Fernando ran past him, and Bryton walked slowly along the inner court to where the one-time baptistry lay roofless to the sky. Through an old doorway with the Aztec sun cut in the coping, he passed into the old graveyard of the padres, and thence to the great altar-place of the old earthquake ruin. Even there the cries of the girls came to him through an open window—a wailing chorus of tragedy. Then an old Indian untied the ropes of the belfry, and the toll of death sounded along the valley. But it seemed very far away. He stared at the half-pagan decorations of the old stonework—never the cross of Christ anywhere on them—and sat so still that two linnets lit almost at his feet and were not afraid.
"I wondered why I should stray back to this little corner of the world," he said at last, "and now—now I reckon I'm finding out. God! I feel like a bad dream. And my hands tied!"
He paced back and forth on the old altar-place, until the mad clatter of hoofs coming from the sea cut across the tolling of the bells and told him the lost bridegroom—the man she said she loved and would never forget—had been found.
He swore softly as he crossed the plaza to the veranda of Juan Alvara. The old man, rolling his first cigarro of the day, was sitting there on the bench in the early sunlight.
"Don Juan," he said, holding out his hand, "I ride to catch up with the officers and go with them into the Indian country, and I may not see San Juan again for a long time. Your home has always been a pleasant place, and I thank you for many courtesies."
The old man shook his hand gravely.
"Adios! You come back to San Juan—no?"
"Perhaps not," said Bryton. "If there is anything I can do for you in Los Angeles—"
"Thanks, señor; there is nothing. My daughters go there in a week with the wedding party. For whom think you old Tomás tolls the bell?"
When informed, he stared vaguely at the Americano. Alvara was growing old. Teresa had warned them all that no one should tell him until his breakfast was over and he had had his smoke.