The eastern mountains looked very close from the crest of La Bellissima
and of a singular transparency and variety of hue. It was as if the
white masses of cloud sailing low overhead flung down great splashes of
color from prismatic stores stolen from the sun. There was a vivid
pale green on the long sweep of a rounding slope, deep violet and pale
purple in dimple and hollow, red showing through green on a tongue of
land running down from the north; and on the lower ridges and little
islands, pale and dark blue, and the most exquisite fields of lavender.
This last tint was reflected in the water immediately below the ridge,
and farther out there were lakelets of pale green, as if the islands,
too, had the power to mirror themselves when the sea itself was glass.
Santiago, Davidov, Carolina Xime'no, Delfina Rivera, Concha and
Rezanov, had climbed to the ridge. The other young people had given out
halfway up the steep and tangled ascent and returned to the beach.
Dona Ignacia immediately after dinner had frankly asked her host for
the hospitality of his stateroom. She and her little ones must have
their siesta, and the good lady was convinced that so high and mighty a
personage as the Russian Chamberlain was all the chaperon the
proprieties demanded.
Four of the party strayed along the crest in search of the first wild
pansies. Rezanov and Concha looked under the sloping roof of brittle
leaves into dim falling vistas, arches, arbors, caverns, a forest in
miniature with natural terraces breaking the precipitous wall of the
island.
"I should like to live here," said Concha definitely.
"It would make a fine estate for summer life--or for a honeymoon." He
smiled down upon his companion, who stood very tall and straight and
proud beside him. "If you conclude to marry your little Bostonian no
doubt he will buy it for you," he said.
If he had hoped to see a look of blank dismay after his hours of
devotion he was disappointed. She made a little face.
"I do not think I could stand a desert island with the good Weeliam.
For that I should prefer one of my own sort--Ignacio, or Fernando.
Better still, I could come here and be a hermit."
"A hermit?"
"In some ways that would suit me very well. All human beings become
tiresome, I find. I shall have a little hut just below the crest where
I can look from my window right into the woods that are so quiet and
green and beautiful. That is a thought that has always fascinated me.
And when I walk on the crest I can see all the beauty of mountain and
bay. What more could I want? What more have you in your world when
you know it too well, senor?"
"Nothing; but you might tire, too, of this."
"What of it? It would be the gentle sad ennui of peace, not of
disillusion, senor. How I wish you would tell me all you know of life!"
"God forbid. And do not remind me of ennui and disillusions. I have
forgotten both in California. Perhaps, after all, I shall not return to
St. Petersburg. There is a vast empire here--"
"But it is not yours or Russia's to rule, Excellency," she interrupted
him softly.
He did not color nor start, but met her eyes with his deep amused
glance. "I, too, can dream, senorita. Of a great and wonderful
kingdom--that never will exist, perhaps. I have always been called a
dreamer, but the habit has grown since I came to this lovely unreal
land of yours."
"Have you the intention to take it from us, Excellency?" she asked
quietly.
"Would you betray me if you thought I had?"
Her eyes responded for a moment to the magnetism of his, and then she
drew herself up.
"No, senor, I could not betray a man who had been our guest, and Spain
needs no assistance from a weak girl to hold her own against Russia."
"Well said! I kiss your hands, as they say in Vienna. But we must
sail again. I told them to be ready at three o'clock."
Dalliance with the most alluring girl he had ever known was all very
well, but the day's work was not yet done. When they returned to the
ship he deliberately engaged all the Spaniards in a game of cards,
ordered cigarettes and a bowl of punch for their refreshment, and then
the Juno steered south.
They sailed swiftly past Nuestra Senorita de los Angeles and the
eastern side of Alcatraz, Rezanov sweeping every inch with his glass;
more slowly past the peninsula where it came down in a succession of
rough hills almost in a straight line from the Presidio, ascending to a
high outpost of solid rock, whence it turned abruptly to the south in a
waving line of steep irregular cliffs, harsh, barren, intersected with
gullies. Then the land became suddenly as flat as the sea, save for
the shifting dunes: the desert porch of the great fertile valley hidden
from the water by the waves of sand, but indicated by its rampart of
mountains. The shallow water curved abruptly inward between the rocky
mass on the right and a gentler incline and point two miles below. At
its head was the "Battery of Yerba Buena," facing the island from which
it took its name. Rezanov scrupulously kept his word and did not raise
his glass, but one contemptuous glance satisfied his curiosity. His
eye rolled over the steep hills that were designed to bristle with
forts, and, as sometimes happened, when he spoke again to Concha, whom
he kept close to his side, for the other girls bored him, his words did
not express the workings of his mind.
