But the visionary terror had scarcely gone when a real one came. Coronado appeared—Coronado, the descendant of the great Vasquez—Coronado, whom the Moquis would destroy if they heard his name—of whom they would not leave two limbs or two fingers together. From her dormitory she saw him walk into the main room of the house in his airiest and cheeriest manner, bowing and smiling to right, bowing and smiling to left, winning Moqui hearts in a moment, a charmer of a Coronado. He shook hands with the chief; he shook hands with all the head men; next a hand to Thurstane and another to Glover. Mrs. Stanley heard him addressed as Coronado; she looked to see him scattered in rags on the floor; she tried to muster courage to rush to his rescue.
There was no outcry of rage at the sound of the fatal name, and she could not perceive that a Moqui countenance smiled the less for it.
Coronado produced a pipe, filled it, lighted it, and handed it to the chief. That dignitary took it, bowed gravely to each of the four points of the compass, exhaled a few whiffs, and passed it to his next blanketed neighbor, who likewise saluted the four cardinal points, smoked a little, and sent it on. Mrs. Stanley drew a sigh of relief; the pipe of peace had been used, and there would be no bloodshed; she saw the whole bearing of her favorite's audacious manoeuvre at a glance.
Coronado now glided into the obscure room where she and Clara were sitting on their blankets and skins. He kissed his hand to the one and the other, and rolled out some melodious congratulations.
"You reckless creature!" whispered Aunt Maria. "How dared you come up here?"
"Why so?" asked the Mexican, for once puzzled.
"Your name! Your ancestor!"
"Ah!!" and Coronado smiled mysteriously. "There is no danger. We are under the protection of the American eagle. Moreover, hospitalities have been interchanged."
Next the experiences of the last twenty-four hours, first Mrs. Stanley's version and then Coronado's, were related. He had little to tell: there had been a quiet night and much slumber; the Moquis had stood guard and been every way friendly; the Apaches had left the valley and gone to parts unknown.
The truth is that he had slept more than half of the time. Journeying, fighting, watching, and anxiety had exhausted him as well as every one else, and enabled him to plunge into slumber with a delicious consciousness of it as a restorative and a luxury.
Now that he was himself again, he wondered at what he had been. For two days he had faced death, fighting like a legionary or a knight-errant, and in short playing the hero. What was there in his nature, or what had there been in his selfish and lazy life, that was akin to such fine frenzies? As he remembered it all, he hardly knew himself for the same old Coronado.
Well, being safe again, he was a devoted lover again, and he must get on with his courtship. Considering that Clara and Thurstane, if left much together here in the pueblo, might lead each other into the temptation of a betrothal, he decided that he must be at hand to prevent such a catastrophe, and so here he was. Presently he began to talk to the girl in Spanish; then he begged the aunt's pardon for speaking what was to her an unknown tongue; but he had, he said, some family matters for his cousin's ear; would Mrs. Stanley be so good as to excuse him?
"Certainly," returned that far-sighted woman, guessing what the family matters might be, and approving them. "By the way, I have something to do," she added. "I must attend to it immediately."
By this time she remembered all about her nightmare, and she was in a state of inflammation as to the Moqui religion. If the dream were true, if the Moquis were in the habit of sacrificing strong-minded women or any kind of women, she must know it and put a stop to it. Stepping into the central room, where Thurstane and Glover were smoking with a number of Indians, she said in her prompt, positive way, "I must look into these people's religion. Does anybody know whether they have any?"
The Lieutenant had a spark or two of information on the subject. Through the medium of a Navajo who had strolled into the pueblo, and who spoke a little Spanish and a good deal of Moqui, he had been catechising the chief as to manners, customs, etc.
"I understand," he said, "that they have a sacred fire which they never suffer to go out. They are believed to worship the sun, like the ancient Aztecs. The sacred fire seems to confirm the suspicion."
"Sacred fire! vestal virgins, too, I suppose! can they be Romans?" reasoned Aunt Maria, beginning to doubt Prince Madoc.
"The vestal virgins here are old men," replied Ralph, wickedly pleased to get a joke on the lady.
"Oh! The Moquis are not Romans," decided Mrs Stanley. "Well, what do these old men do?"
"Keep the fire burning."
"What if it should go out? What would happen?"
"I don't know," responded the sub-acid Thurstane.
"I didn't suppose you did," said Aunt Maria pettishly. "Captain Glover, I want you to come with me."
Followed by the subservient skipper, she marched to the other end of the pueblo. There was the mysterious apartment; it was not really a temple, but a sort of public hall and general lounging place; such rooms exist in the Spanish-speaking pueblos of Zuni and Laguna, and are there calledestufas. The explorers soon discovered that the only entrance into the estufa was by a trapdoor and a ladder. Now Aunt Maria hated ladders: they were awkward for skirts, and moreover they made her giddy; so she simply got on her knees and peeped through the trap-door. But there was a fire directly below, and there was also a pretty strong smell of pipes of tobacco, so that she saw nothing and was stifled and disgusted. She sent Glover down, as people lower a dog into a mine where gases are suspected. After a brief absence the skipper returned and reported.
