rkins, which, but a few hours ago, he had verified
by the letters, records, and even the certificate of death that had thus
strangely been placed in his hands! She knew all this so clearly now,
that, with the instinct of a sympathetic nature, she even fancied she
had heard it before. She knew that all the obstacles to an exchange
of their affection had been removed; that her lover only waited his
opportunity to hear from her own lips the answer that was even now
struggling at her heart. And yet she hesitated and drew back, half
frightened in the presence of her great happiness. How she longed,
and yet dreaded, to meet him! What if anything should have happened to
him?--what if he should be the victim of some treachery?--what if he did
not come?--what if?--"Good heavens! what was that?"

She was near the door of the sacristy, gazing into the dim and shadowy
church. Either she was going mad, or else the grotesque Indian hangings
of the walls were certainly moving towards her. She rose in speechless
terror, as what she had taken for an uncouthly swathed and draped
barbaric pillar suddenly glided to the window. Crouching against the
wall, she crept breathlessly towards the entrance to the garden. Casting
a hurried glance above her, she saw the open belfry that was illuminated
by the misty radiance of the moon, darkly shadowed by hideously
gibbering faces that peered at her through the broken tracery. With a
cry of horror she threw open the garden-door; but the next moment was
swallowed up in the tumultuous tide of wild and half naked Indians who
surged against the walls of the church, and felt herself lifted from her
feet, with inarticulate cries, and borne along the garden. Even in her
mortal terror, she could recognize that the cries were not those of
rage, but of vacant satisfaction; that although she was lifted on lithe
shoulders, the grasp of her limbs was gentle, and the few dark faces she
could see around her were glistening in childlike curiosity. Presently
she felt herself placed upon the back of a mule, that seemed to be
swayed hither and thither in the shifting mass, and the next moment
the misty, tossing cortege moved forward with a new and more definite
purpose. She called aloud for Father Esteban and Mrs. Markham; her voice
appeared to flow back upon her from the luminous wall of fog that
closed around her. Then the inarticulate, irregular outcries took upon
themselves a measured rhythm, the movement of the mas