Dona Modeste covered her beautiful face and wept.  Many of the women sobbed in sympathy.  Bright eyes, from beneath gay rebosas or delicate mantillas, glanced approvingly at the speaker.  Brown old men and women stared gloomily at the floor.  But the greater number followed every motion of their master-spirit, Dona Eustaquia Ortega.

She walked rapidly up and down the long room, too excited to sit down, flinging the mantilla back as it brushed her hot cheek.  She was a woman not yet forty, and very handsome, although the peachness of youth had left her face.  Her features were small but sharply cut; the square chin and firm mouth had the lines of courage and violent emotions, her piercing intelligent eyes interpreted a terrible power of love and hate.  But if her face was so strong as to be almost unfeminine, it was frank and kind.

Dona Eustaquia might watch with joy her bay open and engulf the hated Americans, but she would nurse back to life the undrowned bodies flung upon the shore.  If she had been born a queen she would have slain in anger, but she would not have tortured.  General Castro had flung his hat at her feet many times, and told her that she was born to command.  Even the nervous irregularity of her step to-day could not affect the extreme elegance of her carriage, and she carried her small head with the imperious pride of a sovereign.  She did not speak again for a moment, but as she passed the group of young men at the end of the room her eyes flashed from one languid face to another.  She hated their rich breeches and embroidered jackets buttoned with silver and gold, the lace handkerchiefs knotted about their shapely throats.  No man was a man who did not wear a uniform.

Don Fernando regarded her with a mischievous smile as she approached him a second time.

“I predict, also,” he said, “I predict that our charming Dona Eustaquia will yet wed an American—­”

“What!” she turned upon him with the fury of a lioness.  “Hold thy prating tongue!  I marry an American?  God!  I would give every league of my ranchos for a necklace made from the ears of twenty Americans.  I would throw my jewels to the pigs, if I could feel here upon my neck the proof that twenty American heads looked ready to be fired from the cannon on the hill!”

Everybody in the room laughed, and the atmosphere felt lighter.  Muslin gowns began to flutter, and the seal of disquiet sat less heavily upon careworn or beautiful faces.  But before the respite was a moment old a young man entered hastily from the street, and throwing his hat on the floor burst into tears.

“What is it?” The words came mechanically from every one in the room.

The herald put his hand to his throat to control the swelling muscles.  “Two hours ago,” he said, “Commander Sloat sent one Captain William Mervine on shore to demand of our Commandante the surrender of the town.  Don Mariano walked the floor, wringing his hands, until a quarter of an hour ago, when he sent word to the insolent servant of a pirate-republic that he had no authority to deliver up the capital, and bade him go to San Juan Bautista and confer with General Castro.  Whereupon the American thief ordered two hundred and fifty of his men to embark in boats—­do not you hear?”