The tread of Coronado's horse passing within fifteen feet of Thurstane roused him from the troubled sleep into which he had sunk after his long fainting fit.
Slowly he opened his eyes, to see nothing but long grasses close to his face, and through them a haze of mountains and sky. His first moments of wakening were so far from being a full consciousness that he did not comprehend where he was. He felt very, very weak, and he continued to lie still.
But presently he became aware of sounds; there was a trampling, and then there were words; the voices of life summoned him to live. Instantly he remembered two things: the starving comrades whom it was his duty to save, and the loved girl whom he longed to find. Slowly and with effort, grasping at the rock to aid his trembling knees, he rose to his feet just as Clara turned her horse's head toward the plain.
Coronado threw a last anxious glance in the direction of the wretch whom he meant to abandon to the desert. To his horror he saw a lean, smirched, ghostly face looking at him in a dazed way, as if out of the blinding shades of death. The quickness of this villain was so wonderful that one is almost tempted to call it praiseworthy. He perceived at once that Thurstane would be discovered, and that he, Coronado, must make the discovery, or he might be charged with attempting to leave him to die.
"Good heavens!" he exclaimed loudly, "there he is!"
Clara turned: there was a scream of joy: she was on the ground, running: she was in Thurstane's arms. During that unearthly moment there was no thought in those two of Coronado, or of any being but each other. It is impossible fully to describe such a meeting; its exterior signs are beyond language; its emotion is a lifetime. If words are feeble in presence of the heights and depths of the Colorado, they are impotent in presence of the altitudes and abysses of great passion. Human speech has never yet completely expressed human intellect, and it certainly never will completely express human sentiments. These lovers, who had been wandering in chasms impenetrable to hope, were all of a sudden on mountain summits dizzy with joy. What could they say for themselves, or what can another say for them?
Clara only uttered inarticulate murmurs, while her hands crawled up Thurstane's arms, pressing and clutching him to make sure that he was alive. There was an indescribable pathos in this eagerness which could not trust to sight, but must touch also, as if she were blind. Thurstane held her firmly, kissing hair, forehead, and temples, and whispering, "Clara! Clara!" Her face, which had turned white at the first glimpse of him, was now roseate all over and damp with a sweet dew. It became smirched with the dust of his face; but she would only have rejoiced, had she known it; his very squalor was precious to her.
At last she fell back from him, held him at arm's length with ease, and stared at him. "Oh, how sick!" she gasped. "How thin! You are starving."
She ran to her horse, drew from her saddle-bags some remnants of food, and brought them to him. He had sunk down faint upon a stone, and he was too weak to speak aloud; but he gave her a smile of encouragement which was at once pathetic and sublime. It said, "I can bear all alone; you must not suffer for me." But it said this out of such visible exhaustion, that, instead of being comforted, she was terrified.
"Oh, you must not die," she whispered with quivering mouth. "If you die, I will die."
Then she checked her emotion and added, "There! Don't mind me. I am silly. Eat."
Meanwhile Coronado looked on with such a face as Iago might have worn had he felt the jealousy of Othello. For the first time he positively knew that the woman he loved was violently in love with another. He suffered so horribly that we should be bound to pity him, only that he suffered after the fashion of devils, his malignity equalling his agony. While he was in such pain that his heart ceased beating, his fingers curled like snakes around the handle of his revolver. Nothing kept him from shooting that man, yes, and that woman also, but the certainty that the deed would make him a fugitive for life, subject everywhere to the summons of the hangman.
Once, almost overcome by the temptation, he looked around for the train. It was within hearing; he thought he saw Mrs. Stanley watching him; two of his Mexicans were approaching at full speed. He dismounted, sat down upon a stone, partially covered his face with his hand, and tried to bring himself to look at the two lovers. At last, when he perceived that Thurstane was eating and Clara merely kneeling by, he walked tremulously toward them, scarcely conscious of his feet.
"Welcome to life, lieutenant," he said. "I did not wish to interrupt. Now I congratulate."
Thurstane looked at him steadily, seemed to hesitate for a moment, and then put out his hand.
"It was I who discovered you," went on Coronado, as he took the lean, grimy fingers in his buckskin gauntlet.
"I know it," mumbled the young fellow; then with a visible effort he added, "Thanks."
Presently the two Mexicans pulled up with loud exclamations of joy and wonder. One of them took out of his haversack a quantity of provisions and a flask of aguardiente; and Coronado handed them to Thurstane with a smile, hoping that he would surfeit himself and die.
"No," said Clara, seizing the food. "You have eaten enough. You may drink."
"Where are the others?" she presently asked.
"In the hills," he answered. "Starving. I must go and find them."
"No, no!" she cried. "You must go to the train. Some one else will look for them."
One of the rancheros now dismounted and helped Thurstane into his saddle. Then, the Mexican steadying him on one side and Clara riding near him on the other, he was conducted to the train, which was at that moment going into park near a thicket of willows.
In an amazingly short time he was very like himself. Healthy and plucky, he had scarcely swallowed his food and brandy before he began to draw strength from them; and he had scarcely begun to breathe freely before he began to talk of his duties.
"I must go back," he insisted. "Glover and Sweeny are starving. I must look them up."
"Certainly," answered Coronado.
"No!" protested Clara. "You are not strong enough."
"Of course not," chimed in Aunt Maria with real feeling, for she was shocked by the youth's haggard and ghastly face.
"Who else can find them?" he argued. "I shall want two spare animals. Glover can't march, and I doubt whether Sweeny can."
"You shall have all you need," declared Coronado.
"He mustn't go," cried Clara. Then, seeing in his face that hewouldgo, she added, "I will go with him."
"No, no," answered several voices. "You would only be in the way."
"Give me my horse," continued Thurstane. "Where are Meyer and Kelly?"
He was told how they had gone on to Fort Yuma with Major Robinson, taking his horse, the government mules, stores, etc.
"Ah! unfortunate," he said. "However, that was right. Well, give me a mule for myself, two mounted muleteers, and two spare animals; some provisions also, and a flask of brandy. Let me start as soon as the men and beasts have eaten. It is forty miles there and back."
"But you can't find your way in the night," persisted Clara.
"There is a moon," answered Thurstane, looking at her gratefully; while Coronado added encouragingly, "Twenty miles are easily done."
