At noon the Lolotte, a broad-beamed, flat-floored brig of light draught
and good sailing qualities, hove up her anchor and began beating out of
the Bay of San Francisco, with Coronado and Clara on her quarter-deck.
"You have no other passengers, I understood you to say, captain," observed
Coronado, who was anxious on that point, preferring there should be none.
The master, a Dane by birth named Jansen, who had grown up in the American
mercantile service, was a middle-sized, broad-shouldered man, with a red
complexion, red whiskers, and a look which was at once grave and fiery. He
paused in his heavy lurching to and fro, looked at the Mexican with an air
which was civil but very stiff, and answered in that discouraging tone
with which skippers are apt to smother conversation when they have
business on hand, "Yes, sir, one other."
Coronado presently slipped down the companionway, found the colored
steward, chinked five dollars into his horny palm, and said, "My good
fellow, you must look out for me; I shall want a good deal of help during
the passage."
"Yes, sah, very good, sah," was the answer, uttered in a greasy chuckle,
as though it were the speech of a slab of bacon fat. "Make you up any
little thing, sah. Have a sup now, sah? Little gruel? Little brof?"
"No, thank you," returned Coronado, turning half sick at the mention of
those delicacies. "Nothing at present. By the way, one of the staterooms
is occupied I see. Who is the other passenger?"
"Dunno, sah; keeps hisself shut up, an' says nothin' to nobody. 'Pears
like he is sailin' under secret orders. Cur'ous' lookin' old gent; got
only one eye."
One eye! Coronado thought of the face which had frightened him out of San
Francisco, and wondered whether he were shut up in the Lolotte with it.
"One eye?" he asked. "Short, stout, dark old gentleman? Indeed! I think I
know him."
Stepping to the door of a stateroom which he had already noticed as being
kept closed, he tapped lightly. There was a muttering inside, a shuffling
as of some one getting out of a berth, and then a low inquiry in Spanish,
"Who is there?"
"Me, sah," returned Coronado, imitating, and imitating perfectly, the
accent of the steward, who meantime had gone forward, talking and
sniggering to himself, after an idiotic way that he had.
The door opened a trifle, and Coronado instantly slipped the toe of his
little boot into the crack, at the same time saying in his natural tone,
"My dear uncle!"
Seeing that he was discovered, Garcia gave his nephew entrance, closed the
door after him, locked it, and sat down trembling on the edge of the lower
berth, groaning and almost whimpering, "Ah, my son! Ah, my dear Carlos!
Oh, what a life I have to lead! Madre de Dios, what a life! I thought you
were one of my creditors. I did indeed, my dear Carlos, my son."
"I thought you went back to Santa Fé" was Coronado's reply.
"No, I did not go; I started, but I came back," mumbled Garcia. Then,
plucking up a little spirit, he turned his one eye for a moment on his
nephew's face, and added, "Why should I go to Santa Fé? I had no business
there. My business is here."
"But after your attempt at the hacienda?"
"My attempt! I made no attempt. All that was a mistake. Because I was
sick, I was frightened and did not know what to do. I ran away because you
told me to run. I had given her nothing. Yes, I did put something in her
chocolate, but it was my medicine. I meant to put in sugar, but I made a
mistake and went to the wrong pocket, the pocket of my medicine. That was
it, Carlos. I give you my word, word of a hidalgo, word of a Christian."
It was the same explanation which Coronado had invented to forestall
suspicions at the hacienda. It was surely a wonderful coincidence of
lying, and shows how great minds work alike. Vexed and angry as the nephew
was, he could scarcely help smiling.
"My dear uncle!" he exclaimed, grasping Garcia's pudgy hand
melodramatically. "The very thing that occurred to me! I told them so."
"Did you?" replied the old man, not much believing it. "Then all is well."
He wanted to ask how it was that Clara had survived her dose; but of
course curiosity on that subject must not find vent; it would be
equivalent to a confession.
"Where is she going?" were his next words.
"To Fort Yuma."
"To Fort Yuma! What for?"
"I may as well tell it," burst out Coronado angrily. "She is going there
to nurse that officer. He escaped, but he has been sick, and she _will_
go."
