blue and black fall; shadows in which all the terres-
trial world seems to float and recombine, where
houses are ghosts of ancient selves and men but the
eidola of forgotten dust. To-night the little estate
of Juan Moraga, the most isolated and eastern of
the settlement, surrounded by its high white wall,
looked as unreal and formless as the blue oval of
water and black trees behind it, but Rezanov knew
that it enfolded warm and palpitating womanhood
and was steeped in the sweetness of Castilian roses.

The riders, who had taken a path far to the east
of the Mission dismounted and tied their horses
among the willows, then, in their dark cloaks but a
part of the shadows, stole toward the wall designed
to impress hostile tribes rather than to resist on-
slaught; at the first warning the settlement invari-
ably fled to the church, where walls were massive
and windows high.

In three of Moraga's four walls was a grille, or
wicket of slender iron bars, whence the open could
be swept with glass, or gun at a pinch; and toward
the grille looking eastward went Rezanov as swiftly
as the uneven ground would permit. As Concha
watched him gather form in the moonlight and saw
him jerk his cloak off impatiently, she flung her
soft body against the wall and shook the bars with
her strong little hands. But when he faced her she
was erect and smiling; in a sudden uprush of spirits,