"Oh yes!" hoped Clara. "You can almost get there before dark. Do start at once."
But Coronado did not mean that Thurstane should set out immediately. He dropped various obstacles in the way: for instance, the animals and men must be thoroughly refreshed; in short, it was dusk before all was ready.
Meantime Clara had found an opportunity of whispering to Thurstane. "Mustyou?" And he had answered, looking at her as the Huguenot looks at his wife in Millais's picture, "My dear love, you know that I must."
"Youwillbe careful of yourself?" she begged. "For your sake."
"But remember that man," she whispered, looking about for Texas Smith.
"He is not going. Come, my own darling, don't frighten yourself. Think of my poor comrades."
"I will pray for them and for you all the time you are gone. But oh, Ralph, there is one thing. I must tell you. I am so afraid. I did wrong to let Coronado see how much I care for you. I am afraid—"
He seemed to understand her. "It isn't possible," he murmured. Then, after eyeing her gravely for a moment, he asked, "I may be always sure of you? Oh yes! I knew it. But Coronado? Well, it isn't possible that he would try to commit a treble murder. Nobody abandons starving men in a desert. Well, I must go. I must save these men. After that we will think of these other things. Good-by, my darling."
The sultry glow of sunset had died out of the west, and the radiance of a full moon was climbing up the heavens in the east when Thurstane set off on his pilgrimage of mercy. Clara watched him as long as the twilight would let her see him, and then sat down with drooped face, like a flower which has lost the sun. If any one spoke to her, she answered tardily and not always to the purpose. She was fulfilling her promise; she was praying for Thurstane and the men whom he had gone to save; that is, she was praying when her mind did not wander into reveries of terror. After a time she started up with the thought, "Where is Texas Smith?" He was not visible, and neither was Coronado. Suspicious of some evil intrigue, she set out in search of them, made the circuit of the fires, and then wandered into the willow thickets. Amid the underwood, hastening toward the wagons, she met Coronado.
"Ah!" he started. "Is that you, my little cousin? You are as terrible in the dark as an Apache."
"Coronado, where is your hunter?" she asked with a beating heart.
"I don't know. I have been looking for him. My dear cousin, what do you want?"
"Coronado, I will tell you the truth. That man is a murderer. I know it."
Coronado just took the time to draw one long breath, and then replied with sublime effrontery, "I fear so. I learn that he has told horrible stories about himself. Well, to tell the truth, I have discharged him."
"Oh, Coronado!" gasped Clara, not knowing whether to believe him or not.
"Shall I confess to you," he continued, "that I suspect him of having weakened that towline so as to send our friend down the San Juan?"
"He never went near the boat," heroically answered Clara, at the same time wishing she could see Coronado's face.
"Of course not. He probably hired some one. I fear our rancheros are none too good to be bribed. I will confess to you, my cousin, that ever since that day I have been watching Smith."
"Oh, Coronado!" repeated Clara. She was beginning to believe this prodigious liar, and to be all the more alarmed because she did believe him. "So you have sent him away? I am so glad. Oh, Coronado, I thank you. But help me look for him now. I want to know if he is in camp."
It is almost impossible to do Coronado justice. While he was pretending to aid Clara in searching for Texas Smith, he knew that the man had gone out to murder Thurstane. We must remember that the man was almost as wretched as he was wicked; if punishment makes amends for crime, his was in part absolved. As he walked about with the girl he thought over and over, Will it kill her? He tried to answer, No. Another voice persisted in saying, Yes. In his desperation he at last replied, Let it!
We must follow Texas Smith. He had not started on his errand until he had received five hundred dollars in gold, and five hundred in a draft on San Francisco. Then he had himself proposed, "I mought quit the train, an' take my own resk acrost the plains." This being agreed to, he had mounted his horse, slipped away through the willows, and ridden into the desert after Thurstane.
He knew the trail; he had been from Cactus Pass to Diamond River and back again; he knew it at least as well as the man whose life he was tracking. He thought he remembered the spring where Glover had broken down, and felt pretty sure that it could not be less than twenty miles from the camp. Mounted as he was, he could put himself ahead of Thurstane and ambush him in some ravine. Of a sudden he laughed. It was not a burst of merriment, but a grim wrinkling of his dark, haggard cheeks, followed by a hissing chuckle. Texas seldom laughed, and with good reason, for it was enough to scare people.
"Mought be done," he muttered. "Mought git the better of 'em all that way. Shute, 'an then yell. The greasers'ud think it was Injuns, an' they'd travel for camp. Then I'd stop the spare mules an' start for Californy."
For Texas this plan was a stroke of inspiration. He was not an intelligent scoundrel. All his acumen, though bent to the one point of roguery, had barely sufficed hitherto to commit murders and escape hanging. He had never prospered financially, because he lacked financial ability. He was a beast, with all a tiger's ferocity, but with hardly more than a tiger's intelligence. He was a savage numskull. An Apache Tonto would have been more than his match in the arts of murder, and very nearly his match in the arts of civilization.
Instead of following Thurstane directly, he made a circuit of several miles through a ravine, galloped across a wide grassy plain, and pulled up among some rounded hillocks. Here, as he calculated, he was fifteen miles from camp, and five from the spot where lay Glover and Sweeny. The moon had already gone down and left the desert to the starlight. Posting himself behind a thicket, he waited for half an hour or more, listening with indefatigable attention.
He had no scruples, but he had some fears. If he should miss, the lieutenant would fire back, and he was cool enough to fire with effect. Well, he wouldn't miss; what should he miss for? As for the greasers, they would run at the first shot. Nevertheless, he did occasionally muddle over the idea of going off to California with his gold, and without doing this particular job. What kept him to his agreement was the hope of stealing the spare mules, and the fear that the draft might not be paid if he shirked his work.
"I s'pose I must show his skelp," thought Texas, "or they won't hand over the dust."
At last there was a sound; he had set his ambush just right; there were voices in the distance; then hoofs in the grass. Next he saw something; it was a man on a mule; yes, and it was the right man.
He raised his cocked rifle and aimed, sighting the head, three rods away. Suddenly his horse whinnied, and then the mule of the other reared; but the bullet had already sped. Down went Thurstane in the darkness, while, with an Apache yell, Texas Smith burst from his ambush and charged upon the greasers.
