ng carried on, the sailor ascends the
hill, and is seen entering at the road-gate. There can now be no
uncertainty as to his calling. The blue jacket, broad shirt-collar,
round-ribboned hat, and bell-bottomed trousers, are all the unmistakable
toggery of a tar.

Advancing up the avenue in a rolling gait, with an occasional tack from
side to side--that almost fetches him up among the manzanitas--he at
length reaches the front of the house. There stopping, and looking up
to the roof, he salutes those upon it by removing his hat giving a
back-scrape with his foot, and a pluck at one of his brow-locks.

"_Que guieres V., senor_?"--(What is your business, sir?), asks the
haciendado, speaking down to him.

Harry Blew--for it is he--replies by holding out a letter, at the same
time saying:

"Your honour; I've brought this for the master o' the house."

"I am he. Go in through that door you see below. I'll come down to
you."

Don Gregorio descends the _escalera_, and meeting the messenger in the
inner court, receives the letter addressed to him.

Breaking it open, he reads:

"Estimable Sir,--Circumstances have arisen that take us away from San
Francisco sooner than we expected. The corvette that came into port
last night brought orders for the _Crusader_ to sail at once; though
our destination is the same as already known to you--the Sandwich
Islands. As the ship is about to weigh anchor, I have barely time to
write a word for myself, and Mr Cadwallader. We think it proper to
make known some circumstances which will, no doubt, cause you
surprise, as they did ourselves. Yesterday morning we met at your
house two gentlemen--as courtesy would then have required me to call
them--by name Francisco de Lara and Faustino Calderon. We encountered
them at a later hour of the day; when an occurrence took place, which
absolved us from either thinking of them as gentlemen, or treating
them as such. And still later, after leaving your hospitable roof,
we, for the third time, came across the same two individuals, under
circumstances showing them to be _professional gamblers_! In fact, we
found them to be the proprietors of a monte bank in the notorious `El
Dorado;' one of them actually engaged in dealing the cards! A spirit
of fun, with perhaps a spice of mischief, led me into the play, and
betting largely, I succeeded in breaking their bank. After that, for
a short while we lost