Mexico had declared for independence, and was making good this declaration by force of arms. California would be compelled either to stand with Mexico or to fall with mother Spain. Colonel Mendoza's natural gifts included statecraft. He did not oppose the inevitable. California became a province of the republic of Mexico.
Now hastened the Colonel to claim his bride. In Madrid he found his brother dead, leaving no direct heir. The soldier-cavalier claimed title and estates, but the royal court rebuffed him. He was a foreigner now. His acceptance of Mexican dominion had cost him his Spanish citizenship. The laws of entail debarred him from succession.
He urged the inevitableness of the separation of Mexico from Spain, also his years of service in the Spanish army; likewise the claims of his family to the good will of the kingdom. All was in vain.
Hastening to the castle of his betrothed, he made known his presence, and asked to see the Lady Romalda.
Her father met him in his stead.
"My daughter, the noble doña, desires to see you not, Sir Foreigner. For my part I request that you depart from this place and never return."
"Foreigner or not, I'll hear the rejection from the lady's own lips. I demand to see the Lady Romalda, my affianced wife."
After much parley the father brought his daughter to see the determined man.
Mendoza told her again of the home prepared for her near the shores of the sunny Pacific, of the beauty and luxuriance well-nigh Oriental, of the wealth of the land, of the promise of the future.
"Peons, slaves, señorita, numbering hundreds, await your pleasure there. A princess will you be, and I will be your lover-husband. Say you will come with me."