By nine o’clock in the morning, Professor Meschines and Harvey Freeman
had ridden up to the general’s ranch, equipped for the expedition. The
general’s preparations were not yet quite completed. A couple of mules
were being loaded with the necessary outfit. It was proposed to be
out two days, camping in the open during the intervening night. It
was necessary to take water as well as solid provisions. Leaving their
horses in the care of a couple of stable-boys, Meschines and Freeman
mounted the veranda, and were there greeted by General Trednoke.
“I’m afraid we’ll have a hot ride of it,” he observed. “The atmosphere
is rather oppressive. Kamaiakan tells me there was a touch of earthquake
last night.”
“I thought I noticed some disturbance,----” returned the professor,
with a stealthy side-glance at Freeman,--“something in the nature of an
explosion.”
“Earthquakes are common in this region, aren’t they?” Freeman said.
“They have made it what it is, and may unmake it again,” replied the
general. “The earthquake is the father of the desert, as the Indians
say; and it may some day become the father of a more genial offspring.
Veremos!”
“How are the young ladies?” inquired Freeman.
“Miriam has a little headache, I believe; and I thought Miss Parsloe was
looking a trifle pale this morning. But you must see for yourself. Here
they come.”
Grace, who was a little taller than Miriam, had thrown one arm round
that young lady’s waist, with a view, perhaps, to forming a picture in
which she should not be the secondary figure. In fact, they were both
of them very pretty; but Freeman had become blind to any beauty but
Miriam’s. Moreover, he was resolved to have some private conversation
with her during the few minutes that were available. A conversation with
the professor, and some meditations of his own, had suggested to him a
line of attack upon Grace.
“I’m afraid you were disturbed by the earthquake last night?” he said to
her.
“An earthquake? Why should you think so?”
“You look as if you had passed a restless night. I saw Senor de Mendoza
this morning. He seems to have had a restless time of it, too. But he
is a romantic person, and probably, if an earthquake did not make him
sleepless, something else might.” He looked at her a moment, and then
added, with a smile, “But perhaps this is not news to you?”
“He didn’t come--I didn’t see him,” returned Grace, wishing, ere the
words had left her lips, that she had kept her mouth shut. Freeman
continued to smile. How much did he know? She felt that it might be
inexpedient to continue the conversation. Casting about for a pretext
for retreat, her eyes fell upon Meschines.
“Oh, there’s the dear professor! I must speak to him a moment,” she
exclaimed, vivaciously; and she slipped her arm from Miriam’s waist, and
was off, leaving Freeman in possession of the field, and of the monopoly
of Miriam’s society.
“Miss Trednoke,” said he, gravely, “I have something to tell you, in
order to clear myself from a possible misunderstanding. It may happen
that I shall need your vindication with your father. Will you give it?”
“What vindication do you need, that I can give?” asked she, opening her
dark eyes upon him questioningly.
“That’s what I wish to explain. I am in a difficult position. Would you
mind stepping down into the garden? It won’t take a minute.”
Curiosity, if not especially feminine, is at least human. Miriam
descended the steps, Freeman beside her. They strolled down the path,
amidst the flowers.
“You said, yesterday,” he began, “that I would say one thing and be
another. Now I am going to tell you what I am. And afterwards I’ll tell
you why I tell it. In the first place, you know, I’m a civil engineer,
and that includes, in my case, a good deal of knowledge about geology
and things of that sort. I have sometimes been commissioned to
make geological surveys for Eastern capitalists. Lately I’ve been
canal-digging on the Isthmus; but the other day I got a notification
from some men in Boston and New York to come out here on a secret
mission.”
“Secret, Mr. Freeman?”
“Yes: you will understand directly. These men had heard enough about
the desert valleys of this region to lead them to think that it might be
reclaimed and so be made very valuable. Such lands can be bought now for
next to nothing; but, if the theories that control these capitalists
are correct, they could afterwards be sold at a profit of thousands
per cent. So it’s indispensable that the object of my being here should
remain unknown; otherwise, other persons might step in and anticipate
the designs of this company.”
“If those are your orders, why do you speak to me?”
“There’s a reason for doing it that outweighs the reasons against it. I
trust you with the secret: yet I don’t mean to bind you to secrecy. You
will have a perfect right to tell it: the only result would be that I
should be discredited with my employers; and there is nothing to warrant
me in supposing that you would be deterred by that.”
