In the morning Joza went to the padre, and entreated him to lessen the task, but he only laughed, and said: "You are getting fat and lazy. I will not double your work to-night, but you shall do four times as much as ever, and I will be there to see it accomplished."
Joza departed with a heavy heart, dreading to meet Schio; and when he told him in the evening, he made no reply, but a black frown covered his whole face, and his eyes shot fire.
That night the padre Antonio went out to watch Joza, and when he saw Schio cleaving the huge stones with one blow of his wonderful drill, he thought he had not imposed task enough, and resolved he would command him to finish the Grand San Pedro in one night.
Just after midnight the moon arose, and the startled Joza heard, at every blow of the drill, a hundred echoes ring out from the ocean caverns. But Schio worked steadily on.
"Schio," said Joza, suddenly, "what is it makes these mournings from the sea caves?" But Schio only answered by a heavier blow from his hammer, and under their feet the ground shook violently, then opened, and, where the Grand San Pedro should have stood, yawned a great gulf, that closed upon the labor of many nights; and with the great foundation-stones went down the ambitious padre.
The morning sun rose on a scene of great desolation, but only Joza was there, with trembling voice, to tell the tale of the padre Antonio and the Grand San Pedro.
When others spoke of the great earth quake, he said: "'Twas all Schio's doings.
"The padre would never be satisfied, and the man of iron grew so angry, that he struck the great stone from the heart of the mountain, and then the earth shook, opened, and swallowed up the padre Antonio and the Grand San Pedro."
Schio was never afterward seen at the mission of Santa Barbara, but often, at evening, his ringing voice was wafted along the shore, from the cave of echoes, down by the sea.