"She must not go," whispered Garcia. "Oh, the ----." And here he called
Clara a string of names which cannot be repeated. "She shall not go
there," he continued. "She will marry him. Then the property is gone, and
we are ruined. Oh, the ----." And then came another assortment of violent
and vile epithets, such as are not found in dictionaries.
Coronado was anxious to divert and dissipate a rage which might make
trouble; and as soon as he could get in a word, he asked, "But what have
you been doing, my uncle?"
By dint of questioning and guessing he made out the story of the old man's
adventures since leaving the hacienda. Garcia, in extreme terror of
hanging, had gone straight to San Francisco and taken passage for San
Diego, with the intention of not stopping until he should be at least as
far away as Santa Fé. But after a few hours at sea, he had recovered his
wits and his courage, and asked himself, why should he fly? If Clara died,
the property would be his, and if she survived, he ought to be near her;
while as for Carlos, he would surely never expose and hang a man who could
cut him off with a shilling. So he landed at Monterey, took the first
coaster back to San Francisco, lurked about the city until he learned that
the girl was still living, and was just about to put a bold front on the
matter by going to see her at the hacienda, when he learned accidentally
that she was on the point of voyaging southward. Puzzled and alarmed by
this, he resolved to accompany her in her wanderings, and succeeded in
getting himself quietly on board the Lolotte.
"Well, let us go on deck," said Coronado, when the old man had regained
his tranquillity. "But let us be gentle, my uncle. We know how to govern
ourselves, I hope. You will of course behave like a mother to our little
cousin. Congratulate her on her recovery; apologize for your awkward
mistake. It was caused by the coming on of the fit, you remember. A man
who is about to have an attack of epilepsy can't of course tell one pocket
from another. But such a man is all the more bound to be unctuous."
Clara received the old man cordially, although she would have preferred
not to see him there, fearing lest he should oppose her nursing project.
But as nothing was said on this matter, and as Garcia put his least cloven
foot foremost, the trio not only got on amicably together, but seemed to
enjoy one another's society. This was no common feat by the way; each of
the three had a great load of anxiety; it was wonderful that they should
not show it. Coronado, for instance, while talking like a bird song, was
planning how he could get rid of Garcia, and carry Clara back to San
Francisco. The idea of pushing the old man overboard was inadmissible; but
could he not scare him ashore at the next port by stories of a leak? As
for Clara, he could not imagine how to manage her, she was so potent with
her wealth and with her beauty. He was still thinking of these things, and
prattling mellifluously of quite other things, when the Lolotte luffed up
under the lee of the little island of Alcatraz.
"What does this mean?" he asked, looking suspiciously at the
fortifications, with the American flag waving over them.
"Stop here to take in commissary stores for Fort Yuma," explained the
thin, sallow, grave, meek-looking, and yet resolute Yankee mate.
The chain cable rattled through the hawse hole, and in no long while the
loading commenced, lasting until nightfall. During this time Coronado
chanced to learn that an officer was expected on board who would sail as
far as San Diego; and, as all uniforms were bugbears to him, he watched
for the new passenger with a certain amount of anxiety; taking care, by
the way, to say nothing of him to Clara. About eight in the evening, as
the girl was playing some trivial game of cards with Garcia in the cabin,
a splashing of oars alongside called Coronado on deck. It was already
dark; a sailor was standing by the manropes with a lantern; the captain
was saying in a grumbling tone, "Very late, sir."
"Had to wait for orders, captain," returned a healthy, ringing young voice
which struck Coronado like a shot.
"Orders!" muttered the skipper. "Why couldn't they have had them ready?
Here we are going to have a southeaster."
There was anxiety as well as impatience in his voice; but Coronado just
now could not think of tempests; his whole soul was in his eyes. The next
instant he beheld in the ruddy light of the lantern the face of the man
who was his evil genius, the man whose death he had so long plotted for
and for a time believed in, the man who, as he feared, would yet punish
him for his misdeeds. He was so thoroughly beaten and cowed by the sight
that he made a step or two toward the companionway, with the purpose of
hiding in the cabin. Then desperation gave him courage, and he walked
straight up to Thurstane.
