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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Golden Fleece, by Julian Hawthorne
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Golden Fleece
+
+Author: Julian Hawthorne
+
+Posting Date: October 5, 2008 [EBook #1614]
+Last Updated: November 8, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GOLDEN FLEECE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Keller
+
+
+
+
+
+THE GOLDEN FLEECE
+
+A Romance
+
+
+By Julian Hawthorne
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+The professor crossed one long, lean leg over the other, and punched
+down the ashes in his pipe-bowl with the square tip of his middle
+finger. The thermometer on the shady veranda marked eighty-seven degrees
+of heat, and nature wooed the soul to languor and revery; but nothing
+could abate the energy of this bony sage.
+
+“They talk about their Atlantises,--their submerged continents!”
+ he exclaimed, with a sniff through his wide, hairy nostrils. “Why,
+Trednoke, do you realize that we are living literally at the bottom of a
+Mesozoic--at any rate, Cenozoic--sea?”
+
+The gentleman thus indignantly addressed contemplated his questioner
+with the serenity of one conscious of freedom from geologic
+responsibility. He was a man of about the professor’s age,--say, sixty
+years,--but not like him in appearance. His figure was stately and
+massive,--that of one who in his youth must have possessed vast physical
+strength, rigidly developed and disciplined. Well set upon his broad
+shoulders was a noble head, crowned with gray, wavy hair; the eyes and
+eyebrows were black and powerful, but the expression was kindly and
+humorous. His moustache and the Roman convexity of his chin would have
+confirmed your conviction that he was a retired warrior; in which you
+would have been correct, for General Trednoke always appeared what he
+was, both outwardly and inwardly. His great frame, clad in white linen,
+was comfortably disposed in a Japanese straw arm-chair; yet there was
+a soldierly poise in his attitude. He was smoking a large and excellent
+cigar; and a cup of coffee, with a tiny glass of cognac beside it, stood
+on a mahogany stand at his elbow.
+
+“Do you remember, Meschines, the time I licked you at school?” he
+inquired, in a tone of pleasant reminiscence.
+
+“I can’t say I do. What’s more, I venture to challenge your statement.
+And though you are a hundred pounds the better of me in weight, and a
+West Point graduate, I will wager my pipe (which is worth its weight in
+diamonds) against that old woollen shirt of Montezuma’s that you showed
+me yesterday, that I can lick you to-day, and forget all about it before
+bedtime!”
+
+“Well, I guess you could,” returned the general, with a little chuckle,
+“even if I hadn’t that Mexican bullet in my leg. But you couldn’t,
+forty-five years ago, though you tried, and though I was a year younger
+than you, and weighed five pounds less. Come, now: you don’t mean to say
+you’ve forgotten Susan Brown!”
+
+“Oh--ah--hah! Susan Brown! Well, I declare! And what brought her into
+your head, I should like to know?”
+
+“Why, after breaking your heart first, and then mine, I lost sight of
+her, and I don’t think I have seen her since. But it appears she was
+married to a fellow named Parsloe.”
+
+“Don’t fancy that name!” observed the professor, wagging his head and
+frowning. “Has a mean sound to it. But what of it?”
+
+“Well, she died,--rest her soul!--and Parsloe too. But they had a
+daughter, and she survives them.”
+
+“And resembles her mother, eh?--No, Trednoke, the time for that sort of
+thing has gone by with me. Susan might have had me, five-and-forty years
+ago; but I can’t undertake to revive my passion for the benefit of Mrs.
+Parsloe’s daughter. Besides, I’m too busy to think of marriage, and
+not--not old enough!”
+
+At this tour de force, the general laughed softly, and finished his
+coffee. An old Indian, somewhat remarkable in appearance, with shaggy
+white hair hanging down on his shoulders, stepped forward from the room
+where he had been waiting, and removed the cup.
+
+“No letters yet, Kamaiakan?” asked the general, in Spanish.
+
+“In a few minutes, general,” the other replied. “Pablo has just come in
+sight over the hill. There were several errands.”
+
+“Muy buen!--I was going to say, Meschines, her father and mother left
+the girl poor, and she, being, apparently, clever and energetic, took
+to----”
+
+“I know!” the professor interrupted. “They all do it, when they are
+clever and energetic, and that’s the end of them!--School-teaching!”
+
+“Not at all,” returned General Trednoke. “She entered a dry-goods
+store.”
+
+“Entered a dry-goods store! Well, there’s nothing so extraordinary in
+that. I’ve seen quantities of women do it, of all ages, colors, and
+degrees. What did she buy there?”
+
+“Oh, a fiddlestick!” exclaimed the general. “Why don’t you keep quiet
+and listen to my story? I say, she went into a great dry-goods store in
+New York, as sales-woman.”
+
+“Bless my soul! You don’t mean a shop-girl?”
+
+“That’s what I said, isn’t it? And why not?”
+
+“Oh, well!--but, shade of Susan Brown! Ichabod!--what is the feminine of
+Ichabod, by the way, Trednoke? But, seriously, it’s too bad. Susan may
+have been fickle, but she was always aristocratic. And now her daughter
+is a shop-girl. You and I are avenged!”
+
+“You are just as ridiculous, Meschines, as you were thirty or fifty
+years ago,” said the general, tranquilly. “You declaim for the sake
+of hearing your own voice. Besides, what you say is un-American. Grace
+Parsloe, as I was saying, got a place as shop-girl in one of the great
+New York stores. I don’t say she mightn’t have done worse: what I say
+is, I doubt whether she could have done better. That house--I know one
+of its founders, and I know what I’m talking about--is like an enormous
+family, where children are born, year after year, grow up, and take
+their places in life according to their quality and merit. What I mean
+is, that the boy who drives a wagon for them to-day, at three dollars
+a week, may control one of their chief departments, or even become a
+partner, before they’re done with him; and, mutatis mutandis, the same
+with the girls. When these girls marry, it’s apt to be into a higher
+rank of life than they were born in; and that fact, I take it, is a good
+indication that their shop-girl experience has been an education and an
+improvement. They are given work to do, suited to their capacity, be it
+small or great; they are in the way of learning something of the great
+economic laws; they learn self-restraint, courtesy, and----”
+
+“And human nature! Yes, poor things: they see the American buying-woman,
+and that is a discipline more trying than any you West Pointers know
+about! Oh, yes, I see your point. If the fathers of the big family ARE
+fathers, and the children ARE children to them... All the same, I fancy
+the young ladies, when they marry into the higher social circles, as
+you say they do, don’t, as a rule, make their shop girl days a topic of
+conversation at five-o’clock teas, or put ‘Ex-shop-girl to So-and-so’ at
+the bottom of their visiting-cards.”
+
+“I believe, after all, you’re a snob, Meschines,” said the general,
+pensively. “But, as I was about to say, when you interrupted me ten
+minutes ago, Grace Parsloe is coming on here to make us a visit. She
+fell ill, and her employers, after doing what could be done for her in
+the way of medical attendance, made up their minds to give her a change
+of climate. Now, you know, as she had originally gone to them with a
+letter from me, and as I live out here, on the borders of the Southern
+desert, in a climate that has no equal, they naturally thought of
+writing to me about it. And of course I said I’d be delighted to have
+her here, for a month, or a year, or whatever time it may be. She will
+be a pleasure to me, and a friend for Miriam, and she may find a husband
+somewhere up or down the coast, who will give her a fortune, and think
+all the better of her because she, like him, had the ability and the
+pluck to make her own way in the world.”
+
+“Humph! When do you expect her?”
+
+“She may turn up any day. She is coming round by way of the Isthmus.
+From what I hear, she is really a very fine, clever girl. She held a
+responsible position in the shop, and----”
+
+“Well, let us sink the shop, and get back to the rational and
+instructive conversation that we--or, to be more accurate, that I was
+engaged in when this digression began. I presume you are aware that all
+the indications are lacustrine?”
+
+Hereupon, a hammock, suspended near the talkers, and filled with what
+appeared to be a bundle of lace and silken shawls, became agitated, and
+developed at one end a slender arched foot in an open-work silk stocking
+and sandal-slipper, and at the other end a dark, youthful, oval face,
+with glorious eyes and dull black hair. A voice of music asked,--
+
+“What is lacustrine, papa?”
+
+“Oh, so you are awake again, Senorita Miriam?”
+
+“I haven’t been asleep. What is lacustrine?”
+
+“Ask the professor.”
+
+“Lacus, you know, my dear,” said the latter, “means fresh-water
+indications as against salt.”
+
+“Then how does Great Salt Lake----”
+
+“Oh, for that matter, the whole ocean was fresh originally. Moisture,
+evaporation, precipitation. Water is a great solvent: earthquakes break
+the crust, and there you are!”
+
+“Then, before the earthquakes, the Salt Lakes were fresh?” rejoined the
+hammock.
+
+“There was fresh water west of the Rockies and south of---- Why,” cried
+the professor, interrupting himself, “when I was in Wyoming and around
+there, this spring, in what they call the Bad Lands,--cliffs and buttes
+of indurated yellow clay and sandstone, worn and carved out by floods
+long before the Aztecs started to move out of Canada,--I saw fossil
+bones sticking out of the cliffs, the least of which would make the
+fortune of a museum. That was between the Rockies and the Wahsatch.”
+
+“People’s bones?” asked the hammock, agitating itself again, and showing
+a glimpse of a smooth throat and a slender ankle.
+
+“Bless my soul! If there were people in those days they must have had
+an anxious time of it!” returned the sage. “No, no, my dear. There
+was brontosaurus, and atlantosaurus, and hydrosaurus, and
+iguanodon,--lizards, you know, not like these little black fellows that
+run about in the pulverized feldspar here, but chaps eighty or a hundred
+feet long, and twenty or thirty high; and turtles, as big as a house.”
+
+“How did they get there?”
+
+“Got mired while they were feeding, perhaps; or the water drained off
+and left them high and dry.”
+
+“But where did the water go to?”
+
+The general chuckled at this juncture, and lit another cigar. “She
+knows more questions than you do the answers to them,” quoth he. “But I
+wouldn’t mind hearing where the water went to, myself. I should like to
+see some of it back again.”
+
+“Ask the earthquakes, and the sun. There’s a hundred and thirty degrees
+of heat in some of these valleys,--abysses, rather, three or four
+hundred feet below sea-level. The earth is very thin-skinned in this
+region, too, and whatever water wasn’t evaporated from above would be
+likely to come to grief underneath.”
+
+“But, professor,” said the musical voice, “I thought there was a law
+that water always seeks its own level. So how can there be empty places
+below sea-level?”
+
+“It’s the fault of the aneroid barometer, my dear. We were very
+comfortable and commonplace until that came along and revealed
+anomalies. The secret lies, I suppose, in the trend of the strata,
+which is generally north and south. You see the ridges cropping out all
+through the desert; and there’s a good deal of lava oozing over them,
+too. They probably act as walls, to prevent the sea getting in from the
+west, or the Colorado leaking in from the east.”
