In the time-eaten wall Clara had found a fissure through which she could watch the parley between Thurstane and the Apaches. She climbed into it from a mound of disintegrated adobes, and stood there, pale, tremulous, and breathless, her whole soul in her eyes.
Thurstane, walking his horse and making signs of amity with his cap, had by this time reached the low bank of the rivulet, and halted within four hundred yards of the savages. There had been a stir immediately on his appearance: first one warrior and then another had mounted his pony; a score of them were now prancing hither and thither. They had left their lances stuck in the earth, but they still carried their bows and quivers.
When Clara first caught sight of Thurstane he was beckoning for one of the Indians to approach. They responded by pointing to the summit of the hill, as if signifying that they feared to expose themselves to rifle shot from the ruins. He resumed his march, forded the shallow stream, and pushed on two hundred yards.
"O Madre de Dios!" groaned Clara, falling into the language of her childhood. "He is going clear up to them."
She was on the point of shrieking to him, but she saw that he was too far off to hear her, and she remained silent, just staring and trembling.
Thurstane was now about two hundred yards from the Apaches. Except the twenty who had first mounted, they were sitting on the ground or standing by their ponies, every face set towards the solitary white man and every figure as motionless as a statue. Those on horseback, moving slowly in circles, were spreading out gradually on either side of the main body, but not advancing. Presently a warrior in full Mexican costume, easily recognizable as Manga Colorada himself, rode straight towards Thurstane for a hundred yards, threw his bow and quiver ten feet from him, dismounted and lifted both hands. The officer likewise lifted his hands, to show that he too was without arms, moved forward to within thirty feet of the Indian, and thence advanced on foot, leading his horse by the bridle.
Clara perceived that the two men were conversing, and she began to hope that all might go well, although her heart still beat suffocatingly. The next moment she was almost paralyzed with horror. She saw Manga Colorada spring at Thurstane; she saw his dark arms around him, the two interlaced and reeling; she heard the triumphant yell of the Indian, and the response of his fellows; she saw the officer's startled horse break loose and prance away. In the same instant the mounted Apaches, sending forth their war-whoop and unslinging their bows, charged at full speed toward the combatants.
Thurstane had but five seconds in which to save his life. Had he been a man of slight or even moderate physical and moral force, there would not have been the slightest chance for him. But he was six feet high, broad in the shoulders, limbed like a gladiator, solidified by hardships and marches, accustomed to danger, never losing his head in it, and blessed with lots of pugnacity. He was pinioned; but with one gigantic effort he loosened the Indian's lean sinewy arms, and in the next breath he laid him out with a blow worthy of Heenan.
Thurstane was free; now for his horse. The animal was frightened and capering wildly; but he caught him and flung himself into the saddle without minding stirrups; then he was riding for life. Before he had got fairly under headway the foremost Apaches were within fifty paces of him, yelling like demons and letting fly their arrows. But every weapon is uncertain on horseback, and especially every missile weapon, the bow as well as the rifle. Thus, although a score of shafts hissed by the fugitive, he still kept his seat; and as his powerful beast soon began to draw ahead of the Indian ponies, escape seemed probable.
He had, however, to run the gauntlet of another and even a greater peril. In a crevice of the ruined wall which crested the hill crouched a pitiless assassin and an almost unerring shot, waiting the right moment to send a bullet through his head. Texas Smith did not like the job; but he had said "You bet," and had thus pledged his honor to do the murder; and moreover, he sadly wanted the five hundred dollars. If he could have managed it, he would have preferred to get the officer and some "Injun" in a line, so as to bring them down together. But that was hopeless; the fugitive was increasing his lead; now was the time to fire—now or never.
When Clara beheld Manga Colorada seize Thurstane, she had turned instinctively and leaped into the enclosure, with a feeling that, if she did not see the tragedy, it would not be. In the next breath she was wild to know what was passing, and to be as near to the officer and his perils as possible. A little further along the wall was a fissure which was lower and broader than the one she had just quitted. She had noticed it a minute before, but had not gone to it because a man was there. Towards this man she now rushed, calling out, "Oh, do save him!"
Her voice and the sound of her footsteps were alike drowned by a rattle of musketry from other parts of the ruin. She reached the man and stood behind him; it was Texas Smith, a being from whom she had hitherto shrunk with instinctive aversion; but now he seemed to her a friend in extremity. He was aiming; she glanced over his shoulder along the levelled rifle; in one breath she saw Thurstane and saw that the weapon was pointed athim. With a shriek she sprang forward against the kneeling assassin, and flung him clean through the crevice upon the earth outside the wall, the rifle exploding as he fell and sending its ball at random.