“I don’t ask to know your secret: I think you had better say no more.”
Freeman shook his head. “I must speak,” said he. “I don’t care what
becomes of me, so long as I stand right in your opinion,--your
father’s and yours. I am here to find out whether this desert can be
flooded,--irrigated,--whether it’s possible, by any means, to bring
water upon it. If my report is favorable, the company will purchase
hundreds, or thousands, of square miles, and, incidentally, my own
fortune will be made.”
“Why, that’s the very thing----” She stopped.
“The very thing your father had thought of! Yes, so I imagined, though
he has not told me so in so many words. So I’m in the position of
surreptitiously taking away the prospective fortune of a man whom I
respect and honor, and who treats me as a friend.”
Miriam walked on some steps in silence. “It is no fault of yours,” she
said at last. “You owe us nothing. You must carry out your orders.”
“Yes; but what is to prevent your father from thinking that I stole his
idea and then used it against him?”
“You can tell him the truth: he could not complain; and why should
you care if he did? I know that men separate business from--from other
things.”
They had now come to the little enclosed space where the fountain basin
was; and by tacit consent they seated themselves upon it. Miriam gave an
exclamation of surprise. “The water is gone!” she said. “How strange!”
“Perhaps it has gone to meet us at our rendezvous in the desert.--No: if
I tell your father, I should be unfaithful to my employers. But there’s
another alternative: I can resign my appointment, and let my place be
taken by another.”
“And give up your chance of a fortune? You mustn’t do that.”
“What is it to you what becomes of me?”
“I wish nothing but good to come to you,” said she, in a low voice.
“I have never wanted to have a fortune until now. And I must tell you
the reason of that, too. A man without a fortune does very well by
himself. He can knock about, and live from hand to mouth. But when he
wants to live for somebody else,--even if he has only a very faint hope
of getting the opportunity of doing it,--then he must have some settled
means of livelihood to justify him. So I say I am in a difficult
position. For if I give this up, I must go away; and if I go away, I
must give up even the little hope I have.”
“Don’t go away,” said Miriam, after a pause.
“Do you know what you are saying?” He hesitated a moment, looking at her
as she looked down at the empty basin. “My hope was that you might love
me; for I love you, to be my wife.”
The color slowly rose in Miriam’s face: at length she hid it in her
hands. “Oh, what is it?” she said, almost in a whisper. “I have known
you only three days. But it seems as if I must have known you before.
There is something in me that is not like myself. But it is the deepest
thing in me; and it loves you: yes, I love you!”
Her hands left her face, and there was a light in her eyes which made
Freeman, in the midst of his rejoicing, feel humble and unworthy. He
felt himself in contact with something pure and sacred. At the same
moment, the recollection recurred to him of the figure he had seen the
night before, with the features of Miriam. Was it she indeed? Was this
she? To doubt the identity of the individual is to lose one’s footing on
the solid earth. For the first time it occurred to him that this doubt
might affect Miriam herself. Was she obscurely conscious of two states
of being in herself, and did she therefore fear to trust her own
impulses? But, again, love is the master-passion; its fire fuses all
things, and gives them unity. Would not this love that they confessed
for each other burn away all that was abnormal and enigmatic, and leave
only the unerring human heart, that knows its own and takes it? These
reflections passed through Freeman’s mind in an instant of time. But
he was no metaphysician, and he obeyed the sane and wholesome instinct
which has ever been man’s surest and safest guide through the mysteries
and bewilderments of existence. He took the beautiful woman in his arms
and kissed her.
“This is real and right, if anything is,” said he. “If there are ghosts
about, you and I, at any rate, are flesh and blood, and where we belong.
As to the irrigation scrape, there must be some way out of it: if not,
no matter! You and I love each other, and the world begins from this
moment!”
“My father must know to-morrow,” said Miriam.
“No doubt we shall all know more to-morrow than we do to-day,” returned
her lover, not knowing how abundantly his prophecy would be fulfilled:
he was over-flowing with the fearless and enormous joy of a young man
who has attained at one bound the summit of his desire. “There! they are
calling for me. Good-by, my darling. Be yourself, and think of nothing
but me.”
