Six months later, in the shade of a light umbrella, I sauntered along
the beach at Cape May. Down by the summer sea, where lovers walk with
lingering step, rapt, heedless as the dead, of aught but tender glances
and soft words whispered under the sound of the surf. After the desert
silence and parching dryness of the territories, it was a deep pleasure
to breathe once more the salt, moist air, to hear the mighty monotone,
and watch the restless play of light and color on breakers rolling in
from the far Bermudas, beating against the shore like the tireless
heart of earth.
Thinking upon nothing but simple enjoyment of earth, sea, and sky,
I strolled in quiet sympathy with the unknown crowd, when suddenly
an open carriage, drawn by two horses, stopped near us. It was light
as a wicker toy, the airiest, fairiest thing manufactured since the
night Cinderella rode to the ball. So slight in construction one might
think it would scarcely bear the weight of one person, had we not seen
that every portion was perfectly wrought. The tempered steel and light
wheels would endure a severe strain. Ornate as burnish could make it,
gilding and varnish sparkled in the sunlight, gay rosette and flying
ribbon were not lacking. Instead of cloth, the lining was plaited
violet satin, of exquisite tint. I have never seen so elegant a turnout
elsewhere. The cushions were fit for an empress, laces and velvets to
trail on, a seat where a king might rest and keep the soil from the
ermine and velvet of his coronation robe.
The small horses seemed made for the fairy carriage. They were
coal-black, perfectly matched, without a white hair on them. Your
correspondent knows precious little about horses, except one ancient
pony, which lost an eye in a pre-historic raid on a corn-crib; but
ignorance itself could see these were of no common blood. The broad
faces and delicate ears, the luminous eyes, soft as an antelope’s, the
arching necks, veiled with silken manes like the fluffy hair of young
girls, come of no menial race, such as haul drays and drop on pavements
in the streets. The mettlesome, high-bred beauties, pawing impatiently
with hoofs like polished ebony, were such steeds as dash through
the Ouida novels or come home at the masters’ call under the black
tents, the Arab houses of hair. We had started for the light-house,
three miles away, and in the dazzle of all that luxury and ease the
brightness went out of the day. My walk suddenly became hard and long.
It required the entire skill and strength of the liveried driver to
manage the reins, while the occupant within leaped nimbly out to adjust
some portion of the harness. He was dressed in garments of finest
fabric and freshest cut, in which the tailor had missed the easy fit
so coveted by gentlemen. A Pactolian watch-chain streamed across his
breast, and lightish gloves on massive hands gave the wearer the aspect
of being pretty much all gloves. A host of idlers gathered in a moment,
and, with them, I stopped to admire the equipage, perfect in make and
ornament, costly as money can buy, and then and there broke the tenth
commandment.
Evidently the envied man felt fussy and grew fidgety under all those
staring eyes. I rubbed mine (not so young as they once were), to clear
a confused, bewildering recollection. Could it be? No! impossible!
To reassure myself, I looked toward the sea, then back again to the
sky, the town. It was no spirit of earth or air, no cheat of vision or
brain. The territorial sunburn had faded from his face, but lingered in
the scorched carrot hair, and Rocky Mountain wrinkles are not easily
ironed out. Well I knew those early crow’s feet at the corners of the
milky blue orbs. The owner of the princely establishment, with its
rare belongings, was none other than our frontier friend, once sole
proprietor of the Dives Mine, in the Cañon de los Angelos, which sold
for eighteen hundred thousand dollars.
The golden key opens many doors; but it takes time and some skill
to fit it into the lock. The lavender kids split as the Dives miner
hastily jerked them off, to fasten a harness-buckle; the flash of a
superb diamond ring followed the movement. He threw the delicately
tinted gloves on the ground, with words more emphatic than correct,
muttered under a scant fringe of pink moustache, then turned a
deprecating, apologetic glance toward the crowd.
An instant the ancient prospector held me with his glittering eye. It
said, plainly as whisper in my ear: I beg you do not tell on me.
I did not. He hurried back to his place. The Esau hand, with its
blazing diamond, closed the door with a heavy slam. It did not hold.
He banged it again, and yet once more, growing very red in the face,
before he could lean away from our gaze back on the violet cushions.
From that soft recess he called loudly to the driver to “git.” There
were a few significant nods as the night-black steeds sped with swift
grace over the wet beach, but nothing was said except by a very
charming young lady, fresh from Ollendorf. She released a loving arm
to bend forward a moment and wave her fine little handkerchief at the
vanishing show, exclaiming: “_Adieu, monsieur le nouveau riche._”
The sweet girl graduate had taken the sense of the meeting. When the
purple and gold passed from sight, the throng fell into line as before
the interruption, and in placid enjoyment yielded to the dreamy spell
of vesper sunlight and lulling sound. All was refined, serene, restful.
The mild ripples, changeful as the hues of the dolphin, came and went,
leaving their slight tracery in the sand, secret messages from hidden
depths far away. The blue waters murmured mystic music to fair and
gracious maidens and youths of gentle, graceful mien; tender cushats,
cooing and wooing and sighing, but not for the touch of vanished hands.
