Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

After the entertainment was over, Russell strolled about the town. The new moon was on the sky, the stars thick and bright; but dark corners were everywhere, and he kept his hand on his pistol. He found himself before the long low house of Doña Eustaquia Ortega. Not a light glimmered; the shutters were of solid wood. He walked up and down, trying to guess which was Benicia's room.

"I am growing as romantic as a Californian," he thought; "but this wonderful country pours its colour all through one's nature. If I could find her window, I believe I should serenade her in true Spanish fashion. By Jove, I remember now, she said something about looking through her window at the pines on the hill. It must be at the back of the house, and how am I going to get over that great adobe wall? That gate is probably fastened with an iron bar--ah!"

He had walked to the corner of the wall surrounding the large yard behind and at both sides of Doña Eustaquia's house, and he saw, ascending a ladder, a tall figure, draped in a serape, its face concealed by the shadow of a sombrero. He drew his pistol, then laughed at himself, although not without annoyance. "A rival; and he has got ahead of me. He is going to serenade her."

The caballero seated himself uncomfortably on the tiles that roofed the wall, removed his sombrero, and Russell recognized Fernando Altimira. A moment later the sweet thin chords of the guitar quivered in the quiet air, and a tenor, so fine that even Russell stood entranced, sang to Benicia one of the old songs of Monterey:--

EL SUSPIRO

Una mirada un suspiro,
Una lagrima querida,
Es balsamo à la herida
Que abriste en mi corazón.

Por esa lagrima cara
Objeto de mi termina,
Yo te amé bella criatura
Desde que te vi llorar.

Te acuerdas de aquella noche
En que triste y abatida
Una lagrima querida
Vi de tus ojos brotar.

Although Russell was at the base of the high wall he saw that a light flashed. The light was followed by the clapping of little hands. "Jove!" he thought, "am I really jealous? But damn that Californian!"

Altimira sang two more songs and was rewarded by the same demonstrations. As he descended the ladder and reached the open street he met Russell face to face. The two men regarded each other for a moment. The Californian's handsome face was distorted by a passionate scowl; Russell was calmer, but his brows were lowered.

Altimira flung the ladder to the ground, but fire-blooded as he was, the politeness of his race did not desert him, and his struggle with English flung oil upon his passion.

"Señor," he said, "I no know what you do it by the house of the Señorita Benicia so late in the night. I suppose you have the right to walk in the town si it please yourself."

"Have I not the same right as you--to serenade the Señorita Benicia? If I had known her room, I should have been on the wall before you."

Altimira's face flushed with triumph. "I think the Señorita Benicia no care for the English song, señor. She love the sweet words of her country: she no care for words of ice."

Russell smiled. "Our language may not be as elastic as yours, Don Fernando, but it is a good deal more sincere. And it can express as much and perhaps--"

"You love Benicia?" interrupted Altimira, fiercely.

"I admire the Señorita Ortega tremendously. But I have seen her twice only, and although we may love longer, we take more time to get there, perhaps, than you do."

"Ay! Dios de mi vida! You have the heart of rock! You chip it off in little pieces, one to-day, another to-morrow, and give to the woman. I, señor, I love Benicia, and I marry her. You understand? Si you take her, I cut the heart from your body. You understand?"

"I understand. We understand each other." Russell lifted his cap. The Californian took his sombrero from his head and made a long sweeping bow; and the two men parted.

VII

On the twenty-third of July, Commodore Sloat transferred his authority to Commodore Stockton, and the new commander of the Pacific squadron organized the California Battalion of Mounted Riflemen, appointing Frémont major and Gillespie captain. He ordered them South at once to intercept Castro. On the twenty-eighth, Stockton issued a proclamation in which he asserted that Mexico was the instigator of the present difficulties, and justified the United States in seizing the Californias. He denounced Castro in violent terms as an usurper, a boasting and abusive chief, and accused him of having violated every principle of national hospitality and good faith toward Captain Frémont and his surveying party. Stockton sailed for the South the same day in the _Congress_, leaving a number of officers to Monterey and the indignation of the people.

"By Jove, I don't dare to go near Doña Eustaquia," said Russell to Brotherton. "And I'm afraid we won't have our picnic. It seems to me the Commodore need not have used such strong language about California's idol. The very people in the streets are ready to unlimb us; and as for the peppery Doña--"

"Speak more respectfully of Doña Eustaquia, young man," said the older officer, severely. "She is a very remarkable woman and not to be spoken slightingly of by young men who are in love with her daughter."

"God forbid that I should slight her, dear Captain. Never have I so respected a woman. She frightens the life out of me every time she flashes those eyes of hers. But let us go and face the enemy at once, like the brave Americans we are."

"Very well." And together they walked along Alvarado Street from the harbour, then up the hill to the house of Doña Eustaquia.

That formidable lady and her daughter were sitting on the corridor dressed in full white gowns, slowly wielding large black fans, for the night was hot. Benicia cast up her eyes expressively as she rose and courtesied to the officers, but her mother merely bent her head; nor did she extend her hand. Her face was very dark.

Brotherton went directly to the point.

"Dear Doña Eustaquia, we deeply regret that our Commodore has used such harsh language in regard to General Castro. But remember that he has been here a few days only and has had no chance to learn the many noble and valiant qualities of your General. He doubtless has been prejudiced against him by some enemy, and he adores Frémont:--there is the trouble. He resents Castro's treating Frémont as an enemy before the United States had declared its intentions. But had he been correctly informed, he undoubtedly would have conceived the same admiration and respect for your brave General that is felt by every other man among us."

