CHAPTER VI. The Golden Fleece | ||
6. CHAPTER VI.
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
“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
“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 Señor 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,”
“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
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
“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
“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
“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
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
“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-
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
There was little in the way of outward
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
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
Freeman, however, presently saw a sight which, if less spectacularly impressive, was
“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;
“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
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
“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
“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
As if in answer, a deep, appalling roar broke forth apparently under his feet, and went rolling and reverberating up and down the cañon. 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 cañon, 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{.??}
CHAPTER VI. The Golden Fleece | ||