The following afternoon at four o'clock Arthur Poinsett reached San Geronimo, within fifteen miles of his destination. Here the despatch was confirmed with some slight local exaggeration.
"Saints and devils! There is no longer a St. Anthony! The temblor has swallowed him!" said the innkeeper, sententiously. "It is the end of all! Such is the world. Thou wilt find stones on stones instead of houses, Don Arturo. Wherefore another glass of the brandy of France, or the whisky of the American, as thou dost prefer. But of San Antonio—nothing!—Absolutely—perfectly—truly nothing!"
In spite of this cheering prophecy, Mr. Poinsett did not wait for the slow diligence, but mounting a fleet mustang dashed off in quest of the missing Mission. He was somewhat relieved at the end of an hour by the far-off flash of the sea, the rising of the dark green fringe of the Mission orchard and Encinal, and above it the white dome of one of the Mission towers. But at the next moment Arthur checked his horse and rubbed his eyes in wonder. Where was the other tower? He put spurs to his horse again and dashed off at another angle, and again stopped and gazed. There was but one tower remaining. The Mission Church must have been destroyed!
Perhaps it was this discovery, perhaps it was some instinct stronger than this; but when Arthur had satisfied himself of this fact he left the direct road, which would have brought him to the Mission, and diverged upon the open plain towards the Rancho of the Blessed Trinity. A fierce wind from the sea swept the broad llano and seemed to oppose him, step by step—a wind so persistent and gratuitous that it appeared to Arthur to possess a moral quality, and as such was to be resisted and overcome by his superior will. Here, at least, all was unchanged; here was the dead, flat monotony of land and sky. Here was the brittle, harsh stubble of the summer fields, sun-baked and wind-dried; here were the long stretches of silence, from which even the harrying wind made no opposition nor complaint; here were the formless specks of slowly-moving cattle, even as he remembered them before. A momentary chill came over him as he recalled his own perilous experience on these plains, a momentary glow suffused his cheek as he thought of his rescue by the lovely but cold recluse. Again he heard the name of "Philip" softly whispered in his ears, again he felt the flood of old memories sweep over him as he rode, even as he had felt them when he lay that day panting upon the earth. And yet Arthur had long since convinced his mind that he was mistaken in supposing that Donna Dolores had addressed him at that extreme moment as "Philip;" he had long since believed it was a trick of his disordered and exhausted brain; the conduct of Dolores towards himself, habitually restrained by grave courtesy, never justified him in directly asking the question, nor suggested any familiarity that might have made it probable. She had never alluded to it again—but had apparently forgotten it. Not so Arthur! He had often gone over that memorable scene, with a strange, tormenting pleasure that was almost a pain. It was the one incident of his life, for whose poetry he was not immediately responsible—the one genuine heart-thrill whose sincerity he had not afterwards stopped to question in his critical fashion, the one enjoyment that had not afterwards appeared mean and delusive. And now the heroine of this episode was missing, and he might never perhaps see her again! And yet when he first heard the news he was conscious of a strange sense of relief—rather let me say of an awakening from a dream, that though delicious, had become dangerous and might unfit him for the practical duties of his life. Donna Dolores had never affected him as a real personage—at least the interest he felt in her was, he had always considered, due to her relations to some romantic condition of his mind, and her final disappearance from the plane of his mental vision was only the exit of an actress from the mimic stage. It seemed only natural that she should disappear as mysteriously as she came. There was no shock even to the instincts of his ordinary humanity—it was no catastrophe involving loss of life or even suffering to the subject or spectator.
Such at least was Mr. Poinsett's analysis of his own mental condition on the receipt of Donna Maria's telegram. It was the cool self-examination of a man who believed himself cold-blooded and selfish, superior to the weakness of ordinary humanity, and yet was conscious of neither pride nor disgrace in the belief. Yet when he diverged from his direct road to the Mission, and turned his horse's head toward the home of Donna Dolores, he was conscious of a new impulse and anxiety that was stronger than his reason. Unable as he was to resist it, he still took some satisfaction in believing that it was nearly akin to that feeling which years before had driven him back to Starvation Camp in quest of the survivors. Suddenly his horse recoiled with a bound that would have unseated a less skilful rider. Directly across his path stretched a chasm in the level plain—thirty feet broad and as many feet in depth, and at its bottom in undistinguishable confusion lay the wreck of the corral of the Blessed Trinity!
Except for the enormous size and depth of this fissure Arthur might have mistaken it for the characteristic cracks in the sunburnt plain, which the long dry summer had wrought upon its surface, some of which were so broad as to task the agility of his horse. But a second glance convinced him of the different character of the phenomenon. The earth had not cracked asunder nor separated, but had sunk. The width of the chasm below was nearly equal to the width above; the floor of this valley in miniature was carpeted by the same dry, brittle herbs and grasses which grew upon the plain around him.
In the pre-occupation of the last hour he had forgotten the distance he had traversed. He had evidently ridden faster than he had imagined. But if this was really the corral, the walls of the Rancho should now be in sight at the base of the mountain! He turned in that direction. Nothing was to be seen! Only the monotonous plain stretched before him, vast and unbroken. Between the chasm where he stood and the falda of the first low foot-hills neither roof nor wall nor ruin rose above the dull, dead level!
An ominous chill ran through his veins, and for an instant the reins slipped through his relaxed fingers. Good God! Could this have been what Donna Maria meant, or had there been a later convulsion of Nature? He looked around him. The vast, far-stretching plain, desolate and trackless as the shining ocean beyond, took upon itself an awful likeness to that element! Standing on the brink of the revealed treachery of that yawning chasm, Arthur Poinsett read the fate of the Rancho. In the storm that had stirred the depths of this motionless level, the Rancho and its miserable inmates had foundered and gone down!
Arthur's first impulse was to push on towards the scene of the disaster, in the vague hope of rendering some service. But the chasm before him was impassable, and seemed to continue to the sea beyond. Then he reflected that the catastrophe briefly told in Donna Maria's despatch had happened twenty-four hours before, and help was perhaps useless now. He cursed the insane impulse that had brought him here, aimlessly and without guidance, and left him powerless even to reach the object of his quest. If he had only gone first to the Mission, asked the advice and assistance of Father Felipe, or learned at least the full details of the disaster! He uttered an oath, rare to his usual calm expression, and wheeling his horse, galloped fiercely back towards the Mission.
Night had deepened over the plain. With the going down of the sun a fog that had been stealthily encompassing the coast-line stole with soft step across the shining beach, dulled its lustre, and then moved slowly and solemnly upon the plain, blotting out the Point of Pines, at first salient with its sparkling Lighthouse, but now undistinguishable from the grey sea above and below, until it reached the galloping horse and its rider, and then, as it seemed to Arthur, isolated them from the rest of the world—from even the pencilled outlines of the distant foot-hills, that it at last sponged from the blue-grey slate before him. At times the far-off tolling of a fog-bell came faintly to his ear, but all sound seemed to be blotted out by the fog; even the rapid fall of his horse's hoofs was muffled and indistinct. By degrees the impression that he was riding in a dream overcame him, and was accepted by him without questioning or deliberation.