and and drew her close.

"It grows cold. The wind is rising. 'Twere best to wait inside." He
spoke in the musical Indian tongue. For a moment he stroked her hair in
silence, then--

"What think'st thou by now of the English, Wildenai, my little wild
rose?" he asked.

But the princess seemed not to have heard his question.

"My father," she began after another short silence, "I have a favor to
ask of thee."

"And what may that be, my daughter?" he returned gravely.

But again the young girl made no answer and for many minutes they
watched the tremulous paths of light in the wake of the vessel.

After a time he felt her hand tighten upon his arm.

"It is but the old boon over again, my father." Her voice was low as
the sighing of the wind among the oak trees. "I would be freed from my
promise to wed with Don Cabrillo."

An Indian is not given to caresses. Much more used was Torquam's hand to
wield the war-club or the hatchet. Yet it was with fingers gentle as any
woman's that he stroked the smooth black head at his knee.

"Doubtest thou then, my motherless one, the judgment of him who loves
thee?" he asked.

"I doubt it not, my father," answered his daughter. "Yet would I not wed
with the Spaniard," she added stubbornly.

"The blue-eyed senor from England"--there was a hint of humor in his
tone,--"he it is who steals thy fancy! Is it not so, my Wildenai?"

Then, after a moment: "Right well knowest thou my only wish is to make
thee happy." Again his voice, though gentle, grew serious almost to
sadness. "No mere whim it is that counsels me to wed thee to Cabrillo.
There is something--" He paused, continuing with effort,--"a reason I
have never told thee why it seems most fitting. Now I will tell thee.
That reason is because, because, my Wildenai, thou art Spanish born
thyself."

The princess drew a hasty breath. In the darkness he felt rather than
saw her startled eyes upon him.

"My father!" The exclamation, filled with pain as well as astonishment,
touched him to the quick. Tenderly he drew her to him. Then briefly,
as was the Indian way, yet with the pictured phrasing which caused each
scene to spring into vivid life before the young girl's eyes, he told
her of the day, already more than eighteen years gone by, when, in the
wake of a long midwinter storm, the first sailing vessel ever beheld
by his people had fled for refuge to their bay; and of the little girl
carefully brought to shore by her old nur