Eloise saw her husband fall with the smoking weapon in his hand, then she fainted.
When Eloise opened her eyes again she lay on a couch in a darkened room. Through the lattice she saw Don Salvador leap to his saddle, cutting his horse with the long and rusty rowels of his spurs. She heard the hurried voices of Spaniards, forgetting somewhat the customary stately and measured tone. She heard the voices of women skipping from consonant to consonant. She knew La Framboise had come over from the camp* Then all was dark again.
Again it seemed like morning. Through the lattice Eloise saw the Spanish dames go by to mass, with their high combs, necklaces, and earrings hidden under the "beautiful and mysterious mantilla." There was a sound of marching, and she knew it was the funeral.
La Framboise's brigade bore sad tidings up the Willamette to Fort Vancouver. David and Dugald McTavish came down in the little "Cadboro'." The business was closed, and the Hudson's Bay house was sold for a song.
Eloise took a last look at the Spanish land. The Alcalde was chasing his herds. The senoras were sewing and singing in their verandas. The Indians were ploughing the Spanish gardens, after the fashion of old Mexico in the days of Cortez.
The fierce, fat little commandant peeped out of the tile-roofed Presidio as the schooner sailed through the Golden Gate.
With the fading of Mendocino, the fandangoes, boleros, and barcaroles of old Spain faded from the life of Eloise McLoughlin, but not the face of him who was buried in the little graveyard at Yerba Buena, it lived again in her infant child.
