glad to be in the fresh air under the clear, starlit sky.

No more lonely or picturesque ruin ever existed than the church of St.
Paul; though human habitations crowd close upon it, they are however the
houses of Chinese and make the Christian edifice seem the more solitary.
The church is of that favourite style of architecture so common in new
and old Spain, which always brings to the mind of the wanderer in
foreign lands the name of good San Xavier.

The half moon had risen high enough to illuminate the whole front as
Adams climbed the broad, massive steps to the paved space before it.
Leaning against the heavy balustrade he enjoyed the picture. The shadows
were deep and through the sightless windows shone a few silver stars.
The magnificent front of solid granite with graceful scroll-work and
carved outline, blackened here by smoke and there by age, with vines and
trees growing from crevices, stood in wondrous beauty.

The detail showed clearer than by day; the panels in high relief, of
full rigged ship, the double dolphin and the skeleton seemed too fragile
to have stood through earthquake and typhoon and the conflagrations of
war for more than two hundred years. The exquisite frieze composed of
many unconventionalized flowers extending across the front, wherein the
artist and worker had been one, was a petrified garland. This scene was
a revelation to Adams for often as he had viewed and sketched the ruin,
he had never been there by moonlight when its beauties were enhanced and
its defects hidden. He could see plainly each Chinese character upon the
carved scrolls and the words "Mater Dei" above the doorway.

Slowly the shadows crept along, making the six broken saints in their
niches seem alive; slowly the shadows upon the ruin crept along, but a