第7章 THE ADVENTURE OF PADRE VINCENTIO(1)

A LEGEND OF SAN FRANCISCO.

One pleasant New Year's Eve,about forty years ago,Padre Vicentio was slowly picking his way across the sand-hills from the Mission Dolores.As he climbed the crest of the ridge beside Mission Creek,his broad,shining face might have been easily mistaken for the beneficent image of the rising moon,so bland was its smile and so indefinite its features.For the Padre was a man of notable reputation and character;his ministration at the mission of San Jose had been marked with cordiality and unction;he was adored by the simple-minded savages,and had succeeded in impressing his individuality so strongly upon them that the very children were said to have miraculously resembled him in feature.

As the holy man reached the loneliest portion of the road,he naturally put spurs to his mule as if to quicken that decorous pace which the obedient animal had acquired through long experience of its master's habits.The locality had an unfavorable reputation.

Sailors--deserters from whaleships--had been seen lurking about the outskirts of the town,and low scrub oaks which everywhere beset the trail might have easily concealed some desperate runaway.

Besides these material obstructions,the devil,whose hostility to the church was well known,was said to sometimes haunt the vicinity in the likeness of a spectral whaler,who had met his death in a drunken bout,from a harpoon in the hands of a companion.The ghost of this unfortunate mariner was frequently observed sitting on the hill toward the dusk of evening,armed with his favorite weapon and a tub containing a coil of line,looking out for some belated traveller on whom to exercise his professional skill.It is related that the good Father Jose Maria of the Mission Dolores had been twice attacked by this phantom sportsman;that once,on returning from San Francisco,and panting with exertion from climbing the hill,he was startled by a stentorian cry of "There she blows!"quickly followed by a hurtling harpoon,which buried itself in the sand beside him;that on another occasion he narrowly escaped destruction,his serapa having been transfixed by the diabolical harpoon and dragged away in triumph.Popular opinion seems to have been divided as to the reason for the devil's particular attention to Father Jose,some asserting that the extreme piety of the Padre excited the Evil One's animosity,and others that his adipose tendency simply rendered him,from a professional view-point,a profitable capture.

Had Father Vicentio been inclined to scoff at this apparition as a heretical innovation,there was still the story of Concepcion,the Demon Vaquero,whose terrible riata was fully as potent as the whaler's harpoon.Concepcion,when in the flesh,had been a celebrated herder of cattle and wild horses,and was reported to have chased the devil in the shape of a fleet pinto colt all the way from San Luis Obispo to San Francisco,vowing not to give up the chase until he had overtaken the disguised Arch-Enemy.This the devil prevented by resuming his own shape,but kept the unfortunate vaquero to the fulfilment of his rash vow;and Concepcion still scoured the coast on a phantom steed,beguiling the monotony of his eternal pursuit by lassoing travellers,dragging them at the heels of his unbroken mustang until they were eventually picked up,half-strangled,by the roadside.The Padre listened attentively for the tramp of this terrible rider.But no footfall broke the stillness of the night;even the hoofs of his own mule sank noiselessly in the shifting sand.Now and then a rabbit bounded lightly by him,or a quail ran into the bushes.The melancholy call of plover from the adjoining marshes of Mission Creek came to him so faintly and fitfully that it seemed almost a recollection of the past rather than a reality of the present.

To add to his discomposure one of those heavy sea-fogs peculiar to the locality began to drift across the hills and presently encompassed him.While endeavoring to evade its cold embraces,Padre Vicentio incautiously drove his heavy spurs into the flanks of his mule as that puzzled animal was hesitating on the brink of a steep declivity.Whether the poor beast was indignant at this novel outrage,or had been for some time reflecting on the evils of being priest-ridden,has not transpired;enough that he suddenly threw up his heels,pitching the reverend man over his head,and,having accomplished this feat,coolly dropped on his knees and tumbled after his rider.

Over and over went the Padre,closely followed by his faithless mule.Luckily the little hollow which received the pair was of sand that yielded to the superincumbent weight,half burying them without further injury.For some moments the poor man lay motionless,vainly endeavoring to collect his scattered senses.Ahand irreverently laid upon his collar,and a rough shake,assisted to recall his consciousness.As the Padre staggered to his feet he found himself confronted by a stranger.

Seen dimly through the fog,and under circumstances that to say the least were not prepossessing,the new-comer had an inexpressibly mysterious and brigand-like aspect.A long boat-cloak concealed his figure,and a slouched hat hid his features,permitting only his eyes to glisten in the depths.With a deep groan the Padre slipped from the stranger's grasp and subsided into the soft sand again.