"Pooty sizable room. Dark's a pocket 'n' hot's a footstove. Three or four Injuns talkin' 'n' smokin'. Scrap 'f a fire smoulder'in a kind 'f standee fireplace without any top."
"That's the sacred fire," said Aunt Maria. "How many old men were watching it?"
"Didn't seeany."
"They must have been there. Did you put the fire out?"
"No water handy," explained the prudent Glover.
"You might have—expectorated on it."
"Reckon I didn't miss it," said the skipper, who was a chewer of tobacco and a dead shot with his juice.
"Of course nothing happened."
"Nary."
"I knew there wouldn't," declared the lady triumphantly. "Well, now let us go back. We know something about the religion of these people. It is certainly a very interesting study."
"Didn't appear to me much l'k a temple," ventured Glover. "Sh'd say t'was a kind 'f gineral smokin' room 'n' jawin' place. Git together there 'n' talk crops 'n' 'lections 'n' the like."
"You must be mistaken," decided Aunt Maria. "There was the sacred fire."
She now led the willing captain (for he was as inquisitive as a monkey) on a round of visits to the houses of the Moquis. She poked smiling through their kitchens and bedrooms, and gained more information than might have been expected concerning their spinning and weaving, cheerfully spending ten minutes in signs to obtain a single idea.
"Never shear their sheep till they are dead!" she exclaimed when that fact had been gestured into her understanding. "Absurd! There's another specimen of masculine stupidity. I'll warrant you, if the women had the management of things, the good-for-nothing brutes would be sheared every day."
"Jest as they be to hum," slily suggested Glover, who knew better.
"Certainly," said Aunt Maria, aware that cows were milked daily.
The Moquis were very hospitable; they absolutely petted the strangers. At nearly every house presents were offered, such as gourds full of corn, strings of dried peaches, guavas as big as pomegranates, or bundles of the edible wrapping paper, all of which Aunt Maria declined with magnanimous waves of the hand and copious smiles. Curious and amiable faces peeped at the visitors from the landings and doorways.
"How mild and good they all look!" said Aunt Maria. "They put me in mind somehow of Shenstone's pastorals. How humanizing a pastoral life is, to be sure! On the whole, I admire their way of not shearing their sheep alive. It isn't stupidity, but goodness of heart. A most amiable people!"
"Jest so," assented Glover. "How it must go ag'in the grain with 'em to take a skelp when it comes in the way of dooty! A man oughter feel willin' to be skelped by sech tender-hearted critters."
"Pshaw!" said Aunt Maria. "I don't believe they ever scalp anybody—unless it is in self-defence."
"Dessay. Them fellers that went down to fight the Apaches was painted up's savage's meat-axes. Probably though 'twas to use up some 'f their paint that was a wastin'. Equinomical, I sh'd say."
Mrs. Stanley did not see her way clear to comment either upon the fact or the inference. There were times when she did not understand Glover, and this was one of the times. He had queer twistical ways of reasoning which often proved the contrary of what he seemed to want to prove; and she had concluded that he was a dark-minded man who did not always know what he was driving at; at all events, a man not invariably comprehensible by clear intellects.
Her attention was presently engaged by a stir in the pueblo. Great things were evidently at hand; some spectacle was on the point of presentation; what was it? Aunt Maria guessed marriage, and Captain Glover guessed a war-dance; but they had no argument, for the skipper gave in. Meantime the Moquis, men, women, and children, all dressed in their gayest raiment, were gathering in groups on the landings and in the square. Presently there was a crowd, a thousand or fifteen hundred strong; at last appeared the victims, the performers, or whatever they were.
"Dear me!" murmured Aunt Maria. "Twenty weddings at once! I hope divorce is frequent."
Twenty men and twenty women advanced to the centre of the plaza in double file and faced each other.
The dance began; the performers furnished their own music; each rolled out a deepaw aw awunder his visor.
"Sounds like a swarm of the biggest kind of blue-bottle flies inside the biggest kind 'f a sugar hogset," was Glover's description.
The movement was as monotonous as the melody. The men and women faced each other without changing positions; there was an alternate lifting of the feet, in time with theaw awand the rattling of the gourds; now and then there was a simultaneous about face.
After a while, open ranks; then rugs and blankets were brought; the maidens sat down and the men danced at them; trot trot, aw aw, and rattle rattle.
Every third girl now received a large empty gourd, a grooved board, and the dry shoulder-bone of a sheep. Laying the board on the gourd, she drew the bone sharply across the edges of the wood, thus producing a sound like a watchman's rattle.
They danced once on each side of the square; then retired to a house and rested fifteen minutes; then recommenced their trot. Meanwhile maidens with large baskets ran about among the spectators, distributing meat, roasted ears of corn, sheets of bread, and guavas.
So the gayety went on until the sun and the visitors alike withdrew.
"After all, I think it is more interesting than our marriages," declared Aunt Maria. "I wonder if we ought to make presents to the wedded couples. There are a good many of them."
She was quite amazed when she learned that this was not a wedding, but a rain-dance, and that the maidens whom she had admired were boys dressed up in female raiment, the customs of the Moquis not allowing women to take part in public spectacles.