The chase after the spare mules carried Texas Smith several miles from the scene of the ambush, so that when he at last caught the frightened beasts, he decided not to go back and cut Thurstane's throat, but to set off at once westward and put himself by morning well on the road to California.
Meanwhile, the two muleteers continued their flight at full gallop, and eventually plunged into camp with a breathless story to the effect that Apaches had attacked them, captured the spare mules, and killed the lieutenant. Coronado, no more able to sleep than Satan, was the first to hear their tale.
"Apaches!" he said, surprised and incredulous. Then, guessing at what had happened, he immediately added, "Those devils again! We must push on, the moment we can see."
Apaches! It was a capital idea. He had an excuse now for hurrying away from a spot which he had stained with murder. If any one demanded that Thurstane's body should be sought for, or that those incumbrances Glover and Sweeny should be rescued, he could respond, Apaches! Apaches! He gave orders to commence preparations for moving at the first dawn.
He expected and feared that Clara would oppose the advance in some trying way. But one of the fugitives relieved him by blurting out the death of Thurstane, and sending her into spasms of alternate hysterics and fainting which lasted for hours. Lying in a wagon, her head in the lap of Mrs. Stanley, a sick, very sick, dangerously sick girl, she was jolted along as easily as a corpse.
Coronado rode almost constantly beside her wagon, inquiring about her every few minutes, his face changing with contradictory emotions, wishing she would die and hoping she would live, loving and hating her in the same breath. Whenever she came to herself and recognized him, she put out her hands and implored, "Oh, Coronado, take me back there!"
"Apaches!" growled Coronado, and spurred away repeating his lie to himself, "Apaches! Apaches!"
Then he checked his horse and rode anew to her side, hoping that he might be able to reason with her.
"Oh, take me back!" was all the response he could obtain. "Take me back and let me die there."
"Would you have us all die?" he shouted—"like Pepita!"
"Don't scold her," begged Aunt Maria, who was sobbing like a child. "She doesn't know what she is asking."
But Clara knew too much; at the wordPepitashe guessed the torture scene; and then it came into her mind that Thurstane might be even now at the stake. She immediately broke into screams, which ended in convulsions and a long fit of insensibility.
"It is killing her," wailed Aunt Maria. "Oh, my child! my child!"
Coronado spurred at full speed for a mile, muttering to the desert, "Let it kill her! let it!"
At last he halted for the train to overtake him, glanced anxiously at Clara's wagon, saw that Mrs. Stanley was still bending over her, guessed that she was still alive, drew a sigh of relief, and rode on alone.
"Oh, this love-making!" sighed Aunt Maria scores of times, for she had at last learned of the engagement. "When will my sex get over the weakness? It kills them, and they like it."
That night Clara could not sleep, and kept Coronado awake with her moanings. All the next day she lay in a semi-unconsciousness which was partly lethargy and partly fever. It was well; at all events he could bear it so—bear it better than when she was crying and praying for death. The next night she fell into such a long silence of slumber that he came repeatedly to her wagon to hearken if she still breathed. Youth and a strong constitution were waging a doubtful battle to rescue her from the despair which threatened to rob her of either life or reason.
So the journey continued. Henceforward the trail followed Bill Williams's river to the Colorado, tracked that stream northward to the Mohave valley, and, crossing there, took the line of the Mohave river toward California. It was a prodigious pilgrimage still, and far from being a safe one. The Mohaves, one of the tallest and bravest races known, from six feet to six and a half in height, fighting hand to hand with short clubs, were not perfectly sure to be friendly. Coronado felt that, if ever he got his wife and his fortune, he should have earned them. He was resolute, however; there was no flinching yet in this versatile, yet obstinate nature; he was as wicked and as enduring as a Pizarro.
We will not make the journey; we must suppose it. Weeks after the desert had for a second time engulfed Thurstane, a coasting schooner from Santa Barbara entered the Bay of San Francisco, having on board Clara, Mrs. Stanley, and Coronado.
The latter is on deck now, smoking his eternal cigarito without knowing it, and looking at the superb scenery without seeing it. A landscape mirrored in the eye of a horse has about as much effect on the brain within as a landscape mirrored in the eye of Coronado. He is a Latin; he has a fine ear for music, and he would delight in museums of painting and sculpture; but he has none of the passion of the sad, grave, imaginative Anglican race for nature. Mountains, deserts, seas, and storms are to him obstacles and hardships. He has no more taste for them than had Ulysses.
He has agonized with sea-sickness during the voyage, and this is the first day that he has found tolerable. Once more he is able to eat and stand up; able to think, devise, resolve, and execute; able, in short, to be Coronado. Look at the little, sunburnt, sinewy, earnest, enduring man; study his diplomatic countenance, serious and yet courteous, full of gravity and yet ready for gayety; notice his ready smile and gracious wave of the hand as he salutes the skipper. He has been through horrors; he has fought a tremendous fight of passion, crime, and peril; yet he scarcely shows a sign of it. There is some such lasting stuff in him as goes to make the Bolivars, Francias, and Lopez, the restless and indefatigable agitators of the Spanish-American communities. You cannot help sympathizing with him somewhat, because of his energy and bottom. You are tempted to say that he deserves to win.
He has made some progress in his conspiracy to entrap love and a fortune. It must be understood that the two muleteers persisted in their story concerning Apaches, and that consequently Clara has come to think of Thurstane as dead. Meantime Coronado, after the first two days of wild excitement, has conducted himself with rare intelligence, never alarming her with talk of love, always courteous, kind, and useful. Little by little he has worn away her suspicions that he planned murder, and her only remaining anger against him is because he did not attempt to search for Thurstane; but even for that she is obliged to see some excuse in the terrible word "Apaches."
"I have had no thought but forhersafety," Coronado often said to Mrs. Stanley, who as often repeated the words to Clara. "I have made mistakes," he would go on. "The San Juan journey was one. I will not even plead Garcia's instructions to excuse it. But our circumstances have been terrible. Who could always take the right step amid such trials? All I ask is charity. If humility deserves mercy, I deserve it."