Texas Smith was stupefied and even profoundly disturbed. After rolling over twice, he picked himself up, picked up his gun also, and while hastily reloading it clambered back into his lair, more than ever confounded at seeing no one. Clara, her exploit accomplished, had instantly turned and fled along the course of the wall, not at all with the idea of escaping from the bushwhacker, but merely to meet Thurstane. She passed a dozen men, but not one of them saw her, they were all so busy in popping away at the Apaches. Just as she reached the large gap in the rampart, her hero cantered through it, erect, unhurt, rosy, handsome, magnificent. The impassioned gesture of joy with which she welcomed him was a something, a revelation perhaps, which the youngster saw and understood afterwards better than he did then. For the present he merely waved her towards the Casa, and then turned to take a hand in the fighting.
But the fighting was over. Indeed the Apaches had stopped their pursuit as soon as they found that the fugitive was beyond arrow shot, and were now prancing slowly back to their bivouac. After one angry look at them from the wall, Thurstane leaped down and ran after Clara.
"Oh!" she gasped, out of breath and almost faint. "Oh, how it has frightened me!"
"And it was all of no use," he answered, passing her arm into his and supporting her.
"No. Poor Pepita! Poor little Pepita! But oh, what an escape you had!"
"We can only hope that they will adopt her into the tribe," he said in answer to the first phrase, while he timidly pressed her arm to thank her for the second.
Coronado now came up, ignorant of Texas Smith's misadventure, and puzzled at the escape of Thurstane, but as fluent and complimentary as usual.
"My dear Lieutenant! Language is below my feelings. I want to kneel down and worship you. You ought to have a statue—yes, and an altar. If your humanity has not been successful, it has been all the same glorious."
"Nonsense," answered Thurstane. "Every one of us has done well in his turn! It was my tour of duty to-day. Don't praise me. I haven't accomplished anything."
"Ah, the scoundrels!" declaimed Coronado. "How could they violate a truce! It is unknown, unheard of. The miserable traitors! I wish you could have killed Manga Colorada."
From this dialogue he hurried away to find and catechise Texas Smith. The desperado told his story: "Jest got a bead on him—had him sure pop—never see a squarer mark—when somebody mounted me—pitched me clean out of my hole."
"Who?" demanded Coronado, a rim of white showing clear around his black pupils.
"Dunno. Didn't see nobody. 'Fore I could reload and git in it was gone."
"What the devil did you stop to reload for?"
"Stranger, Iallaysreload."
Coronado flinched under the wordstrangerand the stare which accompanied it.
"It was a woman's yell," continued Texas.
Coronado felt suddenly so weak that he sat down on a mouldering heap of adobes. He thought of Clara; was it Clara? Jealous and terrified, he for an instant, only for an instant, wished she were dead.
"See here," he said, when he had restrung his nerves a little. "We must separate. If there is any trouble, call on me. I'll stand by you."
"I reckon you'd better," muttered Smith, looking at Coronado as if he were already drawing a bead on him.
Without further talk they parted. The Texan went off to rub down his horse, mend his accoutrements, squat around the cooking fires, and gamble with the drivers. Perhaps he was just a bit more fastidious than usual about having his weapons in perfect order and constantly handy; and perhaps too he looked over his shoulder a little oftener than common while at his work or his games; but on the whole he was a masterpiece of strong, serene, ferocious self-possession. Coronado also, as unquiet at heart as the devil, was outwardly as calm as Greek art. They were certainly a couple of almost sublime scoundrels.
It was now nightfall; the day closed with extraordinary abruptness; the sun went down as though he had been struck dead; it was like the fall of an ox under the axe of the butcher. One minute he was shining with an intolerable, feverish fervor, and the next he had vanished behind the lofty ramparts of the plateau.
It was Sergeant Meyer's tour as officer of the day, and he had prepared for the night with the thoroughness of an old soldier. The animals were picketed in the innermost rooms of the Casa Grande, while the spare baggage was neatly piled along the walls of the central apartment. Thurstane's squad was quartered in one of the two outer rooms, and Coronado's squad in the other, each man having his musket loaded and lying beside him, with the butt at his feet and the muzzle pointing toward the wall. One sentry was posted on the roof of the building, and one on the ground twenty yards or so from its salient angle, while further away were two fires which partially lighted up the great enclosure. The sergeant and such of his men as were not on post slept or watched in the open air at the corner of the Casa.
The night passed without attack or alarm. Apache scouts undoubtedly prowled around the enclosure, and through its more distant shadows, noting avenues and chances for forlorn hopes. But they were not ready as yet to do any nocturnal spearing, and if ever Indians wanted a night's rest they wanted it. The garrison was equally quiet. Texas Smith, too familiar with ugly situations to lie awake when no good was to be got by it, chose his corner, curled up in his blanket and slept the sleep of the just. Overwhelming fatigue soon sent Coronado off in like manner. Clara, too; she was querying how much she should tell Thurstane; all of a sudden she was dreaming.