"What exquisite delicacy!" was her consolatory comment. "Well, well, this is the golden age, truly."
When further informed that in marriage among the Moquis it is woman who takes the initiative, the girl pointing out the young man of her heart and the girl's father making the offer, which is never refused, Mrs. Stanley almost shed tears of gratification. Here was something like woman's rights; here was a flash of the glorious dawn of equality between the sexes; for when she talked of equality she meant female preëminence.
"And divorces?" she eagerly asked.
"They are at the pleasure of the parties," explained Thurstane, who had been catechising the chief at great length through his Navajo.
"And who, in case of a divorce, cares for the children?"
"The grandparents."
Aunt Maria came near clapping her hands. This was better than Connecticut or Indiana. A woman here might successively marry all the men whom she might successively fancy, and thus enjoy a perpetual gush of the affections and an unruffled current of happiness.
To such extreme views had this excellent creature been led by brooding over what she called the wrongs of her sex and the legal tyranny of the other.
But we must return to Coronado and Clara. The man had come up to the pueblo on purpose to have a plain talk with the girl and learn exactly what she meant to do with him. It was now more than a week since he had offered himself, and in that time she had made no sign which indicated her purpose. He had looked at her and sighed at her without getting a response of any sort. This could not go on; he must know how she felt towards him; he must know how much, she cared for Thurstane. How else could he decide what to do with her and withhim?
Thus, while the other members of the party were watching the Moqui dances, Coronado and Clara were talking matters of the heart, and were deciding, unawares to her, questions of life and death.
It must be remembered that when Mrs. Stanley carried off skipper Glover to help her investigate the religion of the Moquis, she left Coronado alone with Clara in one of the interior rooms of the chief's house.
Thurstane, to be sure, was in the next room and in sight; but he had with him the chief, two other leading Moquis, and his chance Navajo interpreter; they were making a map of the San Juan country by scratching with an arrow-point on the clay floor; everybody was interested in the matter, and there was a pretty smart jabbering. Thus Coronado could say his say without being overheard or interrupted.
For a little while he babbled commonplaces. The truth is that the sight of the girl had unsettled his resolutions a little. While he was away from her, he could figure to himself how he would push her into taking him at once, or how, if she refused him, he would let loose upon her the dogs of fate. But once face to face with her, he found that his resolutions had dispersed like a globule of mercury under a hammer, and that he needed a few moments to scrape them together again. So he prattled nothings while he meditated; and you would have thought that he cared for the nothings. He had that faculty; he could mentally ride two horses at once; he would have made a good diplomatist.
His mind glanced at the past while it peered into the future. What a sinuous underground plot the superficial incidents of this journey covered! To his fellow-travellers it was a straight line; to him it was a complicated and endless labyrinth. How much more he had to think of than they! Only he knew that Pedro Muñoz was dead, that Clara Van Diemen was an heiress, that she was in danger of being abandoned to the desert, that Thurstane was in danger of assassination. Nothing that he had set out to do was yet done, and some of it he must absolutely accomplish, and that shortly. How much? That depended upon this girl. If she accepted him, his course would be simple, and he would be spared the perils of crime.
Meantime, he looked at Clara even more frankly and calmly than she looked at him. He showed no guilt or remorse in his face, because he felt none in his heart. It must be understood distinctly that the man was almost as destitute of a conscience as it is possible for a member of civilized society to be. He knew what the world called right and wrong; but the mere opinion of the world had no weight with him; that is, none as against his own opinion. His rule of life was to do what he wanted to do, providing he could accomplish it without receiving a damage. You can hardly imagine a being whose interior existence was more devoid of complexity and of mixed motives than was Coronado's. Thus he was quite able to contemplate the possible death of Clara, and still look her calmly in the face and tell her that he loved her.
The girl returned his gaze tranquilly, because she had no suspicions of his profound wickedness. By nature confiding and reverential, she trusted those who professed friendship, and respected those who were her elders, especially if they belonged in any manner to her own family. Considering herself under obligations to Coronado, and not guessing that he was capable of doing her a harm, she was truly grateful to him and wished him well with all her heart. If her eye now and then dropped under his, it was because she feared a repetition of his offer of marriage, and hated to pain him with a refusal.
The commonplaces lasted longer than the man had meant, for he could not bring himself promptly to take the leap of fate. But at last came the dance; the chief and his comrades led Thurstane away to look at it; now was the time to talk of this fateful betrothal.
"Something is passing outside," observed Clara. "Shall we go to see?"
"I am entirely at your command," replied Coronado, with his charming air of gentle respect. "But if you can give me a few minutes of your time, I shall be very grateful."
Clara's heart beat violently, and her cheeks and neck flushed with spots of red, as she sank back upon her seat. She guessed what was coming; she had been a good deal afraid of it all the time; it was her only cause of dreading Coronado.
"I venture to hope that you have been good enough to think of what I said to you a week ago," he went on. "Yes, it was a week ago. It seems to me a year."
