Clara had been taken ill while waiting on the unconscious Garcia, and the
attack had been so violent as to drive her at once to her room and bed.
The first person whom Coronado met when he reached the house was Aunt
Maria, oscillating from one invalid to the other in such fright and
confusion that she did not know whether she was strong-minded or not; but
thus far chiefly troubled about Garcia, who seemed to her to be in a dying
state.
"Your uncle!" she exclaimed, beckoning wildly to Coronado as he rushed in
at the door.
"I know," he answered hastily. "A servant told me. How is Clara?"
He was as pale as a man of his dark complexion could be. Aunt Maria caught
his alarm, and, forgetting at once all about Garcia, ran on with him to
Clara's room. The girl was just then in one of her spasms, her features
contracted and white, and her forehead covered with a cold sweat.
"What is it?" whispered Mrs. Stanley, clutching Coronado by the arm and
staring eagerly at his anxious eyes.
"It is--fever," he returned, making a great effort to control his rage and
terror. "Give her warm water to drink. My God! give her something."
He sent three servants in succession to search for three different
physicians swearing at them violently while they made their preparations,
telling them to ride like the devil, to kill their horses, etc. When he
returned to Clara's room she had come out of her paroxysm, and was feebly
trying to smile away Aunt Maria's terrors.
"My cousin!" he whispered in unmistakable anguish of spirit.
"I am better," she replied. "Thank you, Coronado. How is Garcia?"
Coronado looked as if he were devoting some one to the infernal furies;
but he suppressed his emotion and replied in a smothered voice, "I will go
and see."
Hurrying to his uncle's room, he motioned out the attendants, closed the
door, locked it, and then, with a scowl of rage and alarm, advanced upon
the invalid, who by this time was perfectly conscious.
"What have you given her?" demanded Coronado, in a hoarse mutter.
"I don't know what you mean," stammered the old man. He shut his one eye,
not because he could not keep it open, but to evade the conflict which was
coming upon him.
Taking quick advantage of the closed eye, Coronado turned to a
dressing-table, pulled out a drawer, seized a key, and opened Garcia's
trunk. Before the old man could interfere, the younger one held in his
hand a paper containing two ounces or so of white powder.
"Did you give her this?" demanded Coronado.
Garcia stared at the paper with such a scared and guilty face, that it was
equivalent to a confession.
Coronado turned away to hide his face. There was a strange smile upon it;
at first it was a joy which made him half angelic; then it became
amusement. He tottered to a chair, threw himself into it with the air of a
thoroughly wearied man who finds rest delicious, put a grain of the powder
on his tongue, and then drew a long sigh, a sigh of entire relief.
We must explain. The inner history of this scene is not a tragedy, but a
farce. For two weeks or more Coronado had been watching his uncle day and
night, and at last had found in his trunk a paper of powder which he
suspected to be arsenic. A blunderer would have destroyed or hidden it,
thereby warning Garcia that he was being looked after, and causing him to
be more careful about his hiding places. Coronado emptied the paper,
snapped off every grain of the powder with his finger, wiped it clean with
his handkerchief, and refilled it with another powder. The selection of
this second powder was another piece of cleverness. He had at hand both
flour and finely pulverized sugar; but he wanted to learn whether Garcia
would really dose the girl, and he wanted a chance to frighten him; so he
chose a substance which would be harmless, and yet would cause illness.
"You will be hung," said Coronado, staring sternly at his uncle.
"I don't know what you mean," mumbled the old man, trembling all over.
"What a fool you were to use a poison so easily detected as arsenic! I
have sent for doctors. They will recognize her symptoms. You prepared the
chocolate. Here is the arsenic in your trunk. You will be hung."
"Give me that paper," whimpered Garcia, rising from his bed and staggering
toward Coronado. "Give it to me. It is mine."
Coronado put the package behind him with one hand and held off his uncle
with the other.
"You must go," he persisted. "She won't live two hours. Be off before you
are arrested. Take horse for San Francisco. If there is a steamer, get
aboard of it. Never mind where it sails to."
"Give me the paper," implored Garcia, going down on his knees. "O Madre de
Dios! My head, my head! Oh, what extremities! Give me the paper. Carlos,
it was all for your sake."
"Are you going?" demanded Coronado.
"Oh yes. Madre de Dios! I am going."
"Come along. By the back way. Do you want to pass _her_ room? Do you want
to see your work? I will send your trunk to the bankers. Quit California
at the first chance. Quit it at once, if you go to China."
As Coronado looked after the flying old man he heard himself called by
Mrs. Stanley, who was by this time in great terror about Clara, trotting
hither and thither after help and counsel.
"Oh, Mr. Coronado, do come!" she urged. Then, catching sight of the
galloping Garcia, "But what does that mean? Has he gone mad?"
"Nearly," said Coronado. "I brought him news of pressing business. How is
my cousin?"
"Oh dear! I am terribly alarmed. Do look at her. Will those doctors never
come!"
Coronado, who had been a little in advance of Mrs. Stanley as they hurried
toward Clara's room, suddenly stopped, wheeled about with a smile, seized
her hands, and shook them heartily.