Coronado even schooled himself into expressing sympathy with Clara for the loss of Thurstane. He spoke of him as her affianced, eulogized his character, admitted that he had not formerly done him justice, hinting that this blindness had sprung from jealousy, and so alluded to his own affection. These things he said at first to Aunt Maria, and she, his steady partisan, repeated them to Clara, until at last the girl could bear to hear them from Coronado. Sympathy! the bleeding heart must have it; it will accept this balm from almost any hand, and it will pay for it in gratitude and trust.
Thus in two months from the disappearance of Thurstane his rival had begun to hope that he was supplanting him. Of course he had given up all thought of carrying out the horrible plan with which he had started from Santa Fé. Indeed, he began to have a horror of Garcia, as a man who had set him on a wrong track and nearly brought him into folly and ruin. One might say that Satan was in a state of mind to rebuke sin.
Let us now glance at Clara. She is seated beside Aunt Maria on the quarter-deck of the schooner. Her troubles have changed her; only eighteen years old, she has the air of twenty-four; her once rounded face is thin, and her childlike sweetness has become tender gravity. When she entered on this journey she resembled the girl faces of Greuze; now she is sometimes amater amabilis, and sometimes amater dolorosa; for her grief has been to her as a maternity. The great change, so far from diminishing her beauty, has made her seem more fascinating and nobler. Her countenance has had a new birth, and exhibits a more perfect soul.
We have hitherto had little more than a superficial view of the characters of our people. Events, incidents, adventures, and even landscapes have been the leading personages of the story, and have been to its human individualities what the Olympian gods are to Greek and Trojan heroes in the Iliad. Just as Jove or Neptune rules or thwarts Agamemnon and Achilles, so the monstrous circumstances of the desert have overborne, dwarfed, and blurred these travellers. It is only now, when they have escaped from thedii majores, and have become for a brief period tranquil free agents, that we can see them as they are. Even yet they are not altogether untrammelled. Man is never quite himself; he is always under some external influence, past or present; he is always being governed, if not being created.
Clara, born anew of trouble, is admirable. There is a sweet, sedate, and almost solemn womanliness about her, which even overawes Mrs. Stanley, conscious of aunthood and strongmindedness, and insisting upon it that her niece is "a mere child." It is a great victory to gain over a lady who has that sort of self-confidence that if she had been a sunflower and obliged to turn toward the sun for life, she would yet have believed that it was she who made him shine. When Clara decides a matter Mrs. Stanley, while still mentally saying "Young thing," feels nevertheless that her own decision has been uttered. And in every successive resistance she is overcome the easier, for habit is a conqueror.
They have just had a discussion. Aunt Maria wants Clara to stand on her dignity in a hotel until old Muñoz goes down on his marrow-bones, makes her a handsome allowance, and agrees to leave her at least half his fortune. Clara's reply is substantially, "He is my grandfather and the proper head of my family. I think I ought to go straight to him and say, Grandfather, here I am."
Beaten by this gentle conscientiousness, Aunt Maria endeavored to appeal the matter to Coronado.
"I am so glad to see you enjoying your cigarito once more," she called to him with as sweet a smile as if she didn't hate tobacco.
He left his smoking retreat amidships, took off his hat with a sort of airy gravity, and approached them.
"Mr. Coronado, where do you propose to take us when we reach land?" asked Aunt Maria.
"We will, if you please, go direct to my excellent relative's," was the reply.
Aunt Maria held her head straight up, as if stiff-neckedly refusing to go there, but made no opposition.
Coronado had meditated everything and decided everything. It would not do to go to a hotel, because that might lead to a suspicion that he knew all the while about the death of Muñoz. His plan was to drive at once to the old man's place, demand him as if he expected to see him, express proper surprise and grief over the funereal response, put the estate as soon as possible into Clara's hands, become her man of affairs and trusted friend, and so climb to be her husband. He was anxious; during all his perils in the desert he had never been more so; but he bore the situation heroically, as he could bear; his face revealed nothing but its outside—a smile.
"My dear cousin," he presently said, "when I once fairly set you down in your home, you will owe me, in spite of all my blunders, a word of thanks."
"Coronado, I shall owe you more than I ever can repay," she replied frankly, without remembering that he wanted to marry her. The next instant she remembered it, and her face showed the first blush that had tinted it for two months. He saw the significant color, and turned away to conceal a joy which might have been perilous had she observed it.
Immediately on landing he proceeded to carry out his programme. He took a hack, drove the ladies direct to the house of Muñoz, and there went decorously through the form of learning that the old man was dead. Then, consoling the sorrowful and anxious Clara, he hurried to the best hotel in the city and made arrangements for what he meant should be an impressive scene, the announcement of her fortune. He secured fine rooms for the ladies, and ordered them a handsome lunch, with wine, etc., all without regard to expense. The girl must be perfectly comfortable and under a sense of all sorts of obligations to him when she received hiscoup de théâtre.
He was not so preoccupied but that he quarelled with his coachman about the hack hire and dismissed him with some disagreeable epithets in Spanish. Next he took a saddle-horse, as being the cheapest conveyance attainable, and cantered off to find the executors of Muñoz, enjoying heartily such stares of admiration as he got for his splendid riding. In an hour he returned, found the ladies in their freshest dresses, and complimented them suitably. At this very moment his anguish of anxiety and suspense was terrible. When Clara should learn that she was a millionaire, what would she do? Would she throw off the air of friendliness which she had lately worn, and scout him as one whom she had long known as a scoundrel? Would all his plots, his labors, his perils, and his love prove in one moment to have been in vain? As he stood there smiling and flattering, he was on the cross.
"But I am talking trifles," he said at last, fairly catching his breath. "Can you guess why I do it? I am prolonging a moment of intense pleasure."
Such was his control over himself that he looked really benign and noble as he drew from his pocket a copy of the will and held it out toward Clara.
"My dear cousin," he murmured, his dark eyes searching her face with intense anxiety, "you cannot imagine my joy in announcing to you that you are the sole heir of the good Pedro Muñoz."
At the announcement that she was a millionaire Clara turned pale, took the proffered paper mechanically with trembling fingers, and then, without looking at it, said, "Oh, Coronado!"
