When James Hurlstone reached the shelter of the shrubbery he leaned exhaustedly1 against the adobe2 wall, and looked back upon the garden he had just traversed. At its lower extremity3 a tall hedge of cactus4 reinforced the crumbling5 wall with a cheval de frise of bristling6 thorns; it was through a gap in this green barrier that he had found his way a few hours before, as his torn clothes still testified. At one side ran the low wall of the Alcalde's casa, a mere7 line of dark shadow in that strange diaphanous8 mist that seemed to suffuse9 all objects. The gnarled and twisted branches of pear-trees, gouty with old age, bent10 so low as to impede11 any progress under their formal avenues; out of a tangled12 labyrinth13 of figtrees, here and there a single plume14 of feathery palm swam in a drowsy15 upper radiance. The shrubbery around him, of some unknown variety, exhaled16 a faint perfume; he put out his hand to grasp what appeared to be a young catalpa, and found it the trunk of an enormous passion vine, that, creeping softly upward, had at last invaded the very belfry of the dim tower above him; and touching17 it, his soul seemed to be lifted with it out of the shadow.
The great hush18 and quiet that had fallen like a benediction19 on every sleeping thing around him; the deep and passionless repose20 that seemed to drop from the bending boughs21 of the venerable trees; the cool, restful, earthy breath of the shadowed mold beneath him, touched only by a faint jessamine-like perfume as of a dead passion, lulled22 the hurried beatings of his heart and calmed the feverish23 tremor24 of his limbs. He allowed himself to sink back against the wall, his hands tightly clasped before him. Gradually, the set, abstracted look of his eyes faded and became suffused25, as if moistened by that celestial26 mist. Then he rose quickly, drew his sleeve hurriedly across his lashes27, and began slowly to creep along the wall again.
Either the obscurity of the shrubbery became greater or he was growing preoccupied28; but in steadying himself by the wall he had, without perceiving it, put his hand upon a rude door that, yielding to his pressure, opened noiselessly into a dark passage. Without apparent reflection he entered, followed the passage a few steps until it turned abruptly29; turning with it, he found himself in the body of the Mission Church of Todos Santos. A swinging-lamp, that burned perpetually before an effigy30 of the Virgin31 Mother, threw a faint light on the single rose-window behind the high altar; another, suspended in a low archway, apparently32 lit the open door of the passage towards the refectory. By the stronger light of the latter Hurlstone could see the barbaric red and tarnished33 gold of the rafters that formed the straight roof. The walls were striped with equally bizarre coloring, half Moorish34 and half Indian. A few hangings of dyed and painted cloths with heavy fringes were disposed on either side of the chancel, like the flaps of a wigwam; and the aboriginal35 suggestion was further repeated in a quantity of colored beads36 and sea-shells that decked the communion-rails. The Stations of the Cross, along the walls, were commemorated37 by paintings, evidently by a native artist—to suit the same barbaric taste; while a larger picture of San Francisco d'Assisis, under the choir38, seemed to belong to an older and more artistic39 civilization. But the sombre half-light of the two lamps mellowed40 and softened41 the harsh contrast of these details until the whole body of the church appeared filled with a vague harmonious42 shadow. The air, heavy with the odors of past incense43, seemed to be a part of that expression, as if the solemn and sympathetic twilight44 became palpable in each deep, long-drawn inspiration.
Again overcome by the feeling of repose and peacefulness, Hurlstone sank upon a rude settle, and bent his head and folded arms over a low railing before him. How long he sat there, allowing the subtle influence to transfuse45 and possess his entire being, he did not know. The faint twitter of birds suddenly awoke him. Looking up, he perceived that it came from the vacant square of the tower above him, open to the night and suffused with its mysterious radiance. In another moment the roof of the church was swiftly crossed and recrossed with tiny and adventurous46 wings. The mysterious light had taken an opaline color. Morning was breaking.
