“Doubtest thou then, my motherless one, the judgment of him who loves thee?” he asked.
“I doubt it not, my father,” answered his daughter. “Yet would I not wed with the Spaniard,” she added stubbornly.
“The blue-eyed senor from England”—there was a hint of humor in his tone,—“he it is who steals thy fancy! Is it not so, my Wildenai?”
Then, after a moment: “Right well knowest thou my only wish is to make thee happy.” Again his voice, though gentle, grew serious almost to sadness. “No mere whim it is that counsels me to wed thee to Cabrillo. There is something—” He paused, continuing with effort,—“a reason I have never told thee why it seems most fitting. Now I will tell thee. That reason is because, because, my Wildenai, thou art Spanish born thyself.”
The princess drew a hasty breath. In the darkness he felt rather than saw her startled eyes upon him.
“My father!” The exclamation, filled with pain as well as astonishment, touched him to the quick. Tenderly he drew her to him. Then briefly, as was the Indian way, yet with the pictured phrasing which caused each scene to spring into vivid life before the young girl's eyes, he told her of the day, already more than eighteen years gone by, when, in the wake of a long midwinter storm, the first sailing vessel ever beheld by his people had fled for refuge to their bay; and of the little girl carefully brought to shore by her old nurse in the first boat to touch the beach. A mere baby she was, too young to know aught of her misfortune, yet a princess royal, rudely dispossessed of her right to the throne of Spain, and smuggled aboard the adventurer Cabrillo's ship to be dropped in some out-of-the-way corner of the western world. Even then, he made it clear, she might have perished,—since little recked the Spanish explorer what should happen, well knowing that upon his return no questions would be asked,—had it not been for his Indian wife. She, lacking children of her own, had taken an instant fancy to the dark-eyed little girl, a fancy so strong that nothing would do but they must adopt her as their own daughter into the tribe to belong forever, according to their law, she and her children, to the Mariposa.
“Nor, because thy mother—for ever was she a true mother to thee—thought that it might grieve thee, have any of my people ever given thee cause to doubt that thou wert native born,” he finished proudly. “Loyal have they been, doing all they could to make thee happy. But now that thy Indian mother is dead, and I myself grow old, I thought to wed thee, knowing his desire, to the son of that same Cabrillo who brought thee to us, for I long to be sure, when at length I go, that thou art safe,—at home.”
He waited then and in the silence only the low weeping of the girl was heard. At length the old chief spoke again, and now in his voice love conquered disappointment.
“Much do I desire it, but that matters not. I would not have thee unhappy. I myself will tell the senor that what he hopes for cannot be.”
Slowly Wildenai bent her head until it touched his feet. Then she nestled close against him.