+
+“In that case,” remarked the general, “a little more seismic disturbance
+might produce a change.”
+
+“It would have to be more than a little, I suspect,” returned Meschines.
+
+“Kamaiakan told me that the Indians have a prophecy that a great lake
+will come back and make the desert fruitful, and that there are some who
+know the very place where the water will begin to flow.” And here the
+hammock, with a final convulsion, gave birth to a beautiful young woman,
+in a diaphanous silk dress and a white lace mantilla. She crossed the
+veranda, and seated herself on the broad arm of her father’s chair.
+
+“Why, that’s important!” said the general, arching his brows. “I wonder
+if Kamaiakan is one of those who know the place? If so, it might be
+worth his while to let me into the secret.”
+
+“Oh, you couldn’t go there! It’s enchanted, and people who go near it
+die. There are bones all about there, now.”
+
+“This Kamaiakan appears to be a remarkable personage: where did you pick
+him up?” inquired the professor.
+
+“It was rather the other way,” Trednoke replied, taking one of his
+daughter’s hands in his, and caressing it. “We are appendages to
+Kamaiakan. You look so natural, sitting there, Meschines, that I forget
+it’s thirty years since we met, and that all the significant events of
+my life have happened in that time,--the Mexican war, my marriage, and
+the rest of it! I have been a widower ten years.”
+
+“And I’ve been a bachelor for over sixty!” said Meschines, with a queer
+expression. “Your wife was Spanish, was she not?”
+
+“Her father was a Mexican of Andalusian descent. But her mother was
+descended from the race of Azatlan: there are records and relics
+indicating that her ancestors were princes in Tenochtitlan before Cortez
+made trouble there.”
+
+“And I’ve been losing my heart to a princess, and never realized my
+audacity!” exclaimed the professor, laying his hand on his waistcoat and
+making an obeisance to Miriam.
+
+She tossed her free foot, and played with the fringe of her reboso.
+
+“I will tell my maid to look for it,” she said; “but I think you must
+have left it in papa’s curiosity-room.”
+
+“No: I’m an Aztec sacrifice!” cried the professor; and they all
+laughed. “One would hardly have anticipated,” he resumed after a pause,
+addressing Trednoke, “that you would have made a double conquest,--first
+of the men, and then of the woman!”
+
+“The woman conquered me, without trying or wishing to, and then, because
+she was a woman, took compassion on me. Whether my country has benefited
+much by the Mexican annexation, I can’t say; but I know Inez--made a
+heaven on earth for me,” concluded the general, in a low voice. His
+countenance, at this moment, wore a solemn and humble expression,
+beautiful to see; and Miriam bent and laid her cheek against his.
+Meschines knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and sighed.
+
+“No woman ever took compassion on me,” he remarked, “and you see the
+result,--ashes!”
+
+“Ashes,--with their wonted fires living in them,” said Trednoke.
+
+“We were talking about this Indian of yours,” said Meschines.
+
+“Ay, to be sure. Well, he was attached to Inez’s family when I first
+knew them. It was a peculiar relation; not like that of a servant. One
+finds such things in Mexico. The conquered race were of as good strain
+as their conquerors; the blood of Montezuma was as blue as the best
+of the Castilian. There were many intermarriages; and there are many
+instances of the survival of traditions and records; though the records
+are often symbolic, and would have no meaning to persons not initiated.
+But they have been sufficient to perpetuate ties of a personal nature
+through generation after generation; and the alliance between Kamaiakan
+and Inez was of this kind. His forefathers, I imagine, were priests, and
+priests were a mighty power in Tenochtitlan. For aught I know, indeed
+Kamaiakan may be an original priest of Montezuma’s; no one knows his
+age, but he does not look an hour older, to-day, than when I first saw
+him, over twenty years ago.”
+
+“He must be!” said Miriam, with some positiveness. “He has told me of
+seeing and doing things hundreds of years ago. And he says----” She
+paused.
+
+“What does he say, Nina adorada?” asked her father.
+
+“It was about the treasure, you know.”
+
+“Let us hear. The professor is one of us.”
+
+“It’s one of our traditions that my mother’s ancestors, at the time of
+Cortez, were very rich people,” continued Miriam, glancing at Meschines,
+and then letting her eyes wander across the garden, blooming with
+roses and fragrant with orange-trees, and so across the trellised vines
+towards the soft outline of the mountains eastward. “A great part of
+their wealth was in the form of jewels and precious stones. When Cortez
+took the city, one of the priests, who was a relative of our family, put
+the jewels in a box, and hid them in a certain place in the desert.”
+
+“And does Kamaiakan know where the place is?” asked the general.
+
+“He can know, when the time comes.”
+
+“Which will be, perhaps, when you are ready for your dowry,” observed
+the professor, genially.
+
+“A spell was put upon the spot,” Miriam went on, with a certain
+imaginative seriousness; for she loved romance and mystery so well, and
+was of a temperament so poetical, that the wildest fairy-tales had a
+sort of reality for her. “No one can find the treasure while the spell
+remains. But Kamaiakan understands the spell, and the conjuration which
+dissolves it; and when he dissolves it, the treasure will be found.”
+
+“And, between ourselves,” added the general, “Kamaiakan is himself the
+priestly relative by whom the spell was wrought. He bears an enchanted
+life, which cannot cease until he has restored the jewels to Miriam’s
+hands.”
+
+“There might be something in it, you know,” said Meschines, after a
+pause. “The treasures of Montezuma have never been found. Is there no
+old chart or writing, in your collection of curiosities and relics, that
+might throw light on it?”
+
+“The scriptures of Anahuac were of the hieroglyphic
+type,--picture-writing,” replied the other. “No, I fear there is nothing
+to the purpose; and if there were, I shouldn’t know how to decipher it.”
+
+“But, papa, the tunic!” exclaimed Miriam.
+
+“Oh! has the tunic anything to do with it?”
+
+“Is that the queer woollen garment with the gold embroidery?” inquired
+the professor, becoming more interested. “I took a fancy to that, you
+remember. Has it a story?”
+
+“Well, it is a kind of an anomaly, I believe,” the general answered,
+looking up at his daughter with a smile. “The Aztecs, you are aware,
+dressed chiefly in cotton. Even their defensive armor was of cotton,
+thickly quilted. Their ornaments were feathers, and embroidery of gold
+and precious stones. But wool, for some reason, they didn’t wear; and
+yet this garment, as you can see for yourself, is pure wool; and that it
+is also pure Aztecan is beyond question.”
+
+“Admitting that, what clue does it give to the treasure?”
+
+“You must ask Kamaiakan,” said Miriam: “only, he wouldn’t tell you.”
+
+“Possibly,” the professor suggested, “the place where the treasure is
+hidden is the place whence the water is to flow out; and the water is
+the treasure.”
+
+“Seriously, do you suppose that such a phenomenon as the return of an
+inland sea is physically practicable?” asked Trednoke.
+
+“No phenomenon, in this part of the world, would surprise me,” returned
+Meschines. “The Colorado might break its barriers; or it is conceivable
+that some huge stream, taking its rise in the heights hundreds of miles
+north and east of us, may be flowing through subterranean passages into
+the sea, emerging from the sea-bottom hundreds of miles to the westward.
+Now, if a rattling good earthquake were to happen along, you might awake
+in the morning to find yourself on an island, or even under water.”
+
+“A moderate Mediterranean would satisfy me,” the general said. “I
+wouldn’t exchange the certainty of it for the treasures of Montezuma.”
+
+“The thirst for gold and for water are synonymous in your case?”
+
+“Give this section a moist climate, and I needn’t tell you that the
+Great American Desert would literally blossom as the rose. Even as
+it is, I expect a great deal of it will be redeemed by scientific
+irrigation. The soil only needs water to become inexhaustibly
+productive. Our desert, as you know, is not sand, like parts of the
+Sahara; it has all the ingredients that go to nourish plants, only their
+present powdery condition makes them unavailable. Now, I can, to-day,
+buy a hundred square miles of desert for a few dollars. You see the
+point, don’t you?”
+
+“And all you want is expert opinion as to the likelihood of finding
+water?”
+
+“The man who solves that question for me in the affirmative is welcome
+to half my share of the results that would ensue from it.”
+
+“Why don’t you engage some expert to investigate?”
+
+“One can’t always trust an expert. I don’t mean as to his expertness
+only, but as to his good faith. He might prefer to sell the idea to
+somebody who could pay cash,--which I cannot.”
+
+“Why, you seem to have given this thing a good deal of thought,
+Trednoke.”
+
+“Well, yes: it has been my hobby for a year past; and I have made some
+investigations myself. But this is the first time I have spoken of it to
+any one.”
+
+“I understand. And what of the investigations?”
+
+“I can say that I found enough to interest me. I’ll tell you about
+it some time. I should be glad to leave Miriam something to make her
+independent.”
+
+“I should say that her Creator had already done that!” said Meschines.
+“By the way, I know a young fellow--if he were only here--who is just
+the man you want, and can be trusted. He’s a civil engineer,--Harvey
+Freeman: the Lord only knows in what part of the world he is at this
+speaking. He has made a special study of these subterranean matters.”
+
+“Don’t you remember, papa, Coleridge’s poem of Kubla Khan?--
+
+     “Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
+     Through caverns measureless to man
+          Down to a sunless sea!”
+
+
+“Our sacred river, when we find it, shall be named Miriam.”
+
+“It ought to be Kamaiakan,” she rejoined; “for, if anybody finds it, it
+will be he.”
+
+“I think I hear the wings of the angel of whom we have been speaking,”
+ said the general. “Yes, here he is; and he has got the letters. Let us
+see! One for you Meschines. And this, I see, is from our friend Miss
+Parsloe, postmarked Santa Barbara. Why, she’ll be here to-morrow, at
+that rate.”
+
+“Here’s a queer coincidence!” exclaimed the professor, who had meanwhile
+opened his envelope and glanced through the contents. “The very man I
+was speaking of,--Harvey Freeman! Says he is in this neighborhood, has
+heard I’m here, and is coming down to pay me a visit. Methinks I hear
+the rolling of the sacred river!”
+
+“But you won’t mention it to him, until----”
+
+“Bless me! Of course not. I’ll bring him over here, in the course
+of human events, and you can take a look at him, and act on your own
+intuitions. I won’t say on Princess Miriam’s, for Harvey is a very
+fine-looking fellow, and her intuitions might get confused.”
+
+“A civil engineer!” said Miriam, with an intonation worthy of the
+daughter of a West-Pointer and the descendant of an Aztec prince.
