Her cynical brain informed her stormy heart that any woman must succumb
finally to the one man who had never bored her.




THE ISLE OF SKULLS


I

The good priests of Santa Barbara sat in grave conference on the long
corridor of their mission. It was a winter's day, and they basked in
the sun. The hoods of their brown habits peaked above faces lean and
ascetic, fat and good-tempered, stern, intelligent, weak, commanding.
One face alone was young.

But for the subject under discussion they would have been at peace with
themselves and with Nature. In the great square of the mission the
Indians they had Christianized worked at many trades. The great aqueduct
along the brow of one of the lower hills, the wheat and corn fields on
the slopes, the trim orchards and vegetable gardens in the cañons of the
great bare mountains curving about the valley, were eloquent evidence of
their cleverness and industry. From the open door of the church came the
sound of lively and solemn tunes: the choir was practising for mass. The
day was as peaceful as only those long drowsy shimmering days before the
Americans came could be. And yet there was dissent among the padres.

Several had been speaking together, when one of the older men raised his