Doña Eustaquia looked somewhat mollified, but shook her head sternly. "Much better he took the trouble to hear true. He insult all Californians by those shemful words. All the enemies of our dear General be glad. And the poor wife! Poor my Modeste! She fold the arms and raise the head, but the heart is broken."

"Jove! I almost wish they had driven us out! Dear señora--" Russell and Benicia were walking up and down the corridor--"we have become friends, true friends, as sometimes happens--not often--between man and woman. Cease to think of me as an officer of the United States navy, only as a man devoted to your service. I have already spent many pleasant hours with you. Let me hope that while I remain here neither Commodore Stockton nor party feeling will exclude me from many more."

She raised her graceful hand to her chin with a gesture peculiar to her, and looked upward with a glance half sad, half bitter.

"I much appreciate your friendship, Capitan Brotherton. You give me much advice that is good for me, and tell me many things. It is like the ocean wind when you have live long in the hot valley. Yes, dear friend, I forget you are in the navy of the conqueror."

"Mamacita," broke in Benicia's light voice, "tell us now when we can have the peek-neek."

"To-morrow night."

"Surely?"

"Surely, niñita."

"Castro," said Russell, lifting his cap, "peace be with thee."

VIII

The great masses of rock on the ocean's coast shone white in the moonlight. Through the gaunt outlying rocks, lashed apart by furious storms, boiled the ponderous breakers, tossing aloft the sparkling clouds of spray, breaking in the pools like a million silver fishes. High above the waves, growing out of the crevices of the massive rocks of the shore, were weird old cypresses, their bodies bent from the ocean as if petrified in flight before the mightier foe. On their gaunt outstretched arms and gray bodies, seamed with time, knobs like human muscles jutted; between the broken bark the red blood showed. From their angry hands, clutching at the air or doubled in imprecation, long strands of gray-green moss hung, waving and coiling, in the night wind. Only one old man was on his hands and knees as if to crawl from the field; but a comrade spurned him with his foot and wound his bony hand about the coward's neck. Another had turned his head to the enemy, pointing his index finger in scorn, although he stood alone on high.

All along the cliffs ran the ghostly army, sometimes with straining arms fighting the air, sometimes thrust blankly outward, all with life quivering in their arrested bodies, silent and scornful in their defeat. Who shall say what winter winds first beat them, what great waves first fought their deathless trunks, what young stars first shone over them? They have outstood centuries of raging storm and rending earthquake. Tradition says that until convulsion wrenched the Golden Gate apart the San Franciscan waters rolled through the long valleys and emptied into the Bay of Monterey. But the old cypresses were on the ocean just beyond; the incoming and the outgoing of the inland ocean could not trouble them; and perhaps they will stand there until the end of time.

Down the long road by the ocean rode a gay cavalcade. The caballeros had haughtily refused to join the party, and the men wore the blue and gold of the United States.

But the women wore fluttering mantillas, and their prancing high-stepping horses were trapped with embossed leather and silver. In a lumbering "wagon of the country," drawn by oxen, running on solid wheels cut from the trunks of trees, but padded with silk, rode some of the older people of the town, disapproving, but overridden by the impatient enthusiasm of Doña Eustaquia. Through the pine woods with their softly moving shadows and splendid aisles, out between the cypresses and rocky beach, wound the stately cavalcade, their voices rising above the sociable converse of the seals and the screeching of the seagulls spiking the rocks where the waves fought and foamed. The gold on the shoulders of the men flashed in the moonlight; the jewels of the women sparkled and winked. Two by two they came like a conquering army to the rescue of the cypresses. Brotherton, who rode ahead with Doña Eustaquia, half expected to see the old trees rise upright with a deep shout of welcome.

When they reached a point where the sloping rocks rose high above surf and spray, they dismounted, leaving the Indian servants to tether the horses. They climbed down the big smooth rocks and sat about in groups, although never beyond the range of older eyes, the cypresses lowering above them, the ocean tearing through the outer rocks to swirl and grumble in the pools. The moon was so bright, its light so broad and silver, they almost could imagine they saw the gorgeous mass of colour in the pools below.

"You no have seaweed like that in Boston," said Benicia, who had a comprehensive way of symbolizing the world by the city from which she got many of her clothes and all of her books.

"Indeed, no!" said Russell. "The other day I sat for hours watching those great bunches and strands that look like richly coloured chenille. And there were stones that looked like big opals studded with vivid jewels. God of my soul, as you say, it was magnificent! I never saw such brilliant colour, such delicate tints! And those great rugged defiant rocks out there, lashed by the waves! Look at that one; misty with spray one minute, bare and black the next! They look like an old castle which has been battered down with cannon. Captain, do you not feel romantic?"

"I feel that I never want to go into an art gallery again. No wonder the women of California are original."

"Benicia," said Russell, "I have tried in vain to learn a Spanish song. But teach me a Spanish phrase of endearment. All our 'darlings' and 'dearests' are too flat for California."

"Bueno; I teach you. Say after me: Mi muy querida prima. That is very sweet. Say."

"Mi muy--"

"Querida prima."

"Que--What is it in English?"