"It seems a long time," stammered Clara. So it did, for the days since had been crammed with emotions and events, and they gave her young mind an impression of a long period passed.
"I have been so full of anxiety!" continued Coronado. "Not about our dangers," he asserted with a little bravado. "Or, rather, not about mine. For you I have been fearful. The possibility that you might fall into the hands of the Apaches was a horror to me. But, after all, my chief anxiety was to know what would be your final answer to me. Yes, my beautiful and very dear cousin, strange as it may seem under our circumstances, this thought has always outweighed with me all our dangers."
Coronado, as we have already declared, was really in love with Clara. It seems incredible, at first glance, that a man who had no conscience could have a heart. But the assertion is not a fairy story; it is founded in solid philosophy. It is true that Coronado's moral education had been neglected or misdirected; that he was either born indifferent to the idea of duty, or had become indifferent to it; and that he was an egotist of the first water, bent solely upon favoring and gratifying himself. But while his nature was somewhat chilled by these things, he had the hottest of blood in his veins, he possessed a keen perception of the beautiful, and so he could desire with fury. His love could not be otherwise than selfish; but it was none the less capable of ruling him tyrannically.
Just at this moment his intensity of feeling made him physically imposing and almost fascinating. It seemed to remove a veil from his usually filmy black eyes, and give him power for once to throw out all of truth that there was in his soul. It communicated to his voice a tremor which made it eloquent. He exhaled, as it were, an aroma of puissant emotion which was intoxicating, and which could hardly fail to act upon the sensitive nature of woman. Clara was so agitated by this influence, that for the moment she seemed to herself to know no man in the world but Coronado. Even while she tried to remember Thurstane, he vanished as if expelled by some enchantment, and left her alone in life with her tempter. Still she could not or would not answer; though she trembled, she remained speechless.
"I have asked you to be my wife," resumed Coronado, seeing that he must urge her. "I venture now to ask you again. I implore you not to refuse me. I cannot be refused. It would make me utterly wretched. It might perhaps bring wretchedness upon you. I hope not. I could not wish you a pain, though you should give me many. My very dear Clara, I offer you the only love of my life, and the only love that I shall ever offer to any one. Will you take it?"
Clara was greatly moved. She could not doubt his sincerity; no one who heard him could have doubted it; hewassincere. To her, young, tender-hearted, capable of loving earnestly, beginning already to know what love is, it seemed a horrible thing to spurn affection. If it had not been for Thurstane, she would have taken Coronado for pity.
"Oh, my cousin!" she sighed, and stopped there.
Coronado drew courage from the kindly title of relationship, and, leaning gently towards her, attempted to take her hand. It was a mistake; she was strangely shocked by his touch; she perceived that she did not like him, and she drew away from him.
"Thank you for that word," he whispered. "Is it the kindest that you can give me? Is there—?"
"Coronado!" she interrupted. "This is all an error. See here. I am not an independent creature. I am a young girl. I owe some duty somewhere. My father and mother are gone, but I have a grandfather. Coronado, he is the head of my family, and I ought not to marry without his permission. Why can you not wait until we are with Muñoz?"
There she suddenly dropped her head between the palms of her hands. It struck her that she was hypocritical; that even with the consent of Muñoz she would not marry Coronado; that it was her duty to tell him so.
"My cousin, I have not told the whole truth," she added, after a terrible struggle. "I would not marry any one without first laying the case before my grandfather. But that is not all. Coronado, I cannot—no, I cannot marry you."
The man without a conscience, the man who was capable of planning and ordering murder, turned pale under this announcement.
Notwithstanding its commonness, notwithstanding that it has been described until the subject is hackneyed, notwithstanding that it has become a laughing-stock for many, even including poets and novelists, there is probably no heart-pain keener than disappointment in love. The shock of it is like a deep stab; it not merely tortures, but it instantly sickens; the anguish is much, but the sense of helplessness is more; the lover who is refused feels not unlike the soldier who is wounded to death.
This sorrow compares in dignity and terror with the most sublime sorrows of which humanity is capable. The death of a parent or child, though rendered more imposing to the spectator by the ceremonies of the sepulchre, does not chill the heart more deeply than the death of love. It lasts also; many a human being has carried the marks of it for life; and surely duration of effect is proof of power. We are serious in making these declarations, strange as they may seem to a satirical age. What we have said is strictly true, notwithstanding the mockery of those who have never loved, or the incredulity of those who, having loved, have never lost. But probably only the wretchedly initiated will believe.
Coronado, though selfish, infamous, and atrocious, was so far susceptible of affection that he was susceptible of suffering. The simple fact of pallor in that hardened face was sufficient proof of torture.
However, it stood him in hand to recover his self-possession and plead his suit. There was too much at stake in this cause for him to let it go without a struggle and a vehement one. Although he had seen at once that the girl was in earnest, he tried to believe that she was not so, and that he could move her.
"My dear cousin!" he implored in a voice that was mellow with agitation, "don't decide against me at once and forever. I must have some hope. Pity me."
"Ah, Coronado! Why will you?" urged Clara, in great trouble.
