"I must say," observed Thurstane--"I beg your pardon for advising--but I
think you had better accept your grandfather's invitation."
He said it with a pang at his heart, for if this adorable girl went to her
grandfather, the old fellow would be sure to love her and leave her his
property, in which case there would be no chance for a proud and poor
lieutenant. He gave his advice under a grim sense that it was his duty to
give it, because the following of it would be best for Miss Van Diemen.
"So I think," nodded Clara, fortified by this opinion to resist Aunt
Maria, and the more fortified because it was the opinion of a man.
After a certain amount of discussion the elder lady was persuaded to
loosen her mighty grip and give the destinies a little liberty.
"Well, it _may_ be best," she said, pursing her mouth as if she tasted the
bitter of some half-suspected and disagreeable future. "I don't know. I
won't undertake positively to decide. But, if you do go," and here she
became authentic and despotic--"if you do go, I shall go with you and see
you safe there."
"Oh! _will_ you?" exclaimed Clara, all Spanish and all emotion in an
instant. "How sweet and good and beautiful of you! You are my guardian
angel. Do you know? I thought you would offer to go. I said to myself, She
came on to Santa Fé for my sake, and she will go to California. But oh, it
is too much for me to ask. How shall I ever pay you?"
"I will pay myself," returned Aunt Maria. "I have plans for California."
It was as if she had said, "Go to, we will make California in our own
image."
The young lady was satisfied. Her strong-minded relative was a mighty
mystery to her, just as men were mighty mysteries. Whatever she or they
said could be done and should be done, why of course it would be done, and
that shortly.
By the time that Aunt Maria had announced her decision, another visitor
was on the point of entrance. Carlos Maria Muñoz Garcia de Coronado was a
nephew of Manuel Garcia, who was a cousin of Clara's grandfather; only, as
Garcia was merely his uncle by marriage, Coronado and Clara were not
related by blood, though calling each other cousin. He was a man of medium
stature, slender in build, agile and graceful in movement, complexion very
dark, features high and aristocratic, short black hair and small black
moustache, eyes black also, but veiled and dusky. He was about
twenty-eight, but he seemed at least four years older, partly because of a
deep wrinkle which slashed down each cheek, and partly because he was so
perfectly self-possessed and elaborately courteous. His intellect was
apparently as alert and adroit as his physical action. A few words from
Clara enabled him to seize the situation.
"Go at once," he decided without a moment's hesitation. "My dear cousin,
it will be the happy turning point of your fortunes. I fancy you already
inheriting the hoards, city lots, haciendas, mines, and cattle of our
excellent relative Muñoz--long may he live to enjoy them! Certainly. Don't
whisper an objection. Muñoz owes you that reparation. His conduct has
been--we will not describe it--we will hope that he means to make amends
for it. Unquestionably he will. My dear cousin, nothing can resist you.
You will enchant your grandfather. It will all end, like the tales of the
Arabian Nights, in your living in a palace. How delightful to think of
this long family quarrel at last coming to a close! But how do you go?"
"If Miss Van Diemen goes overland, I can do something toward protecting
her and making her comfortable," suggested Thurstane. "I am ordered to
Fort Yuma."
Coronado glanced at the young officer, noted the guilty blush which peeped
out of his tanned cheek, and came to a decision on the instant.
"Overland!" he exclaimed, lifting both his hands. "Take her overland! My
God! my God!"
Thurstane reddened at the insinuation that he had given bad advice to Miss
Van Diemen; but though he wanted to fight the Mexican, he controlled
himself, and did not even argue. Like all sensitive and at the same time
self-respectful persons, he was exceedingly considerate of the feelings of
others, and was a very lamb in conversation.
"It is a desert," continued Coronado in a kind of scream of horror. "It is
a waterless desert, without a blade of grass, and haunted from end to end
by Apaches. My little cousin would die of thirst and hunger. She would be
hunted and scalped. O my God! overland!"
"Emigrant parties are going all the while," ventured Thurstane, very angry
at such extravagant opposition, but merely looking a little stiff.
"Certainly. You are right, Lieutenant," bowed Coronado. "They do go. But
how many perish on the way? They march between the unburied and withered
corpses of their predecessors. And what a journey for a woman--for a lady
accustomed to luxury--for my little cousin! I beg your pardon, my dear
Lieutenant Thurstane, for disagreeing with you. My advice is--the
isthmus."
"I have, of course, nothing, to say," admitted the officer, returning
Coronado's bow. "The family must decide."
"Certainly, the isthmus, the steamers," went on the fluent Mexican. "You
sail to Panama. You have an easy and safe land trip of a few days. Then
steamers again. Poff! you are there. By all means, the isthmus."
We must allot a few more words of description to this Don Carlos Coronado.
Let no one expect a stage Spaniard, with the air of a matador or a
guerrillero, who wears only picturesque and outlandish costumes, and
speaks only magniloquent Castilian. Coronado was dressed, on this spring
morning, precisely as American dandies then dressed for summer promenades
on Broadway. His hat was a fine panama with a broad black ribbon; his
frock-coat was of thin cloth, plain, dark, and altogether civilized; his
light trousers were cut gaiter-fashion, and strapped under the instep; his
small boots were patent-leather, and of the ordinary type. There was
nothing poetic about his attire except a reasonably wide Byron collar and
a rather dashing crimson neck-tie, well suited to his dark complexion.