+
+Kamaiakan (who spoke only Spanish) had been gathering up some cushions
+that had fallen out of the hammock. Having replaced them, and cast a
+quick glance at Meschines, he withdrew.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+The Southern Pacific Railway passes, today, not far from the site of
+General Trednoke’s ranch. But the events now to be narrated occurred
+some years before the era of transcontinental railroads: they were in
+the air, but not yet bolted down to the earth. The general, therefore,
+was a pioneer, and was by no means overrun with friends from the East in
+search of an agreeable winter climate. The easiest way to reach him--if
+you were not pressed for time--was round the cape which forms the
+southernmost point of South America and sticks its sharp snout
+inquiringly into the Antarctic solitudes, as if it scented something
+questionable there. The speediest route, though open to strange
+discomforts, was by way of the Isthmus; and then there were always
+the saddle, the wagon, and the stage, with the accompaniments of
+road-agents, tornadoes, deserts, and starvation.
+
+Miss Grace Parsloe came via the Isthmus; and the latter part of her
+journey had been alleviated by the society of a young gentleman from New
+York, Freeman by name. There were other passengers on the vessel; but
+these two discovered sympathies of origin and education which made
+companionship natural. They sat together at table, leaned side by side
+over the taffrail, discussed their fellow-travellers, and investigated
+each other. As he lolled on the bench with folded arms and straw hat
+tilted back from his forehead she, glancing side-long, as her manner
+was, saw a sunburnt aquiline nose, a moustache of a lighter brown than
+the visage which it decorated, a lean, strong jaw, and a muscular neck.
+His forehead, square and impending, was as white as ivory in comparison
+with the face below; his hair, in accordance with the fashion introduced
+by the late war, was cropped close. But what especially moved Miss Grace
+were those long, lazy blue eyes, which seemed to tolerate everything,
+but to be interested in nothing,--hardly even in her. Now, Grace could
+not help knowing she was a pretty girl, and it was somewhat of a novelty
+to her that Freeman should appear so indifferent. It would have been
+difficult to devise a better opportunity than this to monopolize
+masculine admiration, and she fell to speculating as to what sort of
+an experience Mr. Freeman must have had, so to panoply him against her
+magic. On the other hand, she was the recipient of whatever attentions
+he could bring himself to detach from the horizon-line, or from his
+own thoughts (which appeared to amount, practically, to about the same
+thing). She had no other rivals; and a woman will submit amiably to a
+good deal of indifference, provided she be assured that no other woman
+is enjoying what she lacks.
+
+Freeman, for his part, had nothing to complain of. Grace Parsloe was
+a singularly pretty girl. Singular properly qualifies her. She was not
+like the others,--by which phrase he epitomized the numerous comely
+young women whom he had, at various times and in several countries,
+attended, teased, and kissed. Both physically and mentally, she was very
+fine-wrought. Her bones were small; her body and limbs were slender, but
+beautifully fashioned. She was supple and vigorous. Grace is a product
+of brain as well as an effect of bodily symmetry: Grace had the quality
+on both counts. She answered to one’s conception of Mahomet’s houris,
+assuming that the conception is not of a fat person. Her head was small,
+but well proportioned,--compact as to the forehead, rather broad across
+the cheek-bones, thence tapering to the chin. Her eyes were blue, but of
+an Eastern strangeness of shape and setting; they were subject to great
+and sudden changes of expression, depending, apparently, on the varying
+state of her emotions, and betraying an intensity more akin to the
+Oriental temperament than to ours. There was in her something subtle
+and fierce; yet overlaying it, like a smooth and silken skin, were the
+conventional polish and bearing of an American school graduate. She was,
+in deed, noticeably artificial and self-conscious in manner and in the
+intonations of her speech; though it was an aesthetic delight to see
+her move or pose, and the quality of her voice was music’s self. But
+Freeman, after due meditation, came to the conclusion that this was the
+outcome of her recognition of her own singularity: in trying to be like
+other people, she fell into caricature. Freeman, somehow, liked her
+the better for it. Like most men of brain and pith, who have seen and
+thought much, he was thankful for a new thing, because, so far as it
+went, it renewed him. It pleased him to imagine that he could, with a
+word or a look, cause this veil of artifice to be thrown aside, and the
+primitive passion and fierceness behind it to start forth. He allowed
+himself to imagine, with a certain satisfaction, that were he to make
+this young woman jealous she would think nothing of thrusting a dagger
+between his ribs. Reality,--what a delight it is! The actual touch and
+feeling of the spontaneous natural creature have been so buried beneath
+centuries of hypocrisy and humbug that we have ceased to believe in them
+save as a metaphysical abstraction. But even as water, long depressed
+under-ground in perverse channels, surges up to the surface, and above
+it, at last, in a fountain of relief, so Nature, after enduring ages
+of outrage and banishment, leaps back to her rightful domain in some
+individual whom we call extraordinary because he or she is natural.
+Grace Parsloe did not seem (regarded as to her temperament and quality)
+to belong where she was: therefore she was a delightful incident there.
+Had she been met with in the days of the Old Testament, or in the depths
+of Persia or India at the present time, even, she might have appeared
+commonplace. But here she was in conventional costume, with conventional
+manners. And, just as the nautch-girls, and other Oriental dancers and
+posturers, wear a costume which suggests nature more effectively than
+does nature itself, so did Grace’s conventionality suggest to Freeman
+the essential absence of conventionality more forcibly than if he had
+seen her clad in a turban and translucent caftan, dancing off John the
+Baptist’s head, or driving a nail into that of Sisera. Grace certainly
+owed much of her importance to her situation, which rendered her foreign
+and piquante. But, then, everything, in this world, is relative.
+
+Racial types seem to be a failure: when they become very marked, the
+race deteriorates or vanishes. In the counties of England, after only
+a thousand years, the women you meet in the rural districts and country
+towns all look like sisters. The Asiatics, of course, are much more
+sunk in type than the Anglo-Saxons; and they show us the way we would be
+going. Only, there is hope in rapid transit and the cosmopolitan spirit,
+and especially in these United States, which bring together the ends
+of the earth, and place side by side a descendant of the Puritans like
+Freeman, and a daughter of Irak-Ajemi.
+
+“What are you coming to California for, Mr. Freeman?”
+
+Freeman had already told her what he had been in the Isthmus for,--to
+paddle in miasmatic swamps with a view to the possibility of a canal
+in the remote, speculative future. He had given her a graphic and
+entertaining picture of the hideous and inconceivable life he had led
+there for six months, from which he had emerged the only member of a
+party of nineteen (whites, blacks, and yellows) who was not either dead
+by disease, by violence, or by misadventure, or had barely escaped with
+life and a shattered constitution. Freeman, after emerging from the
+miasmatic hell and lake of Gehenna, had taken a succession of baths,
+with soap and friction, had been attended by a barber and a tailor, and
+had himself attended the best table to be found for love or money in the
+charming town of Panama. He had also spent more than half of the week
+of his sojourn there in sleep; and he was now in the best possible
+condition, physical and mental,--though not, he admitted, pecuniary. As
+to morals, they had not reached that discussion yet. But, in all that
+he did say, Freeman exhibited perfect unreserve and frankness, answering
+without hesitation or embarrassment any question she chose to ask (and
+she asked some curious ones).
+
+But when she asked him such an innocent thing as what he was after in
+California--an inquiry, by the way, put more in idleness than out of
+curiosity--Freeman stroked his yellow moustache with the thumb of the
+hand that held his Cuban cigarette, gazed with narrowed eyelids at the
+horizon, and for some time made no reply at all. Finally he said that
+California was a place he had never visited, and that it would be a pity
+to have been so near it and yet not have improved the opportunity of
+taking a look at it.
+
+Grace instantly scented a mystery, and was not less promptly resolved
+to fathom it. And what must be the nature of a mystery attaching to a
+handsome man, unmarried, and evidently no stranger to the gentler sex?
+Of course there must be a woman in it! Her eyes glowed with azure fire.
+
+“You have some acquaintances in California, I suppose?” she said, with
+an air of laborious indifference.
+
+“Well,--yes; I believe I have,” Freeman admitted.
+
+“Have they lived there long?”
+
+“No; not over a few months. I accidentally heard from a person in
+Panama. I dropped a line to say I might turn up.”
+
+“She----you haven’t had time to get an answer, then?”
+
+Freeman inhaled a deep breath through his cigarette, tilted his head
+back, and allowed the smoke to escape slowly through his nostrils. In
+this manner, familiar to his deep-designing sex, he concealed a smile.
+Grace was, in some respects, as transparent as she was subtle. So long
+as the matter in hand did not touch her emotions, she had no difficulty
+in maintaining a deceptive surface; but emotion she could not disguise,
+though she was probably not aware of the fact; for emotion has a
+tendency to shut one’s own eyes and open what they can no longer see in
+one’s self to the gaze of outsiders.
+
+“No,” he said, when he had recovered his composure. “But that won’t make
+any difference. We are on rather intimate terms, you see.”
+
+“Oh! Is it long since you have met?”
+
+“Pretty long; at least it seems so to me.”
+
+Grace turned, and looked full at her companion. He did not meet her
+glance, but kept his profile steadily opposed, and went on smoking with
+a dreamy air, as if lost in memories and anticipations, sad, yet sweet.
+
+“Really, Mr. Freeman, I hardly thought--you have always seemed to care
+so little about anything--I didn’t suspect you of so much sentiment.”
+
+“I am like other men,” he returned, with a sigh. “My affections are
+not given indiscriminately; but when they are given,--you
+understand,--I----”
+
+“Oh, I understand: pray don’t think it necessary to explain. I’m
+sure I’m very far from wishing to listen to confidences about
+another,--to----”
+
+“Yes, but I like to talk about it,” interposed Freeman, earnestly.
+“I haven’t had a chance to open my heart, you know, for at least six
+months. And though you and I haven’t known each other long, I believe
+you to be capable of appreciating what a man feels when he is on his way
+to meet some one who----”
+
+“Thank you! You are most considerate! But I shall be additionally
+obliged if you would tell me in what respect I can have so far forgotten
+myself as to lead you to think me likely to appreciate anything of the
+kind. I assure you, Mr. Freeman, I have never cared for any one; and
+nothing I have seen since I left home makes it probable that I shall
+begin now.”
+
+“I am sorry to hear that,” said Freeman, slowly drawing another
+cigarette out of his bundle, and beginning to re-roll it with a dejected
+air.
+
+“Indeed!”
+
+“Yes: the fact is, I had hoped that you had begun to have a little
+friendly feeling for me. I am more than ready to reciprocate.”
+
+“I hope you will spare me any insults, sir. I have no one to protect me,
+but----”
+
+“I assure you, I mean no insult. You cannot help knowing that I think
+you as beautiful and fascinating a woman as I have ever met; but of
+course you can’t help being beautiful and fascinating. Do I insult you
+by having eyes? If so, I am sorry, but you will have to make the best of
+it.”
