The Californians | Page 3

calaboose if
he didn't let me alone--"
Magdaléna turned upon her. Her face was livid. Her eyes stared as if
she had seen the dead walking. "Hush!" she said. "You--you cruel--you
have everything--"

Helena, whose intuitions never failed her, when she chose to exercise
them, knew what she had done, caught a flashing glimpse of the
shattered dreams of the girl who said so little, whose only happiness
was in the ideal world she had built in the jealously guarded depths of
her soul. "Oh, Magdaléna, I'm so sorry," she stammered. "I was only
joking. And my statesmen will probably be horrid old boors. I know I'll
never find one that comes up to my ideal." She burst into tears and
flung her arms about Magdaléna's neck: she was always miserable
when those she loved were angry with her, much as she delighted to
shock the misprized. "Say you forgive me," she sobbed, "or I sha'n't eat
or sleep for a week." And Magdaléna, who always took her mercurial
friend literally, forgave her immediately and dried her tears.

II
Don Roberto Yorba had escaped the pecuniary extinction that had
overtaken his race. Of all the old grandees who, not forty years before,
had called the Californias their own: living a life of Arcadian
magnificence, troubled by few cares, a life of riding over vast estates
clad in silk and lace, botas and sombrero, mounted upon steeds as
gorgeously caparisoned as themselves, eating, drinking, serenading at
the gratings of beautiful women, gambling, horse-racing, taking part in
splendid religious festivals, with only the languid excitement of an
occasional war between rival governors to disturb the placid surface of
their lives,--of them all Don Roberto was a man of wealth and
consequence to-day. But through no original virtue of his. He had been
as princely in his hospitality, as reckless with his gold, as meagrely
equipped to cope with the enterprising United Statesian who first
conquered the Californian, then, nefariously, or righteously,
appropriated his acres. When Commodore Sloat ran up the American
flag on the Custom House of Monterey on July seventh, 1846, one of
the midshipmen who went on shore to seal the victory with the strength
of his lungs was a clever and restless youth named Polk. As his
sharpness and fund of dry New England anecdote had made him a
distinctive position on board ship, he was permitted to go to the ball
given on the following night by Thomas O. Larkin, United States

Consul, in honour of the Commodore and officers of the three warships
then in the bay. Having little liking for girls, he quickly fraternised with
Don Roberto Yorba, a young hidalgo who had recently lost his wife
and had no heart for festivities, although curiosity had brought him to
this ball which celebrated the downfall of his country. The two men left
the ball-room,--where the handsome and resentful señoritas were
preparing to avenge California with a battery of glance, a melody of
tongue, and a witchery of grace that was to wreak havoc among these
gallant officers,--and after exchanging amenities over a bowl of punch,
went out into the high-walled garden to smoke the cigarito. The
perfume of the sweet Castilian roses was about them, the old walls
were a riot of pink and green; but the youths had no mind for either.
The don was fascinated by the quick terse common-sense and the harsh
nasal voice of the American, and the American's mind was full of a
scheme which he was not long confiding to his friend. A shrewd
Yankee, gifted with insight, and of no small experience, young as he
was, Polk felt that the idle pleasure-loving young don was a man to be
trusted and magnetic with potentialities of usefulness. He therefore
confided his consuming desire to be a rich man, his hatred of the navy,
and, finally, his determination to resign and make his way in the world.
"I haven't a red cent to bless myself with," he concluded. "But I've got
what's more important as a starter,--brains. What's more, I feel the
power in me to make money. It's the only thing on earth I care for; and
when you put all your brains and energies to one thing you get it,
unless you get paralysis or an ounce of cold lead first."
The Californian, who had a true grandee's contempt for gold, was
nevertheless charmed with the engaging frankness and the
unmistakable sincerity of the American.
"My house is yours," he exclaimed ardently. "You will living with me,
no? until you find the moneys? I am--how you say it?--delighted.
Always I like the Americanos--we having a few. All I have is yours,
señor."
"Look here," exclaimed Polk. "I won't eat any man's bread for nothing,
but I'll strike a bargain with