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“But who are these?” he said, pointing to two figures who now appeared upon the trail.

Antonio turned.

“It is the Americano, Senor Cranch, and his adopted daughter, the mestiza Juanita, seeking your reverence, methinks.”

“Ah!” said Father Pedro.

Cranch came forward and greeted the priest cordially.

“It was kind of you, Father Pedro,” he said, meaningly, with a significant glance at Jose and Antonio, “to come so far to bid me and my adopted daughter farewell. We depart when the tide serves, but not before you partake of our hospitality in yonder cottage.”

Father Pedro gazed at Cranch and then at Juanita.

“I see,” he stammered. “But she goes not alone. She will be strange at first. She takes some friend, perhaps–some companion?” he continued, tremulously.

“A very old and dear one, Father Pedro, who is waiting for us now.”

He led the way to a little white cottage, so little and white and recent, that it seemed a mere fleck of sea-foam cast on the sands. Disposing of Jose and Antonio in the neighboring workshop and outbuildings, he assisted the venerable Sanchicha to dismount, and, together with Father Pedro and Juanita, entered a white palisaded enclosure beside the cottage, and halted before what appeared to be a large folding trap-door, covering a slight sandy mound. It was locked with a padlock; beside it stood the American alcalde and Don Juan Briones. Father Pedro looked hastily around for another figure, but it was not there.

“Gentlemen,” began Cranch, in his practical business way, “I reckon you all know we’ve come here to identify a young lady, who”–he hesitated–“was lately under the care of Father Pedro, with a foundling picked up on this shore fifteen years ago by an Indian woman. How this foundling came here, and how I was concerned in it, you all know. I’ve told everybody here how I scrambled ashore, leaving the baby in the dingy, supposing it would be picked up by the boat pursuing me. I’ve told some of you,” he looked at Father Pedro, “how I first discovered, from one of the men, three years ago, that the child was not found by its father. But I have never told any one, before now, I knew it was picked up here.

“I never could tell the exact locality where I came ashore, for the fog was coming on as it is now. But two years ago I came up with a party of gold hunters to work these sands. One day, digging near this creek, I struck something embedded deep below the surface. Well, gentlemen, it wasn’t gold, but something worth more to me than gold or silver. Here it is.”

At a sign the alcalde unlocked the doors and threw them open. They disclosed an irregular trench, in which, filled with sand, lay the half-excavated stern of a boat.

“It was the dingy of the Trinidad, gentlemen; you can still read her name. I found hidden away, tucked under the stern sheets, moldy and water-worn, some clothes that I recognized to be the baby’s. I knew then that the child had been taken away alive for some purpose, and the clothes were left so that she should carry no trace with her. I recognized the hand of an Indian. I set to work quietly. I found Sanchicha here, she confessed to finding a baby, but what she had done with it she would not at first say. But since then she has declared before the alcalde that she gave it to Father Pedro of San Carmel, and that here it stands–Francisco that was! Francisca that it is!”

He stepped aside to make way for a tall girl, who had approached from the cottage.

Father Pedro had neither noticed the concluding words nor the movement of Cranch. His eyes were fixed upon the imbecile Sanchicha,–Sanchicha, of whom, to render his rebuke more complete, the Deity seemed to have worked a miracle, and restored intelligence to eye and lip. He passed his hand tremblingly across his forehead, and turned away, when his eye fell upon the last comer.