When broad daylight opened her eyes she was still lethargic and did not know where she was. A stretch; a long wondering stare about her; then she sprang up, ran to the edge of the roof, and looked over. There was Thurstane, alive, taking off his hat to her and waving her back from the brink. It was a second and more splendid sun-rising; and for a moment she was full of happiness.
At dawn Meyer had turned out his squad, patrolled the enclosure, made sure that no Indians were in or around it, and posted a single sentry on the southeastern angle of the ruins, which commanded the whole of the little plain. He discovered that the Apaches, fearful like all cavalry of a night attack, had withdrawn to a spot more than a mile distant, and had taken the precaution of securing their retreat by garrisoning the mouth of the cañon. Having made his dispositions and his reconnoissance, the sergeant reported to Thurstane.
"Turn out the animals and let them pasture," said the officer, waking up promptly to the situation, as a soldier learns to do. "How long will the grass in the enclosure last them?"
"Not three days, Leftenant."
"To-morrow we will begin to pasture them on the slope. How about fishing?"
"I cannot zay, Leftenant."
"Take a look at the Buchanan boat and see if it can be put together. We may find a chance to use it."
"Yes, Leftenant."
The Buchanan boat, invented by a United States officer whose name it bears, is a sack of canvas with a frame of light sticks; when put together it is about twelve feet long by five broad and three deep, and is capable of sustaining a weight of two tons. Thurstane, thinking that he might have rivers to cross in his explorations, had brought one of these coracles. At present it was a bundle, weighing one hundred and fifty pounds, and forming the load of a single mule. Meyer got it out, bent it on to its frame, and found it in good condition.
"Very good," said Thurstane. "Roll it up again and store it safely. We may want it to-morrow."
Meantime Clara had thought out her problem. In her indignation at Texas Smith she had contemplated denouncing him before the whole party, and had found that she had not the courage. She had wanted to make a confidant of her relative, and had decided that nothing could be more unwise. Aunt Maria was good, but she lacked practical sense; even Clara, girl as she was, could see the one fact as well as the other. Her final and sagacious resolve was to tell the tale to Thurstane alone.
Mrs. Stanley, still jaded through with her forced march, fell asleep immediately after breakfast. Clara went to the brink of the roof, caught the officer's eye, and beckoned him to come to her.
"We must not be seen," she whispered when he was by her side. "Come inside the tower. There has been something dreadful. I must tell you."
Then she narrated how she had surprised and interrupted Texas Smith in his attempt at murder; for the time she was all Spanish in feeling, and told the story with fervor, with passion; and the moment she had ended it she began to cry. Thurstane was so overwhelmed by her emotion that he no more thought of the danger which he had escaped than if it had been the buzzing of a mosquito. He longed to comfort her; he dared to put his hand upon her waist; rather, we should say, he could not help it. If she noticed it she had no objection to it, for she did not move; but the strong and innocent probability is that she really did not notice it.
"Oh, what can it mean?" she sobbed. "Why did he do it? What will you do?"
"Never mind," he said, his voice tender, his blue-black eyes full of love, his whole face angelic with affection. "Don't be troubled. Don't be anxious. I will do what is right. I will put him under arrest and try him, if it seems best. But I don't want you to be troubled. It shall all come out right. I mean to live till you are safe."
After a time he succeeded in soothing her, and then there came a moment in which she seemed to perceive that his arm was around her waist, for she drew a little away from him, coloring splendidly. But he had held her too long to be able to let her go thus; he took her hands and looked in her face with the solemnity of a love which pleads for life.
"Will you forgive me?" he murmured. "I must say it. I cannot help it. I love you with all my soul. I dare not ask you to be my wife. I am not fit for you. But have pity on me. I couldn't help telling you."
He just saw that she was not angry; yes, he was so shy and humble that he could not see more; but that little glimpse of kindliness was enough to lure him forward. On he went, hastily and stammeringly, like a man who has but a moment in which to speak, only a moment before some everlasting farewell.
"Oh, Miss Van Diemen! Is there—can there ever be—any hope for me?"
It was one of the questions which arise out of great abysses from men who in their hopelessness still long for heaven. No prisoner at the bar, faintly trusting that in the eyes of his judge he might find mercy, could be more anxious than was Thurstane at that moment. The lover who does not yet know that he will be loved is a figure of tragedy.
Although Thurstane did not perceive it, his question was answered the instant it was asked. The answer started like lightning from Clara's heart, trembled through all her veins, flamed in her cheeks, and sparkled in her eyes.
Such a moment of agitation and happiness she had never before known, and had never supposed that she could know. It was altogether beyond her control. She could have stopped her breathing ten times easier than she could have quelled her terror and her joy. She was no more master of the power and direction of her feelings, than the river below was master of its speed and course. One of the mightiest of the instincts which rule the human race had made her entirely its own. She was not herself; she was Thurstane; she was love. The love incarnate is itself, and not the person in whom it is embodied.
