The Splendid Idle Forties: Stories of Old CaliforniaAtherton, Gertrude Franklin Horn
History
The Splendid Idle Forties: Stories of Old California
Atherton, Gertrude Franklin Horn
California -- History -- To 1846 -- Fiction; Historical fiction, American; Spaniards -- California -- Fiction
Wind and weather favoured him. Three days after leaving Santa Barbara
he sighted a long narrow mountainous island. He had passed another of
different proportions in the morning, and before night sighted still
another, small and oval. But the lofty irregular mass, some ten miles
long and four miles wide, which he approached at sundown, was the one he
sought. The night world was alight under the white blaze of the moon;
the captain rode into a small harbour at the extreme end of the island
and cast anchor, avoiding reefs and shoals as facilely as by midday.
Father Carillo gave his Indians orders to be ready to march at dawn.
The next morning the priest arrayed himself in his white satin garments,
embroidered about the skirt with gold and on the chest with a purple
cross pointed with gold. The brown woollen habit of his voyage was left
behind. None knew better than he the value of theatric effect upon the
benighted mind. His Indians wore gayly striped blankets of their own
manufacture, and carried baskets containing presents and civilized food.
Bearing a large gilt cross, Father Carillo stepped on shore, waved
farewell to the captain, and directed his Indians to keep faithfully in
the line of march: they might come upon the savages at any moment. They
toiled painfully through a long stretch of white sand, then passed into
a grove of banana trees, dark, cold, noiseless, but for the rumble of
the ocean. When they reached the edge of the grove, Father Carillo
raised his cross and commanded the men to kneel. Rumour had told him
what to expect, and he feared the effect on his simple and superstitious
companions. He recited a chaplet, then, before giving them permission to
rise, made a short address.
"My children, be not afraid at what meets your eyes. The ways of all
men are not our ways. These people have seen fit to leave their dead
unburied on the surface of the earth. But these poor bones can do you
no more harm than do those you have placed beneath the ground in Santa
Barbara. Now rise and follow me, nor turn back as you fear the wrath of
God."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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