for a sight of the barkentine; but it was gone.

The season of the wine-making passed, and the preserving of all the
fruits that the mission fields grew. Lotions and medicines was distilled
from garden herbs. Perfume was manufactured from the petals of flowers
and certain spices, and presents of it despatched to San Fernando and
Ventura, and to friends at other places; for the Padre had a special
receipt. As the time ran on, two or three visitors passed a night with
him; and presently there was a word at various missions that Padre
Ignacio had begun to show his years. At Santa Ysabel del Mar they
whispered, "The Padre is not well." Yet he rode a great deal over the
hills by himself, and down the canyon very often, stopping where he had
sat with Gaston, to sit alone and look up and down, now at the hills
above, and now at the ocean below. Among his parishioners he had certain
troubles to soothe, certain wounds to heal; a home from which he was
able to drive jealousy; a girl whom he bade her lover set right. But all
said, "The Padre is unwell." And Felipe told them that the music seemed
nothing to him any more; he never asked for his Dixit Dominus nowadays.
Then for a short time he was really in bed, feverish with the two voices
that spoke to him without ceasing. "You have given your life," said one
voice. "And, therefore," said the other, "have earned the right to go
home and die." "You are winning better rewards in the service of God,"
said the first voice. "God can be better served in other places,"
answered the second. As he lay listening he saw Seville again, and the
trees of Aranhal, where he had been born. The wind was blowing through
them, and in their branches he could hear the nightingales. "Empty!
Empty!" he said, aloud. And he lay for two days and nights hearing
the wind and the nightingales in the far trees of Aranhal. But Felipe,
watching, only heard the Padre crying through the hours, "Empty! Empty!"

Then the wind in the trees died down, and the Padre could get out of
bed, and soon be in the garden. But the voices within him still talked
all the while as he sat watching the sails when they passed between the
headlands. Their words, falling for ever the same way, beat his spirit
sore, like blows upon flesh already bruised. If he could only change
what they said, he would rest.

"Has the Padre any mall for Santa Barbara?" asked Felipe. "The ship
bound southward should be here to-morrow."

"I will attend t