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 raise the alarm. The wind that had blown softly from the hills, moving the palm leaves in gentle chafing, with whisperings and sighs as from a people burdened with oppression, was still. A pause had come upon the night; the strident insects in dark acacia bowers were silent. Night murmured no more; its lispings were hushed, its plaints and its dreams dispersed. It was the slack tide in life that falls upon all nature before the miracle of dawn.

"If anybody in this pueblo is asleep, it is the sleep of fever," Felipe said. "Sucha great cruelty as this disturbs the repose. Many eyes will be at windows watching for the day. It will be fortunate if we are not discovered."

"I think even the dogs are asleep," Henderson muttered, his faith in the sympathy of that people very shallow.

"There is a garden beside the church, with peaches and apricots," Felipe said. "I believe the padres have no dogs, either asleep or awake. We can enter there and view the plaza and the barracks."

"Very good."

"Just here, then, we climb the wall. The padres do not trust their fruit to unlocked gates."

If anybody watched in pitiful anxiety for the tragedy of the dawn, the padres were not among them. Everything was hushed around the church and the priests' house that stood near it, white among the orchard trees. Through the barred and