+
+With this, he turned in his seat, and calmly confronted her. Beautiful
+she certainly was, at that moment; but it was the beauty of an angry
+serpent. She had a pencil in her hand, with which, a little while
+before, she had been sketching heads of some of the passengers in her
+little notebook. She was now handling this inoffensive object in such
+a way as to justify the fancy that, had it been charged with a deadly
+poison in its point, instead of with a bit of plumbago of the HH
+quality, she would have driven it into Freeman’s heart then and there.
+
+“Is it no insult,” said she, in a sibilant voice, “to talk to me as you
+are doing, when you have just told me that you love another woman, and
+are going to meet her?”
+
+Freeman’s brows gradually knitted themselves in a frown of apparent
+perplexity. “I must say I don’t understand you,” he observed, at length.
+“I am quite sure I have said nothing of the sort. How could I?”
+
+“If you wish to quibble about words, perhaps not. But was not that your
+meaning?”
+
+“No, it wasn’t. You are the only woman who has been in my thoughts
+to-day.”
+
+“Mr. Freeman!”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“You have intimated very clearly that you are engaged--married, for
+aught I know--to a woman whom you are now on your way to meet----”
+
+At this point she stopped. Freeman had interrupted her with a shout of
+laughter.
+
+She had been very pale. She now flushed all over her face, and jumped to
+her feet.
+
+“Sit down,” he said, laying a hand on her dress and (aided by a lurch of
+the vessel) pulling her into her seat again, “and listen to me. And then
+I shall insist upon an apology. This is too much!”
+
+“I shall ask the captain----”
+
+“You will not, I promise you. Look here! When I was in Panama, I met
+there a fellow I used to know in New York. He told me that he had
+recently crossed the continent with Professor Meschines, who used to
+teach geology and botany at Yale College, when he and I were students
+there. The professor had come over partly for the fun of the thing, and
+partly to look for specimens in the line of his profession. My friend
+parted from him at San Francisco: the professor was going farther
+south.”
+
+“What has all this to do with the woman who----”
+
+“It has this to do with it,--that the professor is the woman! He is over
+sixty years old, and has always been a good friend of mine; but I am not
+going to marry him. I am not engaged to him, he is not beautiful, nor
+even fascinating, except in the way of an elderly man of science. And
+he is the only human being, besides yourself, that I know or have ever
+heard of on the Pacific coast. Now for your apology!”
+
+Grace emitted a long breath, and sank back in her seat, with her hands
+clasped in her lap. She raised her hands and covered her face with them.
+She removed them, sat erect, and bent an open-eyed, intent gaze upon her
+companion.
+
+After this pantomime, she exclaimed, in the lowest and most musical of
+tones, “Oh! how hateful you are!” Then she cried out with animation,
+“I believe you did it on purpose!” Finally, she sank back again, with a
+soft laugh and sparkling eyes, at the same time stretching out her right
+arm towards him and placing her hand on his, with a whispered, “There,
+then!”
+
+Freeman, accepting the hand for the apology, kissed it, and continued to
+hold it afterwards.
+
+“Am I not a little goose?” she murmured.
+
+“You certainly are,” replied Freeman.
+
+“You mustn’t hold my hand any more.”
+
+“Do you mean to withdraw your apology?”
+
+“N--no; but it doesn’t follow that----”
+
+“Oh, yes, it does. Besides, when a man receives such a delicate,
+refined, graceful, exquisite apology as this,”--here he lifted the hand,
+looked at it critically, and bestowed another kiss upon it,--“he would
+be a fool not to make the most of it.”
+
+“Ah, I’m afraid you’re dangerous. You are well named--Freeman!”
+
+“My name is Harvey: won’t you call me by it?”
+
+“Oh, I can’t!”
+
+“Try! Would it make it easier if I were to call you by yours?”
+
+“Mine is Miss Parsloe.”
+
+“Pooh! How can that be your name which you are going to change so soon?
+When I look at you, I see your name; when I think of you, I say it to
+myself,--Grace!”
+
+“How do you know I am going to change my name soon--or ever?”
+
+“Whom are you talking to?”
+
+“To you,--Harvey! Oh!” She snatched her hand away and pressed it over
+her lips.
+
+“How do I know you are beautiful, Grace, and--irresistible?”
+
+“But I’m not! You’re making fun of me! Besides, I’m twenty.”
+
+“How many times have you been engaged?”
+
+“Never. Nobody wants to be engaged to a poor girl. Oh me!”
+
+“Do you know what you are made of, Grace? Fire and flowers! Few men in
+the world are men enough to be a match for you. But what have you been
+doing with yourself all this time? Why do you come to a place like
+this?”
+
+“Maybe I had a presentiment that... What nonsense we are talking! But
+what you said reminds me. It’s the strangest coincidence!”
+
+“What is it?”
+
+“Your Professor Meschines----”
+
+“On the contrary, he is a most matter-of-fact old gentleman.”
+
+“Do be quiet, and listen to me! When my mamma was a girl in school,
+there were two boys there,--it was a boy-and-girls’ school,--and they
+were great friends. But they both fell in love with my mamma----”
+
+“I can understand that,” put in Freeman.
+
+“How do you know I am like my mamma? Well, as I was saying, they both
+fell in love with her, and quarrelled with each other, and had a fight.
+The boy that won the fight is the man to whose house I am going.”
+
+“Then he didn’t marry your mamma?”
+
+“Oh, no; that was only a childish affair, and she married another man.”
+
+“The one who got thrashed?”
+
+“Of course not. But the one who got thrashed is your Professor
+Meschines.”
+
+“I see! The poor old professor! And he has remained a bachelor all his
+life.”
+
+“Mamma has often told me the story, and that the Trednoke boy went to
+West Point, and distinguished himself in the Mexican war, and married a
+Mexican woman, and the Meschines boy became a professor in Yale College.
+And now I am going to see one of them, and you to see the other. Isn’t
+that a coincidence?”
+
+“The first of a long series, I trust. Is this West-Pointer a permanent
+settler here?”
+
+“Yes, for ever so long,--twenty years. He’s a widower, but he has a
+daughter---- Oh, I know you’ll fall in love with her!”
+
+“Is she like you?”
+
+“I don’t know. I’ve never seen her, or General Trednoke either.”
+
+“Come to think of it, though, nobody is like you, Grace. Now, will you
+be so good as to apologize again?”
+
+“Don’t you think you’re rather exacting, Harvey?”
+
+However, the apology was finally repeated, and continued, more or less,
+during the rest of the voyage; and Grace quite forgot that she had never
+made Harvey tell what was really the cause of his coming to California.
+But she, on her side, had a secret. She never allowed him to suspect
+that the past eighteen months of her life had been passed as employee in
+a New York dry-goods store.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+General Trednoke’s house was built by Spanish missionaries in the
+sixteenth century; and in its main features it was little altered in
+three hundred years. In a climate where there is no frost, walls of
+adobe last as long as granite. The house consisted, practically, of but
+one story; for although there were rooms under the roof, they were used
+only for storage; no one slept in them. The plan of the building was
+not unlike that of a train of railway-cars,--or, it might be more
+appropriate to say, of emigrant-wagons. There was a series of rooms,
+ranged in a line, access to them being had from a narrow corridor,
+which opened on the rear veranda. Several of the rooms also communicated
+directly with each other, and, through low windows, gave on the veranda
+in front; for the house was merely a comparatively narrow array of
+apartments between two broad verandas, where most of the living,
+including much of the sleeping, was done.
+
+Logically, there can be nothing uglier than a Spanish-American dwelling
+of this type. But, as a matter of fact, they appear seductively
+beautiful. The thick white walls acquire a certain softness of tone; the
+surface scales off here and there, and cracks and crevices appear. In
+a damp country, like England, they would soon become covered with moss;
+but moss is not to be had in this region, though one were to offer for
+it the price of the silk velvet, triple ply, which so much resembles
+it. Nevertheless, there are compensations. The soil is inexhaustibly
+fertile, and its fertility expresses itself in the most inveterate
+beauty. Such colors and varieties of flowers exist nowhere else, and
+they continue all the year round. Climbing vines storm the walls, and
+toss their green ladders all over it, for beauty to walk up and down.
+Huge jars, standing on the verandas, emit volcanoes of lovely blossoms;
+and vases swung from the roof drip and overflow with others, as if water
+had turned to flowers. In the garden, which extends over several acres
+at the front of the house, and, as it were, makes it an island in
+a gorgeous sea of petals, there are roses, almonds, oranges, vines,
+pomegranates, and a hundred rivals whose names are unknown to the
+present historian, marching joyfully and triumphantly through the
+seasons, as the symphony moves through changes along its central theme.
+
+Everything that is not an animal or a mineral seems to be a flower.
+There are too many flowers,--or, rather, there is not enough of anything
+else. The faculty of appreciation wearies, and at last ceases to
+take note. It is like conversing with a person whose every word is
+an epigram. The senses have their limitations, and imagination and
+expectation are half of beauty and delight, and the better half;
+otherwise we should have no souls. A single violet, discovered by chance
+in the by-ways of an April forest in New England, gives a pleasure
+as poignant as, and more spiritual than, the miles upon miles of
+Californian splendors.
+
+Monotony is the ruling characteristic,--monotony of beauty, monotony
+of desolation, monotony even of variety. The glorious blue overhead
+is monotonous: as for the thermometer, it paces up and down within the
+narrowest limits, like a prisoner in his cell, or a meadow-lark hopping
+to and fro in a seven-inch cage. The plan and aspect of the buildings
+are monotonous, and so is the way of life of those who inhabit them.
+Fortunately, the sun does rise and set in Southern California: otherwise
+life there would be at an absolute stand-still, with no past and no
+future. But, as it is, one can look forward to morning, and remember the
+evening.
+
+Then, there are the not infrequent but seldom very destructive
+earthquakes; the occasional cloud-bursts and tornadoes, sudden and
+violent as a gunpowder-explosion; and, finally, the astounding contrast
+between the fertile regions and the desert. There are places where you
+can stand with one foot planted in everlasting sterility and the other
+in immortal verdure. In the midst of an arid and hopeless waste, you
+come suddenly upon the brink of a narrow ravine, sharply defined as
+if cut out with an axe, and packed to the brim with enchanting and
+voluptuous fertility. Or you will come upon mountains which sweep upward
+out of burning death into sumptuous life. When the monotony of life
+meets the monotony of death, Southern California becomes a land of
+contrasts; and the contrasts themselves become monotonous.
+
+General Trednoke’s ranch was very near the borders of these two mighty
+forces. An hour’s easy ride would carry him to a region as barren
+and apparently as irreclaimable as that through which Childe Roland
+journeyed in quest of the Dark Tower; lying, too, in a temperature so
+fiery that it coagulated the blood in the veins, and stopped the beating
+of the heart. Underfoot were fine dust, and whitened bones; the air
+was prismatic and magical, ever conjuring up phantom pictures, whose
+characteristic was that they were at the farthest remove from any
+possible reality. The azure sky descended and became a lake; the
+pulsations of the atmosphere translated themselves into the rhythmic
+lapse of waves; spikes of sage-brush and blades of cactus became sylvan
+glades, and hamlets cheerful with inhabitants. Only, all was silent; and
+as you drew near, the scene trembled, altered, and was gone!
