We picked our way along vine-latticed paths, past graves over which myrtle and roses wandered in untrimmed beauty, to where a white shaft marked the resting place of Don Luis Argüello, comandante of the San Francisco Presidio for twenty-three years and the first Mexican governor of California.

Luis Argüello was Comandante for twenty-three years.

Packet boats came and went every six months, bringing orders to the comandante in regard to the administration of the military forces, concerning the treatment of foreign vessels, and of numerous other matters, but still the king remained silent on the one subject which, to the minds of the two young people, overshadowed all else.