fancy seemed to cool; the fog closed in below him, and the good Father remembered he had not had his supper.  He had risen and was wrapping his serapa around him, when he perceived for the first time that he was not alone.

Nearly opposite, and where should have been the faithless Ignacio, a grave and decorous figure was seated.  His appearance was that of an elderly hidalgo, dressed in mourning, with moustaches of iron-gray carefully waxed and twisted around a pair of lantern-jaws.  The monstrous hat and prodigious feather, the enormous ruff and exaggerated trunk-hose, contrasting with a frame shrivelled and wizened, all belonged to a century previous.  Yet Father Jose was not astonished.  His adventurous life and poetic imagination, continually on the look-out for the marvellous, gave him a certain advantage over the practical and material minded.  He instantly detected the diabolical quality of his visitant, and was prepared.  With equal coolness and courtesy he met the cavalier’s obeisance.

“I ask your pardon, Sir Priest,” said the stranger, “for disturbing your meditations.  Pleasant they must have been, and right fanciful, I imagine, when occasioned by so fair a prospect.”

“Worldly, perhaps, Sir Devil,—­for such I take you to be,” said the Holy Father, as the stranger bowed his black plumes to the ground; “worldly, perhaps; for it hath pleased Heaven to retain even in our regenerated state much that pertaineth to the flesh, yet still, I trust, not without some speculation for the welfare of the Holy Church.  In dwelling upon yon fair expanse, mine eyes have been graciously opened with prophetic inspiration, and the promise of the heathen as an inheritance hath marvellously recurred to me.  For there can be none lack such diligence in the True Faith, but may see that even the conversion of these pitiful salvages hath a meaning.  As the blessed St. Ignatius discreetly observes,” continued Father Jose, clearing his throat and slightly elevating his voice, “’the heathen is given to the warriors of Christ, even as the pearls of rare discovery which gladden the hearts of shipmen.’  Nay, I might say”—­

But here the stranger, who had been wrinkling his brows and twisting his moustaches with well-bred patience, took advantage of an oratorical pause to observe,—­

“It grieves me, Sir Priest, to interrupt the current of your eloquence as discourteously as I have already broken your meditations; but the day already waneth to night.  I have matter of serious import to make with you, could I entreat your cautious consideration a few moments.”