A short ride brought the little cavalcade to the borders of the desert.
Here, by common consent, a halt was made, to draw breath, as it were,
before taking the final plunge into the fiery furnace.
“Before we go farther,” said General Trednoke, approaching Freeman, as
he was tightening his girths, “I must tell you what is the object of
this expedition.”
“It is not necessary, general,” replied the young man, straightening
himself and looking the other in the face; “for from this point our
paths lie apart.”
“Why so?” demanded the general, in surprise.
“What’s that?” exclaimed Meschines, coming up, and adjusting his
spectacles.
“I’m not at liberty, at present, to explain,” Freeman answered. “All I
can say is that I don’t feel justified in assisting you in your affair,
and I am not able to confide my own to you. I wish you to put the least
uncharitable construction you can on my conduct. To-morrow, if we all
live, I may say more; now, the most I can tell you is that I am not
entirely a free agent. Meantime--Hasta luego.”
Against this unexpected resolve the general cordially protested and the
professor scoffed and contended; but Freeman stayed firm. He had with
him provisions enough to last him three days, and a supply of water;
and in a small case he carried a compact assortment of instruments for
scientific observation. “Take your departure in whatever direction
you like,” said he, “and I will take mine at an angle of not less
than fifteen degrees from it. If I am not back in three days, you may
conclude something has happened.”
It was certainly very hot. Freeman had been accustomed to torrid suns in
the Isthmus; but this was a sun indefinitely multiplied by reflections
from the dusty surface underfoot. Nor was it the fine, ethereal fire of
the Sahara: the atmosphere was dead and heavy; for the rider was already
far below the level of the Pacific, whose cool blue waves rolled and
rippled many leagues to the westward, as, aeons ago, they had rolled
and rippled here. There was not a breath of air. Freeman could hear his
heart beat, and the veins in his temples and wrists throbbed. The sweat
rose on the surface of his body, but without cooling it. The pony which
he bestrode, a bony and sinewy beast of the toughest description, trod
onwards doggedly, but with little animation. Freeman had no desire to
push him. Were the little animal to overdo itself, nothing in the future
could be more certain than that his master would never see the Trednoke
ranch again. It seemed unusually hot, even for that region.
There was little in the way of outward incident to relieve the monotony
of the journey. Now and then a short, thick rattlesnake, with horns on
its ugly head, wriggled out of his path. Now and then his horse’s hoof
almost trod upon a hideous, flat lizard, also horned. Here and there the
uncouth projections of a cactus pushed upwards out of the dust; some
of these the mustang nibbled at, for the sake of their juice. Freeman
wondered where the juice came from. The floor of the desert seemed for
the most part level, though there was a gradual dip towards the east
and northeast, and occasionally mounds and ridges of wind-swept dust,
sometimes upwards of fifty feet in height, broke the uniformity. The
soil was largely composed of powdered feldspar; but there were also
tracts of gravel shingle, of yellow loam, and of alkaline dust. In some
places there appeared a salt efflorescence, sprouting up in a sort of
ghastly vegetation, as if death itself had acquired a sinister life.
Elsewhere, the ground quaked and yielded underfoot, and it became
necessary to make detours to avoid these arid bogs. Once or twice, too,
Freeman turned aside lest he should trample upon some dry bones that
protruded in his path,--bones that were their own monument, and told
their own story of struggle, agony, exhaustion, and despair.
None of these things had any depressing effect on Freeman’s spirit.
His heart was singing with joy. To a mind logically disposed, there
was nothing but trouble in sight, whether he succeeded or failed in his
present mission. In the former case, he would find himself in a hostile
position as regarded the man he most desired to conciliate; in the
latter, he would remain the mere rolling stone that he was before, and
love itself would forbid him to ask the woman he loved to share his
uncertain existence. But Freeman was not logical: he was happy, and he
could not help it. He had kissed Miriam, and she loved him.
His course lay a few degrees north of east. Far across the plain,
dancing and turning somersaults in the fantastic atmosphere, were the
summits of a range of abrupt hills, the borders of a valley or ravine
which he wished to explore. Gradually, as he rode, his shadow lengthened
before him. It was his only companion; and yet he felt no sense of
loneliness. Miriam was in his heart, and kept it fresh and bold. Even
hunger and thirst he scarcely felt. Who can estimate the therapeutic and
hygienic effects of love?
