put his hand to his throat to control the swelling muscles.
"Two hours ago," he said, "Commander Sloat sent one Captain William
Mervine on shore to demand of our Commandante the surrender of the town.
Don Mariano walked the floor, wringing his hands, until a quarter of an
hour ago, when he sent word to the insolent servant of a pirate-republic
that he had no authority to deliver up the capital, and bade him go to
San Juan Bautista and confer with General Castro. Whereupon the American
thief ordered two hundred and fifty of his men to embark in boats--do
not you hear?"

A mighty cheer shook the air amidst the thunder of cannon; then another,
and another.

Every lip in the room was white.

"What is that?" asked Dona Eustaquia. Her voice was hardly audible.

"They have raised the American flag upon the Custom-house," said the
herald.

For a moment no one moved; then as by one impulse, and without a word,
Dona Modeste Castro and her guests rose and ran through the streets to
the Custom-house on the edge of the town.

In the bay were three frigates of twenty guns each. On the rocks, in the
street by the Custom-house and on its corridors, was a small army of men
in the naval uniform of the United States, respectful but determined.
About them and the little man who read aloud from a long roll of paper,
the aristocrats joined the rabble of the town. Men with sunken eyes who
had gambled all night, leaving even serape and sombrero on the gaming
table; girls with painted faces staring above cheap and gaudy satins,
who had danced at fandangos in the booths until dawn, then wandered
about the beach, too curious over the movements of the American squadron
to go to bed; shopkeepers, black and rusty of face, smoking big pipes
with the air of philosophers; Indians clad in a single garment of
calico, falling in a straight line from the neck; eagle-beaked old
crones with black shawls over their heads; children wearing only a smock
twisted about their little waists and tied in a knot behind; a few
American residents, glancing triumphantly at each other; caballeros,
gay in the silken attire of summer, sitting in angry disdain upon their
plunging, superbly trapped horses; last of all, the elegant women in
their lace mantillas and flowered rebosas, weeping and clinging to each
other. Few gave ear to the reading of Sloat's proclamation.

Benicia, the daughter of Dona Eustaquia, raised her clasped hands, the
tears streaming from her eye