estrained from
emigration to the interior of this enchanted land of pretty girls and
plentiful food by the knowledge of the sure and merciless vengeance of
their chief. Had the rumor of war still held it might have been
otherwise, but that raven had flown off to the limbo of its kind, and
the Commandante let it be known that deserters would be summarily
captured and sent in irons to the Juno.

In the mind of Concha Arguello there was never a lingering doubt of the
quality of that fortnight between the days of torturing doubts and
acute emotional upheaval, and the sailing away of Rezanov. It was true
that what he banteringly termed her romantic sadness possessed her at
times, but it served as a shadow to throw into sharper relief an almost
incredible happiness. If she seldom saw Rezanov alone there was the
less to disturb her, and at least he was never far from her side.
There were always the delight of unexpected moments unseen, whispered
words in the crowd, the sense of complete understanding, broken now and
again by poignant attacks of unreasoning jealousy, not only on her part
but his; quite worth the reconciliation at the lattice, while Elena
Castro, gentle duena, pitched her voice high and amused her husband so
well he sought no opportunity for response.

Then there was more than one excursion about the bay on the Juno,
dinner on La Bellissima or Nuestra Senora de los Angeles, a long return
after sundown that the southerners might appreciate the splendor of the
afterglow when the blue of the water was reflected in the lower sky, to
melt into the pink fire above, and all the land swam in a pearly mist.

Once the Commandante took twenty of his guests, a gay cavalcade, to his
rancho, El Pilar, thirty miles to the south: a long valley flanked by
the bay and the eastern mountains on the one hand, and a high range
dense with forests of tall thin trees on the other. But the valley
itself was less Californian than any part of the country Rezanov had
seen. Smooth and flat and free of undergrowth and set with at least ten
thousand oaks, it looked more like a splendid English park, long
preserved, than the recent haunt of naked savages. There were deer and
quail in abundance, here and there an open field of grain. Long beards
of pale green moss waved from the white oaks, wild flowers, golden red
and pale blue, burst underfoot. There were hedges of sweet briar,
acres of lupins, purple and yellow. Altogether the ideal