+
+Hideous black lizards and horned toads crawl and hop amid this
+desolation; and the deadly little sidewinder rattlesnake lies basking in
+the blaze of sunshine, which it distils into venom. Sometimes the level
+plain is broken up into savage ridges and awful canons, along whose arid
+bottoms no water streams. As you stagger through their chaotic bottoms,
+you see vast boulders poised overhead, tottering to a fall; a shiver
+of earthquake, a breath of hurricane, and they come crashing and
+splintering in destruction down. Along the sides of these acclivities
+extend long, level lines and furrows, marks of where the ocean flowed
+ages ago. But sometimes the hills are but accumulations of desert dust,
+which shift slowly from place to place under the action of the wind,
+melting away here to be re-erected yonder; mounding themselves, perhaps,
+above a living and struggling human being, to move forward, anon,
+leaving where he was a little heap of withered bones. A fearful place is
+this broad abyss, where once murmured the waters of a prehistoric sea.
+Let us return to the cool and fragrant security of the general’s ranch.
+
+At right angles to the main body of the house extend two wings,
+thus forming three sides of a square, the interior of which is the
+court-yard. Here the business of the establishment is conducted. It is
+the liveliest spot on the premises; though it is liveliness of a very
+indolent sort. The veranda built around these sides is twenty feet
+in breadth, paved with tiles that have been worn into hollows by
+innumerable lazy footsteps, mostly shoeless, for this side of the house
+is frequented chiefly by the servants of the place, who are Mexican
+Indians. Ancient wooden settles are bolted to the walls; from hooks hang
+Indian baskets of bright colors; in one corner are stretched raw hides,
+which serve as beds. Small brown children, half naked, trot, clamber,
+and crawl about. Black-haired, swarthy women squat on the tiled floor,
+pursuing their vocations, or, often, doing nothing at all beyond
+continuing a placid organic existence. Boys and men saunter in and out
+of the court-yard, chatting or calling in their musical patois; once
+in a while there is a thud and clatter of hoofs, a rider arriving or
+departing. It is an entertaining scene, charming in its monotony of
+small changes and evolutions; you can sit watching it in a half-doze for
+twenty years at a stretch, and it may seem only as many minutes, or vice
+versa.
+
+Most of the rooms in the wings are used for the kitchens and other
+servants’ quarters; but one large chamber is devoted to a special
+purpose of the general’s own: it is a museum; the Curiosity-Room, he
+calls it. It is lighted by two windows opening on opposite sides, one
+on the court-yard, the other on an orange grove at the south end of the
+house. Besides being, in itself, a cool and pleasant spot, it is full
+of interest to any one who cares about the relics and antiquities of an
+ancient and vanishing race, concerning whom little is or ever will be
+known. There are two students in it at this moment; though whether they
+are studying antiquities is another matter. Let us give ear to their
+discourse and be instructed.
+
+“But this was made for you to wear, Miss Trednoke. Try it. It fits you
+perfectly, you see. There can be no doubt about your being a princess,
+now!”
+
+“I sometimes feel it,--here!” she said, putting her hand on her bosom.
+She was looking at him as she said it, but her eyes, instead of any
+longer meeting his, seemed to turn their regard inward, and to traverse
+strange regions, not of this world. “I see some one who is myself,
+though I can never have been she: she is surrounded with brightness, and
+people not like ours; she thinks of things that I have never known. It
+is the memory of a dream, I suppose,” she added, in another tone.
+
+“Heredity is a queer thing. You may be Aztecan over again, in mind and
+temperament; and every one knows how impressions are transmitted.
+If features and traits of character, why not particular thoughts and
+feelings?”
+
+“I think it is better not to try to explain these things,” said she,
+with the unconscious haughtiness which maidens acquire who have not seen
+the world and are adored by their family. “They are great mysteries,--or
+else nothing.” She now removed from her head the curious cap or helmet,
+ornamented with gold and with the green feathers of the humming-bird,
+which her companion had crowned her with, and hung it on its nail in the
+cabinet. “Perhaps the thoughts came with the cap,” she remarked, smiling
+slightly. “I don’t feel that way any more. I ought not to have spoken of
+it.”
+
+“I hope the time will come when you will feel that you may trust me.”
+
+“You seem easy to know, Mr. Freeman,” she replied, looking at him
+contemplatively as she spoke, “and yet you are not. There is one of you
+that thinks, and another that speaks. And you are not the same to my
+father, or to Professor Meschines, that you are to me.”
+
+“What is the use of human beings except to take one out of one’s self?”
+
+“But it is not your real self that comes out,” said Miriam, after a
+little pause. She never spoke hurriedly, or until after the coming
+speech had passed into her face.
+
+Freeman laughed. “Well,” he said, “if I’m a hypocrite, I’m one of those
+who are made and not born. As a boy, I was frank enough. But a good
+part of my life has been spent with people who couldn’t be trusted; and
+perhaps the habit of protecting myself against them has grown upon me.
+If I could only live here for a while it would be different.--Here’s an
+odd-looking thing. What do you call that?”
+
+“We call it the Golden Fleece.”
+
+“The Golden Fleece! I can imagine a Medea; but where is the Dragon?”
+
+“If Jason came, the Dragon might appear.”
+
+“I remember reading somewhere that the Dragon was less to be feared than
+Medea’s eyes. But this fleece seems to have lost most of its gold. There
+is only a little gold embroidery.”
+
+“It shows where the gold is hidden.”
+
+“It’s you that are concealing something now, Miss Trednoke. How can a
+woollen garment be a talisman?”
+
+“The secret might be woven into it, perhaps,” replied Miriam, passing
+her fingers caressingly over the soft tunic. “Then, when the right
+person puts it on, it would----But you don’t believe in these things.”
+
+“I don’t know: you don’t give me a chance. But who is the right person?
+The thing seems rather small. I’m sure I couldn’t get it on.”
+
+“It can fit only the one it was made for,” said Miriam, gravely. “And
+if you wanted to find the gold, you would trust to your science, rather
+than to this.”
+
+“Well, gold-hunting is not in my line, at present. Every nugget has been
+paid for more than once, before it is found. Besides, there is something
+better than gold in Southern California,--something worth any labor to
+get.”
+
+“What is it?” asked Miriam, turning her tranquil regard upon him.
+
+Harvey Freeman had never been deficient in audacity. But, standing in
+the dark radiance of this maiden’s eyes, his self-assurance dwindled,
+and he could not bring himself to say to her what he would have said to
+any other pretty woman he had ever met. For he felt that great pride and
+passion were concealed beneath that tranquil surface: it was a nature
+that might give everything to love, and would never pardon any frivolous
+parody thereof. Freeman had been acquainted with Miriam scarcely two
+days, but he had already begun to perceive the main indications of a
+character which a lifetime might not be long enough wholly to explore.
+Marriage had never been among the enterprises he had, in the course of
+his career, proposed to himself: he did not propose it now: yet he dared
+not risk the utterance of a word that would lead Miriam to look at him
+with an offended or contemptuous glance. It was not that she was, from
+the merely physical point of view, transcendently beautiful. His first
+impression of her, indeed, had been that she was merely an unusually
+good example of a type by no means rare in that region. But ere long
+he became sensible of a spiritual quality in her which lifted her to a
+level far above that which can be attained by mere harmony of features
+and proportions. Beneath the outward aspect lay a profound depth of
+being, glimpses of which were occasionally discernible through her eyes,
+in the tones of her voice, in her smile, in unconscious movements of
+her hands and limbs. Demonstrative she could never be; but she could,
+at will, feel with tropical intensity, and act with the swiftness and
+energy of a fanatic.
+
+In Miriam’s company, Freeman forgot every one save her,--even
+himself,--though she certainly made no effort to attract him or (beyond
+the commonplaces of courtesy) to interest him. Consequently he had
+become entirely oblivious of the existence of such a person as Grace
+Parsloe, when, much to his irritation, he heard the voice of that young
+lady, mingled with others, approaching along the veranda. At the same
+moment he experienced acute regret at the whim of fortune which had made
+himself and that sprightly young lady fellow-passengers from Panama, and
+at the idle impulse which had prompted him to flirt with her.
+
+But the past was beyond remedy: it was his concern to deal with the
+present. In a few seconds, Grace entered the curiosity-room, followed by
+Professor Meschines, and by a dashing young Mexican senor, whom Freeman
+had met the previous evening, and who was called Don Miguel de Mendoza.
+The senor, to judge from his manner, had already fallen violently in
+love with Grace, and was almost dislocating his organs of speech in the
+effort to pay her romantic compliments in English. Freeman observed this
+with unalloyed satisfaction. But the look which Grace bent upon him and
+Miriam, on entering, and the ominous change which passed over her mobile
+countenance, went far to counteract this agreeable impression.
+
+One story is good until another is told. Freeman had really thought
+Grace a fascinating girl, until he saw Miriam. There was no harm in
+that: the trouble was, he had allowed Grace to perceive his admiration.
+He had already remarked that she was a creature of violent extremes,
+tempered, but not improved, by a thin polish of subtlety. She was now
+about to give an illustration of the passion of jealousy. But it was not
+her jealousy that Freeman minded: it was the prospect of Miriam’s scorn
+when she should surmise that he had given Grace cause to be jealous.
+Miriam was not the sort of character to enter into a competition with
+any other woman about a lover. He would lose her before he had a chance
+to try to win her.
+
+But fortune proved rather more favorable than Freeman expected, or,
+perhaps, than he deserved. Grace’s attack was too impetuous. She stopped
+just inside the threshold, and said, in an imperious tone, “Come here,
+Mr. Freeman: I wish to speak to you.”
+
+“Thank you,” he replied, resolving at once to widen the breach to the
+utmost extent possible, “I am otherwise engaged.”
+
+“Upon my word,” observed the professor, with a chuckle, “you’re
+no diplomatist, Harvey! What are you two about here? Investigating
+antiquities?”
+
+“The remains of ancient Mexico are more interesting than some of her
+recent products,” returned Freeman, who wished to quarrel with somebody,
+and had promptly decided that Senor Don Miguel de Mendoza was the most
+available person. He bowed to the latter as he spoke.
+
+“You--a--spoken to me?” said the senor, stepping forward with a polite
+grimace. “I no to quite comprehend----”
+
+“Pray don’t exert yourself to converse with me out of your own language,
+senor,” interrupted Freeman, in Spanish. “I was just remarking that the
+Spaniards seem to have degenerated greatly since they colonized Mexico.”
+
+“Senor!” exclaimed Don Miguel, stiffening and staring.
