Myths and Legends of Our Own Land, vol 8 | Page 8

the faithful that it would be a service to the deity as
well as to men to destroy the power of that evil eye. He came beside the
bed and looked attentively at the governor, sleeping there in the light of
a candle. Then he howled with fright--howled so loudly that the old
man sprang to his feet--for while the left eye had been fast aleep the
evil one was broad awake and looking at him with a ghostly glare.
In another second the commandant was at the window whirling his
trusty Toledo about his head, lopping ears and noses from the red
renegades who had followed in the track of the first. In the scrimmage
he received another jab in the right eye with a fist. When day dawned it
was discovered, with joy, that the evil eye was darkened--and forever.
The people trusted him once more. Finding that he was no longer an
object of dread, his voice became kinder, his manner more gentle. A
heavy and unusual rain, that had been falling, passed off that very day,
so that the destruction from flood, which had been prophesied at the
missions, was stayed, and the clergy sang "Te Deum" in the church.
The old commandant never, to his dying day, had the heart to confess
that the evil eye was only a glass one.

THE PRISONER IN AMERICAN SHAFT
An Indian seldom forgets an injury or omits to revenge it, be it a real or
a fancied one. A young native of the New Almaden district, in
California, fell in love with a girl of the same race, and supposed that
he was prospering in his suit, for he was ardent and the girl was,
seemingly, not averse to him; but suddenly she became cold, avoided
him, and answered his greetings, if they met, in single words. He
affected to care not greatly for this change, but he took no rest until he
had discovered the cause of it. Her parents had conceived a dislike to
him that later events proved to be well founded, and had ordered or
persuaded her to deny his suit.
His retaliation was prompt and Indian-like. He killed the father and
mother at the first opportunity, seized the girl when she was at a
distance from the village, and carried her to the deserted quicksilver
mine near Spanish Camp. In a tunnel that branched from American
Shaft he had fashioned a rude cell of stone and wood, and into that he

forced and fastened her. He had stocked it with water and provisions,
and for some weeks he held the wretched girl a captive in total darkness,
visiting her whenever he felt moved to do so until, his passion sated, he
resolved to leave the country.
As an act of partial atonement for the wrong he had done, he hung a
leather coat at the mouth of the tunnel, on which, in picture writing, he
indicated the whereabouts of the girl. Search parties had been out from
the time of her disappearance, and one of them chanced on this clue
and rescued her as she was on the point of death. The savage who had
exacted so brutal and excessive a revenge fled afar, and his
whereabouts were never known.

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