It was in the Mission, with its cracked bells, its decaying walls, its venerable sun dial, its fountain and old garden, and in the Mission Fathers themselves, the priests, the padres, planting the first wheat and oil and wine to produce the elements of the Sacrament--a trinity of great industries, taking their rise in a religious rite.
Abruptly, as if in confirmation, Presley heard the sound of a bell from the direction of the Mission itself.

It was the de Profundis, a note of the Old World; of the ancient regime, an echo from the hillsides of mediaeval Europe, sounding there in this new land, unfamiliar and strange at this end-of-the-century time.
By now, however, it was dark.

Presley hurried forward.

He came to the line fence of the Quien Sabe ranch.

Everything was very still.