would not hazard their resignation. They had
taken advantage of an imperial ukase to enter the
service of the Russian-American Company tempor-
arily, and they knew that if they evaded any be-
hest of Rezanov's their adventurous life in the Pa-
cific would be over. Therefore, although they re-
sented his implacable will, they pulled with him in
outward amity; and indeed there were few of the
Juno's human freight that did not look back upon
that California springtime as the episode of their
lives, commonly stormy or monotonous, in which
the golden tide flowed with least alloy. Even
Langsdorff, although impervious to female charms
and with scientific thirst unslaked, enjoyed the
Spanish fare and the society of the priests. The
sailors received many privileges, attended bull-fights
and fandangos, loved and pledged; and were only
restrained from emigration to the interior of this
enchanted land of pretty girls and plentiful food
by the knowledge of the sure and merciless venge-
ance of their chief. Had the rumor of war still held
it might have been otherwise, but that raven had
flown off to the limbo of its kind, and the Com-
mandante let it be known that deserters would be
summarily captured and sent in irons to the Juno.

In the mind of Concha Arguello there was never
a lingering doubt of the quality of that fortnight
between the days of torturing doubts and acute emo-
tional upheaval, and the sailing away of Rezanov.