University of Virginia Library

37. CHAPTER XXXVII.

Clara had been taken ill while waiting on the unconcious 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 he 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 cnnnot 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 still 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?”