"My--very--darling--first. It no sound so pretty in English."

"It does very well. My--very--darling--first--if all these people were not about us, I should kiss you. You look exactly like a flower."

"Si you did, Señor Impertinencio, you get that for thanks."

Russell jumped to his feet with a shout, and shook from his neck a little crab with a back like green velvet and legs like carven garnet.

"Did you put that crab on my neck, señorita?"

"Si, señor."

A sulky silence of ten minutes ensued, during which Benicia sent little stones skipping down into the silvered pools, and Russell, again recumbent, stared at the horizon.

"Si you no can talk," she said finally, "I wish you go way and let Don Henry Tallant come talk to me. He look like he want."

"No doubt he does; but he can stay where he is. Let me kiss your hand, Benicia, and I will forgive you."

Benicia hit his mouth lightly with the back of her hand, but he captured it and kissed it several times.

"Your mustache feels like the cat's," said she.

He flung the hand from him, but laughed in a moment. "How sentimental you are! Making love to you is like dragging a cannon uphill! Will you not at least sing me a love-song? And please do not make faces in the tender parts."

Benicia tossed her spirited head, but took her guitar from its case and called to the other girls to accompany her. They withdrew from their various flirtations with audible sighs, but it was Benicia's merienda, and in a moment a dozen white hands were sweeping the long notes from the strings.

Russell moved to a lower rock, and lying at Benicia's feet looked upward. The scene was all above him--the great mass of white rocks, whiter in the moonlight; the rigid cypresses aloft; the beautiful faces, dreamy, passionate, stolid, restless, looking from the lace mantillas; the graceful arms holding the guitars; the sweet rich voices threading through the roar of the ocean like the melody in a grand recitativo; the old men and women crouching like buzzards on the stones, their sharp eyes never closing; enfolding all with an almost palpable touch, the warm voluptuous air. Now and again a bird sang a few notes, a strange sound in the night, or the soft wind murmured like the ocean's echo through the pines.

The song finished. "Benicia, I love you," whispered Russell.

"We will now eat," said Benicia. "Mamma,"--she raised her voice,--"shall I tell Raphael to bring down the supper?"

"Yes, niña."

The girl sprang lightly up the rocks, followed by Russell. The Indian servants were some distance off, and as the young people ran through a pine grove the bold officer of the United States squadron captured the Californian and kissed her on the mouth. She boxed his ears and escaped to the light.

Benicia gave her orders, Raphael and the other Indians followed her with the baskets, and spread the supper of tomales and salads, dulces and wine, on a large table-like rock, just above the threatening spray; the girls sang each in turn, whilst the others nibbled the dainties Doña Eustaquia had provided, and the Americans wondered if it were not a vision that would disappear into the fog bearing down upon them.

A great white bank, writhing and lifting, rolling and bending, came across the ocean slowly, with majestic stealth, hiding the swinging waves on which it rode so lightly, shrouding the rocks, enfolding the men and women, wreathing the cypresses, rushing onward to the pines.

"We must go," said Doña Eustaquia, rising. "There is danger to stay. The lungs, the throat, my children. Look at the poor old cypresses."

The fog was puffing through the gaunt arms, festooning the rigid hands. It hung over the green heads, it coiled about the gray trunks. The stern defeated trees looked like the phantoms of themselves, a long silent battalion of petrified ghosts. Even Benicia's gay spirit was oppressed, and during the long ride homeward through the pine woods she had little to say to her equally silent companion.

IX

Doña Eustaquia seldom gave balls, but once a week she opened her salas to the more intellectual people of the town. A few Americans were ever attendant; General Vallejo often came from Sonoma to hear the latest American and Mexican news in her house; Castro rarely had been absent; Alvarado, in the days of his supremacy, could always be found there, and she was the first woman upon whom Pio Pico called when he deigned to visit Monterey. A few young people came to sit in a corner with Benicia, but they had little to say.

The night after the picnic some fifteen or twenty people were gathered about Doña Eustaquia in the large sala on the right of the hall; a few others were glancing over the Mexican papers in the little sala on the left. The room was ablaze with many candles standing, above the heads of the guests, in twisted silver candelabra, the white walls reflecting their light. The floor was bare, the furniture of stiff mahogany and horse-hair, but no visitor to that quaint ugly room ever thought of looking beyond the brilliant face of Doña Eustaquia, the lovely eyes of her daughter, the intelligence and animation of the people she gathered about her. As a rule Doña Modeste Castro's proud head and strange beauty had been one of the living pictures of that historical sala, but she was not there to-night.

As Captain Brotherton and Lieutenant Russell entered, Doña Eustaquia was waging war against Mr. Larkin.

"And what hast thou to say to that proclamation of thy little American hero, thy Commodore"--she gave the word a satirical roll, impossible to transcribe--"who is heir to a conquest without blood, who struts into history as the Commander of the United States Squadron of the Pacific, holding a few hundred helpless Californians in subjection? O warlike name of Sloat! O heroic name of Stockton! O immortal Frémont, prince of strategists and tacticians, your country must be proud of you! Your newspapers will glorify you! Sometime, perhaps, you will have a little history bound in red morocco all to yourselves; whilst Castro--" she sprang to her feet and brought her open palm down violently upon the table, "Castro, the real hero of this country, the great man ready to die a thousand deaths for the liberty of the Californians, a man who was made for great deeds and born for fame, he will be left to rust and rot because we have no newspapers to glorify him, and the Gringos send what they wish to their country! Oh, profanation! That a great man should be covered from sight by an army of red ants!"

