At this moment a jar broke the quiet of the scene.

Just beyond the mission-house two women suddenly made their appearance, one of them pushing the other out upon the street.

Their angry cries rent the air, filling it with profane and obscene oaths.

They struggled together for a little while, and then one of them, a woman with gray hair and not less than sixty years of age, fell across the curb with her head on the cobble-stones.
As if a sorcerer had stamped his foot, a hundred wretched creatures, mostly women and children, seemed to spring up from the ground.

It was like a phantasy.