An Indian servant noiselessly led away his horse. Another _peon_ as mutely led the way along a corridor over whose low railings _serapes_ and saddle blankets were hung in a barbaric confusion of colouring, and entered a bare-walled ante-room, where another Indian--old, grey-headed, with a face like a wrinkled tobacco leaf--was seated on a low wooden settle in an attitude of patient expectancy. To Arthur's active fancy he seemed to have been sitting there since the establishment of the Mission, and to have grown grey in waiting for him. As Arthur entered he rose, and with a few grave Spanish courtesies, ushered him into a larger and more elaborately furnished apartment, and again retired with a bow. Familiar as Arthur was with these various formalities, at present they seemed to have an undue significance, and he turned somewhat impatiently as a door opened at the other end of the apartment. At the same moment a subtle strange perfume--not unlike some barbaric spice or odorous Indian herb--stole through the door, and an old woman, brown-faced, murky-eyed, and decrepit, entered with a respectful curtsey. "It is Don Arturo Poinsett?" Arthur bowed. "The Donna Dolores has a little indisposition, and claims your indulgence if she receives you in her own room." Arthur bowed assent. "_Bueno!_ This way." She pointed to the open door. Arthur entered by a narrow passage cut through the thickness of the adobe wall into another room beyond, and paused on the threshold. Even the gradual change from the glaring sunshine of the courtyard to the heavy shadows of the two rooms he had passed through was not sufficient to accustom his eyes to the twilight of the apartment he now entered. For several seconds he could not distinguish anything but a few dimly outlined objects. By degrees he saw that there were a bed, a _prie-dieu_, and a sofa against the opposite wall. The scant light of two windows--mere longitudinal slits in the deep walls--at first permitted him only this. Later he saw that the sofa was occupied by a half-reclining figure, whose face was partly hidden by a fan, and the white folds of whose skirt fell in graceful curves to the floor. "You speak Spanish, Don Arturo?" said an exquisitely modulated voice from behind the fan, in perfect Castilian. Arthur turned quickly toward the voice with an indescribable thrill of pleasure in his nerves. "A little." He was usually rather proud of his Spanish, but for once the conventional polite disclaimer was quite sincere. "Be seated, Don Arturo." He advanced to a chair indicated by the old woman within a few feet of the sofa and sat down. At the same instant the reclining figure, by a quick, dexterous movement, folded the large black fan that had partly hidden her features, and turned her face toward him.