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. For _your_ sake, 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.