loved--his pet pupil, Paquita--seemed to be conscious of some hidden
sin. The result of this constant irritation showed itself more plainly.
For the first half-year the Commander's voice and eye were at variance.
He was still kind, tender, and thoughtful in speech. Gradually, however,
his voice took upon itself the hardness of his glance and its skeptical,
impassive quality, and as the year again neared its close it was plain
that the Commander had fitted himself to the eye, and not the eye to the
Commander.

It may be surmised that these changes did not escape the watchful
solicitude of the Fathers. Indeed, the few who were first to ascribe the
right eye of Salvatierra to miraculous origin and the special grace of
the blessed San Carlos, now talked openly of witchcraft and the agency
of Luzbel, the evil one. It would have fared ill with Hermenegildo
Salvatierra had he been aught but Commander or amenable to local
authority. But the reverend father, Friar Manuel de Cortes, had no
power over the political executive, and all attempts at spiritual
advice failed signally. He retired baffled and confused from his first
interview with the Commander, who seemed now to take a grim satisfaction
in the fateful power of his glance. The holy Father contradicted
himself, exposed the fallacies of his own arguments, and even, it is
asserted, committed himself to several undoubted heresies. When the
Commander stood up at mass, if the officiating priest caught that
skeptical and searching eye, the service was inevitably ruined. Even the
power of the Holy Church seemed to be lost, and the last hold upon the
affections of the people and the good order of the settlement departed
from San Carlos.

As the long dry summer passed, the low hills that surrounded the white
walls of the Presidio grew more and more to resemble in hue the leathern