It was long before Rezanov slept that night. The usual chill had come in from the Pacific as the sun went down, and the distinguished visitor had inti-mated to his hosts that he should like to exercise on shore until ready for his detested quarters; but Arguello dared not, in the absence of his father, in-vite the foreigner even to sleep in the house so lavishly offered in the morning; although he had sent such an abundance of provisions to the ship that the poor sailors were deep in sleep, gorged like boa-constrictors; and he could safely promise that while the Juno remained in port her larder should never be empty. He shared the evening bowl of punch in the cabin, then went his way lamenting that he could not take his new friends with him.
Rezanov paced the little deck of the Juno to keep his blood in stir. There was no moon. The islands and promontories on the great sheet of water were black save for the occasional glow of an Indian camp-fire. There was not a sound but the lapping of the waves, the roar of distant breakers. The great silver stars and the little green stars looked down upon a solitude that was almost primeval, yet mysteriously disturbed by the restless currents in the brain of a man who had little in common with primal forces.
Rezanov was uneasy on more scores than one.
He was annoyed and mortified at the discovery--made over the punch bowl--that the girl he had taken to be twenty was but sixteen. It was by no means his first experience of the quick maturity of southern women--but sixteen! He had never wasted a moment on a chit before, and although he was a man of imagination, and notwithstanding her intelligence and dignity, he could not reconcile properties so conflicting with any sort of feminine ideal.
And the pressing half of his mission he had con-fided to her! No man knew better than he the value of a tactful and witty woman in the political dilemmas of life; more than one had given him devoted service, nor ever yet had he made a mistake.
After several hours spent in the society of this clever, politic, dissatisfied girl he had come to the conclu-sion that he could trust her, and had told her of the lamentable condition of the creatures in the employ of the Russian-American Company; of their chronic state of semi-starvation, of the scurvy that made them apathetic of brain and body, and eventually would exterminate them unless he could establish reciprocal trade relations with California and obtain regular supplies of farinaceous food; acknowl-edged that he had brought a cargo of Russian and Boston goods necessary to the well-being of the Mis-sions and Presidios, and that he would not return to the wretched people of Sitka, at least, without a generous exchange of breadstuffs, dried meats, peas, beans, barley and tallow. Not only had he no long-er the courage to witness their misery, but his for-tune and his career were at stake. His entire capi-tal was invested in the Company he had founded, and he had failed in his embassy to Japan--to the keen mortification of the Tsar and the jubilation of his enemies. If he left the Emperor's northeastern dominions unreclaimed and failed to rescue the Company from its precarious condition, he hardly should care to return to St. Petersburg.
Dona Concha had listened to this eloquent harangue--they sat alone at one end of the long sala while Luis at the other toiled over letters to the Governor and his father advising them of the for-midable honor of the Russian's visit--in exactly the temper he would have chosen. Her fine eyes had melted and run over at the moving tale of the sufferings of the servants of the Company--until his own had softened in response and he had im-pulsively kissed her hand; they had dilated and flashed as he spoke of his personal apprehensions; and when he had given her a practical explanation of his reasons for coming to California she had given him advice as practical in return.
He must withhold from her father and the Gov-ernor the fact of his pressing need; they were high officials with an inflexible sense of duty, and did all they could to enforce the law against trading with foreigners. He was to maintain the fiction of belt-ing the globe, but admit that he had indulged in a dream of commercial relations--for a benefit strictly mutual--between neighbors as close as the Spanish and Russians in America. This would interest them--what would not, on the edge of the world?
--and they would agree to lay the matter, rein-forced by a strong personal plea, before the Viceroy of Mexico; who in turn would send it to the Cab-inet and King at Madrid. Meanwhile, he was to confide in the priests at the Mission. Not only would their sympathies be enlisted, but they did much trading under the very nose of the govern-ment. Not for personal gain--they were vowed to a life of poverty; but for their Indian converts; and as there were twelve hundred at the Mission of San Francisco, they would wink at many things con-demnable in the abstract. He had engaged to visit them on the morrow, and he must take presents to tempt their impersonal cupidity, and invite them to inspect the rest of his wares--which the Governor would be informed his Excellency had been forced to buy with the Juno from the Yankee skipper, D'Wolf, and would rid himself of did opportunity offer.
Rezanov had never received sounder advice, and had promptly accepted it. Now, as he reflected that it had been given by a girl of sixteen, he was divided between admiration of her precocity and fear lest she prove to be too young to keep a secret. More-over, there were other considerations.
Rezanov, although in his earlier years he had so far sacrificed his interests and played into the hands of his enemies, in avoiding the too embarrassing par-tiality of Catherine the Great, had nevertheless held a high place at court by right of birth, and been a man of the world always; rarely absent from St.