It was a tone of astonishment, of perplexity, of regret, of protest; it seemed to declare, Here is a terrible injustice, and I will none of it. Coronado was delighted; in a breath he recovered all his presence of mind; he recovered his voice, too, and spoke out cheerfully:
"Ah, you are surprised, my cousin. Well, it is your grandfather's will. You, as well as all others, must submit to it."
Aunt Maria jumped up and walked or rather pranced about the room, saying loudly, "He must have been the best man in the whole world." After repeating this two or three times, she halted and added with even more emphasis, "Exceptyou, Mr. Coronado!"
The Mexican bowed in silence; it was almost too much to be praised in that way, feeling as he did; he bowed twice and waved his hand, deprecating the compliment. The interview was a very painful one to him, although he knew that he was gaining admiration with every breath that he drew, and admiration just where it was absolutely necessary to him. Turning to Clara now, he begged, "Read it, if you please, my cousin."
The girl, by this time flushed from chin to forehead, glanced over the paper, and immediately said, "This should not be so. It must not be."
Coronado was overjoyed; she evidently thought that she owed him and Garcia a part of this fortune; even if she kept it, she would feel bound to consider his interests, and the result of her conscientiousness might be marriage.
"Let us have no contest with the dead," he replied grandly. "Their wishes are sacred."
"But Garcia and you are wronged, and I cannot have it so," persisted Clara.
"How wronged?" demanded Aunt Maria. "I don't see it. Mr. Garcia was only a cousin, and he is rich enough already."
Coronado, remembering that he and Garcia were bankrupt, wished he could throw the old lady out of a window.
"Wait," said Clara in a tone of vehement resolution. "Give me time. You shall see that I am not unjust or ungrateful."
"I beg that you will not bestow a thought upon me," implored the sublime hypocrite. "Garcia, it is true, may have had claims. I have none."
Aunt Maria walked up to him, squeezed both his hands, and came near hugging him. Once out of this trial, Coronado could bear no more, but kissed his fingers to the ladies, hastened to his own room, locked the door, and swore all the oaths that there are in Spanish, which is no small multitude.
In a few days after this terrible interview things were going swimmingly well with him. To keep Clara out of the hands of fortune-hunters, but ostensibly to enable her to pass her first mourning in decent retirement, he had induced her to settle in one of Muñoz's haciendas, a few miles from the city, where he of course had her much to himself. He was her adviser; he was closeted frequently with the executors; he foresaw the time when he would be the sole manager of the estate; he began to trust that he would some day possess it. What woman could help leaning upon and confiding in a man who was so useful, so necessary as Coronado, and who had shown such unselfish, such magnanimous sentiments?
Meantime the girl was as admirable in reality as the man was in appearance. Unexpected inheritance of large wealth is almost sure to alter, at least for a time, and generally for the worse, the manner and morale of a young person, whether male or female. Conceit or haughtiness or extravagance or greediness, or some other vice, pretty surely enters into either deportment or conduct. If this girl was changed at all by her great good fortune, she was changed for the better. She had never been more modest, gentle, affable, and sensible than she was now. The fact shows a clearness of mind and a nobleness of heart which place her very high among the wise and good. Such behavior under such circumstances is equal to heroism. We are conscious that in saying these things of Clara we are drawing largely upon the reader's faith. But either her present trial of character was peculiarly fitted to her, or she was one of those select spirits who are purified by temptation.
She remembered Garcia's claims upon her grandfather, and her own supposed obligations to Coronado. She informed the executors that she wished to make over half her property to the old man, trusteeing it so that it should descend to his nephew. Their reply, translated from roundabout and complimentary Spanish into plain English, was this: "You can't do it. The estate is not settled, and will not be for a year. Moreover, you have no power to part with it until you are of age, which will not be for three years. Finally, your proposition defies your grandfather's wishes, and it is altogether too generous."
Clara's simple and firm reply was, "Well, I must wait. But it would seem better if I could do it now."
There was one reason why Clara should be so calm and unselfish in her elevation; her sorrows served her as ballast. Why should she let riches turn her head when she found that they could not lighten her heart? There was a certain night in her past which gold could not illuminate; there had once been a precious life near her, which was gone now beyond the power of ransom. Thurstane! How she would have lavished this wealth upon him. He would have refused it; but she would have prayed and forced him to accept it; she would have been the meeker to him because of it. How noble he had been! not now to be brought back! gone forever! And his going had been like the going away of the sun, leaving no beautiful color in all nature, no guiding light for wandering footsteps. She exaggerated him, as love will exaggerate the lost.
Of course she did not always believe that he could be dead, and in her hours of hope she wrote letters inquiring about his fate. In other days he had told her much of himself, stories of his childhood and his battles, the number of his old regiment and his new one, titles of his superiors, names of comrades, etc. To which among all these unknown ones should she address herself? She fixed on the commander of his present regiment, and that awfully mysterious personage the Adjutant-General of the army, a title which seemed to represent omniscience and omnipotence. To each of these gentlemen she sent an epistle recounting where, when, and how Lieutenant Ralph Thurstane had been ambushed by unknown Indians, supposed to be Apaches.
These letters she wrote and mailed without the knowledge of Coronado. This was not caution, but pity; she did not suspect that he would try to intercept them; only that it would pain him to learn how much she yet thought of his rival. Indeed, it would have been cruel to show them to him, for he would have seen that they were blurred with tears. You perceive that she had come to be tender of the feelings of this earnest and scoundrelly lover, believing in his sincerity and not in his villainy.
"Surely some of those people will know," thought Clara, with a trust in men and dignitaries which makes one saysancta simplicitas. "If they do not know," she added, with a prayer in her heart, "God will discover it to them."
But no answers came for months. The colonel was not with his regiment, but on detached service at New York, whither Clara's letter travelled to find him, being addressed to his name and not marked "Official business." What he did of course was to forward it to the Adjutant-General of the army at Washington. The Adjutant-General successively filed both communications, and sent a copy of each to headquarters at Santa Fé and San Francisco, with an endorsement advising inquiries and suitable search. The mails were slow and circuitous, and the official routine was also slow and circuitous, so that it was long before headquarters got the papers and went to work.
Does any one marvel that Clara did not go directly to the military authorities in the city? It must be remembered that man has his own world, as woman has hers, and that each sex is very ignorant of the spheres and missions of the other, the retired sex being especially limited in its information. The girl had never been told that there was such a thing as district headquarters, or that soldiers in San Francisco had anything to do with soldiers at Fort Yuma. Nor was she in the way of learning such facts, being miles away from a uniform, and even from an American.
