to the ship!" he returned, with a frankness that would have been rude
but for its utter abstraction.
Miss Keene was silent. The ship moved gently onward. The monotonous cry
of the leadsman in the chains was the only sound audible. The soundings
were indicating shoaler water, although the murmuring of the surf had
been left far astern. The almost imperceptible darkening of the mist
on either beam seemed to show that the Excelsior was entering some
land-locked passage. The movement of the vessel slackened, the tide was
beginning to ebb. Suddenly a wave of far-off clamor, faint but sonorous,
broke across the ship. There was an interval of breathless silence, and
then it broke again, and more distinctly. It was the sound of bells!
The thrill of awe which passed through passengers and crew at this
spiritual challenge from the vast and intangible void around them had
scarcely subsided when the captain turned to Senor Perkins with a look
of surly interrogation. The Senor brushed his hat further back on his
head, wiped his brow, and became thoughtful.
"It's too far south for Rosario," he said deprecatingly; "and the only
other mission I know of is San Carlos, and that's far inland. But that
is the Angelus, and those are mission bells, surely."
The captain turned to Mr. Brooks. The voice of invisible command again
passed along the deck, and, with a splash in the water and the rattling
of chains, the Excelsior swung slowly round on her anchor on the bosom
of what seemed a placid bay.
Miss Keene, who, in her complete absorption, had listened to the
phantom bells with an almost superstitious exaltation, had forgotten the
presence of her companion, and now turned towards him. But he was gone.
The imminent danger he had spoken of, half slightingly, he evidently
considered as past. He had taken the opportunity offered by the slight
bustle made by the lowering of the quarter-boat and the departure of the
mate on a voyage of discovery to mingle with the crowd, and regain his
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