Benicia swept one glance of defiant coquetry at Russell from beneath her curling lashes, then fixed her eyes upon the floor, nor raised them again. She held her reed-like body very erect and took either side of her spangled skirt in the tips of her fingers, lifting it just enough to show the arched little feet in their embroidered stockings and satin slippers. Don Fernando crossed his hands behind him, and together they rattled their feet on the floor with dexterity and precision, whilst the girls sang the words of the dance. The officers gave genuine applause, delighted with this picturesque fragment of life on the edge of the Pacific. Don Fernando listened to their demonstrations with sombre contempt on his dark handsome face; Benicia indicated her pleasure by sundry archings of her narrow brows, or coquettish curves of her red lips. Suddenly she made a deep courtesy and ran to her mother, with a long sweeping movement, like the bending and lifting of grain in the wind. As she approached Russell he took a rose from his coat and threw it at her. She caught it, thrust it carelessly in one of her thick braids, and the next moment he was at her side again. IV Doña Eustaquia slipped from the crowd and out of the house. Drawing a reboso about her head she walked swiftly down the street and across the plaza. Sounds of ribaldry came from the lower end of the town, but the aristocratic quarter was very quiet, and she walked unmolested to the house of General Castro. The door was open, and she went down the long hall to the sleeping room of Doña Modeste. There was no response to her knock, and she pushed open the door and entered. The room was dimly lit by the candles on the altar. Doña Modeste was not in the big mahogany bed, for the heavy satin coverlet was still over it. Doña Eustaquia crossed the room to the altar and lifted in her arms the small figure kneeling there. "Pray no more, my friend," she said. "Our prayers have been unheard, and thou art better in bed or with thy friends." Doña Modeste threw herself wearily into a chair, but took Doña Eustaquia's hand in a tight clasp. Her white skin shone in the dim light, and with her black hair and green tragic eyes made her look like a little witch queen, for neither suffering nor humiliation could bend that stately head. "Religion is my solace," she said, "my only one; for I have not a brain of iron nor a soul of fire like thine. And, Eustaquia, I have more cause to pray to-night." "It is true, then, that José is in retreat? Ay, Mary!" "My husband, deserted by all but one hundred men, is flying southward from San Juan Bautista. I have it from the wash-tub mail. That never is wrong." "Ingrates! Traitors! But it is true, Modeste--surely, no?--that our general will not surrender? That he will stand against the Americans?"