The slow rustling47 of a garment, accompanied by a soft but heavy tread, sounded from the passage. He started to his feet as the priest, whom he had seen on the deck of the Excelsior, entered the church from the refectory. The Padre was alone. At the apparition48 of a stranger, torn and disheveled, he stopped involuntarily and cast a hasty look towards the heavy silver ornaments49 on the altar. Hurlstone noticed it, and smiled bitterly.
"Don't alarm yourself. I only sought this place for shelter."
He spoke50 in French—the language he had heard Padre Esteban address to Mrs. Brimmer. But the priest's quick eye had already detected his own mistake. He lifted his hand with a sublime51 gesture towards the altar, and said,—
"You are right! Where should you seek shelter but here?"
The reply was so unexpected that Hurlstone was silent. His lips quivered slightly.
"And if it were SANCTUARY52 I was seeking?" he said.
"You would first tell me why you sought it," said Padre Esteban gently.
Hurlstone looked at him irresolutely53 for a moment and then said, with the hopeless desperation of a man anxious to anticipate his fate,—
"I am a passenger on the ship you boarded yesterday. I came ashore54 with the intention of concealing56 myself somewhere here until she had sailed. When I tell you that I am not a fugitive57 from justice, that I have committed no offense58 against the ship or her passengers, nor have I any intention of doing so, but that I only wish concealment59 from their knowledge for twenty-four hours, you will know enough to understand that you run no risk in giving me assistance. I can tell you no more."
"I did not see you with the other passengers, either on the ship or ashore," said the priest. "How did you come here?"
"I swam ashore before they left. I did not know they had any idea of landing here; I expected to be the only one, and there would have been no need for concealment then. But I am not lucky," he added, with a bitter laugh.
The priest glanced at his garments, which bore the traces of the sea, but remained silent.
"Do you think I am lying?"
The old priest lifted his head with a gesture.
"Not to me—but to God!"
The young man followed the gesture, and glanced around the barbaric church with a slight look of scorn. But the profound isolation60, the mystic seclusion61, and, above all, the complete obliteration62 of that world and civilization he shrank from and despised, again subdued63 and overcame his rebellious64 spirit. He lifted his eyes to the priest.
"Nor to God," he said gravely.
"Then why withhold65 anything from Him here?" said the priest gently.
"I am not a Catholic—I do not believe in confession66," said Hurlstone doggedly67, turning aside.
But Padre Esteban laid his large brown hand on the young man's shoulder. Touched by some occult suggestion in its soft contact, he sank again into his seat.
"Yet you ask for the sanctuary of His house—a sanctuary bought by that contrition68 whose first expression is the bared and open soul! To the first worldly shelter you sought—the peon's hut or the Alcalde's casa—you would have thought it necessary to bring a story. You would not conceal55 from the physician whom you asked for balsam either the wound, the symptoms, or the cause? Enough," he said kindly69, as Hurlstone was about to reply. "You shall have your request. You shall stay here. I will be your physician, and will salve your wounds; if any poison I know not of rankle70 there, you will not blame me, son, but perhaps you will assist me to find it. I will give you a secluded71 cell in the dormitory until the ship has sailed. And then"—
He dropped quietly on the settle, took the young man's hand paternally72 in his own, and gazed into his eyes as if he read his soul.
And then . . . Ah, yes . . . What then? Hurlstone glanced once more around him. He thought of the quiet night; of the great peace that had fallen upon him since he had entered the garden, and the promise of a greater peace that seemed to breathe with the incense from those venerable walls. He thought of that crumbling barrier, that even in its ruin seemed to shut out, more completely than anything he had conceived, his bitter past, and the bitter world that recalled it. He thought of the long days to come, when, forgetting and forgotten, he might find a new life among these simple aliens, themselves forgotten by the world. He had thought of this once before in the garden; it occurred to him again in this Lethe-like oblivion of the little church, in the kindly pressure of the priest's hand. The ornaments no longer looked uncouth73 and barbaric—rather they seemed full of some new spiritual significance. He suddenly lifted his eyes to Padre Esteban, and, half rising to his feet, said,—
"Are we alone?"
"We are; it is a half-hour yet before mass," said the priest.
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