There was but one answer possible to Clara. Somehow, either by look or word, she must say to Thurstane, "Yes." Prudential considerations might come afterward—might come too late to be of use; no matter. The only thing now to be done, the only thing which first or last must be done, the only thing which fate insisted should be done, was to say "Yes."
It was said. Never mind how. Thurstane heard it and understood it. Clara also heard it, as if it were not she who uttered it, but some overruling power, or some inward possession, which spoke for her. She heard it and she acquiesced in it. The matter was settled. Her destiny had been pronounced. The man to whom her heart belonged had his due.
Clara passed through a minute which was in some respects like a lifetime, and in some respects like a single second. It was crowded and encumbered with emotions sufficient for years; it was the scholastic needle-point on which stood a multitude of angels. It lasted, she could not say how long; and then of a sudden she could hardly remember it. Hours afterwards she had not fully disentangled from this minute and yet monstrous labyrinth a clear recollection of what he had said and what she had answered. Only the splendid exit of it was clear to her, and that was that she was his affianced wife.
"But oh, my friend—one thing!" she whispered, when she had a little regained her self-possession. "I must ask Muñoz."
"Your grandfather? Yes."
"But what if he refuses?" she added, looking anxiously in his eyes. She was beginning to lay her troubles on his shoulders, as if he were already her husband.
"I will try to please him," replied the young fellow, gazing with almost equal anxiety at her. It was the beautiful union of the man-soul and woman-soul, asking courage and consolation the one of the other, and not only asking but receiving.
"Oh! I think you must please him," said Clara, forgetting how Muñoz had driven out his daughter for marrying an American. "He can't help but like you."
"God bless you, my darling!" whispered Thurstane, worshipping her for worshipping him.
After a while Clara thought of Texas Smith, and shuddered out, "But oh, how many dangers! Oh, my friend, how will you be safe?"
"Leave that to me," he replied, comprehending her at once. "I will take care of that man."
"Do be prudent."
"I will. Foryoursake, my dear child, I promise it. Well, now we must part. I must rouse no suspicions."
"Yes. We must be prudent."
He was about to leave her when a new and terrible thought struck him, and made him look at her as though they were about to part forever.
"If Muñoz leaves you his fortune," he said firmly, "you shall be free."
She stared; after a moment she burst into a little laugh; then she shook her finger in his face and said, blushing, "Yes, free to be—your wife."
He caught the finger, bent his head over it and kissed it, ready to cry upon it. It was the only kiss that he had given her; and what a world-wide event it was to both! Ah, these lovers! They find a universe where others see only trifles; they are gifted with the second-sight and live amid miracles.
"Do be careful, oh my dear friend!" was the last whisper of Clara as Thurstane quitted the tower. Then she passed the day in ascending and descending between heights of happiness and abysses of anxiety. Her existence henceforward was a Jacob's ladder, which had its foot on a world of crime and sorrow, and its top in heavens passing description.
As for Thurstane, he had to think and act, for something must be done with Texas Smith. He queried whether the fellow might not have seen Clara when she pushed him out of the crevice, and would not seize the first opportunity to kill her. Angered by this supposition, he at first resolved to seize him, charge him with his crime, and turn him loose in the desert to take his chance among the Apaches. Then it occurred to him that it might be possible to change this enemy into a partisan. While he was pondering these matters his eye fell upon the man. His army habit of authority and of butting straight at the face of danger immediately got the better of his wish to manage the matter delicately, and made him forget his promises to be prudent. Beckoning Texas to follow him, he marched out of the plaza through the nearest gap, faced about upon his foe with an imperious stare, and said abruptly, "My man, do you want to be shot?"
Texas Smith had his revolver and long hunting-knife in his waist-belt. He thought of drawing both at once and going at Thurstane, who was certainly in no better state for battle, having only revolver and sabre. But the chance of combat was even; the certainty of being slaughtered after it by the soldiers was depressing; and, what was more immediately to the point, he was cowed by that stare of habitual authority.
"Capm—I don't," he said, watching the officer with the eye of a lynx, for, however unwilling to fight as things were, he meant to defend himself.
"Because I could have you set up by my sergeant and executed by my privates," continued Thurstane.
"Capm, I reckon you're sound there," admitted Texas, with a slight flinch in his manner.
"Now, then, do you want to fight a duel?" broke out the angry youngster, his pugnacity thoroughly getting the better of his wisdom. "We both have pistols."
"Capm," said the bravo, and then came to a pause—"Capm, I ain't a gentleman," he resumed, with the sulky humility of a bulldog who is beaten by his master. "I own up to it, Capm. I ain't a gentleman."
