At San Onofre the surf was breaking against the cliffs. It was high tide, and the beach road was deep enough for a horse to swim. Raquel had ridden far ahead, and now stood on the brink of a torrent cutting its way down from the hills to the sea. The girl glanced back at the swaying chariot-like carriage on a far hill, and wondered what would be expected of their broncos in this crisis. The animal she herself rode danced and fretted with fright at the roar of the surf and the dash of the hill stream, but she sat the saddle with ease, answering to every curve or side leap as lightly as a gull that floated on the incoming wave. Her face held something of the power suggested by her strong right hand. The eyes were so soft, yet steady, and of darkest violet. The black lashes touching her cheeks gave them tender shadows, and the hair, in two thick braids reaching to her waist, framed a face of youthful curves and charm. But what was it made every man, and many women, turn to look again at the face of Raquel Estevan? Many girls were as beautiful, but something beyond the beauty of feature or color was in her strange half-Egyptian face,--a certain barbaric note held in check by the steady eyes and the mouth firm yet tender. It was a mouth made for love; yet--was it the shadow of the dark veil she had so nearly worn? Was it a hint of regret for the cloistered life left behind? Or was it the shadow of some future--a prophecy of the years to come? Ana paused at the edge of the stream, in terror at the volume of water barring their way on every side. "Ai! ai! And Aunt Jacoba but a moment ago declaring that she will have her supper in the refectory of the San Juan Mission. Neither Mission nor supper can we see this night--and no Rafael!" She turned dismayed though roguish eyes on Raquel. "He did not expect us when the rains came," said Raquel with quiet certainty. "If he received Dona Luisa's letter, he has gone by sea to San Diego. Did she not say so, Anita?" "Oh, he can do much, your handsome Rafael," agreed Ana, "but he cannot yet stop the tide, or dam La Christienita! Such a dry bed in Summer! and now it is a river." "But not deep?" hazarded Raquel. "Not so deep as the carriage bed." "Deep? There is one ford that is safe if one knows it; but, Holy Maria! on each side are pits of a depth to drown us all!" "Oh, if there is a good ford to be found--" The rest of Raquel's sentence was drowned in Ana's shrieks of protest, as her horse was spurred into the torrent in search of the roadway safe for a carriage. Ana was right; there were pits, and there were great round bowlders on the edges of them. The horse stumbled on one, recovered, and stumbled again where the current swung into a whirlpool; and then, as the water roaring in her ears almost drowned Ana's screams, a sharp authoritative voice sounded from the bank-- "Loose the stirrup!"