"I have told him you are touched to the heart with his courtesy, which you recognize as coming from the fit representative of the great Mexican nation.He reciprocates your fraternal emotion, and begs you to consider the Presidio and all that it contains, at your disposition and the disposition of your friends--the passengers, particularly those fair ladies," said Senor Perkins, turning with graceful promptitude towards the group of lady passengers, and slightly elevating himself on the tips of his neat boots, "whose white hands he kisses, and at whose feet he lays the devotion of a Mexican caballero and officer."He waved his hand towards the Comandante, who, stepping forward, swept the deck with his plumed hat before each of the ladies in solemn succession.Recovering himself, he bowed more stiffly to the male passengers, picked his handkerchief out of the hilt of his sword, gracefully wiped his lips, pulled the end of his long gray moustache, and became again rigid.
"The reverend father," continued Senor Perkins, turning towards the priest, "regrets that the rules of his order prevent his extending the same courtesy to these ladies at the Mission.But he hopes to meet them at the Presidio, and they will avail themselves of his aid and counsel there and everywhere."Father Esteban, following the speaker's words with a gracious and ready smile, at once moved forward among the passengers, offering an antique snuff-box to the gentlemen, or passing before the ladies with slightly uplifted benedictory palms and a caressing paternal gesture.Mrs.Brimmer, having essayed a French sentence, was delighted and half frightened to receive a response from the ecclesiastic, and speedily monopolized him until he was summoned by the Commander to the returning boat.
"A most accomplished man, my dear," said Mrs.Brimmer, as the Excelsior's cannon again thundered after the retiring oars, "like all of his order.He says, although Don Miguel does not speak French, that his secretary does; and we shall have no difficulty in making ourselves understood.""Then you really intend to go ashore?" said Miss Keene timidly.
"Decidedly," returned Mrs.Brimmer potentially."It would be most unpolite, not to say insulting, if we did not accept the invitation.You have no idea of the strictness of Spanish etiquette.Besides, he may have heard of Mr.Brimmer.""As his last information was only up to 1792, he might have forgotten it," said Crosby gravely."So perhaps it would be safer to go on the general invitation.""As Mr.Brimmer's ancestors came over on the Mayflower, long before 1792, it doesn't seem so very impossible, if it comes to that,"said Mrs.Brimmer, with her usual unanswerable naivete; "provided always that you are not joking, Mr.Crosby.One never knows when you are serious.""Mrs.Brimmer is quite right; we must all go.This is no mere formality," said Senor Perkins, who had returned to the ladies.
"Indeed, I have myself promised the Comandante to bring YOU," he turned towards Miss Keene, "if you will permit Mrs.Markham and myself to act as your escort.It was Don Miguel's express request."A slight flush of pride suffused the cheek of the young girl, but the next moment she turned diffidently towards Mrs.Brimmer.
"We must all go together," she said; "shall we not?""You see your triumphs have begun already," said Brace, with a nervous smile."You need no longer laugh at me for predicting your fate in San Francisco."Miss Keene cast a hurried glance around her, in the faint hope--she scarcely knew why--that Mr.Hurlstone had overheard the Senor's invitation; nor could she tell why she was disappointed at not seeing him.But he had not appeared on deck during the presence of their strange visitors; nor was he in the boat which half an hour later conveyed her to the shore.He must have either gone in one of the other boats, or fulfilled his strange threat of remaining on the ship.
The boats pulled away together towards the invisible shore, piloted by Captain Bunker, the first officer, and Senor Perkins in the foremost boat.It had grown warmer, and the fog that stole softly over them touched their faces with the tenderness of caressing fingers.Miss Keene, wrapped up in the stern sheets of the boat, gave way to the dreamy influence of this weird procession through the water, retaining only perception enough to be conscious of the singular illusions of the mist that alternately thickened and lightened before their bow.At times it seemed as if they were driving full upon a vast pier or breakwater of cold gray granite, that, opening to let the foremost boat pass, closed again before them; at times it seemed as if they had diverged from their course, and were once more upon the open sea, the horizon a far-off line of vanishing color; at times, faint lights seemed to pierce the gathering darkness, or to move like will-o'-wisps across the smooth surface, when suddenly the keel grated on the sand.A narrow but perfectly well defined strip of palpable strand appeared before them; they could faintly discern the moving lower limbs of figures whose bodies were still hidden in the mist; then they were lifted from the boats; the first few steps on dry land carried them out of the fog that seemed to rise like a sloping roof from the water's edge, leaving them under its canopy in the full light of actual torches held by a group of picturesquely dressed people before the vista of a faintly lit, narrow, ascending street.The dim twilight of the closing day lingered under this roof of fog, which seemed to hang scarcely a hundred feet above them, and showed a wall or rampart of brown adobe on their right that extended nearly to the water; to the left, at the distance of a few hundred yards, another low brown wall appeared; above it rose a fringe of foliage, and, more distant and indistinct, two white towers, that were lost in the nebulous gray.