He was a "poor white" by birth; he remembered still the "high-toned gentlemen" who used to overawe his childhood; he recognized in Thurstane that unforgotten air of domination, and he was thoroughly daunted by it. Moreover, there was his acquired and very rational fear of the army—a fear which had considerably increased upon him since he had joined this expedition, for he had noted carefully the disciplined obedience of the little squad of regulars, and had been much struck with its obvious potency for offence and defence.
"You won't fight?" said the officer. "Well, then, will you stop hunting me?"
"Capm, I'll go that much."
"Will you pledge yourself not to harm any one in this party, man or woman?"
"I'll go that much, too."
"I don't want to get any tales out of you. You can keep your secrets. Damn your secrets!"
"Capm, you're jest the whitest man I ever see."
"Will you pledge yourself to keep dark about this talk that we've had?"
"You bet!" replied Texas Smith, with an indescribable air of humiliation. "I'm outbragged. I shan't tell of it."
"I shall give orders to my men. If anything queer happens, you won't live the day out."
"The keerds is stocked agin me, Capm. I pass. You kin play it alone."
"Now, then, walk back to the Casa, and keep quiet during the rest of this journey."
The most humbled bushwhacker and cutthroat between the two oceans, Texas Smith stepped out in front of Thurstane and returned to the cooking-fire, not quite certain as he marched that he would not get a pistol-ball in the back of his head, but showing no emotion in his swarthy, sallow, haggard countenance.
Although Thurstane trusted that danger from that quarter was over, he nevertheless called Meyer aside and muttered to him, "Sergeant, I have some confidential orders for you. If murder happens to me, or to any other person in this party, have that Texan shot immediately."
"I will addend to it, Leftenant," replied Meyer with perfect calmness and with his mechanical salute.
"You may give Kelly the same instructions, confidentially."
"Yes, Leftenant."
Texas Smith, fifteen or twenty yards away, watched this dialogue with an interest which even his Indian-like stoicism could hardly conceal. When the sergeant returned to the cooking-fire, he gave him a glance which was at once watchful and deprecatory, made place for him to sit down on a junk of adobe, and offered him a corn-shuck cigarito. Meyer took it, saying, "Thank you, Schmidt," and the two smoked in apparently amicable silence.
Nevertheless, Texas knew that his doom was sealed if murder should occur in the expedition; for, as to the protection of Coronado, he did not believe that that could avail against the uniform; and as to finding safety in flight, the cards there were evidently "stocked agin him." Indeed, what had quelled him more than anything else was the fear lest he should be driven out to take his luck among the Apaches. Suppose that Thurstane had taken a fancy to swap him for that girl Pepita? What a bright and cheerful fire there would have been for him before sundown! How thoroughly the skin would have been peeled off his muscles! What neat carving at his finger joints and toe joints! Coarse, unimaginative, hardened, and beastly as Texas Smith was, his flesh crawled a little at the thought of it. Presently it struck him that he had better do something to propitiate a man who could send him to encounter such a fate.
"Sergeant," he said in his harsh, hollow croak of a voice.
"Well, Schmidt?"
"Them creeturs oughter browse outside."
"So. You are right, Schmidt."
"If the Capm'll let me have three good men, I'll take 'em out."
Meyer's light-blue eyes, twinkling from under his sandy eyelashes, studied the face of the outlaw.
"I should zay it was a goot blan, Schmidt," he decided. "I'll mention it to the leftenant."
Thurstane, on being consulted, gave his consent. Meyer detailed Shubert and two of the Mexican cattle-drivers to report to Smith for duty. The Texan mounted his men on horses, separated one-third of the mules from the others, drove them out of the enclosure, and left them on the green hillside, while he pushed on a quarter of a mile into the plain and formed his line of four skirmishers. When a few of the Apaches approached to see what was going on, he levelled his rifle, knocked over one of the horses, and sent the rest off capering. After four or five hours he drove in his mules and took out another set. The Indians could only interrupt his pastoral labors by making a general charge; and that would expose them to a fire from the ruin, against which they could not retaliate. They thought it wise to make no trouble, and all day the foraging went on in peace.
Peace everywhere. Inside the fortress sleeping, cooking, mending of equipments, and cleaning of arms. Over the plain mustangs filling themselves with grass and warriors searching for roots. Not a movement worth heeding was made by the Apaches until the herders drove in their first relay of mules, when a dozen hungry braves lassoed the horse which Smith had shot, dragged him away to a safe distance, and proceeded to cut him up into steaks. On seeing this, the Texan cursed himself to all the hells that were known to him.
"It's the last time they'll catch me butcherin' for 'em," he growled. "If I can't hit a man, I won't shute."
One more night in the Casa de Montezuma, with Thurstane for officer of the guard. His arrangements were like Meyer's: the animals in the rear rooms of the Casa; Coronado's squad in one of the outer rooms, and Meyer's in the other; a sentry on the roof, and another in the plaza. The only change was that, owing to scarcity of fuel, no watch-fires were built. As Thurstane expected an attack, and as Indian assaults usually take place just before daybreak, he chose the first half of the night for his tour of sleep. At one he was awakened by Sweeny, who was sergeant of his squad, Kelly being with Meyer and Shubert with Coronado.