"I must! You must not stop me!" he persisted eagerly. "My life is in it. I love you so that I don't know how I shall end if you will not hearken to me. I shall be driven to desperation. Why do you turn away from me? Is it my fault that I care for you? It is your own. You aresobeautiful!"
"Coronado, I wish I were very ugly," murmured Clara, for the moment sincere in so wishing.
"Is there anything you dislike in me? I have been as kind as I knew how to be."
"It is true, Coronado. You have overwhelmed me with your goodness. I could go on my knees to thank you."
"Then—why?"
"Ah! why will you force me to say hard things? Don't you see that it tortures me to refuse you?"
"Then why refuse me? Why torture us both?"
"Better a little pain now than much through life."
"Do you mean to say that you never can—?" He could not finish the question.
"It is so, Coronado. I never could have said it myself. But you have said it. I never shall love you."
Once more the man felt a cutting and sickening wound, as of a bullet penetrating a vital part. Unable for the moment to say another word, he rose and walked the room in silence.
"Coronado, you don't know how sorry I am to grieve you so," cried the girl, almost sobbing. "It seems, too, as if I were ungrateful. I can only beg your pardon for it, and pray that Heaven will reward you."
"Heaven!" he returned impatiently. "You are my heaven. You are the only heaven that I know."
"Oh, Coronado! Don't say that. I am a poor, sinful, unworthy creature. Perhaps I could not make any one happy long. Believe me, Coronado, I am not worthy to be loved as you love me."
"You are!" he said, turning on her passionately and advancing close to her. "You are worthy of my life-long love, and you shall have it. You shall have it, whether you wish it or not. You shall not escape it. I will pursue you with it wherever you go and as long as you live."
"Oh! You frighten me. Coronado, I beg of you not to talk to me in that way. I am afraid of you."
"What is the cause of this?" he demanded, hoping to daunt her into submission. "There is something in my way. What is it? Who is it?"
Clara's paleness turned in an instant to scarlet.
"Who is it?" he went on, his voice suddenly becoming hoarse with excitement. "It is some one. Is it this American? This boy of a lieutenant?"
Clara, trembling with an agitation which was only in part dismay, remained speechless.
"Is it?" he persisted, attempting to seize her hands and looking her fiercely in the eyes. "Is it?"
"Coronado, stand back!" said Clara. "Don't you try to take my hands!"
She was erect, her eyes flashing, her cheeks spotted with crimson, her expression strangely imposing.
The man's courage drooped the moment he saw that she had turned at bay. He walked to the other side of the room, pressed his temples between his palms to quiet their throbbing, and made an effort to recover his self-possession. When he returned to her, after nearly a minute of silence, he spoke quite in his natural manner.
"This must pass for the present," he said. "I see that it is useless to talk to you of it now."
"I hope you are not angry with me, Coronado."
"Let it go," he replied, waving his hand. "I can't speak more of it now."
She wanted to say, "Try never to speak of it again;" but she did not dare to anger him further, and she remained silent.
"Shall we go to see the dance?" he asked.
"I will, if you wish it."
"But you would rather stay alone?"
"If you please, Coronado."
Bowing with an air of profound respect, he went his way alone, glanced at the games of the Moquis, and hurried back to camp, meditating as he went.
What now should be done? He was in a state of fury, full of plottings of desperation, swearing to himself that he would show no mercy. Thurstane must die at the first opportunity, no matter if his death should kill Clara. And she? There he hesitated; he could not yet decide what to do with her; could not resolve to abandon her to the wilderness.
But to bring about any part of his projects he must plunge still deeper into the untraversed. To him, by the way, as to many others who have had murder at heart, it seemed as if the proper time and place for it would never be found. Not now, but by and by; not here, but further on. Yes, it must be further on; they must set out as soon as possible for the San Juan country; they must get into wilds never traversed by civilized man.
To go thither in wagons he had already learned was impossible. The region was a mass of mountains and rocky plateaux, almost entirely destitute of water and forage, and probably forever impassable by wheels. The vehicles must be left here; the whole party must take saddle for the northern desert; and then must come death—or deaths.
But while Coronado was thus planning destruction for others, a noiseless, patient, and ferocious enmity was setting its ambush for him.
Shortly after the safe arrival of the train at the base of the Moqui bluff, and while the repulsed and retreating warriors of Delgadito were still in sight two strange Indians cantered up to the park of wagons.
They were fine-looking fellows, with high aquiline features, the prominent cheek-bones and copper complexion of the red race, and a bold, martial, trooper-like expression, which was not without its wild good-humor and gayety. One was dressed in a white woollen hunting-shirt belted around the waist, white woollen trousers or drawers reaching to the knee, and deerskin leggins and moccasins. The other had the same costume, except that his drawers were brown and his hunting-shirt blue, while a blanket of red and black stripes drooped from his shoulders to his heels. Their coarse black hair was done up behind in thick braids, and kept out of their faces by a broad band around the temples. Each had a lance eight or ten feet long in his hand, and a bow and quiver slung at his waist-belt. These men were Navajos (Na-va-hos).
