The voyage lasted a month, tedious and monotonous, more trying than his retardation on land, for there at least he could recover some serenity by violent exercise.  He divided his time between pacing the deck, when the weather permitted, and writing to Chonita:  long, intimate, possessing letters, which would reveal her to herself as nothing else, short of his own dominant contact, could do.  At San Blas he posted his letters and welcomed the rough journey overland to the capital; but under a calm exterior he was possessed of the spirit of disquiet.  As so often happens, however, his fears proved to have been vagaries of a morbid state of mind and of that habit of thought which would associate with every cause an effect of similar magnitude.  Santa Ana welcomed him with friendly enthusiasm, and was ready to listen to his plans.  That wily and astute politician, who was always abreast of progress and never in its lead, recognized in Estenega the coming man, and, knowing that the seizure of the Californias by the United States was only a question of time, was keenly willing to make an ally of the man who he foresaw would control them as long as he chose, both at home and in Washington.  For the matter of that, he recognized the impotence of Mexico to interfere, beyond bluster, with plans any resolute Californian might choose to pursue; but it was important to Estenega’s purpose that the governorship should be assured to him by the central government, and the eyes of the Mexican Congress directed elsewhere.  He knew the value of the moral effect which its apparent sanction would have upon rebellious Southerners.

“I am at your service,” said Santa Ana; “and the governorship is yours.  But take heed that no rumor of your ultimate intentions reaches the ears of Congress until you are firmly established.  If it opposed you relentlessly—­and it keeps its teeth on California like a dog on a bone bigger than himself—­I should have to yield; I have too much at stake myself.  I will look out that any communications from enemies, including Iturbi y Moncada, are opened first by me.”

Estenega wrote to Chonita again by the ship that left during his brief stay in the capital, and it was his intention to go directly to Santa Barbara upon arriving in California.  But when he landed in Monterey—­disinfected and careless as of old—­he learned that she was about to start, perhaps already had done so, for Fort Ross, to pay a visit to the Rotscheffs.  The news gave him pleasure; it had been his wish to say what he had yet to say in his own forests.

And then the plan which had been stirring restlessly in his mind for many months took imperative shape:  he determined that if there was gold in California he would wring the secret out of its keeper, by gentle means or violent, and that within the next twenty-four hours.

XXIX.

Estenega drew rein the next night before the neglected Mission of San Rafael.  The valley, surrounded by hills dark with the silent redwoods, bore not a trace of the populous life of the days before secularization.  The padre lived alone, lodge-keeper of a valley of shadows.