One day, when she was fuller of hope than usual, she dared to write to that ghost, Thurstane. Where should the letter be addressed? It cost her much reflection to decide that it ought to go to the station of his company, Fort Yuma. This gave her an idea, and she at once penned two other letters, one directed "To the Captain of Company I," and one to Sergeant Meyer. But unfortunately those three epistles were not sent off before it occurred to Coronado that he ought to overlook the packages that were sent from the hacienda to the city. By the way, he had from the first assumed a secret censorship over the mails which arrived.
Meantime he also had his anxiety and his correspondence. He feared lest Garcia should learn how things had been managed, and should hasten to San Francisco to act henceforward as his own special providence. In that case there would be awkward explanations, there would be complicated and perilous plottings, there might be stabbings or poisonings. Already, as soon as he reached the Mohave valley, he had written one cajoling letter to his uncle. Scattered through six pages on various affairs were underscored phrases and words, which, taken in sequence, read as follows:
"Things have gone well and ill. What was most desirable has not been fully accomplished. There have been perils and deaths, but not the one required. The wisest plans have been foiled by unforeseen circumstances. The future rests upon slow poison. A few weeks more will suffice. Do not come here. It would rouse suspicion. Trust all to me."
He now sent other letters, reporting the progress of the malady caused by the poison, urging Garcia to remain at a distance, assuring him that all would be well, etc.
"There will be no will," declared one of these lying messengers. "If there is a will, you will be the inheritor. In all events, you will be safe. Rely upon my judgment and fidelity."
It is curious, by the way, that such men as Coronado and Garcia, knowing themselves and each other to be liars, should nevertheless expect to be believed, and should frequently believe each other. One is inclined to admit the seeming paradox that rogues are more easily imposed upon than honest men.
No responses came from Garcia. But, by way of consolation, Coronado had Clara's correspondence to read. One day this hidalgo, securely locked in his room, held in his delicate dark fingers a letter addressed to Miss Clara Van Diemen, and postmarked in writing "Fort Yuma." Hot as the day was, there was a brazier by his side, and a kettle of water bubbling on the coals. He held the letter in the steam, softened the wafer to a pulp, opened the envelope carefully, threw himself on a sofa, scowled at the beating of his heart, and began to read.
Before he had glanced through the first line he uttered an exclamation, turned hastily to the signature, and then burst into a stream of whispered curses. After he had blasphemed himself into a certain degree of calmness, he read the letter twice through carefully, and learned it by heart. Then he thrust it deep into the coals of the brazier, watched it steadily until its slight flame had flickered away, lighted a cigarito, and meditated.
This epistle was not the only one that troubled him. He already knew that Clara was inquiring about this man of whom she never spoke, and conducting her inquiries with an intelligence and energy which showed that her heart was in the business. If things went on so, there might be trouble some day, and there might be punishment. For a time he was so disturbed that he felt somewhat as if he had a conscience, and might yet know what it is to be haunted by remorse.
As for Clara, he was furious with her, notwithstanding his love for her, and indeed because of it. It was outrageous that a woman whom he adored should seek to ferret out facts which might send him to State's Prison. It was abominable that she would not cease to care for that stupid officer after he had been so carefully put out of her way. Coronado felt that he was persecuted.
Well, what should be done? He must put a stop to Clara's inquiries, and he would do it by inquiring himself. Yes, he would write to people about Thurstane, show the letters to the girl (but never send them), and so gradually get this sort of correspondence into his own hands, when he would drop it. She would be led thereby to trust him the more, to be grateful to him, perhaps to love him. It was a hateful mode of carrying on a courtship, but it seemed to be the best that he had in his power. Having so decided, this master hypocrite, "full of all subtlety and wiles of the devil," turned his attention to his siesta.
For twenty minutes he slept the sleep of the just; then he was awakened by a timid knock at his door. Guessing from the shyness of the demand for entrance that it came from a servant, he called pettishly, "What do you want? Go away."
"I must see you," answered a voice which, feeble and indistinct as it was, took Coronado to the door in an instant, trembling in every nerve with rage and alarm.
Opening the door softly and with tremulous fingers, Coronado looked out upon an old gray-headed man, short and paunchy in build, with small, tottering, uneasy legs, skin mottled like that of a toad, cheeks drooping and shaking, chin retiring, nose bulbous, one eye a black hollow, the other filmy and yet shining, expression both dull and cunning, both eager and cowardly.
The uncle seemed to be even more agitated at the sight of the nephew than the nephew at the sight of the uncle. For an instant each stared at the other with a strange expression of anxiety and mistrust. Then Coronado spoke. The words which he had in his heart were, What are you here for, you scoundrelly old marplot? The words which he actually uttered were, "My dear uncle, my benefactor, my more than parent! How delighted I am to see you! Welcome, welcome!"
The two men grasped each other's arms, and stuck their heads over each other's shoulders in a pretence of embracing. Perhaps there never was anything of the kind more curious than the contrast between their affectionate attitude and the suspicion and aversion painted on their faces.
"Have you been seen?" asked Coronado as soon as he had closed and locked the door. "I must contrive to get you away unperceived. Why have you come? My dear uncle, it was the height of imprudence. It will expose you to suspicion. Did you not get my letters?"
"Only one," answered Garcia, looking both frightened and obstinate, as if he were afraid to stay and yet determined not to go. "One from the Mohave valley."
"But I urged you in that to remain at a distance, until all had been arranged."
"I know, my son, I know. I thought like you at first. But presently I became anxious."
"Not suspicious of my good faith!" exclaimed Coronado in a horrified whisper. "Oh,thatis surely impossible."
"No, no—not suspicious—no, no, my son," chattered Garcia eagerly. "But I began to fear that you needed my help. Things seemed to move so slowly. Madre de Dios! All across the continent, and nothing done yet."
"Yes, much has been done. I had obstacles. I had people to get rid of. There was a person who undertook to be lover and protector."
"Is he gone?" inquired the old man anxiously.
"Ask no questions. The less told, the better. I wish to spare you all responsibility."
