"What did you, Captain?"
"I replied to him. He struck me with the flat of his sword."
"And what did you then?"
"I could do nothing. We were in the face of the enemy then, as for months. Later, the allied forces were separated. A generation has lived and passed since that blood-stained day of Talavera. Mendoza, doubtless, does not remember me. Still, it would not be wise to risk injury to our cause by bringing to play any ill feeling he might possibly retain against me."
"Our Captain is judicious." Continuing: "Know you the value of these Californias?"
"They are the pivotal center of Orient and Occident. My government well knows the harbors here, their possibilities——"
The señora's raised hand stopped him. Her fingers ran along the wall searchingly. At last she pressed hard, then harder.
The wall separated at a line above her head, the lower part of the wall slowly sinking through the floor.
"I am going to show you the treasure-chamber of a dead-and-gone governor of the Californias, when the province was a part of Spain."
A room half the size of the library was in view. Stone mortars were on the floor, and on the shelves. Resting on the brims of the vessels, and caught on the rough sides of the exteriors, were many yellow particles which dully shone in the newly-admitted light.