Captain Fly-By-Night

His great body stretched on the dirt floor in a shady corner of the barracks-room of the presidio…a fortified military settlement…his long moustache drooped his big mouth open Sergeant Carlos Cassara snored.His face was purple from wine and the heat; for the air was still and stagnant this siesta hour and empty vessels on the table nearby told of the deep drinking that had been done.Scattered about were a corporal and a dozen soldiers all sleeping and snoring. Against the wall half a score of feet from the slumbering sergeant an Indian neophyte…a new entrant…had dropped his palm-leaf and was glancing around the room from beneath eyelids that seemed about to close.Outside was the red dust a foot deep on the highway and the burning sun. The fountain before the mission splashed lazily; down at the beach it seemed that the tide had not its usual energy. Neophytes slept in the shadows cast by the mission walls. Here and there a robed friar went about his business despite the heat and the hour. There was no human being travelling El Camino Real—the king’s highway—as far as a man with good eyes could see. You can hear the whole story.