Next day Salvatierra appeared before his astonished people with a right eye. The priests attached to the fort gave a special service of praise, and told the miracle to the red men of their neighborhood as an illustration of the effect of goodness, prayer, and faith. People came from far and near that they might go to church and see this marvel for themselves. But, alas, for the governor's repute for piety! It soon began to be whispered around that the new eye was an evil one; that it read the deepest thoughts of men with its inflexible, cold stare; that under its influence some of the fathers had been betrayed into confessing things that the commandant had never supposed a clergyman to be guilty of. The people feared that eye, and ascribed such rogueries to the old man as had been entirely foreign to his nature hitherto.
This common fear and suspicion reacted, inevitably, and Salvatierra began, unconsciously, to exhibit some of the traits that his subjects said he possessed. He changed slowly from the indulgent parent to the stern and exacting law-giver. He did not know, however, what the people had been saying about him, and never suspected that his eye was likely to get him into trouble.
It was a warm night and he had gone to bed with his windows open—windows that opened from his garden, and were level, at the bottom, with the floor. A shadowy form stole along the gravel path and entered one of these windows. It was that of a mission Indian. He had gathered from the talk of the faithful that it would be a service to the deity as well as to men to destroy the power of that evil eye. He came beside the bed and looked attentively at the governor, sleeping there in the light of a candle. Then he howled with fright—howled so loudly that the old man sprang to his feet—for while the left eye had been fast asleep the evil one was broad awake and looking at him with a ghostly glare.
In another second the commandant was at the window whirling his trusty Toledo about his head, lopping ears and noses from the red renegades who had followed in the track of the first. In the scrimmage he received another jab in the right eye with a fist. When day dawned it was discovered, with joy, that the evil eye was darkened—and forever. The people trusted him once more. Finding that he was no longer an object of dread, his voice became kinder, his manner more gentle. A heavy and unusual rain, that had been falling, passed off that very day, so that the destruction from flood, which had been prophesied at the missions, was stayed, and the clergy sang “Te Deum” in the church. The old commandant never, to his dying day, had the heart to confess that the evil eye was only a glass one.
THE PRISONER IN AMERICAN SHAFT
An Indian seldom forgets an injury or omits to revenge it, be it a real or a fancied one. A young native of the New Almaden district, in California, fell in love with a girl of the same race, and supposed that he was prospering in his suit, for he was ardent and the girl was, seemingly, not averse to him; but suddenly she became cold, avoided him, and answered his greetings, if they met, in single words. He affected to care not greatly for this change, but he took no rest until he had discovered the cause of it. Her parents had conceived a dislike to him that later events proved to be well founded, and had ordered or persuaded her to deny his suit.
His retaliation was prompt and Indian-like. He killed the father and mother at the first opportunity, seized the girl when she was at a distance from the village, and carried her to the deserted quicksilver mine near Spanish Camp. In a tunnel that branched from American Shaft he had fashioned a rude cell of stone and wood, and into that he forced and fastened her. He had stocked it with water and provisions, and for some weeks he held the wretched girl a captive in total darkness, visiting her whenever he felt moved to do so until, his passion sated, he resolved to leave the country.
As an act of partial atonement for the wrong he had done, he hung a leather coat at the mouth of the tunnel, on which, in picture writing, he indicated the whereabouts of the girl. Search parties had been out from the time of her disappearance, and one of them chanced on this clue and rescued her as she was on the point of death. The savage who had exacted so brutal and excessive a revenge fled afar, and his whereabouts were never known.