"Don't lose sleep over my depravity," he suggested. "I am no blacker than the rest of the sheep."
"Even then thou wouldst fall far short of whiteness," remarked the older man. "The padre swears that San Juan will have worse than earthquakes if there is no reform."
"That is bad," said Keith, with owl-like gravity.
"It is bad, señor—and it is true. I heard him say it but an hour ago. He was playing malilla with old Henrico and won three pesos. He says it is wrong to race horses on Sunday, since José went under and had his neck broke. José, like Miguel, had not confessed, and the padre wants money for a mass."
"Will he get it?"
"Sure. The boys will not see him stay in purgatory for thirty pesos. They are throwing dice at Don Eduardo's now, to see who will pay."
"If it was the horse of Don Eduardo, and José had ridden for him ten years, why cannot Don Eduardo pay?"
"Don Eduardo is English. The Englishmen are used to going to hell."
"They would deserve to go for that, if for nothing else," commented Bryton, as the report of a blast shook the ground, and across the plaza the air was filled with flying rock and brick and plaster; and then a great cloud of dust drifted upward as the Mexican workmen strolled back to their task of tearing down the old church of San Juan Capistrano, whose massive stone walls it had taken the padres and their neophytes so many years of toil to complete.
"Not a church equal to it in the Californias; not a church equal to it dreamed of in the States when it was being built!" and the young fellow stared moodily at the devastation of it. "Can't the bishop stop that?"