"My dear Lieutenant!" he cried, trying to seize the young fellow's hand.
"Once more welcome to life! What a wonder! Another escape. You are a
second Orlando--almost a Don Quixote. And where are your two Sancho
Panzas?"
"You here!" was Thurstane's grim response, and he did not take the
proffered hand.
"Come!" implored Coronado, stepping toward the waist of the vessel and
away from the cabin. "This way, if you please," he urged, beckoning
earnestly. "I have a word to say to you in private."
Not a tone of this conversation had been heard below. Before the boat had
touched the side the crew were laboring at the noisy windlass with their
shouts of "Yo heave ho! heave and pawl! heave hearty ho!" while the mate
was screaming from the knight-heads, "Heave hearty, men--heave hearty.
Heave and raise the dead. Heave and away."
Amid this uproar Coronado continued: "You won't shake hands with me,
Lieutenant Thurstane. As a gentleman, speaking to another gentleman, I ask
an explanation."
Thurstane hesitated; he had ugly suspicions enough, but no proofs; and if
he could not prove guilt, he must not charge it.
"Is it because we abandoned you?" demanded Coronado. "We had reason. We
heard that you were dead. The muleteers reported Apaches. I feared for the
safety of the ladies. I pushed on. You, a gentleman and an officer--what
else would you have advised?"
"Let it go," growled Thurstane. "Let that pass. I won't talk of it--nor of
other things. But," and here he seemed to shake with emotion, "I want
nothing more to do with you--you nor your family. I have had suffering
enough."
"Ah, it is with _her_ that you quarrel rather than with me," inferred
Coronado impudently, for he had recovered his self-possession. "Certainly,
my poor Lieutenant! You have reason. But remember, so has she. She is
enormously rich and can have any one. That is the way these women
understand life."
"You will oblige me by saying not another word on that subject," broke in
Thurstane savagely. "I got her letter dismissing me, and I accepted my
fate without a word, and I mean never to see her again. I hope that
satisfies you."
"My dear Lieutenant," protested Coronado, "you seem to intimate that I
influenced her decision. I beg you to believe, on my word of honor as a
gentleman, that I never urged her in any way to write that letter."
"Well--no matter--I don't care," replied the young fellow in a voice like
one long sob. "I don't care whether you did or not. The moment she could
write it, no matter how or why, that was enough. All I ask is to be left
alone--to hear no more of her."
"I am obliged to speak to you of her," said Coronado. "She is aboard."
"Aboard!" exclaimed Thurstane, and he made a step as if to reach the shore
or to plunge into the sea.
"I am sorry for you," said Coronado, with a simplicity which seemed like
sincerity. "I thought it my duty to warn you."
"I cannot go back," groaned the young fellow. "I must go to San Diego. I
am under orders."
"You must avoid her. Go to bed late. Get up early. Keep out of her way."
Turning his back, Thurstane walked away from this cruel and hated
counsellor, not thinking at all of him however, but rather of the deep
beneath, a refuge from trouble.
We must slip back to his last adventure with Texas Smith, and learn a
little of what happened to him then and up to the present time.
It will be remembered how the bushwhacker sat in ambush; how, just as he
was about to fire at his proposed victim, his horse whinnied; and how this
whinny caused Thurstane's mule to rear suddenly and violently. The rearing
saved the rider's life, for the bullet which was meant for the man buried
itself in the forehead of the beast, and in the darkness the assassin did
not discover his error. But so severe was the fall and so great
Thurstane's weakness that he lost his senses and did not come to himself
until daybreak.
There he was, once more abandoned to the desert, but rich in a full
haversack and a dead mule. Having breakfasted, and thereby given head and
hand a little strength, he set to work to provide for the future by
cutting slices from the carcass and spreading them out to dry, well
knowing that this land of desolation could furnish neither wolf nor bird
of prey to rob his larder. This work done, he pushed on at his best speed,
found and fed his companions, and led them back to the mule, their
storehouse. After a day of rest and feasting came a march to the Cactus
Pass, where the three were presently picked up by a caravan bound to Santa
Fé, which carried them on for a number of days until they met a train of
emigrants going west. Thus it was that Glover reached California, and
Thurstane and Sweeny Fort Yuma.
