great Czar at St. Petersburg. He found no difficulty in coming ashore.
Father was away. Brother was kind. Besides, the Russian marines looked
good, and the officers knew how to dance as only military men know how
to dance. The hospitality was Castilian, unaffected, intimate, and at
the evenings' dances in this old building their barrego was more
graceful than any inartistic tango, and in the teaching of the waltz by
the Russians - there was no "hesitation."

Then came Love's miracle; and by the time the comandante returned to his
post, ten days later, the glances of the bright-flashing eyes of the
daughter had more effectively pulverized the original scheme of the
chamberlain, than any old guns of her father on this fort could have
done. Their troth was plighted, and, as he belonged to the Greek Church,
with a lover's abandon, he started home to St. Petersburg, the
tremendous journey of that day by way of Russian America and across the
plains of Siberia, to obtain his Emperor's consent to his marriage. No
knight of chivalry ever pledged more determined devotion. He assured
even the Governor that, immediately upon his return to St. Petersburg,
he would go to Madrid as ambassador extraordinary from the Czar, to
obviate every kind of misunderstanding between the powers. From there he
would proceed to Vera Cruz, or some other Spanish harbor in Mexico, and
then return to San Francisco, to claim his bride.

On the 21st of May, about four o'clock in the afternoon, the "Juno"
weighed anchor for Sitka, and in passing the fort, then called the fort
of San Joaquin, she saluted it with seven guns - and received in return
a salute of nine. The old chronicler who accompanied the expedition says
that the Governor, with the whole Arguello family, and several other
friends and acquaintances, collected at the fort and waived an adieu
with hats and handkerchiefs[12]. And one loyal soul stood looking