Read "Rezanov" by Gertrude Atherton online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The next morning Father Abella rode over to the Presidio and was closeted for an hour with the Commandante and the Governor. Then the three rode down to the beach, entered a canoe, and paddled out to the Juno. Rezanov met them on deck with a gravity as significant as their own, but led them at once to the cabin where wine, and the cigarettes for which alone they would have counselled the treaty, awaited them.
The quartette pledged each other in an embarrassed silence, disposed of a moment more with obdurate matches. Don Jose inhaled audibly, then lifted his eyes and met the veiled and steady gaze of the Russian.