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Updated: May 17, 2025
A short time before he had married an Indian girl, and, with her, lived in a little adobe house, a few paces from the mission church. Pomponio and Rosa had lived the regular life of the neophytes, working at various occupations of the community Pomponio tilling the ground and caring for the crops, and helping in the making of bricks for the houses; Rosa spinning and weaving and cooking.
With the exception of the shattered lantern, and the file and hammer lying on the floor, everything was in order. The bar of the padlock was almost filed through three minutes more, and Pomponio would have been away with his booty.
But, difficult to find by the stranger, this little open space was correspondingly safe from pursuit by any one bent on hostile deeds; and for this reason it had been selected by Pomponio for a retreat for himself. Pomponio was a mission Indian, had been connected with the religious establishment since boyhood, and had made, great progress on the way to becoming a civilized human being.
While the men were shouting and swearing, groping this way and that to find their prey, Pomponio slid softly to the window, jumped through it, and set off, at his utmost speed, for the open plain and not far distant forest. During the fray Father Altimira had remained somewhat apart, outside the room. As Pomponio rushed by him, the Father, calling him by name, commanded him to stop.
Just a few words are necessary here as an introduction to the story of Pomponio, to enable the reader to have a clear impression of the condition of affairs, political and ecclesiastical, in the province of Nueva California during the first thirty years of the past century.
Pomponio was buried that night, secretly and in profound silence. His comrades, determined his enemies should never find his grave and body, bore it into the deepest recesses of the forest, and there interred it, afterward removing all trace of any disturbance of the earth covering it. There they left him, at rest, his little part in life's drama ended.
He paid but little attention to the affairs of those about him. They went and came, carried on their game of life, rousing in him only a gleam of interest. Thus three years passed. One day, in the early spring, the Indians went away on a foraging expedition, leaving Pomponio alone in his hut.
Gradually, as time went on, the search was given up, for the intense excitement roused by his flight died out from want of fresh fuel to feed upon, and, in addition, the soldiers were required for other more immediate needs; so that, before a year was past after his escape, all interest in the subject ceased, and Pomponio was seldom thought of, or his name spoken, except among those of the Indians to whom he and his deed were ever an impulse toward insubordination.
He raised himself on an elbow, and when the Indian was within a few yards of him, and about to turn aside to reenter the thicker woods beyond, Pomponio called to him. His voice was hardly above a whisper, but it was sufficient. The Indian heard, and, turned quickly.
They must have been at his hut soon after his leaving it that morning, and kept watch for the return of its inmate, thinking it might be Pomponio himself, or some one who would lead to the discovery of his whereabouts. Only in this way could they have missed the Indians roaming in the forest that day, as they made their preparations for the eventful morrow.
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