Two jolly and impudent braves were these visitors. They ate, smoked, lounged about, cracked jokes, and asked for liquor as independently as if the camp were a tavern. Rebuffs only made them grin, and favors only led to further demands. It was hard to say whether they were most wonderful for good-nature or impertinence.
Coronado was civil to them. The Navajos abide or migrate on the south, the north, and the west of the Moqui pueblas. He was in a manner within their country, and it was still necessary for him to traverse a broad stretch of it, especially if he should attempt to reach the San Juan. Besides, he wanted them to warn the Apaches out of the neighborhood and thus avert from his head the vengeance of Manga Colorada. Accordingly he gave this pair of roystering troopers a plentiful dinner and a taste of aguardiente. Toward sunset they departed in high good-humor, promising to turn back the hoofs of the Apache horses; and when in the morning Coronado saw no Indians on the plain, he joyously trusted that his visitors had fulfilled their agreement.
Somewhere or other, within the next day or two, there was a grand council of the two tribes. We know little of it; we can guess that Manga Colorada must have made great concessions or splendid promises to the Navajos; but it is only certain that he obtained leave to traverse their country. Having secured this privilege, he posted himself fifteen or twenty miles to the southwest of Tegua, behind a butte which was extensive enough to conceal his wild cavalry, even in its grazings. He undoubtedly supposed that, when the train should quit its shelter, it would go to the west or to the south. In either case he was in a position to fall upon it.
Did the savage know anything about Coronado? Had he attacked his wagons without being aware that they belonged to the man who had paid him five hundred dollars and sent him to harry Bernalillo? Or had he attacked in full knowledge of this fact, because he had been beaten off the southern trail, and believed that he had been lured thither to be beaten? Had he learned, either from Apaches or Navajos, whose hand it was that slew his boy? We can only ask these questions.
One thing alone is positive: there was a debt of blood to be paid. An Indian war is often the result of a private vendetta. The brave is bound, not only by natural affection and family pride, but still more powerfully by sense of honor and by public opinion, to avenge the slaughter of a relative. Whether he wishes it or not, and frequently no doubt when he does not wish it, he must black his face, sing his death-song, set out alone if need be, encounter labors, hardships, and dangers, and never rest until his sanguinary account is settled. The tyranny of Mrs. Grundy in civilized cities and villages is nothing to the despotism which she exercises among those slaves of custom, the red men of the American wildernesses. Manga Colorada, bereaved and with blackened face, lay in wait for the first step of the emigrants outside of their city of refuge.
We must return to Coronado. Although Clara's rejection of his suit left him vindictively and desperately eager for a catastrophe of some sort, a week elapsed before he dared take his mad plunge into the northern desert. It was a hundred miles to the San Juan; the intervening country was a waste of rocks, almost entirely destitute of grass and water; the mules and horses must recruit their full strength before they could undertake such a journey. They must not only be strong enough to go, but they must have vital force left to return.
It is astonishing what labors and dangers the man was willing to face in his vain search for a spot where he might commit a crime in safety. Such a spot is as difficult to discover as the Fountain of Youth or the Terrestrial Paradise. More than once Coronado sickened of his seemingly hopeless and ever lengthening pilgrimage of sin. Not because it was sinful—he had little or no conscience, remember—only because it was perplexing and perilous.
It was in vain that Thurstane protested against the crazy trip northward. Coronado sometimes argued for his plan; said the route improved as it approached the river; hoped the party would not be broken up in this manner; declared that he could not spare his dear friend the lieutenant. Another time he calmly smoked his cigarito, looked at Thurstane with filmy, expressionless eyes, and said, "Of course you are not obliged to accompany us."
"I have not the least intention of quitting you," was the rather indignant reply of the young fellow.
At this declaration Coronado's long black eyebrows twitched, and his lips curled with the smile of a puma, showing his teeth disagreeably.
"My dear lieutenant, that is so like you!" he said. "I own that I expected it. Many thanks."
Thurstane's blue-black eyes studied this enigmatic being steadily and almost angrily. He could not at all comprehend the fellow's bland obstinacy and recklessness.
"Very well," he said sullenly. "Let us start on our wild-goose chase. What I object to is taking the women with us. As for myself, I am anxious to reach the San Juan and get something to report about it."
"The ladies will have a day or two of discomfort," returned Coronado; "but you and I will see that they run no danger."
Nine days after the arrival of the emigrants at Tegua they set out for the San Juan. The wagons were left parked at the base of the butte under the care of the Moquis. The expedition was reorganized as follows: On horseback, Clara, Coronado, Thurstane, Texas Smith, and four Mexicans; on mules, Mrs. Stanley, Glover, the three Indian women, the four soldiers, and the ten drivers and muleteers. There were besides eighteen burden mules loaded with provisions and other baggage. In all, five women, twenty-two men, and forty-five animals.
The Moquis, to whom some stores and small presents were distributed, overflowed with hospitable offices. The chief had a couple of sheep slaughtered for the travellers, and scores of women brought little baskets of meal, corn, guavas, etc. As the strangers left the pueblo both sexes and all ages gathered on the landings, grouped about the stairways and ladders which led down the rampart, and followed for some distance along the declivity of the butte, holding out their simple offerings and urging acceptance. Aunt Maria was more than ever in raptures with Moquis and women.