"I have it," he exclaimed with a fine imitation of joyful astonishment.
"There is no danger. I can explain the whole trouble. My poor uncle has
these attacks, and he is extravagantly fond of chocolate. To relieve the
attacks he always carries a paper of medicine in one of his vest pockets.
To sweeten his chocolate he carries a paper of sugar in the companion
pocket. You may be sure that he has made a mistake between the two. He has
dosed Clara with his physic. There is no danger."
He laughed in the most natural manner conceivable; then he checked himself
and said: "My poor little cousin! It is no joke for her."
"Certainly not," snapped Aunt Maria, relieved and yet angry. "How
excessively stupid! Here is Clara as sick as can be, and I frightened out
of my senses. Men ought not to meddle with cookery. They are such botches,
even in their own business!"
But presently, after she had given Coronado's explanation to Clara, and
the girl had laughed heartily over it and declared herself much better,
Aunt Maria recovered her good humor and began to pity that poor, sick,
driven Garcia.
"The brave old creature!" she said. "Out of his fits and off on his
business. I must say he is a wonder. Let us hope he will come out all
right, and soon return to us. But really he ought to be seen to. He may
fall off his horse in a fit, or he may dose somebody dreadfully with his
chocolate and get taken up for poisoning. Mr. Coronado, you ought to ride
into town to-morrow and look after him."
"Certainly," replied Coronado. He did so, and returned with the news that
Garcia had sailed to San Diego, having been summoned back to Santa Fé by
the state of his affairs. That day and the night following he slept
fourteen hours, making up the arrears of rest which he had lost in
watching his uncle. Henceforward he was easier; he had a pretty clear
field before him; there was no one present to poison Clara; no one but
himself to court her. And the courtship went forward with a better
prospect of success than is quite agreeable to contemplate.
Coronado and Clara were Adam and Eve; they were the only man and woman in
this paradise. People thus situated are claimed by a being whom most call
a goddess, and some a demon. She is protean; she is at once an invariable
formula and an individual caprice; she is a law governing the universal
multitude, and a passion swaying the unit. She seems to be under an
impression that, where a couple are left alone together, they are the last
relics of the human race, and that if they do not marry the type will
perish. Indifferent to all considerations but one, she pushes them toward
each other.
There is comparative safety from her in a crowd. Bachelors and maidens who
mingle by hundreds may remain bachelors and maidens. But pair them off in
lonely places and see if the result is not amazingly hymeneal. A fellow
who has run the gauntlet of seven years of parties in New York will marry
the first agreeable girl whom he meets in Alaska. There is such a thing as
leaving the haunts of men and repairing to waste places to find a husband.
We are told that English girls have reduced this to a system, and that
fair archers who have failed at Brighton go out to hunt successfully in
India.
Well, Coronado had the favoring chances of solitude, propinquity, and
daily opportunity. Seldom away from Clara for a day together, he was in
condition to take advantage of any of those moods which lay woman open to
courtship, such as gratitude for attentions, a disgust with loneliness, a
desire for something to love. It was a great thing for him that there was
work about the hacienda which no woman could easily do; that there were
men servants to govern, horses to be herded, valued, and sold, and lands
to be cultivated. All these male mysteries were soon handed over to
Coronado, subject to the advice of Aunt Maria and the final judgment of
Clara. The result was that _he_ and _she_ got into a way of frequently
discussing many things which threatened to habituate her to the idea of
being at one with him through life.
Have you ever watched two specks floating in a vessel of water? For a long
time they approach each other so slowly that the movement is imperceptible
but at last they are within range of each other's magnetism; there is a
start, a swift rush, and they are together. Thus it was that Clara was
gently, very gently, and unconsciously to herself, approaching Coronado. A
mote on the wave of life, she was subject to attraction, as all of us
motes are, and this man was the only tractor at hand. Aunt Maria did not
count, for woman cannot absorb woman. As to Thurstane, he not only was not
there, but he was not anywhere, as she at last believed.
Not a word from him or about him, except one letter from the
Adjutant-General, which somehow evaded Coronado's brazier, gave her a
moment of choking hope and fear, opened its white, official lips,
acknowledged her "communication," and stopped there. The unseen tragedies
in which souls suffer are numberless. Here was one. The girl had written
with tears and heart-beats, and then with tears and heart-beats had
waited. At last came the words, "I have the honor to acknowledge, etc.,
very respectfully, etc." It was one of the business-like facts of life
unknowingly trampling upon a bleeding sentiment.
Imagine Clara's agitations during this long suspense; her plans and hopes
and despairs would furnish matter for a library. There was not a day, if
indeed there was an hour, during which her mind was not the theatre of a
dozen dramas whereof Thurstane was the hero, either triumphant or
perishing. They were horribly fragmentary; they broke off and pieced on to
each other like nightmares; one moment he was rescued, and the next
tomahawked. And this last fancy, despite all her struggles to hope, was
for the most part victorious. Meantime Coronado, guessing her sufferings,
and suffering horribly himself with jealousy, talked much and
sympathetically to her of Thurstane. So much did this man bear, and with
such outward sweetness did he bear it, that one half longs to consider him
a martyr and saint. Pity that his goodness should not bear dissection;
that it should have no more life in it than a stuffed mannikin; that it
should be just fit to scare crows with.