Once in quiet, the young fellow broke down, and for weeks was too sick to
write to Clara, or to any one. As soon as he could sit up he sent off
letter after letter, but after two months of anxious suspense no answer
had come, and he began to fear that she had never reached San Francisco.
At last, when he was half sick again with worrying, arrived a horrible
epistle in Clara's hand and signed by her name, informing him of her
monstrous windfall of wealth and terminating the engagement. The crudest
thing in this cruel forgery was the sentence, "Do you not think that in
paying courtship to me in the desert you took unfair advantage of my
loneliness?"
She had trampled on his heart and flouted his honor; and while he writhed
with grief he writhed also with rage. He could not understand it; so
different from what she had seemed; so unworthy of what he had believed
her to be! Well, her head had been turned by riches; it was just like a
woman; they were all thus. Thus said Thurstane, a fellow as ignorant of
the female kind as any man in the army, and scarcely less ignorant than
the average man of the navy. He declared to himself that he would never
have anything more to do with her, nor with any of her false sex. At
twenty-three he turned woman-hater, just as Mrs. Stanley at forty-five had
turned man-hater, and perhaps for much the same sort of reason.
Shortly after Thurstane had received what he called his cashiering, his
company was ordered from Fort Yuma to San Francisco. It had garrisoned the
Alcatraz fort only two days, and he had not yet had a chance to visit the
city, when he was sent on this expedition to San Diego to hunt down a
deserting quartermaster-sergeant. The result was that he found himself
shipped for a three days' voyage with the woman who had made him first the
happiest man in the army and then the most miserable.
How should he endure it? He would not see her; the truth is that he could
not endure the trial; but what he said to himself was that he _would_ not.
In the darkness tears forced their way out of his eyes and mingled with
the spray which the wind was already flinging over the bows. Crying! Three
months ago, if any man had told him that he was capable of it, he would
have considered himself insulted and would have felt like fighting. Now he
was not even ashamed of it, and would hardly have been ashamed if it had
been daylight. He was so thoroughly and hopelessly miserable that he did
not care what figure he cut.
But, once more, what should he do? Oh, well, he would follow Coronado's
advice; yes, damn him! follow the scoundrel's advice; he could think of
nothing for himself. He would stay out until late; then he would steal
below and go to bed; after that he would keep his stateroom. However, it
was unpleasant to remain where he was, for the spray was beginning to
drench the waist as well as the forecastle; and, the quarter-deck being
clear of passengers, he staggered thither, dropped under the starboard
bulwark, rolled himself in his cloak, and lay brooding.
Meanwhile Coronado had amused Clara below until he felt seasick and had to
take to his berth. Escaping thus from his duennaship, she wanted to see a
storm, as she called the half-gale which was blowing, and clambered
bravely alone to the quarter-deck, where the skipper took her in charge,
showed her the compass, walked her up and down a little, and finally gave
her a post at the foot of the shrouds. Thurstane had recognized her by the
light of the binnacle, and once more he thought, as weakly as a scared
child, "What shall I do?" After hiding his face for a moment he uncovered
it desperately, resolving to see whether she would speak. She did look at
him; she even looked steadily and sharply, as if in recognition; but after
a while she turned tranquilly away to gaze at the sea.
Forgetting that no lamp was shining upon him, and that she probably had no
cause for expecting to find him here, Thurstane believed that she had
discovered who he was and that her mute gesture confirmed his rejection.
Under this throttling of his last hope he made no protest, but silently
wished himself on the battle-field, falling with his face to the foe. For
several minutes they remained thus side by side.
The Lolotte was now well at sea, the wind and waves rising rapidly, the
motion already considerable. Presently there was an order of "Lay aloft
and furl the skysails," and then short shouts resounded from the darkness,
showing that the work was being done. But in spite of this easing the
vessel labored a good deal, and heavy spurts of spray began to fly over
the quarter-deck rail.
"I think, Miss, you had better go below unless you want to get wet,"
observed the skipper, coming up to Clara. "We shall have a splashing night
of it."
Taking the nautical arm, Clara slid and tottered away, leaving Thurstane
lying on the sloppy deck.