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?"

A mighty cheer shook the air amidst the thunder of cannon; then another,
and another.

Every lip in the room was white.

"What is that?" asked Doña Eustaquia. Her voice was hardly audible.

"They have raised the American flag upon the Custom-house," said the
herald.

For a moment no one moved; then as by one impulse, and without a word,
Doña Modeste Castro and her guests rose and ran through the streets to
the Custom-house on the edge of the town.

In the bay were three frigates of twenty guns each. On the rocks, in the
street by the Custom-house and on its corridors, was a small army of men
in the naval uniform of the United States, respectful but determined.
About them and the little man who read aloud from a long roll of paper,
the aristocrats joined the rabble of the town. Men with sunken eyes who
had gambled all night, leaving even serape and sombrero on the gaming
table; girls with painted faces staring above cheap and gaudy satins,
who had danced at fandangos in the booths until dawn, then wandered
about the beach, too curious over the movements of the American squadron
to go to bed; shopkeepers, black and rusty of face, smoking big pipes
with the air of philosophers; Indians clad in a single garment of