Estenega handed him money for the burial, and looked at him speculatively. The priest must have heard the girl's confessions, and he wondered why he did not improve the opportunity to reprove a man whose indifference to the Church was a matter of indignant comment among the clergy. The priest appeared to divine his thoughts, for he said:
"Thou hast done more than thy duty, Don Diego. And to the frailties of men I think the good God is merciful. He made them. Go in peace."
Estenega accepted Mr. Larkin's invitation, but, in spite of the genial society of the consul, he spent in his house the most wretched three weeks of his life. He dared not leave Monterey until he had passed the time of incubation, having no desire to spread the disease; he dared not write to Chonita, for the same reason. What must she think? She supposed him to have sailed, of course, but he had promised to write her from Monterey, and again from San Diego. And the uncertainty regarding his Mexican affairs was intolerable to a man of his active mind and supertense nervous system. His only comfort lay in Mr. Larkin's assurance that the national bark Joven Guipuzcoana was due within the month and would return at once. Early in the fourth week the assurance was fulfilled, and by the time he was ready to sail again his danger from contagion was over. But he embarked without writing to Chonita.
The voyage lasted a month, tedious and monotonous, more trying than his retardation on land, for there at least he could recover some serenity by violent exercise. He divided his time between pacing the deck, when the weather permitted, and writing to Chonita: long, intimate, possessing letters, which would reveal her to herself as nothing else, short of his own dominant contact, could do. At San Blas he posted his letters and welcomed the rough journey overland to the capital; but under a calm exterior he was possessed of the spirit of disquiet. As so often happens, however, his fears proved to have been vagaries of a morbid state of mind and of that habit of thought which would associate with every cause an effect of similar magnitude. Santa Ana welcomed him with friendly enthusiasm, and was ready to listen to his plans. That wily and astute politician, who was always abreast of progress and never in its lead, recognized in Estenega the coming man, and, knowing that the seizure of the Californias by the United States was only a question of time, was keenly willing to make an ally of the man who he foresaw would control them as long as he chose, both at home and in Washington. For the matter of that, he recognized the impotence of Mexico to interfere, beyond bluster, with plans any resolute Californian might choose to pursue; but it was important to Estenega's purpose that the governorship should be assured to him by the central government, and the eyes of the Mexican Congress directed elsewhere. He knew the value of the moral effect which its apparent sanction would have upon rebellious Southerners.
"I am at your service," said Santa Ana; "and the governorship is yours. But take heed that no rumor of your ultimate intentions reaches the ears of Congress until you are firmly established. If it opposed you relentlessly—and it keeps its teeth on California like a dog on a bone bigger than himself—I should have to yield; I have too much at stake myself. I will look out that any communications from enemies, including Iturbi y Moncada, are opened first by me."
Estenega wrote to Chonita again by the ship that left during his brief stay in the capital, and it was his intention to go directly to Santa Barbara upon arriving in California. But when he landed in Monterey—disinfected and careless as of old—he learned that she was about to start, perhaps already had done so, for Fort Ross, to pay a visit to the Rotscheffs. The news gave him pleasure; it had been his wish to say what he had yet to say in his own forests.
And then the plan which had been stirring restlessly in his mind for many months took imperative shape: he determined that if there was gold in California he would wring the secret out of its keeper, by gentle means or violent, and that within the next twenty-four hours.
XXIX.
Estenega drew rein the next night before the neglected Mission of San Rafael. The valley, surrounded by hills dark with the silent redwoods, bore not a trace of the populous life of the days before secularization. The padre lived alone, lodge-keeper of a valley of shadows.
He opened the door of his room on the corridor as he heard the approach of the traveler, squinting his bleared, yellow-spotted eyes. He was surly by nature, but he bowed low to the man whose power was so great in California, and whose generosity had sent him many a bullock. He cooked him supper from his frugal store, piled the logs in the open fireplace,—November was come,—and, after a bottle of wine, produced from Estenega's saddle-bag, expanded into a hermit's imitation of conviviality. Late in the night they still sat on either side of the table in the dusty, desolate room. The Forgotten had been entertained with vivid and shifting pictures of the great capital in which he had passed his boyhood. He smiled occasionally; now and again he gave a quick impatient sigh. Suddenly Estenega leaned forward and fixed him with his powerful gaze.