The chief and several others accompanied the cavalcade for eight or ten miles in order to set it on the right trail for the river. But not one would volunteer as a guide; all shook their heads at the suggestion. "Navajos! Apaches! Comanches!"
They had from the first advised against the expedition, and they now renewed their expostulations. Scarcely any grass; no water except at long distances; a barren, difficult, dangerous country: such was the meaning of their dumb show. On the summit of a lofty bluff which commanded a vast view toward the north, they took their leave of the party, struck off in a rapid trot toward the pueblo, and never relaxed their speed until they were out of sight.
The adventurers now had under their eyes a large part of the region which they were about to traverse. For several miles the landscape was rolling; then came elevated plateaux rising in successive steps, the most remote being apparently sixty miles away; and the colossal scene was bounded by isolated peaks, at a distance which could not be estimated with anything like accuracy. Ranges, buttes, pinnacles, monumental crags, gullies, shadowy chasms, the beds of perished rivers, the stony wrecks left by unrecorded deluges, diversified this monstrous, sublime, and savage picture. Only here and there, separated by vast intervals of barrenness, could be seen minute streaks of verdure. In general the landscape was one of inhospitable sterility. It could not be imagined by men accustomed only to fertile regions. It seemed to have been taken from some planet not yet prepared for human, nor even for beastly habitation. The emotion which it aroused was not that which usually springs from the contemplation of the larger aspects of nature. It was not enthusiasm; it was aversion and despair.
Clara gave one look, and then drew her hat over her eyes with a shudder, not wishing to see more. Aunt Maria, heroic and constant as she was or tried to be, almost lost faith in Coronado and glanced at him suspiciously. Thurstane, sitting bolt upright in his saddle, stared straight before him with a grim frown, meanwhile thinking of Clara. Coronado's eyes were filmy and incomprehensible; he was planning, querying, fearing, almost trembling; when he gave the word to advance, it was without looking up. There was a general feeling that here before them lay a fate which could only be met blindfold.
Now came a long descent, avoiding precipices and impracticable slopes, winding from one stony foot-hill to another, until the party reached what had seemed a plain. It was a plain because it was amid mountains; a plain consisting of rolls, ridges, ravines, and gullies; a plain with hardly an acre of level land. All day they journeyed through its savage interstices and struggled with its monstrosities of trap and sandstone. Twice they halted in narrow valleys, where a little loam had collected and a little moisture had been retained, affording meagre sustenance to some thin grass and scattered bushes. The animals browsed, but there was nothing for them to drink, and all began to suffer with thirst.
It was seven in the evening, and the sun had already gone down behind the sullen barrier of a gigantic plateau, when they reached the mouth of the cañon which had once contained a river, and discovered by the merest accident that it still treasured a shallow pool of stagnant water. The fevered mules plunged in headlong and drank greedily; the riders were perforce obliged to slake their thirst after them. There was a hastily eaten supper, and then came the only luxury or even comfort of the day, the sound and delicious sleep of great weariness.
Repose, however, was not for all, inasmuch as Thurstane had reorganized his system of guard duty, and seven of the party had to stand sentry. It was Coronado'stour; he had chosen to take his watch at the start; there would be three nights on this stretch, and the first would be the easiest. He was tired, for he had been fourteen hours in the saddle, although the distance covered was only forty miles. But much as he craved rest, he kept awake until midnight, now walking up and down, and now smoking his eternal cigarito.
There was a vast deal to remember, to plan, to hope for, to dread, and to hate. Once he sat down beside the unconscious Thurstane, and meditated shooting him through the head as he lay, and so making an end of that obstacle. But he immediately put this idea aside as a frenzy, generated by the fever of fatigue and sleeplessness. A dozen times he was assaulted by a lazy or cowardly temptation to give up the chances of the desert, push back to the Bernalillo route, leave everything to fortune, and take disappointment meekly if it should come. When the noon of night arrived, he had decided upon nothing but to blunder ahead by sheer force of momentum, as if he had been a rolling bowlder instead of a clever, resolute Garcia Coronado.
The truth is, that his circumstances were too mighty for him. He had launched them, but he could not steer them as he would, and they were carrying him he knew not whither. At one o'clock he awoke Texas Smith, who was now his sergeant of the guard; but instead of enjoining some instant atrocity upon him, as he had more than once that night purposed, he merely passed the ordinary instructions of the watch; then, rolling himself in his blankets, he fell asleep as quickly and calmly as an infant.
