Chapter Forty Four.
“Ambre La Puerta!”
Another sun has shone upon San Francisco Bay, and again gone down in red gleam over the far-spreading Pacific, leaving the sky of a leaden colour, moonless and starless.
As the hour of midnight approaches it assumes the hue predicted by Rocas, and desired by Diaz. For the ocean fog has again rolled shoreward across the peninsula, and shrouds San Francisco as with a pall. The adjacent country is covered with its funereal curtain, embracing within its folds the house of Don Gregorio Montijo.
The inmates seem all asleep, as at this hour they should. No light is seen through the windows, nor any sound heard within the walls. Not even the baying of a watch-dog, the bellow of a stalled ox, or the stamping of a horse in the stables. Inside, as without, all is silence.
The profound silence seems strange, though favourable, to four men not far from the place, and gradually, but with slow steps, drawing nearer to it. For they are approaching by stealth, as can be told by their attitudes and gestures. They advance crouchingly, now and then stopping to take a survey of the terrain in front, as they do so exchanging whispered words with one another.
Through the hazy atmosphere their figures show weird-like—all the more from their grotesque gesticulations. Even if scrutinised closely, and in clearest light, they would present this appearance; for although in human shape, and wearing the garb of men, their faces more resemble those of demons. They are human countenances, nevertheless, but en-mascaradas.
Nothing more is needed to tell who, and what they are, with their purpose in thus approaching Don Gregorio’s house. They are burglars, designing to break into it.
It needs not the removal of their masks to identify them as the four conspirators left plotting in the rancho of Rafael Rocas.