"Your words do you honor, señora. May I ask leave now to retire?"
"The leave is yours, Commodore."
After good night had been said Señora Valentino returned to her chair by the fire. Into the flames she looked for a long time.
"The Commodore talks in his silence," she finally said to herself, smiling grimly. "The pages of this drama fast turn themselves—very fast—to the issue. 'But I shall judge for myself.' Ah! Commodore, your silence is indeed golden. So, Mendoza wishes you to seize Monterey—evidently—but, 'you will judge for yourself.' Discreet Commodore! But we shall see—we shall see!"
The thick oaken log in the fireplace was ashes before the señora went to her room.
CHAPTER XXII
ALMOST——
Señora Valentino rode slowly along the way leading from Santa Clara to Pueblo San José. Willow trees lined the edge of the road, lifting their featherly foliage in greeting to the morning sun. Yellow light filtered through and marked the interlacing plumes with myriad fairy figures in golden tints. The branches nodded and undulated in low-toned rhythm. Tempered breezes from the bay, sweet with the breath of virgin meadow, hung light-winged over this shaded alameda. Peons, men and women, worked in the vegetable gardens by the wayside, singing as they labored. Betimes they used the guttural words of their aborigine tongue, the age-old longing of savage man flowing in heavy note and shrill refrain. Again, some neophyte rested for the moment on hoe or mattock and intoned a hymn. Then knoll and hollow resounded as the children of the wilderness sang the words of their new-found faith.
The long white line marking the fort at San José had come plainly into view when the señora halted.
"My message requested the Captain to meet me here at this hour," she said to no one in particular. Her mounted Indian guard was a score of paces behind. Just then Captain Farquharson, coming at swift gallop, turned the bend just ahead.