"Carlos, you are my son and heir. You deserve everything that I can give. All shall be yours, my son."
"That Texas Smith of yours is a humbug," broke out Coronado, his mind reverting to the letter which he had just burned. "I put work on him which he swore to do and did not do. He is a coward and a traitor."
"Oh, the pig! Did you pay him?"
"I had to pay him in advance—and then nothing done right," confessed Coronado.
"Oh, the pig, the dog, the toad, the villainous toad, the pig of hell!" chattered Garcia in a rage. "How much did you pay him? Five hundred dollars! Oh, the pig and the dog and the toad!"
"Well, I have been frank with you," said Coronado. (He had diminished by one half the sum paid to Texas Smith.) "I will continue to be frank. You must not stay here. The question is how to get you away unseen."
"It is useless; I have been recognized," lied Garcia, who was determined not to go.
"All is lost!" exclaimed Coronado. "The presence of us two—both possible heirs—will rouse suspicion. Nothing can be done."
But no intimidations could move the old man; he was resolved to stay and oversee matters personally; perhaps he suspected Coronado's plan of marrying Clara.
"No, my son," he declared. "I know better than you. I am older and know the world better. Let me stay and take care of this. What if I am suspected and denounced and hung? The property will be yours."
"My more than father!" cried Coronado. "You shall never sacrifice yourself for me. God forbid that I should permit such an infamy!"
"Let the old perish for the young!" returned Garcia, in a tone of meek obstinacy which settled the controversy.
It was a wonderful scene; it was prodigious acting. Each of these men, while endeavoring to circumvent the other, was making believe offer his life as a sacrifice for the other's prosperity. It was amazing that neither should lose patience; that neither should say, You are trying to deceive me, and I know it. We may question whether two men of northern race could have carried on such a dialogue without bursting out in open anger, or at least glaring with eyes full of suspicion and defiance.
"You will find her changed," continued Coronado, when he had submitted to the old man's persistence. "She has grown thinner and sadder. You must not notice it, however; you must compliment her on her health."
"What is she taking?" whispered Garcia.
"The less said, the better. My dear uncle, you must know nothing. Do not talk of it. The walls have ears."
"I know something that would be both safe and sure," persisted the old man in a still lower whisper.
"Leave all with me," answered Coronado, waving his hand authoritatively. "Too many cooks spoil the broth. What has begun well will end well."
After a time the two men went down to a shady veranda which half encircled the house, and found Mrs. Stanley taking an accidental siesta on a sort of lounge or sofa. Being a light sleeper, like many other active-minded people, she awoke at their approach and sat up to give reception.
"Mrs. Stanley, this is my uncle Garcia, my more than father," bowed Coronado.
"I have not forgotten him," replied Aunt Maria, who indeed was not likely to forget that mottled face, dyed blue with nitrate of silver.
Warmly shaking the puffy hand of the old toad, and doing her very best to smile upon him, she said, "How do you do, Mr. Garcia? I hope you are well. Mr. Coronado, do tell him that, and that I am rejoiced to see him."
Garcia's snaky glance just rose to the honest woman's face, and then crawled hurriedly all about the veranda, as if trying to hide in corners. Thanks to Coronado's fluency and invention, there was a mutually satisfactory conversation between the couple. He amplified the lady's compliments and then amplified the Mexican's compliments, until each looked upon the other as a person of unusual intelligence and a fast friend, Aunt Maria, however, being much the more thoroughly humbugged of the two.
"My uncle has come on urgent mercantile business, and he crowds in a few days with us," Coronado presently explained. "I have told him of my little cousin's good fortune, and he is delighted."
"I am so glad to hear it," said Mrs. Stanley. "What an excellent old man he is, to be sure! And you are just like him, Mr. Coronado—just as good and unselfish."
"You overestimate me," answered Coronado, with a smile which was almost ironical.
Before long Clara appeared. Garcia's eye darted a look at her which was like the spring of an adder, dwelling for just a second on the girl's face, and then scuttling off in an uncleanly, poisonous way for hiding corners. He saw that she was thin, and believed to a certain extent in Coronado's hints of poison, so that his glance was more cowardly than ordinary.
Liking the man not overmuch, but pleased to see a face which had been familiar to her childhood, and believing that she owed him large reparation for her grandfather's will, Clara advanced cordially to the old sinner.
"Welcome, Señor Garcia," she said, wondering that he did not kiss her cheek. "Welcome to your own house. It is all yours. Whatever you choose is yours."
"I rejoice in your good fortune," sighed Garcia.
"It is our common fortune," returned Clara, winding her arm in his and walking him up and down the veranda.
"May God give you long life to enjoy it," prayed Garcia.
"And you also," said Clara.
Coronado translated this conversation as fast as it was uttered to Mrs. Stanley.
"This is the golden age," cried that enthusiastic woman. "You Spaniards are the best people I ever saw. Your men absolutely emulate women in unselfishness."
"We would do it if it were possible," bowed Coronado.
"You do it," magnanimously insisted Aunt Maria, who felt that the baser sex ought to be encouraged.
"Señor Garcia, I ask a favor of you," continued Clara. "You must charge all the costs of the journey overland to me."
"It is unjust," replied the old man. "Madre de Dios! I can never permit it."
"If you need the money now, I will request my guardians, the executors, to advance it," persisted Clara, seeing that he refused with a faint heart.
"I might borrow it," conceded Garcia. "I shall have need of money presently. That journey was a great cost—a terribly bad speculation," he went on, shaking his mottled, bluish head wofully. "Not a piaster of profit."
"We will see to that," said Clara. "And then, when I am of age—but wait."
She shook her rosy forefinger gayly, radiant with the joy of generosity, and added, "You shall see. Wait!"
Coronado, in a rapid whisper, translated this conversation phrase by phrase to Mrs. Stanley, his object being to make Clara's promises public and thus engage her to their fulfilment.
"Of course!" exclaimed the impulsive Aunt Maria, who was amazingly generous with other people's money, and with her own when she had any to spare. "Of course Clara ought to pay. It is quite a different thing from giving up her rights. Certainly she must pay. That train did nothing but bring us two women. I really believe Mr. Garcia sent it for that purpose alone. Besides, the expense won't be much, I suppose."
