The tropical moon shone in her fullness from an unclouded sky. Through the ethereal atmosphere which bathed the storied city her beams fell, plashing noiselessly upon the grim memorials of a stirring past. With a mantle of peace they gently covered the former scenes of violence and strife. With magic, intangible substance they filled out the rents in the grassy walls and smoothed away the scars of battle. The pale luster, streaming through narrow barbican and mildewed arch, touched the decaying ruin of San Felipe with the wand of enchantment, and restored it to pristine freshness and strength. Through the stillness of night the watery vapor streamed upward from garden and _patio_, and mingled with the scent of flushing roses and tropical buds in a fragrant mist suffused with the moon's yellow glow. On the low parapet bordering the eastern esplanade of the city wall the solitary figure of the priest cast a narrow shadow in the pale moonlight. The sounds which eddied the enveloping silence seemed to echo in his ears the tread of mediaeval warriors. In the wraith-like shadows he saw the armored forms of _Conquistadores_ in mortal strife with vulpine buccaneers. In the whirring of the bats which flouted his face he heard the singing of arrows and the hiss of hurled rocks. In the moan of the ocean as it broke on the coral reef below sounded the boom of cannon, the curses of combatants, and the groans of the dying. Here and there moved tonsured monks, now absolving in the name of the peaceful Christ the frenzied defenders of the Heroic City, now turning to hurl curses at the swarming enemy and consign their blackened souls to deepest hell, while holding images of the crucified Saviour to the quivering lips of stricken warriors. In the fancied combat raging in the moonlight before him he saw the sons of the house of Rincón manifesting their devotion to Sovereign and Pope, their unshaken faith in Holy Church, their hot zeal which made them her valiant defenders, her support, her humble and devoted slaves for more than three centuries. What was the charm by which she had held them? And why had its potency failed utterly when directed to him? But they were men of physical action, not thought--men of deeds which called only for brave hearts and stout bodies. It is true, there had been thinkers in those days, when the valiant sons of Rincón hurled the enemy from Cartagena's walls--but they lay rotting in dungeons--they lay broken on the rack, or hung breathing out their souls to God amid the hot flames which His self-appointed vicars kindled about them. The Rincóns of that day had not been thinkers. But the centuries had finally evolved from their number a man of thought. Alas! the evolution had developed intellect, it is true--but the process had refined away the rugged qualities of animal strength which, without a deeper hold on Truth and the way to demonstrate it than Josè possessed, must leave him the plaything of Fate.