+
+“Of course,” added Freeman, smiling benevolently upon him, “I judge only
+from such specimens of the modern Mexican as I happen to meet with.”
+
+Don Miguel’s sallow countenance turned greenish white. But, before he
+could make a reply, Meschines, who scented mischief in the air, and
+divined that the gentler sex must somehow be at the bottom of it, struck
+in.
+
+“You may consider yourself lucky, Harvey, in making the acquaintance of
+a gentleman like Senor de Mendoza, who exemplifies the undimmed virtues
+of Cortez and Torquemada. For my part, I brought him here in the
+hope that he might be able to throw some light on the mystery of this
+embroidered garment, which I see you’ve been examining. What do you say,
+Don Miguel? Have these designs any significance beyond mere ornament?
+Anything in the nature of hieroglyphics?”
+
+The senor was obliged to examine, and to enter into a discussion,
+though, of course, his ignorance of the subject in dispute was as the
+depths of that abyss which has no bottom. Miriam, who was not fond of
+Don Miguel, but who felt constrained to exceptional courtesy in view
+of Freeman’s unwarrantable attack upon him, stood beside him and the
+Professor; and Freeman and Grace were thus left to fight it out with
+each other.
+
+But Grace had drawn her own conclusions from what had passed. Freeman
+had insulted Don Miguel. Wherefore? Obviously, it could only be because
+he thought that she was flirting with him. In other words, Freeman was
+jealous; and to be jealous is to love. Now, Grace was so constituted
+that, though she did not like to play second fiddle herself, yet she
+had no objection to monopolizing all the members of the male species who
+might happen, at a given moment, to be in sight.
+
+She had, consequently, already forgiven Freeman for his apparent
+unfaithfulness to her, by reason of his manifest jealousy of Don Miguel.
+As a matter of fact, he was not jealous, and he was unfaithful; but
+fate had decreed that there should be, for the moment, a game of
+cross-purposes; and the decrees of fate are incorrigible.
+
+“I had no idea you were so savage,” she said, softly.
+
+“I’m not savage,” replied Freeman. “I am bored.”
+
+“Well, I don’t know as I can blame you,” said Grace, still more softly:
+she fancied he was referring to Miriam. “I don’t much like Spanish
+mixtures myself.”
+
+“One has to take what one can get,” said Freeman, referring to Don
+Miguel.
+
+“But it’s all right now,” rejoined she, meaning that Freeman and herself
+were reconciled after their quarrel.
+
+“If you are satisfied, I am,” observed Freeman, too indifferent to care
+what she meant.
+
+“Only, you mustn’t take that poor young man too seriously,” she went
+on: “these Mexicans are absurdly demonstrative, but they don’t mean
+anything.”
+
+“He won’t, if he values his skin,” said Freeman, meaning that if Don
+Miguel attempted to interfere between himself and Miriam he would wring
+his neck.
+
+“He won’t, I promise you,” said Grace, sparkling with pleasure.
+
+“I don’t quite see how you can help it,” returned Freeman.
+
+“I should hope I could manage a creature like that!” murmured she,
+smiling.
+
+“Well,” said Freeman, after a pause,--for Grace’s seeming change of
+attitude puzzled him a little,--“I’m glad you look at it that way. I
+don’t wish to be meddled with; that’s all.”
+
+“You shan’t be,” she whispered; and then, just when they were
+approaching the point where their eyes might have been opened, in came
+General Trednoke. The group round the Golden Fleece broke up.
+
+The general wore his riding-dress, and his bearing was animated, though
+he was covered with dust.
+
+“I was wondering what had become of you all,” he said, as the others
+gathered about him. “I have been taking a canter to the eastward.
+Kamaiakan said this morning that one of the boys had brought news of a
+cloud-burst in that direction. I rode far enough to ascertain that there
+has really been something of the kind, and I think it has affected the
+arroyo on the farther side of the little sierra. Now, I don’t know how
+you gentlemen feel, but it occurred to me that it might be interesting
+to make up a little party of exploration to-morrow. Would you like to
+try it, Meschines?”
+
+“To be sure I should!” the professor replied. “I imagine I can stand as
+much of the desert as you can! And I want to catch a sidewinder.”
+
+“Good! And you, Mr. Freeman?”
+
+“It would suit me exactly,” said the latter. “In fact, I had been
+intending to gratify my curiosity by making some such expedition on my
+own account.”
+
+“Ah!” said the general, eying him with some intentness. “Well, we may be
+able to show you something more curious than you anticipate.--And now,
+Senor de Mendoza, there is only you left. May we count on your company
+into the desert?”
+
+But the Mexican, with a bow and a grimace, excused himself. Scientific
+curiosity was an unknown emotion to him; but he foresaw an opportunity
+to have Grace all to himself, and he meant to improve it. He also wished
+leisure to think over some plan for getting rid of Senor Freeman, in
+whom he scented a rival, and who, whether a rival or not, had behaved to
+him with a lack of consideration in the presence of ladies.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+General Trednoke’s household went early to bed. As there was
+more accommodation in the old house than sufficed for its present
+inhabitants, it followed that each of them had a regal allowance of
+rooms. And when Grace Parsloe became one of the occupants, she was
+allotted two commodious apartments at the extremity of the left wing.
+They communicated, through long windows, with the veranda in front, and
+by means of doors with the passage, or hall, traversing the house from
+end to end. If, therefore, she happened to be sleepless, she might issue
+forth into the garden, and wander about there without let or hinderance
+until she was ready to accept the wooing of the god of dreams; or, if
+supernatural terrors daunted her, she could in a few seconds transfer
+herself and her fears to Miriam’s chamber, which occupied the same
+position in the right wing that hers did in the left.
+
+The night, as is customary in that climate, where the atmosphere is pure
+and evaporation rapid, was cool and still. By ten o’clock there was no
+sound to indicate that any person was awake; though, to an acute ear,
+the rise and fall of regular breathing, or even an occasional snore,
+might have given evidence of slumber. At the back of the house,
+the Indian retainers were lapped in silence. They were a harmless
+people,--somewhat disposed, perhaps, to small pilferings, in an amiable
+and loyal way, but incapable of anything seriously criminal. There were
+no locks on the doors, and most of them stood ajar. Tramps and burglars
+were unknown.
+
+Miriam, having put on her night-dress, stood a few minutes at her
+window, gazing out on the soft darkness of the garden. All there was
+peacefulness and fragrance. The leaves of the plants hung motionless;
+the blossoms seemed to hush themselves to the enjoyment of their own
+sweetness. The sky was clear, but there was no moon. A beautiful planet,
+however, bright enough to cast a shadow, hung in the southwestern sky,
+and its mysterious light touched Miriam’s face, and cast a dim rectangle
+of radiance on the white matting that carpeted the floor of her room.
+It was the planet Venus,--the star of love. Miriam thought it would be
+a pleasant place to live in. But one need not journey to Venus to find a
+world where love is the ruling passion. Circumstances over which she
+has no control may cause such a world to come into existence in a girl’s
+heart.
+
+She left the window at last, and got into bed, where she soon presented
+an image of perfect repose. Meanwhile, in a dark corner of the
+court-yard at the rear, a dark, pyramidal object abode without motion.
+It might have been taken for a heap of blankets piled up there. But if
+you examined it more narrowly you would have detected in it the vague
+outlines of a human figure, squatting on its haunches, with its head
+resting on its knees, and its arms clasped round them,--somewhat as
+figures sit in Egyptian hieroglyphics, or like Aztecan mummies in the
+tomb. So still was it, it might itself have been a mummy. But ever and
+anon a blinking of the narrow eyes in the bronze countenance told that
+it was no mummy, but a living creature. In fact, it was none other than
+the aged and austere Kamaiakan, who, for reasons best known to himself,
+chose to spend the hours usually devoted to rest in an attitude that
+no European or white American could have maintained with comfort longer
+than five minutes.
+
+An hour--two hours--passed away. Then Kamaiakan noiselessly arose,
+peered about him cautiously for a few moments, and passed out of the
+court-yard through the open gate. He turned to the left, and, stealing
+beneath Miriam’s windows, paused there for an instant and made certain
+gestures with his arms. Anon he continued his way to the garden, and was
+soon concealed by the thick shrubbery.
+
+History requires us to follow him. The garden extended westward, and
+was quite a spacious enclosure: one not familiar with its winding paths
+might easily lose himself there on a dark night. But Kamaiakan knew
+where he was going, and the way thither. He now stalked along more
+swiftly, taking one turn after another, brushing aside the low-hanging
+boughs, and passing the loveliest flowers without a glance. He was as
+one preoccupied with momentous business. Presently he arrived at a small
+open space, remote and secluded. It was completely surrounded by tall
+shrubbery. In the centre was a basin of stone, evidently very ancient,
+filled to the brim with the clear water of a spring, which bubbled up
+from the bottom, and, overflowing by way of a gap in the edge, became a
+small rivulet, which stole away in the direction of the sea. Across the
+slightly undulating surface of the basin trembled the radiance of the
+star.
+
+Kamaiakan knelt down beside it, and, bending over, gazed intently into
+the water. Presently he dipped his hands in it, and sprinkled shining
+drops over his own gaunt person, and over the ground in the vicinity of
+the spring. He made strange movements with his arms, bowed his head
+and erected it again, and traced curious figures on the ground with his
+finger. It appeared as if the venerable Indian had solemnly lost his
+senses and had sought out this lonely spot to indulge the vagaries of
+his insanity. If so, his silence and deliberation afforded an example
+worthy of consideration by other lunatics.
+
+Suddenly he ceased his performance, and held himself in a listening
+attitude. A light, measured sound was audible, accompanied by the
+rustling of leaves. It came nearer. There was a glimpse of whiteness
+through the interstices of the surrounding foliage, and then a slender
+figure, clad in close-fitting raiment, entered the little circle. It
+wore a sort of tunic, reaching half-way to the knees, and leggings of
+the same soft, grayish-white material. The head was covered with a sort
+of hood, which left only the face exposed; and this too might be covered
+by a species of veil or mask, which, however, was now fastened back on
+the headpiece, after the manner of a visor. The front of the tunic was
+embroidered with fantastic devices in gold thread, brightened here and
+there with precious stones; and other devices appeared on the hood.
+The face of this figure was pale and calm, with great dark eyes beneath
+black brows. The stature was no greater than that of a lad of fifteen,
+but the bearing was composed and dignified. The contours of the figure,
+however, even as seen by that dim light, were those of neither a boy nor
+a man. The wearer of the tunic was a girl, just rounding into womanhood,
+and the face was the face of Miriam.
+
+Yet it was not by this name that Kamaiakan addressed her. After making
+a deep obeisance, touching his hand to her foot and then to his own
+forehead and breast, he said, in a language that was neither Spanish nor
+such as the modern Indians of Mexico use,--
+
+“Welcome, Semitzin! May this night be the beginning of high things!”
