Page:The Road to Monterey (1925).pdf/198

 Henderson had not been able to clamber up the crumbling adobe to lift his eyes to the little window. But buried as he was behind four feet of adobe wall, the pulsation of the excitement without came to him. Something of importance had happened, or was threatening, at Don Abrahan's house that day.

Shortly after Simon's brief visit things began to assume an extraordinary quietude in the courtyard. Henderson heard the servants come and go, their feet sounding faster than their common pace. Sometimes they stopped under his window, voices lowered as men hush them when they speak of the dying or the dead.

Henderson believed only one thing could account for such an atmosphere of flurry and fear. News must have come of the arrival of the United States warships at Monterey. Toberman had expected them; the outbreak of war between the two nations would simplify their course, set aside and make unnecessary whatever pretext the friends of annexation had evolved for their action. If the ships had come, Don Abrahan would be thinking some serious things about John Toberman that morning.

Simon returned to take away the breakfast dishes after the sun had found the little slit in the wall and mounted on, withdrawing its strong illumination, which served only to reveal the hopelessness and misery of that cramped place with more distressing distinctness. It was better without the sun.