His manner was sometimes excitable, as we have seen above; but usually he
was like what gentlemen with us desire to be. Perhaps he bowed lower and
smiled oftener and gestured more gracefully than Americans are apt to do.
But there was in general nothing Oriental about him, no assumption of
barbaric pompousness, no extravagance of bearing. His prevailing
deportment was calm, grave, and deliciously courteous. If you had met him,
no matter how or where, you would probably have been pleased with him. He
would have made conversation for you, and put you at ease in a moment; you
would have believed that he liked you, and you would therefore have been
disposed to like him. In short, he was agreeable to most people, and to
some people fascinating.
And then his English! It was wonderful to hear him talk it. No American
could say that he spoke better English than Coronado, and no American
surely ever spoke it so fluently. It rolled off his lips in a torrent,
undefiled by a mispronunciation or a foreign idiom. And yet he had begun
to learn the language after reaching the age of manhood, and had acquired
it mainly during three years of exile and teaching of Spanish in the
United States. His linguistic cleverness was a fair specimen of his
general quickness of intellect.
Mrs. Stanley had liked him at first sight--that is, liked him for a man.
He knew it; he had seen that she was a person worth conciliating; he had
addressed himself to her, let off his bows at her, made her the centre of
conversation. In ten minutes from the entrance of Coronado Mrs. Stanley
was of opinion that Clara ought to go to California by way of the isthmus,
although she had previously taken the overland route for granted. In
another ten minutes the matter was settled: the ladies were to go by way
of New Orleans, Panama, and the Pacific.
Shortly afterward, Coronado and Thurstane took their leave; the Mexican
affable, sociable, smiling, smoking; the American civil, but taciturn and
grave.
"Aha! I have disappointed the young gentleman," thought Coronado as they
parted, the one going to his quartermaster's office and the other to
Garcia's house.
Coronado, although he had spent great part of his life in courting women,
was a bachelor. He had been engaged once in New Mexico and two or three
times in New York, but had always, as he could tell you with a smile, been
disappointed. He now lived with his uncle, that Señor Manuel Garcia whom
Clara has mentioned, a trader with California, an owner of vast estates
and much cattle, and reputed to be one of the richest men in New Mexico.
The two often quarrelled, and the elder had once turned the younger out of
doors, so lively were their dispositions. But as Garcia had lost one by
one all his children, he had at last taken his nephew into permanent
favor, and would, it was said, leave him his property.
The house, a hollow square built of _adobe_ bricks in one story, covered a
vast deal of ground, had spacious rooms and a court big enough to bivouac
a regiment. It was, in fact, not only a dwelling, but a magazine where
Garcia stored his merchandise, and a caravansary where he parked his
wagons. As Coronado lounged into the main doorway he was run against by a
short, pursy old gentleman who was rushing out.
"Ah! there you are!" exclaimed the old gentleman, in Spanish. "O you pig!
you dog! you never are here. O Madre de Dios! how I have needed you! There
is no time to lose. Enter at once."
A dyspeptic, worn with work and anxieties, his nervous system shattered,
Garcia was subject to fits of petulance which were ludicrous. In these
rages he called everybody who would bear it pigs, dogs, and other more
unsavory nicknames. Coronado bore it because thus he got his living, and
got it without much labor.
"I want you," gasped Garcia, seizing the young man by the arm and dragging
him into a private room. "I want to speak to you in confidence--in
confidence, mind you, in confidence--about Muñoz."
"I have heard of it," said Coronado, as the old man stopped to catch his
breath.
"Heard of it!" exclaimed Garcia, in such consternation that he turned
yellow, which was his way of turning pale. "Has the news got here? O Madre
de Dios!"
"Yes, I was at our little cousin's this evening. It is an ugly affair."
"And _she_ knows it?" groaned the old man. "O Madre de Dios!"
"She told me of it. She is going there. I did the best I could. She was
about to go overland, in charge of the American, Thurstane. I broke that
up. I persuaded her to go by the isthmus."
"It is of little use," said Garcia, his eyes filmy with despair, as if he
were dying. "She will get there. The property will be hers."
"Not necessarily. He has simply invited her to live with him. She may not
suit."
"How?" demanded Garcia, open-eyed and open-mouthed with anxiety.
"He has simply invited her to live with him," repeated Coronado. "I saw
the letter."
"What! you don't know, then?"
"Know what?"
"Muñoz is dead."
Coronado threw out, first a stare of surprise, and then a shout of
laughter.
"And here they have just got a letter from him," he said presently; "and I
have been persuading her to go to him by the isthmus!"
"May the journey take her to him!" muttered Garcia. "How old was this
letter?"
"Nearly three months. It came by sea, first to New York, and then here."
"My news is a month later. It came overland by special messenger. Listen
to me, Carlos. This affair is worse than you know. Do you know what Muñoz
has done? Oh, the pig! the dog! the villainous pig! He has left everything
to his granddaughter."