+
+“I am ready,” replied the other, in a soft and low voice, but with a
+certain stateliness of utterance unlike the usual manner of General
+Trednoke’s daughter: “I was glad to hear you call, and to see again the
+stars and the earth. Have you anything to tell?”
+
+“There are events which may turn to our harm, most revered princess. The
+master of this house----”
+
+“Why do you not call him my father, Kamaiakan?” interposed the other.
+“He is indeed the father of this mortal body which I wear, which (as you
+tell me) bears the name of Miriam. Besides, are not Miriam and I united
+by the thread of descent?”
+
+“Something of the spirit that is you dwells in her also,” said the
+Indian.
+
+“And does she know of it?”
+
+“At times, my princess; but only as one remembers a dream.”
+
+“I wish I might converse with her and instruct her in the truth,”
+ said the princess. “And she, in turn, might speak to me of things that
+perplex me. I live and move in this mortal world, and yet (you tell
+me) three centuries have passed since what is called my death. To me it
+seems as if I had but slept through a night, and were awake again.
+Nor can I tell what has happened--what my life and thoughts have
+been--during this long lapse of time. Yet it must be that I live another
+life: I cannot rest in extinction. Three times you have called me forth;
+yet whence I come hither, or whither I return, is unknown to me.”
+
+“There is a memory of the spirit,” replied Kamaiakan, “and a memory of
+the body. They are separate, and cannot communicate with each other.
+Such is the law.”
+
+“Yet I remember, as if it were yesterday, the things that were done when
+Montezuma was king. And well do I remember you, Kamaiakan!”
+
+“It is true I live again, princess, though not in the flesh and bones
+that died with you in the past. But in the old days I was acquainted
+with mysteries, and learned the secrets of the world of spirits; and
+this science still remained with me after the change, so that I was able
+to know that I was I, and that you could be recalled to speak with me
+through the tongue of Miriam. But there are some things that I do not
+know; and it is for that I have been bold to summon you.”
+
+“What can I tell you that can be of use to you in this present life,
+Kamaiakan, when all whom we knew and loved are gone?”
+
+“To you only, Semitzin, is known the place of concealment of the
+treasure which, in the old times, you and I hid in the desert. I indeed
+remember the event, and somewhat of the region of the hiding; but I
+cannot put my hand upon the very spot. I have tried to discover it; but
+when I approach it my mind becomes confused between the present and the
+past, and I am lost.”
+
+“I remember it well,” said Semitzin. “We rode across the desert,
+carrying the treasure on mules. The air was still, and the heat very
+heavy. The desert descended in a great hollow: you told me it was where,
+in former days, the ocean had been. At last there were rocky hills
+before us; we rode towards a great rock shaped like the pyramid on which
+the sacrifices were held in Tenochtitlan. We passed round its base, and
+entered a deep and narrow valley, that seemed to have been ploughed out
+of the heart of the earth and to descend into it. Then---- But what is
+it you wish to do with this treasure, Kamaiakan?”
+
+“It belongs to your race, princess, and was hidden that the murderers
+of Montezuma might not seize it. I was bound by an oath, after the peril
+was past, to restore it to the rightful owners. But our country remained
+under the rule of the conquerors; and my life went out. But now the
+conquerors have been conquered in their turn, and Miriam is the last
+inheritor of your blood. When I have delivered to her this trust, my
+work will be done, and I can return to the world which you inhabit. The
+time is come; and only by your help can the restitution be made.”
+
+“Was there, then, a time fixed?”
+
+“The stars tell me so. And other events make it certain that there must
+be no delay. The general has it in mind to discover the gates through
+which the waters under-ground may arise and again form the sea which
+flowed hereabouts in the ancient times. Now, this sea will fill the
+ravine in which the treasure lies, and make it forever unattainable. A
+youth has also come here who is skilled in the sciences, and whom the
+general will ask to help him in the thing he is to attempt.”
+
+“Who is this youth?” asked Semitzin.
+
+“He is of the new people who inherit this land: his name is Freeman.”
+
+“There is something in me--I know not what--that seems to tell me I have
+been near such a one. Can it be so?”
+
+“The other self, who now sleeps, knows of him,” replied the ancient
+Indian. “He is a well-looking youth, and I think he has a desire towards
+her we call Miriam.”
+
+“And does she love him?” inquired the princess.
+
+“A maiden’s heart is a riddle, even to herself,” said Kamaiakan.
+
+“But there is a sympathy that makes me feel her heart in my own,”
+ rejoined Semitzin. “Love is a thing that pierces through time, and
+through barriers which separate the mind and memory of the past from the
+present. I--as you know, Kamaiakan--was never wedded; the fate of our
+people, and my early end, kept that from me. But the thought of that
+youth is here,”--she put her hand on her bosom,--“and it seems to me
+that, were we to meet, I should know him. Perhaps, were that to be,
+Miriam and I might thus come to be aware of each other, and live
+henceforth one life.”
+
+“Such matters are beyond my knowledge,” said the Indian, shaking his
+head. “The gods know what will be. It is for us, now, to regain the
+treasure. Are you willing, my princess, to accompany me thither?”
+
+“I am ready. Shall it be now?”
+
+“Not now, but soon. I will call you when the moment comes. The place
+is but a ride of two or three hours from here. None must know of our
+departure, for there are some here whom I do not trust. We must go by
+night. You will wear the garments you now have on, without which all
+might miscarry.”
+
+“How can the garments affect the result, Kamaiakan?”
+
+“A powerful spell is laid upon them, princess. Moreover, the characters
+wrought upon them, with gold thread and jewels, are mystical, and the
+substance of the garment itself has a virtue to preserve the wearer from
+evil. It is the same that was worn by you when the treasure was hidden;
+and it may be, Semitzin, that without its magic aid your spirit could
+not know itself in this world as now it can.”
+
+As he spoke the last words, a low sound, wandering and muttering with
+an inward note, came palpitating on their ears through the night air.
+It seemed to approach from no direction that could be identified, yet
+it was at first remote, and then came nearer, and in a moment trembled
+around them, and shivered in the solid earth beneath their feet; and in
+another instant it had passed on, and was subdued slowly into silence in
+the shadowy distance. No one who has once heard that sound can mistake
+it for any other, or ever can forget it. The air had suddenly become
+close and tense; and now a long breeze swept like a sigh through the
+garden, dying away in a long-drawn wail; and out of the west came a
+hollow murmur, like that of a mighty wave breaking upon the shore of the
+ocean.
+
+“The earthquake!” whispered Kamaiakan, rising to his feet. And then he
+pointed to the stone basin. “Look! the spring!”
+
+“It is gone!” exclaimed Semitzin.
+
+And, in truth, the water, with a strange, sucking noise, disappeared
+through the bottom of the basin, leaving the glistening cavity which had
+held it, green with slimy water-weed, empty.
+
+“The time is near, indeed!” muttered the Indian. “The second shock may
+cause the waters from which this spring came to rise as no living man
+has seen them rise, and make the sea return, and the treasure be lost.
+In a few days all may be over. But you, princess, must vanish: though
+the shock was but slight, some one might be awakened; and were you to be
+discovered, our plans might go wrong.”
+
+“Must I depart so soon?” said Semitzin, regretfully. “The earth is
+beautiful, Kamaiakan: the smell of the flowers is sweet, and the stars
+in the sky are bright. To feel myself alive, to breathe, to walk, to
+see, are sweet. Perhaps I have no other conscious life than this. I
+would like to remain as I am: I would like to see the sun shine, and to
+hear the birds sing, and to see the men and women who live in this age.
+Is there no way of keeping me here?”
+
+“I cannot tell; it may be,--but it must not be now, Semitzin,” the old
+man replied, with a troubled look. “The ways of the gods are not our
+ways. She whose body you inhabit--she has her life to live.”
+
+“But is that girl more worthy to live than I? You have called me into
+being again: you have made me know how pleasant this world is. Miriam
+sleeps: she need never know; she need never awake again. You were
+faithful to me in the old time: have you more care for her than for me?
+I feel all the power and thirst of youth in me: the gods did not let me
+live out my life: may they not intend that I shall take it up again now?
+Besides, I wear Miriam’s body: could I not seem to others to be Miriam
+indeed? How could they guess the truth?”
+
+“I will think of what you say, princess,” said Kamaiakan. “Something
+may perhaps be done; but it must be done gradually: you would need much
+instruction in the ways of the new world before you could safely enter
+into its life. Leave that to me. I am loyal as ever: is it not to fulfil
+the oath made to you that I am here? and what would Miriam be to me,
+were she not your inheritor? Be satisfied for the present: in a few days
+we will meet and speak again.”
+
+“The power is yours, Kamaiakan: it is well to argue, when with a word
+you can banish me forever! Yet what if I were to say that, unless you
+consent to the thing I desire, I will not show you where the treasure
+lies?”
+
+“Princess Semitzin!” exclaimed the Indian, “remember that it is not
+against me, but against the gods, that you would contend. The gods know
+that I have no care for treasure. But they will not forgive a broken
+oath; and they will not hold that one guiltless through whom it is
+brought to naught?”
+
+“Well, we shall meet again,” answered Semitzin, after a pause. “But do
+you remember that you, too, are not free from responsibility in this
+matter. You have called me back: see to it that you do me justice.” She
+waved her hands with a gesture of adieu, turned, and left the enclosure.
+Kamaiakan sank down again beside the empty bowl of the fountain.
+
+Semitzin returned along the path by which she had come, towards the
+house. As she turned round one of the corners, she saw a man’s figure
+before her, strolling slowly along in the same direction in which she
+was going. In a few moments he heard her light footfall, and, facing
+about, confronted her. She continued to advance until she was within
+arm’s reach of him: then she paused, and gazed steadfastly in his face.
+He was the first human being, save Kamaiakan, that she had seen since
+her eyes closed upon the world of Tenochtitlan, three hundred years
+before.
+
+The young man looked upon her with manifest surprise. It was too dark
+to distinguish anything clearly, but it did not take him long to surmise
+that the figure was that of a woman, and her countenance, though changed
+in aspect by the head-dress she were, yet had features which, he knew,
+he had seen before. But could it be Miriam Trednoke who was abroad at
+such an hour and in such a costume? He did not recognize the Golden
+Fleece, but it was evident enough that she was clad as women are not.
+
+Before he could think of anything to say to her, she smiled, and uttered
+some words in a soft, flowing language with which he was entirely
+unacquainted. The next moment she had glided past him, and was out of
+sight round the curve of the path, leaving him in a state of perplexity
+not altogether gratifying.
+
+“What the deuce can it mean?” he muttered to himself. “I can’t be
+mistaken about its being Miriam. And yet she didn’t look at me as if
+she recognized me. What can she be doing out here at midnight? I suppose
+it’s none of my business: in fact, she might very reasonably ask the
+same question of me. And if I were to tell her that I had only ridden
+over to spend a sentimental hour beneath her window, what would she say?
