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The tinkling of signal bells and the reversing of screws and the shifting over of wheels brought the two boats so nearly alongside that conversation became facile among all parties. Holding off the General Yozarro, Captain Ortega waited to know the wishes of his chief passenger, who now became the supreme authority on both crafts.
General Yozarro could not be expected fully to understand the changed conditions, with the American yacht steaming forward a short way behind his own boat. Captain Ortega called out a brief explanation, and the men continued poling until the smaller craft lay alongside the larger one.
There was a great crowd of people in costume, but by a piece of good luck we managed to secure a little table in a corner. The revellers, intent on their pleasure, paid no attention to us. Señor Ortega trod on my heels and after sitting down opposite me threw an ill-natured glance at the festive scene. It might have been about half-past ten, then.
The Warrenia dropped a little way to the rear, and held thus while the two ascended the stream. Excusing himself for a few minutes, the Major left the General in the cabin and went forward for a few words with Captain Ortega, who, cigarette in mouth, smilingly saluted and welcomed him. "You understand, Captain, the arrangement that has been made?"
"Never has man dictated to me!" she cried angrily. "Here I dictate. If you dared put a hand on me " He saw her own hand creeping out toward the table. What it sought he did not know; a hidden bell, perhaps. Or a dagger. He remembered her swift attack upon Ortega. He seized her wrist, his fingers locked hard about it; she struggled and he held her back in her chair.
And this image of those two with the key in the studio seemed to me a most monstrous conception of fanaticism, of a perfectly horrible aberration. For who could mistake the state that made José Ortega the figure he was, inspiring both pity and fear? I could not deny that I understood, not the full extent but the exact nature of his suffering.
This was at the suggestion of the mate, who, not wishing to kill any one, only sought to put the other craft out of action. It was done. The tug was as helpless as a log, but not until Captain Ortega called from the pilot house, making known the nature of the disaster, did General Yozarro understand the mortal injury his navy had received.
As might have been anticipated, General Yozarro and his party had speedily returned and had halted on the edge of the river, the President shouting his orders for Captain Ortega to return at once. The Major, standing beside the pilot house, could not deny himself the pleasure of answering for the other. "The Captain is under my orders; he cannot obey you."
Colonel Sedgwick, commanding at Brownsville, was now temporary master of Matamoras also, by reason of having stationed some American troops there for the protection of neutral merchants, so when Ortega appeared at Brazos, Sedgwick quietly arrested him and held him till the city of Matamoras was turned over to General Escobedo, the authorized representative of Juarez; then Escobedo took charge, of Ortega, and with ease prevented his further machinations.
When Father Serra spoke of this to Galvez, that priest replied, "If our good Saint Francis wants a Mission, let him show us that fine harbor up above Monterey and we will build him one there." Several explorers had failed to find this port about which Indians had spoken to the Spanish. At last Ortega discovered it, and Father Palou, in 1776, consecrated the Mission of San Francisco.
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