"By Jove!" said Russell, "I wish I could understand her! Doesn't she look magnificent?"

Captain Brotherton made no reply. He was watching her closely, gathering the sense of her words, full of passionate admiration for the woman. Her tall majestic figure was quivering under the lash of her fiery temper, quick to spring and strike. The red satin of her gown and the diamonds on her finely moulded neck and in the dense coils of her hair grew dim before the angry brilliancy of her eyes.

The thin sensitive lips of Mr. Larkin curled with their accustomed humour, but he replied sincerely, "Yes, Castro is a hero, a great man on a small canvas--"

"And they are little men on a big canvas!" interrupted Doña Eustaquia.

Mr. Larkin laughed, but his reply was non-committal. "Remember, they have done all that they have been called upon to do, and they have done it well. Who can say that they would not be as heroic, if opportunity offered, as they have been prudent?"

Doña Eustaquia shrugged her shoulders disdainfully, but resumed her seat. "You will not say, but you know what chance they would have with Castro in a fair fight. But what chance has even a great man, when at the head of a few renegades, against the navy of a big nation? But Frémont! Is he to cast up his eyes and draw down his mouth to the world, whilst the man who acted for the safety of his country alone, who showed foresight and wisdom, is denounced as a violator of international courtesy?"

"No," said one of the American residents who stood near, "history will right all that. Some day the world will know who was the great and who the little man."

"Some day! When we are under our stones! This swaggering Commodore Stockton adores Frémont and hates Castro. His lying proclamation will be read in his own country--"

The door opened suddenly and Don Fernando Altimira entered the room. "Have you heard?" he cried. "All the South is in arms! The Departmental Assembly has called the whole country to war, and men are flocking to the standard! Castro has sworn that he will never give up the country under his charge. Now, Mother of God! let our men drive the usurper from the country."

Even Mr. Larkin sprang to his feet in excitement. He rapidly translated the news to Brotherton and Russell.

"Ah! There will be a little blood, then," said the younger officer. "It was too easy a victory to count."

Every one in the room was talking at once. Doña Eustaquia smote her hands together, then clasped and raised them aloft.

"Thanks to God!" she cried. "California has come to her senses at last!"

Altimira bent his lips to her ear. "I go to fight the Americans," he whispered.

She caught his hand between both her own and pressed it convulsively to her breast. "Go," she said, "and may God and Mary protect thee. Go, my son, and when thou returnest I will give thee Benicia. Thou art a son after my heart, a brave man and a good Catholic."

Benicia, standing near, heard the words. For the first time Russell saw the expression of careless audacity leave her face, her pink colour fade.

"What is that man saying to your mother?" he demanded.

"She promise me to him when he come back; he go to join General Castro."

"Benicia!" He glanced about. Altimira had left the house. Every one was too excited to notice them. He drew her across the hall and into the little sala, deserted since the startling news had come. "Benicia," he said hurriedly, "there is no time to be lost. You are such a butterfly I hardly know whether you love me or not."

"I no am such butterfly as you think," said the girl, pathetically. "I often am very gay, for that is my spirit, señor; but I cry sometimes in the night."

"Well, you are not to cry any more, my very darling first!" He took her in his arms and kissed her, and she did not box his ears. "I may be ordered off at any moment, and what may they not do with you while I am gone? So I have a plan! Marry me to-morrow!"

"Ay! Señor!"

"To-morrow. At your friend Blandina's house. The Hernandez like the Americans; in fact, as we all know, Tallant is in love with Blandina and the old people do not frown. They will let us marry there."

"Ay! Cielo santo! What my mother say? She kill me!"

"She will forgive you, no matter how angry she may be at first. She loves you--almost as much as I do."

The girl withdrew from his arms and walked up and down the room. Her face was very pale, and she looked older. On one side of the room hung a large black cross, heavily mounted with gold. She leaned her face against it and burst into tears. "Ay, my home! My mother!" she cried under her breath. "How I can leave you? Ay, triste de mi!" She turned suddenly to Russell, whose face was as white as her own, and put to him the question which we have not yet answered. "What is this love?" she said rapidly. "I no can understand. I never feel before. Always I laugh when men say they love me; but I never laugh again. In my heart is something that shake me like a lion shake what it go to kill, and make me no care for my mother or my God--and you are a Protestant! I have love my mother like I have love that cross; and now a man come--a stranger! a conqueror! a Protestant! an American! And he twist my heart out with his hands! But I no can help. I love you and I go."

X

The next morning, Doña Eustaquia looked up from her desk as Benicia entered the room. "I am writing to Alvarado," she said. "I hope to be the first to tell him the glorious news. Ay! my child, go to thy altar and pray that the bandoleros may be driven wriggling from the land like snakes out of a burning field!"

"But, mother, I thought you had learned to like the Gringos."

"I like the Gringos well enough, but I hate their flag! Ay! I will pull it down with my own hands if Castro and Pico roll Stockton and Frémont in the dust!"

"I am sorry for that, my mother, for I am going to marry an American to-day."

Her mother laughed and glanced over the closely written page.

"I am going to marry the Lieutenant Russell at Blandina's house this morning."

