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Updated: June 10, 2025
Doña Modeste raised her eyebrows. "Coals are safest when burned on the domestic hearth and carefully watched; safer still when they have fallen to ashes." "What is this rumor of pirates on the coast?" demanded Alvarado, abruptly. I put my hand through Estenega's arm and drew him aside. The music of the contradanza was playing, and we stood against the wall.
At different times girls of the people had left Monterey suddenly, and vague rumors had floated down from the North that they had been seen in the redwood forests where Estenega's ranchos lay.
Her face was locked: only the eyes betrayed the soul in torment. But she looked as immutable as a fate. "Chonita," I exclaimed, hardly knowing where to begin, "be reasonable. Men of Estenega's brain and passionate affectionate nature are always weak with women, but it means nothing. He cares nothing for Valencia Menendez. He is madly in love with you.
I caught the expression of Estenega's face, and determined to remain if he murdered me. Peals of laughter, joyous shrieks, screams of mock terror, floated in to us. I broke a silence which was growing awkward: "How happy they are! Creatures of air and sunshine! Life in this Arcadia is an idyl." "They are not happy," said Estenega, contemptuously; "they are gay.
But there were dark hours yet before the dawn, and during one of them a figure, when his back was turned, crept to the lantern and hung it before an adjoining room. When light came, and the fog came first, all Estenega's efforts to find the trap-door were unavailing, although the yard was littered with the rubbish he flung into it from the room.
He cooked him supper from his frugal store, piled the logs in the open fireplace, November was come, and, after a bottle of wine, produced from Estenega's saddle-bag, expanded into a hermit's imitation of conviviality. Late in the night they still sat on either side of the table in the dusty, desolate room.
Once she came to me and tried for fifteen minutes to draw from me something in Estenega's dispraise; and when I finally admitted that he had a fault or two I thought she would scalp me. Still, at this time she was hardly more than fascinated, interested, tantalized by a mind she could appreciate but not understand.
Valencia's black eyes flashed their language so plainly to Estenega's that he could not have deserted her without rudeness; and Estenega never was rude. "Adan," said Chonita, abruptly, "I am tired of thee. Sit down under that tree until I come back. I wish to walk alone with Eustaquia for awhile." Adan sighed and did as he was bidden, consoling himself with a cigarito.
He paused beside a woman who did not raise her eyes at once, but coquettishly pretended to be absorbed in the conversation of those about her. She too had been married a year and more, but her figure had not lost its elegance, and she was very handsome. Her coquetry was partly fear. Estenega's power was felt alike by innocent girls and chaste matrons.
For the matter of that, he recognized the impotence of Mexico to interfere, beyond bluster, with plans any resolute Californian might choose to pursue; but it was important to Estenega's purpose that the governorship should be assured to him by the central government, and the eyes of the Mexican Congress directed elsewhere.
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