I hung my head, ashamed, of my doubts. Once it was not my nature to be suspicious; but so much of trouble had come to me of late that I began to fear I would never again feel the same confidence in my fellow creatures, the same implicit trust in Heaven that I had held two years ago. I had never been a stranger to trouble; but, as a child, I knew it only as a formless cloud that cast its shadow sometimes on my path, dimming the sunlight for a moment and hushing the song upon my lips. Even when my mother died I was too young for more than a child's grief--an April shower of tears; and although my earliest maidenhood was often lonely, I had made me my own happiness with bright imaginings, and prayed God to bring them to pass. So I awaited my future always with a smile and never doubted that it would be fair. All that had gone by. Trouble had shown its face to me, and I knew it for something terrible and strong, ready to leap at my throat and crush life out of me. What wonder, then, that I walked fearfully from hour to hour? Padre Felipe spoke again after a time. "The woods are thinning," he said. "A few more steps and we shall come out on the shores of the San Juan, near to a small village of the Yemassees, in which there are many whose eyes have been opened to the truth. There we shall find shelter from the storm, and means to pursue our journey when the clouds are past. Let us hasten; the bearers with the litter are far ahead." He gave me his arm once more, and ere many minutes were past, we came in sight of the bold stream of the San Juan and the crowded huts of an Indian village. The settlement did not appear to be near so large as that at Santa Catalina, nor did the buildings seem of as great size and commodiousness. The most imposing edifice I took to be the mission chapel, for before it was the great cross mounted aloft. It was circular in shape, with mud walls, and a thatched roof rising to an apex. There was a door in the side, of heavy planks battened strongly together; but I could perceive no windows, only a few very small square apertures, close under the eaves, for light and air. The clouds were beginning to spill great drops upon our heads, so we quickened our steps into a run. The litter and its bearers had paused beside the door of the chapel, and from the neighbouring huts several Indians emerged and advanced to meet us. A young woman with a little copper-coloured babe strapped to her back, its tiny head just visible over her shoulder, peered at us from the low doorway of her mud-walled dwelling, but meeting my eyes, drew back hastily out of sight. I was very weary, and Barbara, who had dismounted from the litter, seemed unable to stand. The padre was holding converse with those of his dark-skinned flock who had approached; so we two women crouched down under the chapel eaves and gazed around us at the wind-tossed, rain-blurred scene.