"But she goes not alone.

She will be strange at first.

She takes some friend, perhaps--some companion ?" he continued, tremulously.
"A very old and dear one, Father Pedro, who is waiting for us now." He led the way to a little white cottage, so little and white and recent, that it seemed a mere fleck of sea foam cast on the sands.
Disposing of Jose and Antonio in the neighboring workshop and outbuildings, he assisted the venerable Sanchicha to dismount, and, together with Father Pedro and Juanita, entered a white palisaded enclosure beside the cottage, and halted before what appeared to be a large, folding trap-door, covering a slight, sandy mound.

It was locked with a padlock; beside it stood the American alcalde and Don Juan Briones.

Father Pedro looked hastily around for another figure, but it was not there.
"Gentlemen," began Cranch, in his practical business way, "I reckon you all know we've come here to identify a young lady, who"-- he hesitated--"was lately under the care of Father Pedro, with a foundling picked up on this shore fifteen years ago by an Indian woman.