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Along the Upper Road from Quien Sabe and Guadalajara came fresh auxiliaries, Spanish-Mexicans from the town itself, swarthy young men on capering horses, dark-eyed girls and matrons, in red and black and yellow, more Portuguese in brand-new overalls, smoking long thin cigars. Even Father Sarria appeared. "Look," said Presley, "there goes Annixter and Hilma. He's got his buckskin back."
In May the governor again took action, sending Captain Portilla with a force of 130 men. The prefect Sarría and Padre Ripoll went along to make as peaceable terms as possible, and a message which Sarría sent on ahead doubtless led the insurgents to sue for peace.
In all that countryside he had but three friends, Presley, Magnus Derrick, and the priest at the Mission of San Juan de Guadalajara, Father Sarria. He remained always a mystery, living a life half-real, half-legendary. In all those years he did not seem to have grown older by a single day. At this time, Presley knew him to be thirty-six years of age.
"A diseased and distorted mind is capable of hallucinations, if that is what you mean," observed Sarria. "Perhaps that is what I mean. Perhaps I want only the delusion, after all." Sarria did not reply, and there was a long silence. In the damp south corners of the walls a frog began to croak at exact intervals.
But he had returned by way of Bonneville to get a crate that had come for him from San Diego. He had been notified of its arrival the day before. Annixter pulled up and passed the time of day with the priest. "I don't often get up your way," he said, slowing down his horse to accommodate Sarria's deliberate plodding. Sarria wiped the perspiration from his smooth, shiny face. "You?
The same writer has recorded an even more tragic case from the annals of La Soledad. Long after the settlement there had been abandoned, and when the buildings were falling to pieces, an old priest, Father Sarría, still remained to minister to the bodily and physical wants of a handful of wretched natives who yet haunted the neighborhood, and whom he absolutely refused to forsake.
But the maid-servant, who, after a long interval opened the door, blinking and confused at being roused from her sleep, told Vanamee that Sarria was not in his room. Vanamee, however, was known to her as the priest's protege and great friend, and she allowed him to enter, telling him that, no doubt, he would find Sarria in the church itself.
Her hands disengaged the odour of the heliotropes. The folds of her dress gave off the enervating scent of poppies. Her feet were redolent of hyacinths. For a long time after sitting down upon the bench, neither the priest nor Vanamee spoke. But after a while Sarria took his cigar from his lips, saying: "How still it is! This is a beautiful old garden, peaceful, very quiet.
One of the pitiful cases that occurred during the decline of the Missions was the death of Padre Sarría, which took place at Soledad in 1835, or, as some authorities state, in 1838. This venerable priest had been very prominent in missionary labors, having occupied the position of Comisario Prefecto during many years. He was also the presidente for several years.
If this paroxysm of sorrow was to assail him again that night, there was but one place for him to be. He would go to the Mission he would see Father Sarria; he would pass the night in the deep shadow of the aged pear trees in the Mission garden. He struck out across Quien Sabe, his face, the face of an ascetic, lean, brown, infinitely sad, set toward the Mission church.
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