Nevertheless, as the meal progressed, lightened by a sweet native wine made from the Mission grape, and stimulated by champagne—­a present of Captain Bunker from the cabin lockers of the Excelsior—­this contrast, and much of the restraint that it occasioned, seemed to melt away.  The passengers became talkative; the Commander and his friends unbent, and grew sympathetic and inquiring.  The temptation to recite the news of the last half century, and to recount the wonderful strides of civilization in that time, was too great to be resisted by the Excelsior party.  That some of them—­notwithstanding the caution of Senor Perkins—­approached dangerously near the subject of the late war between the United States and Mexico, of which Todos Santos was supposed to be still ignorant, or that Crosby in particular seized upon this opportunity for humorous exaggeration, may be readily imagined.  But as the translation of the humorist’s speech, as well as the indiscretions of his companions, were left to the Senor, in Spanish, and to Mrs. Brimmer and Miss Keene, in French, any imminent danger to the harmony of the evening was averted.  Don Ramon Ramirez, the Alcalde, a youngish man of evident distinction, sat next to Miss Keene, and monopolized her conversation with a certain curiosity that was both grave and childish in its frank trustfulness.  Some of his questions were so simple and incompatible with his apparent intelligence that she unconsciously lowered her voice in answering them, in dread of the ridicule of her companions.  She could not resist the impression, which repeatedly obtruded upon her imagination, that the entire population of Todos Santos were a party of lost children, forgotten by their parents, and grown to man and womanhood in utter ignorance of the world.

The Commander had, half informally, drunk the health of Captain Bunker, without rising from his seat, when, to Miss Keene’s alarm, Captain Bunker staggered to his feet.  He had been drinking freely, as usual; but he was bent on indulging a loquacity which his discipline on shipboard had hitherto precluded, and which had, perhaps, strengthened his solitary habit.  His speech was voluble and incoherent, complimentary and tactless, kindly and aggressive, courteous and dogmatic.  It was left to Senor Perkins to translate it to the eye and ear of his host without incongruity or offense.  This he did so admirably as to elicit not only the applause of the foreigners who did not understand English, but of his own countrymen who did not understand Spanish.

“I feel,” said Senor Perkins, in graceful peroration, “that I have done poor justice to the eloquence of this gallant sailor.  My unhappy translation cannot offer you that voice, at times trembling with generous emotion, and again inaudible from excessive modesty in the presence of this illustrious assembly—­those limbs that waver and bend under the undulations of the chivalrous sentiment which carries him away as if he were still on that powerful element he daily battles with and conquers.”