The mustang could not share his rider’s source of content, but he may
have been conscious, through animal instincts whereof we know nothing,
of an uplifting and encouraging spirit. At all events, he kept up his
steady lope without faltering or apparent effort, and seemed to require
nothing more than the occasional wetting which Freeman administered to
his nose. There would probably be some vegetation, and perhaps water, on
the hills; and that prospect may likewise have helped him along.
Nevertheless, man and beast may well have welcomed the hour when the
craggy acclivities of that lonely range became so near that they seemed
to loom above their heads. Freeman directed his steps towards the
southern extremity, where a huge, pallid mass, of almost regular
pyramidal form, reared itself aloft like a monument. He skirted the base
of the pyramid, and there opened on his view a narrow, winding valley,
scarcely half a mile in apparent breadth, and of a very wild and
savage aspect. Its general direction was nearly north and south, and it
declined downwards, as if seeking the interior of the earth. In fact, it
looked not unlike those imaginative pictures of the road to the infernal
regions described by the ancient poets. One could picture Pluto in his
chariot, with Proserpine beside him, thundering downwards behind his
black horses, on the way to those sombre and magnificent regions which
are hollowed out beneath the surface of the planet.
Freeman, however, presently saw a sight which, if less spectacularly
impressive, was far more agreeable to his eyes. On a shelf or cup of
the declivity was a little clump of vegetation, and in the midst of it
welled up a thin stream of water. The mustang scrambled eagerly towards
it, and, before Freeman had had time to throw himself out of the saddle,
he had plunged his muzzle into the rivulet. He sucked it down with such
satisfaction that it was evident the water was not salt. Freeman laid
himself prone upon the brink, and followed his steed’s example. The
draught was cool and pure.
“I didn’t know how much I wanted it!” said he to himself. “It must come
from a good way down. If I could only bring the parent stream to the
surface, my mission would be on a fair road to success.”
An examination of the spring revealed the fact that it could not have
been long in existence. Indeed, there were no traces whatever of long
continuance. The aperture in the rock through which it trickled bore the
appearance of having been recently opened; fragments were lying near it
that seemed to have been just broken off. The bed of the little stream
was entirely free from moss or weeds; and after proceeding a short
distance it dwindled and disappeared, either sucked up in vapor by the
torrid air, or absorbed into the dusty soil. Manifestly, it was a recent
creation.
“And, to be sure, why not?” ejaculated Freeman. “There was an earthquake
last night, which swallowed up the spring in the Trednokes’ garden:
probably that same earthquake brought this stream to light. It vanished
there, to reappear here. Well, the loss is not important to them, but
the gain is very important to me. It is as if Miriam had come with a
cup of water to refresh her lover in the desert. God bless her! She has
refreshed me indeed, soul and body!”
He removed the saddle from the mustang, and turned him loose to make the
best of such scanty herbage as he could find. Then he unpacked his
own provisions, and made a comfortable meal; after which he rolled
a cigarette and reclined on the spot most available, to rest and
recuperate. The valley, or gorge, lay before him in the afternoon light.
It was a strange and savage spectacle. Had it been torn asunder by some
stupendous explosion, it could not have presented a rougher or more
chaotic aspect. To look at it was like beholding the secret places of
the earth. The rocky walls were of different colors, yellow, blue,
and red, in many shades and gradations. They towered ruggedly upwards,
sharply shadowed and brightly lighted, mounting in regular pinnacles,
parting in black crevices; here and there vast masses hung poised on
bases seemingly insufficient, ready to topple over on the unwary passer
beneath. A short distance to the northward the ravine had a turn, and a
projecting promontory hid its further extreme from sight. Freeman made
up his mind to follow it up on foot, after the descending sun should
have thrown a shadow over it. The indications, in his judgment, were
not without promise that a system of judiciously-applied blastings might
open up a source of water that would transform this dreadful barrenness
into something quite different.
The shade of the great pyramid fell upon him as he lay, but the
tumultuous wall opposite was brilliantly illuminated: the sky, over it,
was of a peculiar brassy hue, but entirely cloudless. The radiations
from the baked surface, ascending vertically, made the rocky bastion
seem to quiver, as if it were a reflection cast on undulating water.