"Well, Sweeny, anything stirring?" he asked.
"Divil a stir, Liftinant."
"Did nothing happen during your guard?"
"Liftinant," replied Sweeny, searching his memory for an incident which should prove his watchfulness—"the moon went down."
"I hope you didn't interfere."
"Liftinant, I thought it was none o' my bizniss."
"Send a man to relieve the sentry on the roof, and let him come down here."
"I done it, Liftinant, before I throubled ye. Where shall we slape? Jist by the corner here?"
"No. I'll change that. Two just inside of one doorway and two inside the other. I'll stay at the angle myself."
Three hours passed as quietly as the wool-clad footsteps of the Grecian Fate. Then, stealing through the profound darkness, came the faintest rustle imaginable. It was not the noise of feet, but rather that of bodies slowly dragging through herbage, as if men were crawling or rolling toward the Casa. Thurstane, not quite sure of his hearing, and unwilling to disturb the garrison without cause, cocked his revolver and listened intently.
Suddenly the sentry in the plaza fired, and, rushing in upon him, fell motionless at his feet, while the air was filled in an instant with the whistling of arrows, the trampling of running men, and the horrible quavering of the war-whoop.
At the noise of the Apache charge Thurstane sprang in two bounds to Coronado's entrance, and threw himself inside of it with a shout of "Indians!"
It must be remembered that, while a doorway of the Casa was five feet in depth, it was only four feet wide at the base and less than thirty inches at the top, so that it was something in the way of a defile and easily defensible. The moment Thurstane was inside, he placed himself behind one of the solid jambs of the opening, and presented both sabre and revolver.
Immediately after him a dozen running Indians reached the portal, some of them plunging into it and the others pushing and howling close around it. Three successive shots and as many quick thrusts, all delivered in the darkness, but telling at close quarters on naked chests and faces, cleared the passage in half a minute. By this time Texas Smith, Coronado, and Shubert had leaped up, got their senses about them, and commenced a fire of rifle shot, pistol shot, and buck-and-ball. In another half minute nothing remained in the doorway but two or three corpses, while outside there were howls as of wounded. The attack here was repulsed, at least for the present.
But at the other door matters had gone differently, and, as it seemed, fatally ill. There had been no one fully awakened to keep the assailants at bay until the other defenders could rouse themselves and use their weapons. Half a dozen Apaches, holding their lances before them like pikes, rushed over the sleeping Sweeny and burst clean into the room before Meyer and his men were fairly on their feet. In the profound darkness not a figure could be distinguished; and there was a brief trampling and yelling, during which no one was hurt. Lances and bows were useless in a room fifteen feet by ten, without a ray of light. The Indians threw down their long weapons, drew their knives, groped hither and thither, struck out at random, and cut each other. Nevertheless, they were masters of the ground. Meyer and his people, crouching in corners, could not see and dared not fire. Sweeny, awakened by a kneading of Apache boots, was so scared that he lay perfectly still, and either was not noticed or was neglected as dead. His Mexican comrade had rushed along with the assailants, got ahead of them, gained the inner rooms, and hastened up to the roof. In short, it was a completely paralyzed defence.
Had the mass of the Apaches promptly followed their daring leaders, the garrison would have been destroyed. But, as so often happens in night attacks, there was a pause of caution and investigation. Fifty warriors halted around the doorway, some whooping or calling, and others listening, while the five or six within, probably fearful of being hit if they spoke, made no answer. The sentinel on the roof fired down without seeing any one, and had arrows sent back at him by men who were as blinded as himself. The darkness and mystery crippled the attack almost as completely as the defence.
Sweeny was the first to break the charm. A warrior who attempted to enter the doorway struck his boot against a pair of legs, and stooped down to feel if they were alive. By a lucky intuition of scared self-defence, the little Paddy made a furious kick into the air with both his solid army shoes, and sent the invader reeling into the outer darkness. Then he fired his gun just as it lay, and brought down one of the braves inside with a broken ankle. The blaze of the discharge faintly lighted up the room, and Meyer let fly instantly, killing another of the intruders. But the Indians also had been able to see. Those who survived uttered their yell and plunged into the corners, stabbing with their knives. There was a wild, blind, eager scuffling, mixed with another shot or two, oaths, whooping, screams, tramplings, and aimless blows with musket-butts.
Reinforcements arrived for both parties, four or five more Apaches stealing into the room, while Thurstane and Shubert came through from Coronado's side. Hitherto, it did not seem that the garrison had lost any killed except the sentry who had fallen outside; but presently the lieutenant heard Shubert cry out in that tone of surprise, pain, and anger, which announces a severe wound.
