he foot of the hill the driver brought the
horses to a halt, and informed me that the road ahead looked impassable.

I peered out of the window.

An unbuilt space was on my right, and across the dark expanse, and
across the street which cut the other side of it I looked to the long
roofs and walls of the convent, all a dull monotone scarcely
distinguishable from the night. Only on the corner a solitary street
lamp illuminated a little space of the wall and made a pool of light on
the pavement beneath.

The silence was broken by the sound of voices talking--the jargon of
peons, I thought--and I remembered that I was alone, and driving across
a lonely part of the city. The voices seemed to be approaching down
Powell Street, even now perhaps under the very convent walls. They
sounded loud and jovial.

"Can't you turn into the sand-lot, and make a cross-cut to Mason
Street?" I whispered to the driver.

Muttering that sand was "decenter than mud at least," he remounted his
box and swung the horses about. In the mud the wheels and hoofs made
only a soft "squshing" sound. We turned away into the dark, unlighted
space without the approaching group being any the wiser of our presence.

But, as we went, I saw, suddenly emerging from behind the convent wall
and coming out into the pool of light, the swinging serapes and great
shadowy hats of the Mexicans. They were crossing Lombard, they were
keeping straight on down Powell, probably for some of the North Beach
resorts; but, as with voluble talk and laughter they passed the
opposite curb, I noticed a singular thing--one man who dropped out of
the group silently as if unobserved by his companions. He seemed to
make one step from the lighted street into the shadow, and was
swallowed up in it as completely as if he had plunged into a forest.
He had entered that very tract that I had entered!

I put my head out of the window and spoke softly to the driver. "Stop!
Keep perfectly still until he gets by."

The hackman seemed to understand what I wanted, and drew up the team,
and we waited. I heard footsteps. They seemed to be coming straight
toward the carriage. No, they were passing to the left of it. It was
probable that this person was quite unconscious of our presence, but my
heart was beating so hard it seemed to me he surely must hear it.

The footsteps stopped. I hardly dared to breathe. Then I heard the
rough sound of a match; there came a small blue spurt