Chapter I: A Serenade in the Moonlight

"Fairer art thou than the lily, than the rose more sweet," sang a mellow baritone voice. A guitar thrummed accompaniment. At the end of his improvisation the singer waved the instrument gracefully, now in sweeping stroke, again in shorter measure, as if he were a maestro directing his musicians. Then he touched the strings in melancholy strain:

"Beat, beat, little dove, thy tender wings against thy iron cage."

Next triumphantly he intoned:

"Fly away, little dove, fly away; the cruel bars are broken."

Once more in pantomime he directed his fancied musicians.

"What is it, Don Alfredo? Art fanning thyself, or do mosquitoes annoy thee?"

He looked upward into a pair of dark, laughing eyes not three feet distant.

"O, Doña Carmelita," rapturously, "I was marking rhythm for the angel choirs which sing in praise of thy beauty and charm. They sing of one angel, even thou, Doña mia, more fair than they."

The girl withdrew from the embrasure, brushing her fan across its iron-barred front.

"I shut out, Don Alfredo, thy foolish words. I drive them back into the air. I fear the angels are displeased at thy presumption. Many nights have you sung here meaningless words, empty nothings; but even better such than to speak thoughts which must offend the saints in heaven."

"O, Doña Carmelita, let me once again see thy eyes sparkle in the moonlight; add a flash or two from thy teeth of pearl----"

"Hush, Don Alfredo, or I leave. Perhaps at other embrasures not far away wait caballeros, not so vain as to fancy themselves directors of the music celestial. Good night, Don Alfredo. Clip the wings of thy imagination lest thou fly too near the sun."

"O, Doña mia, do not go away. If it please thee I'll praise the heavenly angels."

The window was suddenly closed.

"Caramba! again. It's difficult for a soldier to trim his tongue that he may speak words of love to the tender ears of the capricious señorita."

"Good evening, Captain Morando."

The soldier turned abruptly. At his side stood Señor Mendoza, administrator of the Mission of San José, gravely looking at him.

"Good evening, your Excellency. I hope your health is all of the best," somewhat discomposedly.

"Many thanks, Captain. Your hope is generously fulfilled in me, for my health is indeed good."

The Administrator's expression became quizzical. "May I ask you, brave soldier, why you stand on guard here in the moonlight, bearing that singular-appearing firearm?" pointing to the guitar. "Can it be that renegade Indians threaten?"

"When a soldier stands at guard, Señor Administrator, may there not be motives many, other than renegade Indians?"

The other laughed and changed the subject. "Did I but dream the comandante of the pueblo of San José was to be here to-night, he would have been invited to sit with our council meeting but now concluded. Spring advances, and the rains fall not. Never has Alta California seen such drought. Our live stock sadly need grazing and water. Hence I called the council. I would that you had been present. The military mind is fertile in expedient."

"I fear it would be sadly deficient in surmounting the need of a south wind."

"Our Captain has wit, as well as vigilance. But I am forgetting hospitality, soldier protector of the Mission. Come within. Let others woo, if they will, the goddess of dreams, but for you and me the pleasures of fellowship will hasten lagging hours."

"I thank you, Señor Mendoza, but I fear----"

"Fear never a moment, friend Morando. Sentinels watch over us in valley and on hill, men trusty, tried, and true. Eyes have they as keen as eagles; the ears and the swiftness of the fox are theirs. Therefore no vigil need thou keep for us."

Morando still hesitated.

"Come now. Right glad am I that you are here. Within, a glass of wine, a chat, perhaps a harmless game at cards, await us. Soon roll the hours away. Then you gallop across the pastures, alas! dry and bare now, to the pueblo of San José. I seek my couch soothed by your young companionship. Now, what wilt thou?"

An inarticulate sound behind the embrasure. Don Alfredo could have sworn it concealed a silvery laugh from the fair Doña Carmelita.

"The night birds are calling, Don Alfredo. Did you not just hear them?" looking slyly at the captain. "They are sleepy and we arouse them."

Holding his arm and talking the while about the drought and other difficulties the Administrator led Don Alfredo within.

"Brave Captain, place that death-dealing weapon on the chair," pointing a second time to the guitar. "Some new invention, of course, though I seem to see something familiar about it. Seat yourself on that settee. It came to me from Madrid."

"Thank you, señor."

With a smile as gracious as the moonlight the señor said: "At another time I would ask my daughter, the Doña Carmelita, to join us for a little visit, but the child is young and the night already late. She would doubtless wish to sleep."

They were in the Administrator's private sitting room, the duplicate of a room in his father's castle in Spain. Priceless Persian rugs were on the floor, with high-back chairs of solid mahogany everywhere about. A massive secretary, likewise of mahogany, stood at one side. Tapestries designed in Seville hung on one of the walls; weapons of the hunt and of war, another; while oil paintings of battles, in many of which the family Mendoza had been distinguished, completed the adornment.

"Caramba! I ride miles to serenade the daughter; and here I am in the hacienda house, the guest of the father, while the señorita is somewhere in the courtyard, laughing, I'm sure--yes, laughing," thought the young soldier.

"Some wine, my Captain? Genuine Malaga it is, guaranteed by government stamp, not the juice of the old Mission grape, excellent as that is. Now, the cigarros. Let us speak, Señor Captain, of the General Guerrero. I understand he was once commander of that division in Spain from which you have so lately come. Am I correct?"

"You are, señor. The General was my commander so recently that one year will more than bridge the time."

"Guerrero was my captain when, as a subaltern, I sailed these western seas, and saw service in the Philippines--service that was service. Tell me of my one-time leader. Is he well?"

"He is well, and the years have small meaning to his strength."