But hypocrite as Coronado was, he was clever enough to win every day more
of Clara's confidence; and perhaps she might have walked into this whited
sepulchre in due time had it not been for an accident. Cantering into San
Francisco to hold a consultation with her lawyer, she was saluted in the
street by a United States officer, also on horseback. She instinctively
drew rein, her pulse throbbing at sight of the uniform, and wild hopes
beating at her heart.
"Miss Van Diemen, I believe," said the officer, a dark, stout,
bold-looking trooper. "I am glad to see that you reached here in safety.
You have forgotten me. I am Major Robinson."
"I remember," said Clara, who had not recollected him at first because she
was looking solely for Thurstane. "You passed us in the desert."
"Yes, I took your soldiers away from you, and you declined my escort. I
was anxious about you afterwards. Well, it has ended right in spite of me.
Of course you have heard of Thurstane's escape."
"Escape!" exclaimed Clara, her face turning scarlet and then pale. "Oh!
tell me!"
The major stared. He had guessed a love affair between these two; he had
inferred it in the desert from the girl's anxiety about the young man.
How came it that she knew nothing of the escape?
"So I have heard," he went on. "I think there can be no mistake about it.
I learned it from a civilian who left Fort Yuma some weeks ago. I don't
think he could have been mistaken. He told me that the lieutenant was
there then. Not well, I am sorry to say; rather broken down by his
hardships. Oh, nothing serious, you know. But he was a trifle under the
weather, which may account for his not letting his friends hear from him."
At the story that Thurstane was alive, all Clara's love had arisen as if
from a grave, and the mightier because of its resurrection. She was full
of self-reproaches. It seemed to her that she had neglected him; that she
had cruelly left him to die. Why had she not guessed that he was sick
there, and flown to nurse him to health? What had he thought of her
conduct? She must go to him at once.
"I am sorry to say that I can tell you no more," continued the major in
response to her eager gaze.
"I am so obliged to you!" gasped Clara. "If you hear anything more, will
you please let me know? Will you please come and see me?"
The major promised and took down her address, but added that he was just
starting on an inspecting tour, and that for a fortnight to come he should
be able to give her no further information.
They had scarcely parted ere Clara had resolved to go at once to Fort
Yuma. The moment was favorable, for she had with her an intelligent and
trustworthy servant, and Coronado had been summoned to a distance by
business, so that he could make no opposition. She hastened to her
lawyer's, finished her affairs there, drew what money she needed for her
journey, learned that a brig was about to start for the Gulf, and sent her
man to secure a passage. When he returned with news that the Lolotte would
sail next day at noon, she decided not to go back to the hacienda, and
took rooms at a hotel.
What would people say? She did not care; she was going. She had been
womanish and timorous too long; this was the great crisis which would
decide her future; she must be worthy of it and of _him_. But remembering
Aunt Maria, she sent a letter by messenger to the hacienda, explaining
that pressing business called her to be absent for some weeks, and
confessing in a postscript that her business referred to Lieutenant
Thurstane. This letter brought Coronado down upon her next morning.
Returning home unexpectedly, he learned the news from his friend Mrs.
Stanley, and was hammering at Clara's door not more than an hour later,
all in a tremble with anxiety and rage.
"This must not be," he stormed. "Such a journey! Twenty-five hundred
miles! And for a man who has not deigned to write to you! It is degrading.
I will not have it. I forbid it."
"Coronado, stop!" ordered Clara; and it is to be feared that she stamped
her little foot at him; at all events she quelled him instantly.
He sat down, glared like a mad dog, sprang up and rushed to the door,
halted there to stare at her imploringly, and finally muttered in a hoarse
voice, "Well--let it be so--since you are crazed. But I shall go with
you."
"You can go," replied Clara haughtily, after meditating for some seconds,
during which he looked the picture of despair. "You can go, if you wish
it."
An hour later she said, in her usually gentle tone, "Coronado, pardon me
for having spoken to you angrily. You are kinder than I deserve."
The reader can infer from this speech how humble, helpful, and courteous
the man had been in the mean time. Coronado was no half-way character; if
he did not like you, he was the fellow to murder you; if he decided to be
sweet, he was all honey. Perhaps we ought to ask excuse for Clara's
tartness by explaining that she was in a state of extreme anxiety,
remembering that Robinson had hesitated when he said Thurstane was not so
very ill, and fearing lest he knew worse things than he had told.
Meanwhile, let no one suppose that the Mexican meant to let his lady love
go to Fort Yuma. He had his plan for stopping her, and we may put
confidence enough in him to believe that it was a good one; only at the
last moment circumstances turned up which decided him to drop it. Yes, at
the last moment, just as he was about to pull his leading strings, he saw
good reason for wishing her far away from San Francisco.
A face appeared to him; at the first glimpse of it Coronado slipped into
the nearest doorway, and from that moment his chief anxiety was to cause
the girl to vanish. Yes, he must get her started on her voyage, even at
the risk of her continuing it.
"What the devil is he here for?" he muttered. "Has he found out that she
is living?"