At daybreak commenced another struggle with the desert. It was still sixty miles to the San Juan, over a series of savage sandstone plateaux, said to be entirely destitute of water. If the animals could not accomplish the distance in two days, it seemed as if the party must perish. Coronado went at his work, so to speak, head foremost and with his hat over his eyes. Nevertheless, when it came to the details of his mad enterprise, he managed them admirably. He was energetic, indefatigable, courageous, cheerful. All day he was hurrying the cavalcade, and yet watching its ability to endure. His "Forward, forward," alternated with his "Carefully, carefully." Now "Adelante" and now "Con juicio"
About two in the afternoon they reached a little nook of sparse grass, which the beasts gnawed perfectly bare in half an hour. No water; the horses were uselessly jaded in searching for it; beds of trap and gullies of ancient rivers were explored in vain; the horrible rocky wilderness was as dry as a bone. Meanwhile, the fatigue of scrambling and stumbling thus far had been enormous. It had been necessary to ascend plateau after plateau by sinuous and crumbling ledges, which at a distance looked impracticable to goats. More than once, in face of some beetling precipice, or on the brink of some gaping chasm, it seemed as if the journey had come to an end. Long detours had to be made in order to connect points which were only separated by slight intervals. The whole region was seamed by the jagged zigzags of cañons worn by rivers which had flowed for thousands of years, and then for thousands of years more had been non-existent. If, at the commencement of one of these mighty grooves, you took the wrong side, you could not regain the trail without returning to the point of error, for crossing was impossible.
A trail there was. It is by this route that the Utes and Payoches of the Colorado come to trade with the Moquis or to plunder them. But, as may be supposed, it is a journey which is not often made even by savages; and the cavalcade, throughout the whole of its desperate push, did not meet a human being. Amid the monstrous expanse of uninhabited rock it seemed lost beyond assistance, forsaken and cast out by mankind, doomed to a death which was to have no spectator. Could you have seen it, you would have thought of a train of ants endeavoring to cross a quarry; and you would have judged that the struggle could only end in starvation, or in some swifter destruction.
The most desperate venture of the travellers was amid the wrecks of an extinct volcano. It seemed here as if the genius of fire had striven to outdo the grotesque extravagances of the genii of the waters. Crags, towers, and pinnacles of porphyry were mingled with huge convoluted masses of light brown trachyte, of tufa either pure white or white veined with crimson, of black and gray columnar basalts, of red, orange, green, and black scoria, with adornments of obsidian, amygdaloids, rosettes of quartz crystal and opalescent chalcedony. A thousand stony needles lifted their ragged points as if to defy the lightning. The only vegetation was a spiny cactus, clinging closely to the rocks, wearing their grayish and yellowish colors, lending no verdure to the scene, and harmonizing with its thorny inhospitality.
As the travellers gazed on this wilderness of scorched summits, glittering in the blazing sunlight, and yet drawing from it no life—as stark, still, unsympathizing, and cruel as death—they seemed to themselves to be out of the sweet world of God, and to be in the power of malignant genii and demons. The imagination cannot realize the feeling of depression which comes upon one who finds himself imprisoned in such a landscape. Like uttermost pain, or like the extremity of despair, it must be felt in order to be known.
"It seems as if Satan had chosen this land for himself," was the perfectly serious and natural remark of Thurstane.
Clara shuddered; the same impression was upon her mind; only she felt it more deeply than he. Gentle, somewhat timorous, and very impressionable, she was almost overwhelmed by the terrific revelations of a nature which seemed to have no pity, or rather seemed full of malignity. Many times that day she had prayed in her heart that God would help them. Apparently detached from earth, she was seeking nearness to heaven. Her look at this moment was so awe-struck and piteous, that the soul of the man who loved her yearned to give her courage.
"Miss Van Diemen, it shall all turn out well," he said, striking his fist on the pommel of his saddle.
"Oh! why did we come here?" she groaned.
"I ought to have prevented it," he replied, angry with himself. "But never mind. Don't be troubled. It shall all be right. I pledge my life to bring it all to a good end."
She gave him a look of gratitude which would have repaid him for immediate death. This is not extravagant; in his love for her he did not value himself; he had the sublime devotion of immense adoration.
That night another loamy nook was found, clothed with a little thin grass, but waterless. Some of the animals suffered so with thirst that they could not graze, and uttered doleful whinneys of distress. As it was the Lieutenant's tour on guard, he had plenty of time to study the chances of the morrow.
"Kelly, what do you think of the beasts?" he said to the old soldier who acted as his sergeant.
"One more day will finish them, Leftenant."
"We have been fifteen hours in the saddle. We have made about thirty-five miles. There are twenty-five miles more to the river. Do you think we can crawl through?"
"I should say, Leftenant, we could just do it."
At daybreak the wretched animals resumed their hideous struggle. There was a plateau for them to climb at the start, and by the time this labor was accomplished they were staggering with weakness, so that a halt had to be ordered on the windy brink of the acclivity. Thurstane, according to his custom, scanned the landscape with his field-glass, and jotted down topographical notes in his journal. Suddenly he beckoned to Coronado, quietly put the glass in his hands, nodded toward the desert which lay to the rear, and whispered, "Look."
Coronado looked, turned slightly more yellow than his wont, and murmured "Apaches!"
"How far off are they?"
"About ten miles," judged Coronado, still gazing intently.
"So I should say. How do you know they are Apaches?"
"Who else would follow us?" asked the Mexican, remembering the son of Manga Colorada.
"It is another race for life," calmly pronounced Thurstane, facing about toward the caravan and making a signal to mount.