"Ay, run, run. I must finish my letter."

Benicia left the sala and crossing her mother's room entered her own. From the stout mahogany chest she took white silk stockings and satin slippers, and sitting down on the floor put them on. Then she opened the doors of her wardrobe and looked for some moments at the many pretty frocks hanging there. She selected one of fine white lawn, half covered with deshalados, and arrayed herself. She took from the drawer of the wardrobe a mantilla of white Spanish lace, and draped it about her head and shoulders, fastening it back above one ear with a pink rose. Around her throat she clasped a string of pearls, then stood quietly in the middle of the room and looked about her. In one corner was a little brass bedstead covered with a heavy quilt of satin and lace. The pillow-cases were almost as fine and elaborate as her gown. In the opposite corner was an altar with little gold candlesticks and an ivory crucifix. The walls and floor were bare but spotless. The ugly wardrobe built into the thick wall never had been empty: Doña Eustaquia's generosity to the daughter she worshipped was unbounded.

Benicia drew a long hysterical breath and went over to the window. It looked upon a large yard enclosed by the high adobe wall upon which her lovers so often had sat and sung to her. No flowers were in the garden, not even a tree. It was as smooth and clean as the floor of a ballroom. About the well in the middle were three or four Indian servants quarrelling good-naturedly. The house stood on the rise of one of the crescent's horns. Benicia looked up at the dark pine woods on the hill. What days she had spent there with her mother! She whirled about suddenly and taking a large fan from the table returned to the sala.

Doña Eustaquia laughed. "Thou silly child, to dress thyself like a bride. What nonsense is this?"

"I will be a bride in an hour, my mother."

"Go! Go, with thy nonsense! I have spoiled thee! What other girl in Monterey would dare to dress herself like this at eleven in the morning? Go! And do not ruin that mantilla, for thou wilt not get another. Thou art going to Blandina's, no? Be sure thou goest no farther! I would not let thee go there alone were it not so near. And be sure thou speakest to no man in the street."

"No, mamacita, I will speak to no man in the street, but one awaits me in the house. Hasta luego." And she flitted out of the door and up the street.

XI

A few hours later Doña Eustaquia sat in the large and cooler sala with Captain Brotherton. He read Shakespeare to her whilst she fanned herself, her face aglow with intelligent pleasure. She had not broached to him the uprising in the South lest it should lead to bitter words. Although an American and a Protestant, few friends had ever stood so close to her.

He laid down the book as Russell and Benicia entered the room. Doña Eustaquia's heavy brows met.

"Thou knowest that I do not allow thee to walk with on the street," she said in Spanish.

"But, mamacita, he is my husband. We were married this morning at Blandina's," Excitement had tuned Benicia's spirit to its accustomed pitch, and her eyes danced with mischief. Moreover, although she expected violent reproaches, she knew the tenacious strength of her mother's affection, and had faith in speedy forgiveness.

Brotherton opened his eyes, but Doña Eustaquia moved back her head impatiently. "That silly joke!" Then she smiled at her own impatience. What was Benicia but a spoiled child, and spoiled children would disobey at times. "Welcome, my son," she said to Russell, extending her hand. "We celebrate your marriage at the supper to-night, and the Captain helps us, no? my friend."

"Let us have chicken with red pepper and tomato sauce," cried Russell. "And rice with saffron; and that delightful dish with which I remonstrate all night--olives and cheese and hard-boiled eggs and red peppers all rolled up in corn-meal cakes."

"Enchiladas? You have them! Now, both you go over to the corner and talk not loud, for I wish to hear my friend read."

Russell, lifting his shoulders, did as he was bidden. Benicia, with a gay laugh, kissed her mother and flitted like a butterfly about the room, singing gay little snatches of song.

"Oh, mamacita, mamacita," she chanted. "Thou wilt not believe thou hast lost thy little daughter. Thou wilt not believe thou hast a son. Thou wilt not believe I shall sleep no more in the little brass bed--"

"Benicia, hold thy saucy tongue! Sit down!" And this Benicia finally consented to do, although smothered laughter came now and again from the corner.

Dona Eustaquia sat easily against the straight back of her chair, looking very handsome and placid as Brotherton read and expounded "As You Like It" to her. Her gown of thin black silk threw out the fine gray tones of her skin; about her neck and chest was a heavy chain of Californian gold; her dense lustreless hair was held high with a shell comb banded with gold; superb jewels weighted her little white hands; in her small ears were large hoops of gold studded with black pearls. She was perfectly contented in that hour. Her woman's vanity was at peace and her eager mind expanding.

The party about the supper table in the evening was very gay. The long room was bare, but heavy silver was beyond the glass doors of the cupboard; a servant stood behind each chair; the wines were as fine as any in America, and the favourite dishes of the Americans had been prepared. Even Brotherton, although more nervous than was usual with him, caught the contagion of the hour and touched his glass more than once to that of the woman whose overwhelming personality had more than half captured a most indifferent heart.

After supper they sat on the corridor, and Benicia sang her mocking love-songs and danced El Son to the tinkling of her own guitar.

"Is she not a light-hearted child?" asked her mother. "But she has her serious moments, my friend. We have been like the sisters. Every path of the pine woods we walk together, arm in arm. We ride miles on the beach and sit down on the rocks for hours and try to think what the seals say one to the other. Before you come I have friends, but no other companion; but it is good for me you come, for she think only of flirting since the Americans take Monterey. Mira! Look at her flash the eyes at Señor Russell. It is well he has the light heart like herself."

