so, and on coming back from the large dining-room, where I told my
errand to one of the mozos, found the padre and Don Manuel just sitting
down to their own dinner. The padre ate little; but there was nothing
else to make me think that anything was wrong, and had not it been for
the night before, and the morning's mass, I should have thought nothing
of it. But now every little thing was large and important in my eyes;
and although nothing was said but what might have been said by any
visitor at any time, I grew more and more heavy-hearted. After they had
finished eating, which they did very quickly, the stranger prepared to
leave. Gathering up his sombrero and zarape, and receiving a small
package, which looked like a bundle of letters, from the padre, he
strode out to his horse, already waiting for him in front of the
building, the padre close behind him."

"I took my place by the horse, and pretended to be looking at the
saddle, to see that everything was right, while I tried to hear what the
padre and Don Manuel were saying; but they spoke too low for me to make
out more than a word now and then. I heard Don Manuel say 'San Diego;'
'the Pocahontas, a small ship but;' 'Spain,' and a few other words of no
significance. Padre Peyri said hardly a word, but stood with bowed head,
and eyes cast on the ground. At last Don Manuel knelt to receive the
padre's blessing, and with a last low sentence, and an 'adios,' spoken
aloud, as he sprang to his horse, he dashed off down the hill until he
came to the mission road which runs from San Diego into the far north.
The padre watched him turn his horse's head toward the south, and
disappear behind a hill; a few minutes later he came into sight again as
he ascended another hill until at last he stood on the top. With a long
look at the rider hurrying away in the distance, the padre turned and,
without a word to me, went into the house and shut himself in his room."