Brotherton looked at her in wonderment.  Whence had the butterfly gone?  Its wings had been struck from it and a soul had flown in.

“Let me send Blandina to you,” he said.  “You must not be alone.”

“I am alone till he or my mother come.  I no want other.  I love Blandina before, but now she make me feel tired.  She talk so much and no say anything.  I like better be alone.”

“Poor child!” said Brotherton, bitterly, “truly do love and suffering age and isolate.”  He motioned with his hand to the altar in her bedroom, seen through the open door.  “I have not your faith, I am afraid I have not much of any; but if I cannot pray for you, I can wish with all the strength of a man’s heart that happiness will come to you yet, Benicia.”

She shook her head.  “I no know; I no believe much happiness come in this life.  Before, I am like a fairy; but it is only because I no am unhappy.  But when the heart have wake up, senor, and the knife have gone in hard, then, after that, always, I think, we are a little sad.”

XIII

General Kearney and Lieutenant Beale walked rapidly up and down before the tents of the wretched remnant of United States troops with which the former had arrived overland in California.  It was bitterly cold in spite of the fine drizzling rain.  Lonely buttes studded the desert, whose palms and cacti seemed to spring from the rocks; high on one of them was the American camp.  On the other side of a river flowing at the foot of the butte, the white tents of the Californians were scattered among the dark huts of the little pueblo of San Pasqual.

“Let me implore you, General,” said Beale, “not to think of meeting Andres Pico.  Why, your men are half starved; your few horses are broken-winded; your mules are no match for the fresh trained mustangs of the enemy.  I am afraid you do not appreciate the Californians.  They are numerous, brave, and desperate.  If you avoid them now, as Commodore Stockton wishes, and join him at San Diego, we stand a fair chance of defeating them.  But now Pico’s cavalry and foot are fresh and enthusiastic—­in painful contrast to yours.  And, moreover, they know every inch of the ground.”

Kearney impatiently knocked the ashes out of his pipe.  He had little regard for Stockton, and no intention of being dictated to by a truculent young lieutenant who spoke his mind upon all occasions.

“I shall attack them at daybreak,” he said curtly.  “I have one hundred and thirty good men; and has not Captain Gillespie joined me with his battalion?  Never shall it be said that I turned aside to avoid a handful of boasting Californians.  Now go and get an hour’s sleep before we start.”

The young officer shrugged his shoulders, saluted, and walked down the line of tents.  A man emerged from one of them, and he recognized Russell.

“Hello, Ned,” he said.  “How’s the arm?”