Brotherton made no reply.

"Give to me the guitar," she continued.

Benicia handed her the instrument and Doña Eustaquia swept the chords absently for a moment then sang the song of the troubadour. Her rich voice was like the rush of the wind through the pines after the light trilling of a bird, and even Russell sat enraptured. As she sang the colour came into her face, alight with the fire of youth. Her low notes were voluptuous, her high notes rang with piercing sadness. As she finished, a storm of applause came from Alvarado Street, which pulsed with life but a few yards below them.

"No American woman ever sang like that," said Brotherton. He rose and walked to the end of the corridor. "But it is a part of Monterey."

"Most enchanting of mothers-in-law," said Russell, "you have made it doubly hard for us to leave you; but it grows late and my wife and I must go. Good night," and he raised her hand to his lips.

"Good night, my son."

"Mamacita, good night," and Benicia, who had fluttered into the house and found a reboso, kissed her mother, waved her hand to Brotherton, and stepped from the corridor to the street.

"Come here, señorita!" cried her mother. "No walk to-night, for I have not the wish to walk myself."

"But I go with my husband, mamma."

"Oh, no more of that joke without sense! Señor Russell, go home, that she have reason for one moment."

"But, dear Doña Eustaquia, won't you understand that we are really married?"

Doña Eustaquia's patience was at an end. She turned to Brotherton and addressed a remark to him. Russell and Benicia conferred a moment, then the young man walked rapidly down the street.

"Has he gone?" asked Doña Eustaquia. "Then let us go in the house, for the fog comes from the bay."

They went into the little sala and sat about the table. Doña Eustaquia picked up a silver dagger she used as a paper cutter and tapped a book with it.

"Ay, this will not last long," she said to Brotherton. "I much am afraid your Commodore send you to the South to fight with our men."

"I shall return," said Brotherton, absently. His eyes were fixed on the door.

"But it will not be long that you will be there, my friend. Many people are not killed in our wars. Once there was a great battle at Point Rincon, near Santa Barbara, between Castro and Carillo. Carillo have been appointed governor by Mejico, and Alvarado refuse to resign. They fight for three days, and Castro manage so well he lose only one man, and the others run away and not lose any."

Brotherton laughed. "I hope all our battles may be as bloodless," he said, and then drew a short breath.

Russell, accompanied by Don Jorje and Doña Francesca Hernandez and the priest of Monterey, entered the room.

Doña Eustaquia rose and greeted her guests with grace and hospitality.

"But I am glad to see you, my father, my friends. And you always are welcome, Señor Russell; but no more joke. Where is our Blandina? Sit down--Why, what is it?"

The priest spoke.

"I have that to tell you, Doña Eustaquia, which I fear will give you great displeasure. I hoped not to be the one to tell it. I was weak to consent, but these young people importuned me until I was weary. Doña Eustaquia, I married Benicia to the Señor Russell to-day."

Doña Eustaquia's head had moved forward mechanically, her eyes staring incredulously from the priest to the other members of the apprehensive group. Suddenly her apathy left her, her arm curved upward like the neck of a snake; but as she sprang upon Benicia her ferocity was that of a tiger.

"What!" she shrieked, shaking the girl violently by the shoulder. "What! ingrate! traitor! Thou hast married an American, a Protestant!"

Benicia burst into terrified sobs. Russell swung the girl from her mother's grasp and placed his arm around her.

"She is mine now," he said. "You must not touch her again."

"Yours! Yours!" screamed Doña Eustaquia, beside herself. "Oh, Mother of God!" She snatched the dagger from the table and, springing backward, plunged it into the cross.

"By that sign I curse thee," she cried. "Accursed be the man who has stolen my child! Accursed be the woman who has betrayed her mother and her country! God! God!--I implore thee, let her die in her happiest hour."

XII

On August twelfth Commodore Hull arrived on the frigate _Warren_, from Mazatlan, and brought the first positive intelligence of the declaration of war between Mexico and the United States. Before the middle of the month news came that Castro and Pico, after gallant defence, but overwhelmed by numbers, had fled, the one to Sonora, the other to Baja California. A few days after, Stockton issued a proclamation to the effect that the flag of the United States was flying over every town in the territory of California; and Alcalde Colton announced that the rancheros were more than satisfied with the change of government.

A month later a mounted courier dashed into Monterey with a note from the Alcalde of Los Angeles, wrapped about a cigarito and hidden in his hair. The note contained the information that all the South was in arms again, and that Los Angeles was in the hands of the Californians. Russell was ordered to go with Captain Mervine, on the _Savannah_, to join Gillespie at San Pedro; Brotherton was left at Monterey with Lieutenant Maddox and a number of men to quell a threatened uprising. Later came the news of Mervine's defeat and the night of Talbot from Santa Barbara; and by November California was in a state of general warfare, each army receiving new recruits every day.

Doña Eustaquia, hard and stern, praying for the triumph of her people, lived alone in the old house. Benicia, praying for the return of her husband and the relenting of her mother, lived alone in her little house on the hill. Friends had interceded, but Doña Eustaquia had closed her ears. Brotherton went to her one day with the news that Lieutenant Russell was wounded.

