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A few moments later they had helped themselves to cigarettes from the gift of the Tsar and were assuring Rezanov of their partisanship and approval. "We were somewhat taken aback at the first moment," Luis admitted. "But well, we are both in love Santiago no less than I, although I have had these six long years of waiting and am likely to have another.
As the little ship that had three times raced with death sailed past the gray headlands and into the straits of San Francisco on that brilliant April morning of 1806, Rezanov forgot the bitter humiliations, the mental and physical torments, the deprivations and dangers of the past three years; forgot those harrowing months in the harbor of Nagasaki when the Russian bear had caged his tail in the presence of eyes aslant; his dismay at Kamchatka when he had been forced to send home another to vindicate his failure, and to remain in the Tsar's incontiguous and barbarous northeastern possessions as representative of his Imperial Majesty, and plenipotentiary of the Company his own genius had created; forgot the year of loneliness and hardship and peril in whose jaws the bravest was impotent; forgot even his pitiable crew, diseased when he left Sitka, that had filled the Juno with their groans and laments; and the bells of youth, long still, rang in his soul once more.
Jon, at his wits' end, remembered the' practice of Langsdorff in similar cases, and used the lancet, a heroic treatment he would never have accomplished had his master been conscious. The fever ebbed, and in a few days Rezanov was able to continue the journey by shorter stages, although heavy with an intolerable lassitude.
They were twelve hours covering the thirty versts, and at Katschuk Rezanov succumbed for two days, while Jon scoured the country in search of a telega; as sometimes happened there was a long stretch of country without snow, and sledges, by far the most comfortable method of travel in Siberia, could not be used. The rest of the journey, but one hundred and ninety-six versts, must be made by land.
The cavalcade was descending the sand hills on the left, Rezanov in full uniform between the Commandante and Luis Arguello and followed by a picked escort of officers from Presidio and Fort. The Californians wore full-dress uniform of white and scarlet, Don Jose a blue velvet serape, embroidered in gold with the arms of Spain.
As the party on the corridor broke, Rezanov found no difficulty in reaching Concha's side, for even Dona Ignacia was chattering wildly with several other good dames who renewed their youth briefly at the bull-fight. "Did you enjoy that?" he asked curiously. "I did not look at it. I never do. But I know that you were not affronted. You never took your eyes from those dreadful beasts."
Luis and Santiago had been obliged to go to Monterey for a few days, and there was no one at the Presidio in whom Rezanov could confide either his impatience to see Concha or at the adjournment of his more prosaic but no less pressing interests.
But the Tsarovitz, enthusiastic for reform and a passionate admirer of enterprise, knew of Rezanov, and no sooner did he mount his gory throne than he confirmed the Chamberlain in his enterprise, and two years later made him a Privy Counsellor, invested him with the order of St. Ann, and chose him for the critical embassy to the verdant realm with the blind and gateless walls.
Are you mad, Excellency?" "No man was ever saner," said Rezanov cheerfully. "What better proof would you have than this final testimony to Dona Concha's perfections?" "But it cannot be! Surely, Excellency, you realize that? The priests! Ay yi! Ay yi!" "I think I understand the priests.
Moreover, although he loved Rezanov personally, he had enjoyed supreme power in the wilderness too long not to chafe under even the temporary assumption of authority by his high-handed superior.
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