tigued yourself
for nothing, but I am forced to remind you that this is not an
expedition undertaken for the promotion of natural history. I am not
violating my part in the contract, I believe. Upon our arrival at
Sitka you are at liberty to remain as my guest and make use of the
first boat that sails for this colony; but for the present I beg that
you will limit yourself to the requirements of your position on my
staff."

He turned his back and ordered a canoe to be lowered. Since the
arrival of the Governor and Commandante, now three days ago, all
restrictions on his liberty had been removed, and the phrases of
hospitality were a trifle less meaningless. He had been asked to give
his word to keep away from the fortifications, and as he knew quite as
much of the military resources of the country as he desired, he had
merely suppressed a smile and given his promise.

This morning he wanted nothing but a walk. He had slept badly, the
blood was in his head, his nerves were on edge. He went rapidly along
the beach and over the steep hills that led to the north-eastern point
of the peninsula. But he had taken the walk before and did not turn
his head to look at the great natural amphitheater formed by the inner
slopes of those barren heights, so uninteresting of outline from the
water. Once when Luis had left him to go down with an order to the
Battery of Yerba Buena, he had examined it critically and concluded
that never had there been so fine a site for a great city. Nor a more
beautiful, with the broken line of the San Bruno mountains in the
distance and a glimpse of the Mission valley just beyond this vast
colosseum, whose steep imposing lines were destined by nature to be set
with palaces and bazaars, minarets and towers and churches, with a
thousand gilded domes and slender crosses glittering in the crystal air
and sunlight. If not another Moscow, then an Irkutsk in his day, at
least.

But he did not give the chosen site of his city a glance to-day,
although in this gray air before dawn when mystery and imagination most
closely embrace, he might at another time have forgotten himself in one
of those fits of dreaming that slipped him out of touch with realities,
and sometimes precipitated action in a manner highly gratifying to his
enemies.

But much as he loved Russia, there were times when he loved his own way
more, and since the arrival of Governor Arrillaga he was beginning to
feel as he had felt in