"I must tell Benicia," he said, "but it is you who should do that."

"She betray me, my friend."

"Oh, Eustaquia, make allowance for the lightness of youth. She barely realized what she did. But she loves him now, and suffers bitterly. She should be with you."

"Ay! She suffer for another! She love a strange man--an American--better than her mother! And it is I who would die for her! Ay, you cold Americans! Never you know how a mother can love her child."

"The Americans know how to love, señora. And Benicia was thoroughly spoiled by her devoted mother. She was carried away by her wild spirits, nothing more."

"Then much better she live on them now."

Doña Eustaquia sat with her profile against the light. It looked severe and a little older, but she was very handsome in her rich black gown and the gold chain about her strong throat. Her head, as usual, was held a little back. Brotherton sat down beside her and took her hand.

"Eustaquia," he said, "no friendship between man and woman was ever deeper and stronger than ours. In spite of the anxiety and excitement of these last months we have found time to know each other very intimately. So you will forgive me if I tell you that the more a friend loves you the more he must be saddened by the terrible iron in your nature. Only the great strength of your passions has saved you from hardening into an ugly and repellent woman. You are a mother; forgive your child; remember that she, too, is about to be a mother--"

She caught his hand between both of hers with a passionate gesture. "Oh, my friend," she said, "do not too much reproach me! You never have a child, you cannot know! And remember we all are not make alike. If you are me, you act like myself. If I am you, I can forgive more easy. But I am Eustaquia Ortega, and as I am make, so I do feel now. No judge too hard, my friend, and--_infelez de mi!_ do not forsake me."

"I will never forsake you, Eustaquia." He rose suddenly. "I, too, am a lonely man, if not a hard one, and I recognize that cry of the soul's isolation."

He left her and went up the hill to Benicia's little house, half hidden by the cypress trees that grew before it.

She was sitting in her sala working an elaborate deshalados on a baby's gown. Her face was pale, and the sparkle had gone out of it; but she held herself with all her mother's pride, and her soft eyes were deeper. She rose as Captain Brotherton entered, and took his hand in both of hers. "You are so good to come to me, and I love you for your friendship for my mother. Tell me how she is."

"She is well, Benicia." Then he exclaimed suddenly: "Poor little girl! What a child you are--not yet seventeen."

"In a few months, señor. Sit down. No? And I no am so young now. When we suffer we grow more than by the years; and now I go to have the baby, that make me feel very old."

"But it is very sad to see you alone like this, without your husband or your mother. She will relent some day, Benicia, but I wish she would do it now, when you most need her."

"Yes, I wish I am with her in the old house," said the girl, pathetically, although she winked back the tears. "Never I can be happy without her, even si _he_ is here, and you know how I love him. But I have love her so long; she is--how you say it?--like she is part of me, and when she no spik to me, how I can be happy with all myself when part is gone. You understand, señor?"

"Yes, Benicia, I understand." He looked through the bending cypresses, down the hill, upon the fair town. He had no relish for the task which had brought him to her. She looked up and caught the expression of his face.

"Señor!" she cried sharply. "What you go to tell me?"

"There is a report that Ned is slightly wounded; but it is not serious. It was Altimira who did it, I believe."

She shook from head to foot, but was calmer than he had expected. She laid the gown on a chair and stood up. "Take me to him. Si he is wound, I go to nurse him."

"My child! You would die before you got there. I have sent a special courier to find out the truth. If Ned is wounded, I have arranged to have him sent home immediately."

"I wait for the courier come back, for it no is right I hurt the baby si I can help. But si he is wound so bad he no can come, then I go to him. It no is use for you to talk at all, señor, I go."

Brotherton looked at her in wonderment. Whence had the butterfly gone? Its wings had been struck from it and a soul had flown in.

"Let me send Blandina to you," he said. "You must not be alone."

"I am alone till he or my mother come. I no want other. I love Blandina before, but now she make me feel tired. She talk so much and no say anything. I like better be alone."

"Poor child!" said Brotherton, bitterly, "truly do love and suffering age and isolate." He motioned with his hand to the altar in her bedroom, seen through the open door. "I have not your faith, I am afraid I have not much of any; but if I cannot pray for you, I can wish with all the strength of a man's heart that happiness will come to you yet, Benicia."

She shook her head. "I no know; I no believe much happiness come in this life. Before, I am like a fairy; but it is only because I no am _un_happy. But when the heart have wake up, señor, and the knife have gone in hard, then, after that, always, I think, we are a little sad."

XIII

General Kearney and Lieutenant Beale walked rapidly up and down before the tents of the wretched remnant of United States troops with which the former had arrived overland in California. It was bitterly cold in spite of the fine drizzling rain. Lonely buttes studded the desert, whose palms and cacti seemed to spring from the rocks; high on one of them was the American camp. On the other side of a river flowing at the foot of the butte, the white tents of the Californians were scattered among the dark huts of the little pueblo of San Pasqual.

"Let me implore you, General," said Beale, "not to think of meeting Andres Pico. Why, your men are half starved; your few horses are broken-winded; your mules are no match for the fresh trained mustangs of the enemy. I am afraid you do not appreciate the Californians. They are numerous, brave, and desperate. If you avoid them now, as Commodore Stockton wishes, and join him at San Diego, we stand a fair chance of defeating them. But now Pico's cavalry and foot are fresh and enthusiastic--in painful contrast to yours. And, moreover, they know every inch of the ground."