The wreaths of tobacco-smoke that emanated from Freeman’s mouth also
ascended, until they touched the slant of sunlight overhead. As the
young man’s eyes followed these, something happened that caused him to
utter an exclamation and raise himself on one arm.
All at once, in the vacant air diagonally above him, a sort of shadowy
shimmer seemed to concentrate itself, which was rapidly resolved into
color and form. It was much as if some unseen artist had swept a mass
of mingled hues on a canvas and then had worked them with magical speed
into a picture. There appeared a breadth of rolling country, covered
with verdure, and in the midst of it the white walls and long, shadowed
veranda of an adobe house. Freeman saw the vines clambering over the
eaves and roof, the vases of earthenware suspended between the pillars
and overflowing with flowers, the long windows, the steps descending
into the garden. Now a figure clad in white emerged from the door and
advanced slowly to the end of the veranda. He recognized the gait and
bearing: he could almost fancy he discerned the beloved features. She
stood there for a moment, gazing, as it seemed, directly at him.
She raised her hands, and pressed them to her lips, then threw them
outwards, with a gesture eloquent of innocent and tender passion.
Freeman’s heart leaped: involuntarily he stretched out his arms, and
murmured, “Miriam!” The next moment, a tall, dark figure, with white
hair, wrapped in a blanket, came stalking behind her, and made a
beckoning movement. Miriam did not turn, but her bearing changed; her
hands fell to her sides; she seemed bewildered. Freeman sprang angrily
to his feet: the picture became blurred; it flowed into streaks of vague
color; it was gone. There were only the brassy sky, and the painted
crags quivering in the heat.
“That was not a mirage: it was a miracle,” muttered the young man to
himself. “Forty miles at least, and it seemed scarcely three hundred
yards! What does it mean?”
The sun sank behind the hills, and a transparent shadow filled the
gorge. Freeman, uneasy in mind, and unable to remain inactive, filled
his canteen at the spring, and descended to the rugged trail at the
bottom. Clambering over boulders, leaping across narrow chasms, letting
himself down from ledges, his preoccupation soon left him, and physical
exertion took the precedence. Half an hour’s work brought him to the
out-jutting promontory which had concealed the further reaches of
the valley. These now lay before him, merging imperceptibly into
indistinctness.
“This atmosphere is unbearable,” said Freeman. “I must get a little
higher up.” He turned to the right, and saw a natural archway, of
no great height, formed in the rock. The arch itself was white; the
super-incumbent stone was of a dull red hue. On the left flank of the
arch were a series of inscribed characters, which might have been cut by
a human hand, or might have been a mere natural freak. They looked like
some rude system of hieroglyphics, and bore no meaning to Freeman’s
mind.
A sort of crypt or deep recess was hollowed out beneath the arch, the
full extent of which Freeman was unable to discern. The floor of it
descended in ridges, like a rough staircase. He stood for a few moments
peering into the gloom, tempted by curiosity to advance, but restrained
partly by the gathering darkness, and partly by the oppressiveness of
the atmosphere, which produced a sensation of giddiness. Something white
gleamed on the threshold of the crypt. He picked it up. It was a human
skull; but even as he lifted it it came apart in his hands and crumbled
into fragments. Freeman’s nerves were strong, but he shuddered
slightly. The loneliness, the silence, the mystery, and the strange
light-headedness that was coming over him combined to make him hesitate.
“I’ll come back to-morrow morning early,” he said to himself.
As if in answer, a deep, appalling roar broke forth apparently under his
feet, and went rolling and reverberating up and down the canon. It died
away, but was immediately followed by another yet more loud, and the
ground shook and swayed beneath his feet. A gigantic boulder, poised
high up on the other side of the canon, was unseated, and fell with a
terrific crash. A hot wind swept sighing through the valley, and the
air rapidly became dark. Again came the sigh, rising to a shriek, with
roarings and thunderings that seemed to proceed both from the heavens
and from the earth.
A dazzling flash of lightning split the air, bathing it for an instant
in the brightness of day: in that instant Freeman saw the bolt strike
the great white pyramid and splinter its crest into fragments, while the
whole surface of the gorge heaved and undulated like a stormy sea. He
had been staggering as best he might to a higher part of the ravine; but
now he felt a stunning blow on his head: he fell, and knew no more.