Coronado, dumb with astonishment and dismay, mechanically slapped his boot
with his cane and stared at Garcia.
"I am ruined," cried the old man. "The pig of hell has ruined me. He has
left me, his cousin, his only male relative, to ruin. Not a doubloon to
save me.'
"Is there _no_ chance?" asked Coronado, after a long silence.
"None! Oh--yes--one. A little one, a miserable little one. If she dies
without issue and without a will, I am heir. And you, Carlos" (changing
here to a wheedling tone), "you are mine."
The look which accompanied these last words was a terrible mingling of
cunning, cruelty, hope, and despair.
Coronado glanced at Garcia with a shocking comprehension, and immediately
dropped his dusky eyes upon the floor.
"You know I have made my will," resumed the old man, "and left you
everything."
"Which is nothing," returned Coronado, aware that his uncle was insolvent
in reality, and that his estate when settled would not show the residuum
of a dollar.
"If the fortune of Muñoz comes to me, I shall be very rich."
"When you get it."
"Listen to me, Carlos. Is there no way of getting it?"
As the two men stared at each other they were horrible. The uncle was
always horrible; he was one of the very ugliest of Spaniards; he was a
brutal caricature of the national type. He had a low forehead, round face,
bulbous nose, shaking fat cheeks, insignificant chin, and only one eye, a
black and sleepy orb, which seemed to crawl like a snake. His exceedingly
dark skin was made darker by a singular bluish tinge which resulted from
heavy doses of nitrate of silver, taken as a remedy for epilepsy. His face
was, moreover, mottled with dusky spots, so that he reminded the spectator
of a frog or a toad. Just now he looked nothing less than poisonous; the
hungriest of cannibals would not have dared eat him.
"I am ruined," he went on groaning. "The war, the Yankees, the Apaches,
the devil--I am completely ruined. In another year I shall be sold out.
Then, my dear Carlos, you will have no home."
"_Sangre de Dios!_" growled Coronado. "Do you want to drive me to the
devil?
"O God! to force an old man to such an extremity!" continued Garcia. "It
is more than an old man is fitted to strive with. An old man--an old,
sick, worn-out man!"
"You are sure about the will?" demanded the nephew.
"I have a copy of it," said Garcia, eagerly. "Here it is. Read it. O Madre
de Dios! there is no doubt about it. I can trust my lawyer. It all goes to
her. It only comes to me if she dies childless and intestate."
"This is a horrible dilemma to force us into," observed Coronado, after he
had read the paper.
"So it is," assented Garcia, looking at him with indescribable anxiety.
"So it is; so it is. What is to be done?"
"Suppose I should marry her?"
The old man's countenance fell; he wanted to call his nephew a pig, a dog,
and everything else that is villainous; but he restrained himself and
merely whimpered, "It would be better than nothing. You could help me."
"There is little chance of it," said Coronado, seeing that the proposition
was not approved. "She likes the American lieutenant much, and does not
like me at all."
"Then--" began Garcia, and stopped there, trembling all over.
"Then what?"
The venomous old toad made a supreme effort and whispered, "Suppose she
should die?"
Coronado wheeled about, walked two or three times up and down the room,
returned to where Garcia sat quivering, and murmured, "It must be done
quickly."
"Yes, yes," gasped the old man. "She must--it must be childless and
intestate."
"She must go off in some natural way," continued the nephew.
The uncle looked up with a vague hope in his one dusky and filmy eye.
"Perhaps the isthmus will do it for her."
Again the old man turned to an image of despair, as he mumbled, "O Madre
de Dios! no, no. The isthmus is nothing."
"Is the overland route more dangerous?" asked Coronado.
"It might be made more dangerous. One gets lost in the desert. There are
Apaches."
"It is a horrible business," growled Coronado, shaking his head and biting
his lips.
"Oh, horrible, horrible!" groaned Garcia. "Muñoz was a pig, and a dog, and
a toad, and a snake."
"You old coward! can't you speak out?" hissed Coronado, losing his
patience. "Do you want me both to devise and execute, while you take the
purses? Tell me at once what your plan is."
"The overland route," whispered Garcia, shaking from head to foot. "You go
with her. I pay--I pay everything. You shall have men, horses, mules,
wagons, all you want."
"I shall want money, too. I shall need, perhaps, two thousand dollars.
Apaches."
"Yes, yes," assented Garcia. "The Apaches make an attack. You shall have
money. I can raise it; I will."
"How soon will you have a train ready?"
"Immediately. Any day you want. You must start at once. She must not know
of the will. She might remain here, and let the estate be settled for her,
and draw on it. She might go back to New York. Anybody would lend her
money."
"Yes, events hurry us," muttered Coronado. "Well, get your cursed train
ready. I will induce her to take it. I must unsay now all that I said in
favor of the isthmus."
"Do be judicious," implored Garcia. "With judgment, with judgment. Lost on
the plains. Stolen by Apaches. No killing. No scandals. O my God, how I
hate scandals and uproars! I am an old man, Carlos. With judgment, with
judgment."
"I comprehend," responded Coronado, adding a long string of Spanish
curses, most of them meant for his uncle.