Kearney impatiently knocked the ashes out of his pipe. He had little regard for Stockton, and no intention of being dictated to by a truculent young lieutenant who spoke his mind upon all occasions.

"I shall attack them at daybreak," he said curtly. "I have one hundred and thirty good men; and has not Captain Gillespie joined me with his battalion? Never shall it be said that I turned aside to avoid a handful of boasting Californians. Now go and get an hour's sleep before we start."

The young officer shrugged his shoulders, saluted, and walked down the line of tents. A man emerged from one of them, and he recognized Russell.

"Hello, Ned," he said. "How's the arm?"

"'Twas only a scratch. Is Altimira down there with Pico, do you know? He is a brave fellow! I respect that man; but we have an account to settle, and I hope it will be done on the battle-field."

"He is with Pico, and he has done some good fighting. Most of the Californians have. They know how to fight and they are perfectly fearless. Kearney will find it out to-morrow. He is mad to attack them. Why, his men are actually cadaverous. Bueno! as they say here; Stockton sent me to guide him to San Diego. If he prefers to go through the enemy's lines, there is nothing for me to do but take him."

"Yes, but we may surprise them. I wish to God this imitation war were over!"

"It will be real enough before you get through. Don't worry. Well, good night. Luck to your skin."

At daybreak the little army marched down the butte, shivering with cold, wet to the skin. Those on horseback naturally proceeded more rapidly than those mounted upon the clumsy stubborn mules; and Captain Johnson, who led the advance guard of twelve dragoons, found himself, when he came in sight of the enemy's camp, some distance ahead of the main body of Kearney's small army. To his surprise he saw that the Californians were not only awake, but horsed and apparently awaiting him. Whether he was fired by valour or desperation at the sight is a disputed point; but he made a sudden dash down the hill and across the river, almost flinging himself upon the lances of the Californians.

Captain Moore, who was ambling down the hill on an old white horse at the head of fifty dragoons mounted on mules, spurred his beast as he witnessed the foolish charge of the advance, and arrived upon the field in time to see Johnson fall dead and to take his place. Pico, seeing that reënforcements were coming, began to retreat, followed hotly by Moore and the horsed dragoons. Suddenly, however, Fernando Altimira raised himself in his stirrups, looked back, laughed and galloped across the field to General Pico.

"Look!" he said. "Only a few men on horses are after us. The mules are stumbling half a mile behind."

Pico wheeled about, gave the word of command, and bore down upon the Americans. Then followed a hand-to-hand conflict, the Californians lancing and using their pistols with great dexterity, the Americans doing the best they could with their rusty sabres and clubbed guns.

They were soon reënforced by Moore's dragoons and Gillespie's battalion, despite the unwilling mules; but the brutes kicked and bucked at every pistol shot and fresh cloud of smoke. The poor old horses wheezed and panted, but stood their ground when not flung out of position by the frantic mules. The officers and soldiers of the United States army were a sorry sight, and in pointed contrast to the graceful Californians on their groomed steeds, handsomely trapped, curvetting and rearing and prancing as lightly as if on the floor of a circus. Kearney cursed his own stupidity, and Pico laughed in his face. Beale felt satisfaction and compunction in saturating the silk and silver of one fine saddle with the blood of its owner. The point of the dying man's lance pierced his face, but he noted the bleaching of Kearney's, as one dragoon after another was flung upon the sharp rocks over which his bewildered brute stumbled, or was caught and held aloft in the torturing arms of the cacti.

On the edge of the battle two men had forgotten the Aztec Eagle and the Stars and Stripes; they fought for love of a woman. Neither had had time to draw his pistol; they fought with lance and sabre, thrusting and parrying. Both were skilful swordsmen, but Altimira's horse was far superior to Russell's, and he had the advantage of weapons.

"One or the other die on the rocks," said the Californian, "and si I kill you, I marry Benicia."

Russell made no reply. He struck aside the man's lance and wounded his wrist. But Altimira was too excited to feel pain. His face was quivering with passion.

It is not easy to parry a lance with a sabre, and still more difficult to get close enough to wound the man who wields it. Russell rose suddenly in his stirrups, described a rapid half-circle with his weapon, brought it down midway upon the longer blade, and snapped the latter in two. Altimira gave a cry of rage, and spurring his horse sought to ride his opponent down; but Russell wheeled, and the two men simultaneously snatched their pistols from the holsters. Altimira fired first, but his hand was unsteady and his ball went through a cactus. Russell raised his pistol with firm wrist, and discharged it full in the face of the Californian.

Then he looked over the field. Moore, fatally lanced, lay under a palm, and many of his men were about him. Gillespie was wounded, Kearney had received an ugly thrust. The Californians, upon the arrival of the main body of the enemy's troops, had retreated unpursued; the mules attached to one of the American howitzers were scampering over to the opposite ranks, much to the consternation of Kearney. The sun, looking over the mountain, dissipated the gray smoke, and cast a theatrical light on the faces of the dead. Russell bent over Altimira. His head was shattered, but his death was avenged. Never had an American troop suffered a more humiliating defeat. Only six Californians lay on the field; and when the American surgeon, after attending to his own wounded, offered his services to Pico's, that indomitable general haughtily replied that he had none.