The scream was followed by a fall, a short scuffle, repeated stabbings, and violent breathing mixed with low groans. Thurstane groped to the scene of combat, put out his left hand, felt a naked back, and drove his sabre strongly and cleanly into it. There was a hideous yell, another fall, and then silence.
After that he stood still, not knowing whither to move. The trampling of feet, the hasty breathing of struggling men, the dull sound of blows upon living bodies, the yells and exclamations and calls, had all ceased at once. It seemed to him as if everybody in the room had been killed except himself. He could not hear a sound in the darkness besides the beating of his own heart, and an occasional feeble moan rising from the floor. In all his soldierly life he had never known a moment that was anything like so horrible.
At last, after what seemed minutes, remembering that it was his duty as an officer to be a rallying point, he staked his life on his very next breath and called out firmly, "Meyer!"
"Here!" answered the sergeant, as if he were at roll-call.
"Where are you?"
"I am near the toorway, Leftenant. Sweeny is with me."
"'Yis I be," interjected Sweeny.
Thurstane, feeling his way cautiously, advanced to the entrance and found the two men standing on one side of it.
"Where are the Indians?" he whispered.
"I think they are all out, except the tead ones, Leftenant."
Thurstane gave an order: "All forward to the door."
Steps of men stealing from the inner room responded to this command.
"Call the roll, Sergeant," said Thurstane.
In a low voice Meyer recited the names of the six men who belonged to his squad, and of Shubert. All responded except the last.
"I am avraid Shupert is gone, Leftenant," muttered the sergeant; and the officer replied, "I am afraid so."
All this time there had been perfect silence outside, as if the Indians also were in a state of suspense and anxiety. But immediately after the roll-call had ceased, a few arrows whistled through the entrance and struck with short sharp spats into the hard-finished partition within.
"Yes, they are all out," said Thurstane. "But we must keep quiet till daybreak."
There followed a half hour which seemed like a month. Once Thurstane stole softly through the Casa to Coronado's room, found all safe there, and returned, stumbling over bodies both going and coming. At last the slow dawn came and sent a faint, faint radiance through the door, enabling the benighted eyes within to discover one dolorous object after another. In the centre of the room lay the boy Shubert, perfectly motionless and no doubt dead. Here and there, slowly revealing themselves through the diminishing darkness, like horrible waifs left uncovered by a falling river, appeared the bodies of four Apaches, naked to the breechcloth and painted black, all quiet except one which twitched convulsively. The clay floor was marked by black pools and stains which were undoubtedly blood. Other fearful blotches were scattered along the entrance, as if grievously wounded men had tottered through it, or slain warriors had been dragged out by their comrades.
While the battle is still in suspense a soldier looks with but faint emotion, and almost without pity, upon the dead and wounded. They are natural; they belong to the scene; what else should he see? Moreover, the essential sentiments of the time and place are, first, a hard egoism which thinks mainly of self-preservation, and second, a stern sense of duty which regulates it. In the fiercer moments of the conflict even these feelings are drowned in a wild excitement which may lie either exultation or terror. Thus it is that the ordinary sympathies of humanity for the suffering and for the dead are suspended.
Looking at Shubert, our lieutenant simply said to himself, "I have lost a man. My command is weakened by so much." Then his mind turned with promptness to the still living and urgent incidents of the situation. Could he peep out of the doorway without getting an arrow through the head? Was the roof of the Casa safe from escalade? Were any of his people wounded?
This last question he at once put in English and Spanish. Kelly replied, "Slightly, sir," and pointed to his left shoulder, pretty smartly laid open by the thrust of a knife. One of the Indian muleteers, who was sitting propped up in a corner, faintly raised his head and showed a horrible gash in his thigh. At a sign from Thurstane another muleteer bound up the wound with the sleeve of Shubert's shirt, which he slashed off for the purpose. Kelly said, "Never mind me, sir; it's no great affair, sir."
"Two killed and two wounded," thought the lieutenant. "We are losing more than our proportion."
As soon as it was light enough to distinguish objects clearly, a lively fire opened from the roof of the Casa. Judging that the attention of the assailants would be distracted by this, Thurstane cautiously edged his head forward and peeped through the doorway. The Apaches were still in the plaza; he discovered something like fifty of them; they were jumping about and firing arrows at the roof. He inferred that this could not last long; that they would soon be driven away by the musketry from above; that, in short, things were going well.
After a time, becoming anxious lest Clara should expose herself to the missiles, he went to Coronado's room, sent one of the Mexicans to reinforce Meyer, and then climbed rapidly to the tower, taking along sabre, rifle, and revolver. He was ascending the last of the stepped sticks, and had the trap-door of the isolated room just above him, when he heard a shout, "Come up here, somebody!"
