"May I ask," said Concha demurely, "how you dare to run the risks of an unknown sheet of water? I have heard it said that there is more than one rock and shoal in this bay."
"I am not as rash as I may appear," replied Rezanov dryly, but smiling. "In 1789 there was a chart of this bay, taken from a Spanish MSS., published in London; and I bought it there when I ran up from the Nadeshda—anchored at Falmouth—three years ago. Davidov, who, you may observe, is steering, oblivious to the charms of even Dona Carolina, knows every sounding by heart."
"Oh!" Concha shrugged her shoulders. "The Governor, too, is very clever. It will be a drawn battle. Perhaps I shall remain neutral after all. It would be more amusing." The ship was turning, and she waved her hand to the island between the deep arc of the hilly coast. "I have heard so much of the beauty of that island," she said, "that I have called it La Bellissima, but I never hoped to see anything but the back of its head, from which the wind has blown all the hair. And now I shall. How kind of you, senor!"
"How easily you are made happy!" he said, with a sigh. "You look like a child."
"To-day I shall be one; and you the kind fairy god-father," she added, with some malice. "How old are you, senor?"
"Forty-two."
"That is twenty-six years older than myself. But your excellency might pass for thirty-five," she added politely. "We have all said it. And now that you are not so pale you will soon look younger—and even more triumphant than when you came."
"I have never felt so triumphant as on this morning, dear senorita. I had not hoped to give you so much pleasure."
Her cheeks were as pink as her reboso, her great black eyes were dancing. Her hands strained at the railing. "I shall see La Bellissima! La Bellissima!" she cried.
They rounded the low broken point of the island, sailed through the racing currents between the lower end of La Bellissima and "Our Lady of the Angels," more slowly past what looked to be a perpendicular forest. From water to crest the gulches and converging spurs of this hillside in the sea were a dense mass of oaks, bays, underbrush; here and there a tall slender tree with a bark like red kid and a flirting polished leaf, at which Concha clapped her hands as at sight of an old friend and called "El Madrono." It was a primeval bit of nature, but sweet and silent and peaceful; there was no suggestion either of gloom or of discourteous beast.