“Let me know at least what this secret concerns?” suggested the Padre, insinuatingly.

“Shrive me first,” said the dying man.

But the priest still hesitated, parleying with the sufferer until the ship’s bell struck, when, with a triumphant, mocking laugh from the stranger, the vessel suddenly fell to pieces, amid the rushing of waters which at once involved the dying man, the priest, and the mysterious stranger.

The Padre did not recover his consciousness until high noon the next day, when he found himself lying in a little hollow between the Mission Hills, and his faithful mule a few paces from him, cropping the sparse herbage.  The Padre made the best of his way home, but wisely abstained from narrating the facts mentioned above, until after the discovery of gold, when the whole of this veracious incident was related, with the assertion of the padre that the secret which was thus mysteriously snatched from his possession was nothing more than the discovery of gold, years since, by the runaway sailors from the expedition of Sir Francis Drake.

THE LEGEND OF DEVIL’S POINT.

On the northerly shore of San Francisco Bay, at a point where the Golden Gate broadens into the Pacific stands a bluff promontory.  It affords shelter from the prevailing winds to a semicircular bay on the east.  Around this bay the hillside is bleak and barren, but there are traces of former habitation in a weather-beaten cabin and deserted corral.  It is said that these were originally built by an enterprising squatter, who for some unaccountable reason abandoned them shortly after.  The “Jumper” who succeeded him disappeared one day, quite as mysteriously.  The third tenant, who seemed to be a man of sanguine, hopeful temperament, divided the property into building lots, staked off the hillside, and projected the map of a new metropolis.  Failing, however, to convince the citizens of San Francisco that they had mistaken the site of their city, he presently fell into dissipation and despondency.  He was frequently observed haunting the narrow strip of beach at low tide, or perched upon the cliff at high water.  In the latter position a sheep-tender one day found him, cold and pulseless, with a map of his property in his hand, and his face turned toward the distant sea.

Perhaps these circumstances gave the locality its infelicitous reputation.  Vague rumors were bruited of a supernatural influence that had been exercised on the tenants.  Strange stories were circulated of the origin of the diabolical title by which the promontory was known.  By some it was believed to be haunted by the spirit of one of Sir Francis Drake’s sailors who had deserted his ship in consequence of stories told by the Indians of gold discoveries, but who had perished by starvation on the rocks.  A vaquero who had once passed a night in the ruined cabin, related how a strangely dressed