It was the snuffling utterance of Phineas Glover, who slept on the roof as permanent guard of the ladies. Tumbling into the room, Thurstane found the skipper and two muleteers defending the doorway against five Apaches, who had reached the roof, three of them already on their feet and plying their arrows, while the two others were clambering over the ledge. Clara and Mrs. Stanley were crouched on their beds behind the shelter of the wall.
The young man's first desperate impulse was to rush out and fight hand to hand. But remembering the dexterity of Indians in single combat, he halted just in time to escape a flight of missiles, placed himself behind the jamb of the doorway, and fired his rifle. At that short distance Sweeny would hardly have missed; and the nearest Apache, leaning forward with outspread arms, fell dead. Then the revolver came into play, and another warrior dropped his bow, his shoulder shattered. Glover and the muleteers, steadied by this opportune reinforcement, reloaded and resumed their file-firing. Guns were too much for archery; three Indians were soon stretched on the roof; the others slung themselves over the eaves and vanished.
"Darned if they didn't reeve a tackle to git up," exclaimed Glover in amazement.
It appeared that the savages had twisted lariats into long cords, fastened rude grapples to the end of them, flung them from the wall below the Casa, and so made their daring escalade.
"Look out!" called Thurstane to the investigating Yankee. But the warning came too late; Glover uttered a yell of surprise, pain, and rage; this time it was not his nose, but his left ear.
"Reckon they'll jest chip off all my feeturs 'fore they git done with me," he grinned, feeling of the wounded part. "Git my figgerhead smooth all round."
To favor the escalade, the Apaches in the plaza had renewed their war-whoop, sent flights of arrows at the Casa, and made a spirited but useless charge on the doorways. Its repulse was the signal for a general and hasty flight. Just as the rising sun spread his haze of ruddy gold over the east, there was a despairing yell which marked the termination of the conflict, and then a rush for the gaps in the wall of the enclosure. In one minute from the signal for retreat the top of the hill did not contain a single painted combatant. No vigorous pursuit; the garrison had had enough of fighting; besides, ammunition was becoming precious. Texas Smith alone, insatiably bloodthirsty and an independent fighter, skulked hastily across the plaza, ambushed himself in a crevice of the ruin, and took a couple of shots at the savages as they mounted their ponies at the foot of the hill and skedaddled loosely across the plain.
When he returned he croaked out, with an unusual air of excitement, "Big thing!"
"What is a pig ding?" inquired Sergeant Meyer.
"Never see Injuns make such a fight afore."
"Nor I," assented Meyer.
"Stranger, they fowt first-rate," affirmed Smith, half admiring the Apaches. "How many did we save?"
"Here are vour in our room, und the leftenant says there are three on the roof, und berhabs we killed vour or vive outside."
"A dozen!" chuckled Texas, "besides the wounded. Let's hev a look at the dead uns."
Going into Meyer's room, he found one of the Apaches still twitching, and immediately cut his throat. Then he climbed to the roof, gloated over the three bodies there, dragged them one by one to the ledge, and pitched them into the plaza.
"That'll settle 'em," he remarked with a sigh of intense satisfaction, like that of a baby when it has broken its rattle. Coming down again, he looked all the corpses over again, and said with an air of disappointment which was almost sentimental, "On'y a dozen!"
"I kin keer for the Injuns," he volunteered when the question came up of burying the dead. "I'd rather keer for 'em than not."
Before Thurstane knew what was going on, Texas had finished his labor of love. A crevice in the northern wall of the enclosure looked out upon a steep slope of marl, almost a precipice, which slanted sheer into the boiling flood of the San Juan. To this crevice Texas dragged one naked carcass after another, bundled it through, launched it with a vigorous shove, and then watched it with a pantherish grin, licking his chops as it were, as it rolled down the steep, splashed into the river, and set out on its swift voyage toward the Pacific.
"I s'pose you'll want to dig a hole forhim" he said, coming into the Casa and looking wistfully at the body of poor young Shubert.
Sergeant Meyer motioned him to go away. Thurstane was entering in his journal an inventory of the deceased soldier's effects having already made a minute of the date and cause of his death. These with other facts, such as name, age, physical description, birthplace, time of service, amount of pay due, balance of clothing-account and stoppages, must be more or less repeated on various records, such as the descriptive book of the company, the daily return, the monthly return, the quarterly return, the muster-roll from which the name would be dropped, and the final statements which were to go to the Adjutant-General and the Paymaster-General. Even in the desert the monstrous accountability system of the army lived and burgeoned.
Nothing of importance happened until about noon, when the sentinel on the outer wall announced that the Apaches were approaching in force, and Thurstane gave orders to barricade one of the doors of the Casa with some large blocks of adobe, saying to himself, "I ought to have done it before."
This work well under way, he hastened to the brow of the hill and reconnoitred the enemy.
"They are not going to attack," said Coronado. "They are going to torture the girl Pepita."
Thurstane turned away sick at heart, observing, "I must keep the women in the Casa."