Captain Morando talked with his host of the campaigns of General Guerrero in the Spanish trans-Mediterranean dependencies; of the newly concluded peace there; and of the retirement of the General by the age limit, but all the while his mind was fashioning love songs outside the window of the fair señorita. Through the haze of tobacco smoke the strong, kindly face of the Administrator of Mission San José de Guadalupe softened into the sweet face of the doña, with her laughing eyes and beautiful hair; his deep voice gave way to the lighter tones of the daughter.

"Peace in North Africa brought relief to the young soldier from discomforts of the campaign. Was it not so?"

"Señor Mendoza, it brought the weariness of camp and garrison. The morning drill, the after-luncheon parade, the society function in the evening, ill filled my idea of the life a man should live. Besides, the ambitious soldier sees advancement only in a life of action. I sought a change and I found one. My resignation was easily effected. I then carried my letters to the Mexican war secretary, whom I made acquainted with my preference. Accordingly, came my assignment to San José pueblo."

"Good! Good, my Captain! During my visit in Mexico just concluded I learned that you had been appointed comandante. Some wine in your glass?"

"No more, thank you."

"What, not any? The young man is abstemious. That is well. Strong and lusty age follows youth lived along the way of moderation."

The men puffed their cigars. Higher and higher, in widening circles, rose the incense of the fragrant leaf. The Administrator was busy with his thoughts; likewise the guest. "His daughter, he intimates, is too young for late hours. Many a night, at low twelve, during his sojourn in Mexico, have I sung to her from my corner in the courtyard. What would he say if he knew that to-night is not my first visit thither--nor yet my second--nor my third--nor yet----"

The older man broke the silence. "Soldier, our California needs men."

Morando started slightly, then signified by a movement of the head that he had heard. Mendoza exhaled several whiffs of his Havana before speaking further, meanwhile surveying the alert form and soldierly features of the Captain.

"Life is not all play, as many appear to think it is. Our province has passed the years of childhood. With maturity comes duty as waking with day."

The soldier listened with interest.

"I believe the cleavage of California and Mexico is near at hand. They fall apart by their own weight. Even the Mexican secretary of state spoke openly of this to me a month ago."

"Then what comes, Señor Mendoza?"

"There comes that which we ourselves make. On an ethical foundation of the highest order must we build our body politic. Then, when our province becomes free, some protecting nation will extend to us a sister's hand. If in this fruitful land there should prevail the spirit of sweet-do-nothingness, how can we hope that others will consider us highly while we deem ourselves lightly?"

"My time here has been too short to have studied these matters carefully. However, I have heard men speak of a California republic."

"The vision of dreamers, my Captain. We have neither army nor navy, nor can we hope to have them. How could we unaided hold this province situated as it is, the commercial center of these seas and the bosom of resources as yet scarcely touched?"

"Then, in your judgment, it should not be a question of absolute independence?"

"In one sense, no. Yet, I favor a rule by the people. People of enlightenment will govern wisely. Captain Morando, we need men, more men, who will place the common good above their private interest."

"You speak the duty of the soldier, Señor Mendoza."

"It is so, Captain." Then turning the conversation back to the situation in the Santa Clara valley: "Have you run across Stanislaus yet? No? Nor Yoscolo? Well, I hope you will soon see both over your pistol barrel. They are a menace to the peace in our valley. Yoscolo is the abler of the two. Many a lively skirmish have my fighting peons had with the scoundrel."

During this time the Doña Carmelita mounted a staircase and walked along a passage which had its way over a high, wide adobe wall leading from one part of the house to another. The moonlight fell in weird fantasy on the hacienda grounds. Palms, evergreens, flowers assumed moving shapes, as if engaged in low but animated conversation.

Breezes from San Francisco Bay flowed intermittently into the courtyard, shaking the branches and rattling the leaves. One stronger gust caught spray from a fountain and sent it eddying into the white night. The awakened birds murmured sleepily and myriad crickets chirped remonstrance. Three Spanish mastiffs, guardians of the inclosure, edged away from the impromptu shower, then looked up furtively at the girl, ashamed of temporary cowardice.

Anon there floated down to her from the heights beyond the call of the Indian sentinel as he made his rounds, "Love to God!" followed by the reply from one of his fellows, "Love to God!" With a dozen tongues the hills took up the refrain, "Love to God! Love to God!"

"What can my father and Captain Morando find to talk about so long! Men can gossip as well as women when they are so minded."

She mounted another flight of outside stairs that led to the top of the buildings which formed three sides of the courtyard. The courtyard door was open. Several peons were holding the struggling watchdog while another brought Morando's horse.

"Hold fast those dogs!" Señor Mendoza said to the Indians. "They are as fierce as tigers. Good-night, Captain Morando. Remember two weeks from Thursday evening, at six. My daughter's dueña will be home from Monterey, and we'll have both to dine with us, with perhaps a few friends, just a valecito casero--a little house party. Good-night. Glad you've some men in the village. The country won't be safe till we rid it of those miscreant renegades. Good-night, Captain."

The heavy door closed. The doña saw that Captain Morando rode around the courtyard to the embrasure window, halted and looked up anxiously. Walking to the edge of the roof she stood there, a beautiful picture. He waved his hand.

"O, doña mia--" he began. Unfastening a rose from her hair she tossed it to him. The pulsing air caught it, and swaying, whirling, it fell. He reined in his horse, urged it forward, swung it around, keeping in the uncertain downward path of the rose, till finally its stem rested in his hand.

He kissed the flower again and again; then holding it up to her, waved it in rhythmic motion as he had done before with the guitar.

"O, doña mia--" he began once more, but the watchdogs bayed savagely and rushed against the adobe fence. His horse shied and sprang away. He wheeled back again.

The señorita had disappeared.