IX

Dona 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 Dona 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 Dona Eustaquia, the lovely eyes of her daughter, the intelligence and animation of the people she gathered about her. As a rule Dona 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, Dona 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 Fremont, 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