"Athens has no finer site than this," he said. "I should like to see a
white marble city on these hills, and on that plain, when all the sand
dunes are leveled. Not in our time, perhaps! But, as I told you, I
have surrendered myself to the habit of dreaming."
Concha shrugged her shoulders and made no reply at the moment. As they
sailed toward the east before turning south again, she pointed across
the great silvery sheet of water melting into the misty southern
horizon, to a high ridge of mountains that looked to be a continuation
of the San Bruno range behind the Mission, but slanting farther west
with the coast line.
"Those are behind our rancho, senor--Rancho El Pilar, or Las Pulgas, as
some prefer. Perhaps my father will take you there. I hope so, for we
love to go, and may not too often; my father is very busy here. He is
one of the few that has received a large grant of land, and it is
because the clergy love him so much they oppose his wish in nothing.
Do you see those sharp points against the sky? They are the tops of
lofty trees, like the masts of giant ships, and with many rigid arms
spiked like the pines. You saw a few of them in the hollow below
Tamalpais, but up on those mountains there are miles and miles of
mighty forests. No white man has ever penetrated them, nor ever will,
perhaps. We have no use for them, and even if you made this your
kingdom, senor, I suppose not many would come with you. Far, far down
where the water stops are the Mission of Santa Clara and the pueblo of
San Jose; but I have heard you cannot approach within many miles of the
land in a boat."
When they had sailed south for a few moments the boat came about
sharply. Concha laughed. "I had forgotten the chart. I rather hoped
you would run on a shoal."
But as they approached the cove of Yerba Buena again she caught his arm
suddenly, unconscious of the act, and the little dancing lights of
humor in her eyes went out. "Your white city, senor! Ay, Dios! what a
city of dreams that can never come true!"
The soft white fog that sometimes, even at this season, came in from
the sea, was rolling over the hills between the Battery and the
Presidio, wreathing about the rocky heights and slopes. It broke into
domes and cupolas, spires and minarets. Great waves rolled over the
sand dunes and beat upon the cliffs with the phantoms clinging to its
sides. Then the sun struggled with a thousand colors. The sun
conquered, the mist shimmered into sunlight, and once more the hills
were gray and bare.
Rezanov laughed, but his eyes glowed down upon her. "I am not sure it
was there," he said. "I have an idea your imagination and touch acted
as a sort of enchanter's wand. The others evidently saw nothing."
"The others saw only fog and shivered. But it was there, senor! We
have had a vision. A Russian city! Ay, yi!"
But Rezanov had forgotten the city. Her reboso had fallen and a strand
of her hair blew across his face. His lips caught it and his eyes
burned. They rounded a headland and the world looked green and young.
"Concha!" he whispered.
Her eyes flashed and melted, she lifted her chin; then burst into a
merry ripple of laughter.
"Senor!" she said, "if you make love to me, I shall have to compare you
with many others, and I might not like the Russian fashion. You are
much better as you are--very grand seigneur, iron-handed and absolute,
haughty and arrogant, but the most charming person in the world, with
ends to gain, even from such humble folk as a handful of stranded
Californians. But to sigh! to languish with the eye! to sing at the
grating! I fear that the lightest headed of the caballeros you despise
could transcend you in all."
"Very likely! I have not the least intention of sighing or languishing
or singing at gratings. But if we were alone I certainly should kiss
you."
But her eyes did not melt again at the vision. She flushed hotly with
annoyance. "I am a child to you! Were it not that I have read a few
books, you would find me but a year older than Ana Paula. Well!
Regard me as a child and do not attempt to flirt with me again. Shall
it be so?"
"As you wish!" Rezanov looked at her half in resentment, half
wistfully, then shrugged his shoulders, and called to Davidov to steer
for the anchorage. She was quite right; and on the whole he was
grateful to her.