The rhythmic ebb and flow charmed the sense with hints of warbling
peris and dying cadences of mermaids’ songs. Earth and ocean in perfect
tune, the very air thrilled with a tremulous harmony, while youth and
beauty wove their low, sweet idyl. Lapwings glided along the sands,
where the sick lady rested in her invalid chair, under a gayly-striped
awning. White gulls screamed and circled round a ship lying at anchor
in the shining bay, her flag a wavy line of brilliant color against
the pale horizon. Beyond it, in dim perspective, a long procession of
vessels slowly sailing. An endless picture, suggestive of famous places
and unknown nations, gathered treasure of pearl and amber, spicery and
silks, and happy home, coming from voyages through halcyon seas, by
distant fragrant shores. The wind was warm, its breath was balm, the
world was lulled to rest.
A flush of pink fell from out the tranquil sky. It dropped fresh roses
on faded cheeks, and in its blush I saw the young face beside me as it
had been the face of an angel. Then I thought the beautiful is wealth,
the world over. My darling holds in her slender hand the keys of the
palaces.
The walk to the light-house was not so bad, after all.
[Illustration: Zuñi Effigies.]
My holiday ended, I returned to the City of Holy Faith, and exactly a
year from the date of this story took my constitutional walk in the
splendor of sunlight such as never falls on land or sea east of the
Rocky Mountains. No fear of rain to drive me indoors, no speculations
about clear or cloudy to-morrows, we know a radiant shining will
lighten the coming morning, just as it filled the sky of yesterday.
With the Pueblos, I am a devout sun-worshipper and love at his rising
to salute the lord of light and life, and again “under the sad passion
of the dying day” to watch his departure. Returning from my invisible
altar on old Fort Marcy, I threaded my way through cramped and
crooked streets, and, making the round of the Plaza, saw beside the
gate a _burro_ being loaded with a miner’s outfit. He was not much
larger than a dog; beyond compare the most wretched of his miserable
race, a pitiable wreck. He was mangy and sore-eyed, his tail tapered
to a stumpy point, the tuft at the end fallen beyond the reach of any
“restorer.” Patches of hair worn off in various portions of his body
exposed wrinkled, leathery hide, and the dark cross over the shoulders
was pitted with scars, like marks of small-pox. There was not enough
flesh on those protrusive bones to make one meal for the ravening
mountain wolf, or a respectable lunch for half a dozen carrion crows.
Arid and dusty, the creature looked like the mummy of some antediluvian
animal. Easy to see his portion had been kicks, scourge, goads, abuse;
no champagne savannah, no green meadow or lush blue grass in his line
of travel; but life-withering marches in snowy and sandy desert, where
scant herbage and meagre shrub were enough for the starving slave.
Yet the sorry beast was not senseless nor altogether broken in spirit.
A train of mules went by. Among them he recognized an old acquaintance,
a fellow-sufferer. He lifted his head and plucked up heart for a
passing salute, essaying a feeble bray. The unwonted sound was too
great an effort for the gaunt throat. It died in a hoarse rattle and
was buried in a succession of notes, the strangest mortal ear has heard
since that old day Jubal first struck the gamut.
Pick, shovel, bags of crackers, blanket, and coffee-pot were piled high
on the tough burden-bearer, and, watching the loading done by a Mexican
boy, a tall man lazily leaned against the diminutive brute, apparently
reckless of the danger of upsetting donkey and cargo, and sending them
sprawling across the sidewalk. There was nothing to draw attention in
his familiar uniform--high-top boots, cactus-proof buckskin pants,
hickory shirt, red neck-handkerchief; but under the broad slouch hat
were straggling locks that caught my eye--a peculiar tinge of reddish
bronze, the _cabello del oro_ of the Argonaut of ’79.
The never-resting wheel of fortune had made the downward curve. The
Dives miner had summered in Saratoga, betting on cards and horses,
had staked tens of thousands on the hazard of a dicer’s throw, lost
everything, and now was back to the starting-place, ready to try again.
I remembered the purple and gold, the dash and glitter of the rich man
at Cape May. The apparition of prancing steeds of matchless beauty,
with dainty limbs, too dainty for the sand they touched but to spurn,
flitted before me.
Gambler though he was and deserved it, the forlornness of the change
would touch a harder heart than yours or mine, dear reader. I stepped
toward the gate. At that moment Dives--perhaps I had best say
Lazarus--poked the poor _burro_ with a sharp stick and, in a high, gay
voice, struck up:
“Of all the wives you e’er can know,
There’s none like Nancy Lee, I trow.”
Then, as Bunyan hath it, he went on his way and I saw him no more.
This story sounds like a pure invention. Does it not? I confess to
trifling attempts in decorative art, a tiny dash of color, the least
bit of embroidery, just to round a corner and give a little life to
dullness, you know, but not now. My hero is to-day a day-laborer,
working in the great King Henry lead in the Shakespeare district of
New Mexico--the man who for one brief summer reckoned his money by
hundreds of thousands. You can see him when you go.