his secret and the conditions of my absolution are peculiar. I
have but five minutes to live. In that time I must receive the extreme
unction of the Church."

"And thy secret?" said the holy father.

"Shall be told afterwards," answered the dying man. "Come, my time is
short. Shrive me quickly."

The Padre hesitated. "Couldst thou not tell this secret first?"

"Impossible!" said the dying man, with what seemed to the Padre a
momentary gleam of triumph. Then, as his breath grew feebler, he called
impatiently, "Shrive me! shrive me!"

"Let me know at least what this secret concerns?" suggested the Padre,
insinuatingly.

"Shrive me first," said the dying man.

But the priest still hesitated, parleying with the sufferer until the
ship's bell struck, when, with a triumphant, mocking laugh from the
stranger, the vessel suddenly fell to pieces, amid the rushing of waters
which at once involved the dying man, the priest, and the mysterious
stranger.

The Padre did not recover his consciousness until high noon the next
day, when he found himself lying in a little hollow between the Mission
Hills, and his faithful mule a few paces from him, cropping the sparse
herbage. The Padre made the best of his way home, but wisely abstained
from narrating the facts mentioned above, until after the discovery of
gold, when the whole of this veracious incident was related, with the
assertion of the padre that the secret which was thus mysteriously
snatched from his possession was nothing more than the discovery of
gold, years since, by the runaway sailors from the expedition of Sir
Francis Drake.

THE LEGEND OF DEVIL'S POINT.

On the northerly shore of San Francisco Bay, at a point where the Golden
Gate broadens into the Pacific stands a bluff promontory. It affords
shelter from the prevailing winds to a semicircular bay on the east.
Around this bay the hillside is bleak and barren, but there are traces
of former habitation in a weather-beaten cabin and deserted corral. It
is said that these were originally built by an enterprising squatter,
who for some unaccountable reason abandoned them shortly after. The
"Jumper" who succeeded him disappeared one day, quite as mysteriously.
The third tenant, who seemed to be a man of sanguine, hopeful
temperament, divided the property into building lots, staked off the
hillside, and projected the map of a new metropolis. Failing, however,
to convince the citizens of San Francisco that