fresh air under the clear, starlit sky.

[Pg 22]

No more lonely or picturesque ruin ever existed than the church of St. Paul; though human habitations crowd close upon it, they are however the houses of Chinese and make the Christian edifice seem the more solitary. The church is of that favourite style of architecture so common in new and old Spain, which always brings to the mind of the wanderer in foreign lands the name of good San Xavier.

The half moon had risen high enough to illuminate the whole front as Adams climbed the broad, massive steps to the paved space before it. Leaning against the heavy balustrade he enjoyed the picture. The shadows were deep and through the sightless windows shone a few silver stars. The magnificent front of solid granite with graceful scroll-work and carved outline, blackened here by smoke and there by age, with vines and trees growing from crevices, stood in wondrous beauty.

The detail showed clearer than by day; the panels[Pg 23] in high relief, of full rigged ship, the double dolphin and the skeleton seemed too fragile to have stood through earthquake and typhoon and the conflagrations of war for more than two hundred years. The exquisite frieze composed of many unconventionalized flowers extending across the front, wherein the artist and worker had been one, was a petrified garland. This scene was a revelation to Adams for often as he had viewed and sketched the ruin, he had never been there by moonlight when its beauties were enhanced and its defects hidden. He could see plainly each Chinese character upon the carved scrolls and the words "Mater Dei" above the doorway.

[Pg 23]

Slowly the shadows crept along, making the six broken saints in their niches seem alive; slowly the shadows upon the ruin crept along, but a swifter shadow suddenly came forward from the steps and Adams having forgotten, in the entrancing scene the murderer and thief who lurk in all Macao's corners, turned as he heard a soft step, just in time to receive in his right arm the upward blow of a dagger aimed at his side. He lost his balance falling backward down the steps, striking his head upon a heap of broken roof-tiles where he lay insensible. As he fell, a woman's scream pierced the night. There was hurried tramping of sandaled feet, as of a dozen or[Pg 24] more coolies. The shriek was again heard and then all was silent and the plaza empty.

[Pg 24]

IV

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