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Updated: June 1, 2025
But the older man, as well aware of what the situation demanded as he was keenly alive to its danger, received the attention with a gravity fully equal to that of his host. Indeed, he went still further. "Most gracious hast thou been, oh Torquam, all wise chief of the Mariposa," he began in carefully chosen Spanish, "nor shall thy kingly gift remain unrequited. Listen, oh Torquam!
His eyes lighted with the tenderness never seen there by any other than this motherless girl. He stretched his hand to her and the princess came silently and knelt before him. "My father," she said firmly, though in so low a tone that Torquam bent to hear. "Oh, father, thou art always wise! Thou only knowest best. I come to thee to tell that I will wed Cabrillo.
For father she boasted the great chief Torquam, feared by every tribe in the north and rich because of the gold hidden in many a canyon among the distant mountains; yet her woman's instinct told her that to this proud Englishman her people were at best little more than a curiosity, almost, indeed, a cause for laughter.
Behind the mirrored Bay of Moons, its crescent of sand gleaming white against the rocks, the bands of dusky men and women stood motionless as statues in the quiet light of the setting sun, while in the doorway of his lodge, his daughter close beside him, Torquam waited with simple dignity to receive his guests, the fair-skinned strangers.
When at last the feast was finished, Torquam rose, and removing with slow solemnity his crest of eagle feathers, he placed it upon the head of Sir Francis, a seal of everlasting friendship. With difficulty young Harold suppressed a smile.
All this by means of signs in which they displayed no little wit and skill, the Englishmen accomplished until, well on toward the middle of the morning, they made ready to return to the ship, the casks they had brought brimming with sweet mountain water, while with them they bore as well the promise of an interview of state between the great chief Torquam and Sir Francis Drake, to take place upon the beach at sunset.
On the beach below, squatted within the opened flap of his tepee, Torquam, mighty chief of the Mariposa, smoked his evening pipe. A wonderful pipe it was, long and delicately fashioned, inlaid with iridescent fragments of shell. Yet instantly he laid it aside as the slender form of his daughter darkened the doorway. "Ah, Wildenai, little wild rose, welcome art thou as sunshine after rain!"
"Thy father, oh princess, sends me to summon thee to his lodge. Strangers, paleface strangers, enemies, who can tell, are coming. See, the ship!" With dark forefinger he pointed toward the sea. "Torquam would have thee hide with the rest of the women in the cave at the Great Rock. There Kathah-galwa wilt keep thee safe, he says. Make haste, oh Wildenai!"
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