not tell the truth. After all, if the good folk of San Carlos believed
that the powers of his right eye were actually restored, was it wise and
discreet for him to undeceive them? For the first time in his life the
Commander thought of policy--for the first time he quoted that text
which has been the lure of so many well-meaning but easy Christians, of
being "all things to all men." Infeliz Hermenegildo Salvatierra!

For by degrees an ominous whisper crept though the little settlement.
The Right Eye of the Commander, although miraculous, seemed to exercise
a baleful effect upon the beholder. No one could look at it without
winking. It was cold, hard, relentless, and unflinching. More than that,
it seemed to be endowed with a dreadful prescience--a faculty of seeing
through and into the inarticulate thoughts of those it looked upon. The
soldiers of the garrison obeyed the eye rather than the voice of their
commander, and answered his glance rather than his lips in questioning.
The servants could not evade the ever watchful but cold attention that
seemed to pursue them. The children of the Presidio school smirched
their copybooks under the awful supervision, and poor Paquita, the prize
pupil, failed utterly in that marvelous upstroke when her patron stood
beside her. Gradually distrust, suspicion, self-accusation, and timidity
took the place of trust, confidence, and security throughout San Carlos.
Whenever the Right Eye of the Commander fell, a shadow fell with it.

Nor was Salvatierra entirely free from the baleful influence of his
miraculous acquisition. Unconscious of its effect upon others, he only
saw in their actions evidence of certain things that the crafty Peleg
had hinted on that eventful New Year's eve. His most trusty retainers
stammered, blushed, and faltered before him. Self-accusations,
confessions of minor faults and delinquencies, or extravagant excuses
and apologies met his mildest inquiries. The very children that he