"No," said Coronado, and he spoke the exact truth; that is, supposing an honest balance. The expedition proper had cost seven or eight thousand dollars, and about two thousand more had been sunk in assassination fees and other "extras." On the other hand, he had sold his wagons and beasts at the high prices of California, making a profit of two thousand dollars. In short, even deducting all that Coronado meant to appropriate to himself, Garcia would obtain a small profit from the affair.
Now ensued a strange underhanded drama. Garcia stayed week after week, riding often to the city on business or pretence of business, but passing most of his time at the hacienda, where he wandered about a great deal in a ghost-like manner, glancing slyly at Clara a hundred times a day without ever looking her in the eyes, and haunting her steps without overtaking or addressing her. Every time that she returned from a ride he shambled to the door to see if the saddle were empty. During the night he hearkened in the passages for outcries of sudden illness. And while he thus watched the girl, he was himself incessantly watched by his nephew.
"She gets no worse," the old man at last complained to the younger one. "I think she is growing fat."
"It is one of the symptoms," replied Coronado. "By the way, there is one thing which we ought to consider. If she gives you half of this estate—?"
"Madre de Dios! I would take it and go. But she cannot give until she is of age. And meantime she may marry."
He glanced suspiciously at his nephew, but Coronado kept his bland composure, merely saying, "No present danger of that. She sees no one but us."
He thought of adding, "Why not marry her yourself, my dear uncle?" But Garcia might retort, "And you?" which would be confusing.
"Suppose she should make a will in your favor?" the nephew preferred to suggest.
"I cannot wait. I must have money now. Make a will? Madre de Dios! She would outlive me. Besides, he who makes a will can break a will."
After a minute of anxious thought, he asked, "How much do you think she will give me?"
"I will ask her."
"Nother," returned Garcia petulantly. "Are you a pig, an ass, a fool? Ask the old one—the duenna. It ought to be a great deal; it ought to be half—and more."
To satisfy the old man as well as himself, Coronado sounded Mrs. Stanley as to the proposed division.
"Yes, indeed!" said the lady emphatically. "Clara must do something for Garcia, who has been such an excellent friend, and who ought to have been named in the will. But you know she has her duties toward herself as well as toward others. Now the property is not a million; it may be some day or other, but it isn't now. The executors say it might bring three hundred thousand dollars in ready money."
The executors, by the way, had been sedulously depreciating the value of the estate to Clara, in order to bring down her vast notions of generosity.
"Well," continued Aunt Maria, "my niece, who is a true woman and magnanimous, wanted to give up half. But that is too much, Mr. Coronado. You see money" (here she commenced on something which she had read)—"money is not the same thing in our hands that it is in yours. When a man has a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, he puts it into business and doubles it, trebles it, and so on. But a woman can't do that; she is trammelled and hampered by the prejudices of this male world; she has to leave her money at small interest. If it doubles once in her life, she is lucky. So, you see, one half given to Garcia would be, practically speaking, much more than half," concluded Aunt Maria, looking triumphantly through her argument at Coronado.
The Mexican assented; he always assented to whatever she advanced; he did so because he considered her a fool and incapable of reasoning. Moreover, he was not anxious to see half of this estate drop into the hands of Garcia, believing that whatever Clara kept for herself would shortly be his own by right of marriage.
"You are the greatest woman of our times," he said, stepping backward a pace or two and surveying her as if she were a cathedral. "I should never have thought of those ideas. You ought to be a legislator and reform our laws."
"I never had a doubt that you would agree with me, Mr. Coronado," returned the gratified Aunt Maria. "Well, so does Clara; at least I trust so," she hesitated. "Now as to the sum which our good Garcia should receive. I have settled upon thirty thousand dollars. In his hands, you know, it would soon be a hundred and fifty thousand; that is to say, practically speaking, it would be half the estate."
"Certainly," bowed Coronado, meanwhile thinking, "You old ass!" "And my little cousin is of your opinion, I trust?" he added.
"Well—not quite—as yet," candidly admitted Aunt Maria. "But she is coming to it. I have no sort of doubt that she will end there."
So Coronado had learned nothing as yet of Clara's opinions. As he sauntered away to find Garcia, he queried whether he had best torment him with this unauthorized babble of Mrs. Stanley. On the whole, yes; it might bring him down to reasonable terms; the rapacious old man was expecting too large a slice of the dead Muñoz. So he told his tale, giving it out as something which could be depended on, but increasing the thirty thousand dollars to fifty thousand, on his own responsibility. To his alarm Garcia broke out in a venomous rage, calling everybody pigs, dogs, toads, etc.; and crying and cursing alternately.
"Fifty thousand piasters!" he squeaked, tottering about the room on his short weak legs and wringing his hands, so that he looked like a fat dog walking on his hind feet. "Fifty thousand piasters! O Madre de Dios! It is nothing. It is nothing. It will not save me from ruin. It will not cover my debts. I shall be sold out. I am ruined. Fifty thousand piasters! O Madre de Dios!"
Fifty thousand dollars would have left him more than solvent; but ten times that sum would not have satisfied his grasping soul.
Coronado saw that he had made a blunder, and sought to rectify it by lying copiously. He averred that he had been merely trying his uncle; he begged his pardon for this absurd and ill-timed joke; he admitted that he was a pig and a dog and everything else ignoble; he should not have trifled with the feelings of his benefactor, his more than father; those feelings were to him sacred, and should be held so henceforward and forever.
But he was not believed. He could fool the old man sometimes, but not on this occasion. Garcia, greedy and anxious, apt by nature to see the dark side of things, judged that the fifty-thousand-dollar story was the true one. Although he pretended at last to accept Coronado's explanation for fact, he remained at bottom unconvinced, and showed it in his swollen and trembling visage.
Thenceforward the nephew watched the uncle incessantly; during his absence he stole into his room, opened his baggage, and examined his drawers. And if he saw him near Clara at table, or when refreshments were handed around, he never took his eyes off him.
But he could not be always at hand. One day the two men rode to the city in company. Garcia dodged Coronado, hastened back to the hacienda, asked to have some chocolate prepared, poured out a cup for Clara, looked at her eagerly while she drank it, and then fell down in a fit.
An hour later Coronado returned at a full run, to find the old man just recovering his senses and Clara alarmingly ill.