+If she answered in the same lingo she used just now, I should be as wise
+as before. After all, it may have been somebody else. The image in my
+mind projected itself on her countenance. I certainly must be in love!
+I almost wish I’d never come here. This complication about the general’s
+irrigating scheme makes it awkward. I’m bound not to explain things to
+him; and yet, if I don’t, and he discovers (as he can’t help doing) what
+I am here for, nothing will persuade him that I haven’t been playing
+a double game; and that would not be a promising preliminary towards
+becoming a member of his family. If Miriam were only Grace, now, it
+would be plain sailing. Hello! who’s this? Senor Don Miguel, as I’m a
+sinner! What is he up to, pray? Can this be the explanation of
+Miriam’s escapade? I have a strong desire to blow a hole through that
+fellow!--Buenas noches, Senor de Mendoza! I am enchanted to have the
+unexpected honor of meeting you.”
+
+Senor de Mendoza turned round, disagreeably startled. It is only fair to
+explain that he had not come hither with any lover-like designs towards
+Miriam. Grace was the magnet that had drawn his steps to the Trednokes’
+garden, and the truth is that that enterprising young lady was not
+without a suspicion that he might turn up. Could this information have
+been imparted to Freeman, it would have saved much trouble; but, as
+it was, not only did he jump to the conclusion that Don Miguel was his
+rival (and, seemingly, a not unsuccessful one), but a similar misgiving
+as to Freeman’s purposes towards Grace found its way into the heart of
+the Spaniard. It was a most perverse trick of fate.
+
+The two men contemplated each other, each after his own fashion: Don
+Miguel pale, glaring, bristling; Freeman smiling, insolent, hectoring.
+
+“Why are you here, senor?” demanded the former, at length.
+
+“Partly, senor, because such is my pleasure. Partly, to inform you that
+your presence here offends me, and to humbly request you to be off.”
+
+“Senor, this is an impertinence.”
+
+“Senor, one is not impertinent to prowling greasers. One admonishes
+them, and, if they do not obey, one chastises them.”
+
+“Do you talk of chastising Don Miguel de Mendoza? Senor, I will wash out
+that insult with your blood!”
+
+“Excellent! It is at your service for the taking. But, lest we disturb
+the repose of our friends yonder, let us seek a more convenient spot. I
+noticed a very pretty little glade on the right as I rode over here. You
+are armed? Good! we will have this little affair adjusted within half
+an hour. Yonder star--the planet of love, senor--shall see fair play.
+Andamos!”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+Having mounted their steeds, the two sanguinary young gentlemen rode
+onwards, side by side, but in silence; for the souls of those who have
+resolved to slay each other find small delight in vain conversation.
+Moreover, there is that in the conscious proximity of death which
+stimulates to thought much more than to speech. But Freeman preserved an
+outward demeanor of complacent calm, as one who doubts not, nor dreads,
+the issue; and, indeed, this was not the first time by many that he had
+taken his life in his hand and brought it unscathed through dangers.
+Don Miguel, on the other hand, was troubled in spirit, and uneasy in
+the flesh. He was one soon hot and soon cold; and this long ride to the
+decisive event went much against his stomach. If the conflict had
+taken place there in the garden, while the fire of the insult was yet
+scorching him, he could have fought it out with good will; but now the
+night air seemed chiller and chiller, and its frigidity crept into his
+nerves: he doubted of the steadiness of his aim, bethought himself that
+the darkness was detrimental to accurate shooting, and wondered whether
+Senor Freeman would think it necessary to fight across a handkerchief.
+He could not help regretting, too, that the quarrel had not
+been occasioned by some more definite and satisfactory
+provocation,--something which merely to think of would steel the heart
+to irrevocable murderousness. But no blow had passed; even the words,
+though bitter to swallow, had been wrapt in the phrases of courtesy;
+and perhaps the whole affair was the result of some misapprehension.
+He stole a look at the face of his companion; and the latter’s air of
+confident and cheerful serenity made him feel worse than ever. Was he
+being brought out here to be butchered for nothing,--he, Don Miguel de
+Mendoza, who had looked forward to many pleasures in this life? It was
+too bad. It was true, the fortune of war might turn the other way; but
+Don Miguel was aware of a sensation in his bones which made this hope
+weak.
+
+At length Freeman drew rein and glanced around him. They were in a
+lonely and--Don Miguel thought--a most desolate and unattractive spot.
+An open space of about half an acre was bounded on one side by a growth
+of wild mustard, whose slender stalks rose to more than the height of a
+man’s head. On the other side was a grove of live-oak; and in front, the
+ground fell away in a rugged, bush-grown declivity.
+
+“It strikes me that this is just about what we want,” remarked Freeman,
+in his full, cheerful tones. “We are half a mile from the road;
+the ground is fairly level; and there’s no possibility of our being
+disturbed. I was thinking, this afternoon, as I passed through here,
+what an ideal spot it was for just such a little affair as you and I are
+bent on. But I didn’t venture to anticipate such speedy good fortune as
+your obliging condescension has brought to pass, Don Miguel.”
+
+“Caramba!” muttered the senor, shivering. He might have said more, but
+was unwilling to trust his voice, or to waste nervous energy.
+
+Meanwhile, Freeman had dismounted, and was tethering his horse. It
+occurred to the senor that it would be easy to pull his gun, send a
+bullet through his companion, and gallop away. He did not yield to
+this temptation, partly from traditional feeling that it would not be
+suitable conduct for a De Mendoza, partly because he might miss the shot
+or only inflict a wound, and partly because such deeds demand a nerve
+which, at that moment, was not altogether at his command. Instead,
+he slowly dismounted himself, and wondered whether it would ever be
+vouchsafed him to sit in that saddle again.
+
+Freeman now produced his revolver, a handsome, silver-mounted weapon,
+that looked business-like. “What sort of a machine is yours?” he
+inquired, pleasantly. “You can take your choice. I’m not particular, but
+I can recommend this as a sure thing, if you would like to try it. It
+never misses at twenty paces.”
+
+“Twenty paces?” repeated Don Miguel, with a faint gleam of hope.
+
+“Of course we won’t have any twenty paces to-night,” added Freeman, with
+a laugh. “I thought it might be a good plan to start at, say, fifteen,
+and advance firing. In that way, one or other of us will be certain to
+do something sooner or later. Would that arrangement be agreeable to
+Senor de Mendoza?”
+
+“Valga me Dios! I am content,” said the latter, fetching a deep breath,
+and setting his teeth. “I will keep my weapon.”
+
+“Muy buen,” returned the American. “So now let us take our ground: that
+is, if you are quite ready?”
+
+Accordingly they selected their stations, facing respectively about
+north and south, with the planet of love between them, as it were.
+“Oblige me by giving the word, senor,” said Freeman, cocking his weapon.
+
+But Don Miguel was staring with perturbed visage at something behind
+his antagonist. “Santa Maria!” he faltered, “what is yonder? It is a
+spirit!”
+
+Freeman had his wits about him, and perhaps entertained a not too high
+opinion of Mexican fair play. So, before turning round, he advanced till
+he was alongside his companion. Then he looked, and saw something which
+was certainly enigmatic.
+
+Among the wild-mustard plants there appeared a moving luminosity,
+having an irregular, dancing motion, as of a will-o’-the-wisp singularly
+agitated. Sometimes it uplifted itself on high, then plunged downwards,
+and again jerked itself from side to side; occasionally it would quite
+vanish for an instant. Accompanying this manifestation there was a
+clawing and reaching of shadowy arms: altogether, it was as if some
+titanic spectral grasshopper, with a heart of fire, were writhing and
+kicking in convulsions of phantom agony. Such an apparition, in an hour
+and a place so lonely, might stagger a less superstitious soul than that
+of Don Miguel de Mendoza.
+
+Freeman gazed at it for a moment in silence. It mystified him, and
+then irritated him. When one is bent heart and soul upon an important
+enterprise, any interruption is an annoyance. Perhaps there was in the
+young American’s nature just enough remains of belief in witches and
+hobgoblins to make him feel warranted in resorting to extreme measures.
+At any rate, he lifted his revolver, and fired.
+
+It was a long shot for a revolver: nevertheless it took effect. The
+luminous object disappeared with a faint explosive sound, followed by a
+shout unmistakably human. The long stems of the wild mustard swayed
+and parted, and out sprang a figure, which ran straight towards the two
+young men.
+
+Hereupon, Don Miguel, hissing out an appeal to the Virgin and the
+saints, turned and fled.
+
+Meanwhile, the mysterious figure continued its onward career; and
+Freeman once more levelled his weapon,--when a voice, which gave him
+such a start of surprise as well-nigh caused him to pull the trigger
+for sheer lack of self-command, called out, “Why, you abominable young
+villain! What the mischief do you mean? Do you want to be hanged?”
+
+“Professor Meschines!” faltered Freeman.
+
+It was indeed that worthy personage, and he was on fire with wrath. He
+held in one hand a shattered lantern mounted on the end of a pole, and
+in the other a long-handled net of gauze, such as entomologists use to
+catch moths withal. Under his left arm was slung a brown japanned case,
+in which he presumably deposited the spoils of his skill. Freeman’s shot
+had not only smashed and extinguished the lantern which served as bait
+for the game, but had also given the professor a disagreeable reminder
+that the tenure of human life is as precarious as that of the silly moth
+which allows itself to be lured to destruction by shining promises of
+bliss.
+
+“Upon my soul, professor, I am very sorry,” said Freeman. “You have
+no idea how formidable you looked; and you could hardly expect me to
+imagine that you would be abroad at such an hour----”
+
+“And why not, I should like to know?” shouted the professor, towering
+with indignation. “Was I doing anything to be ashamed of? And what are
+you doing here, pray, with loaded revolvers in your hands?--Hallo! who’s
+this?” he exclaimed, as Don Miguel advanced doubtfully out of the gloom.
+“Senor de Mendoza, as I’m a sinner! and armed, too! Well, really! Are
+you two out on a murdering expedition?--Oho!” he went on, in a changed
+tone, glancing keenly from one to another: “methinks I see the bottom of
+this mystery. You have ridden forth, like the champions of romance,
+to do doughty deeds upon each other!--Is it not so, Don Miguel?” he
+demanded, turning his fierce spectacles suddenly on that young man.
+
+Don Miguel, ignoring a secret gesture from Freeman, admitted that he had
+been on the point of expunging the latter from this mortal sphere.
+
+The professor chuckled sarcastically. “I see! Blood! Wounded honor!
+The code!--But, by the way, I don’t see your seconds! Where are your
+seconds?”
+
+“My dear sir,” said Freeman, “I assure you it’s all a mistake. We just
+happened to meet at the gen--er--happened to meet, and were riding home
+together----”
+
+“Now, listen to me, Harvey,” the professor interrupted, holding up an
+expository finger. “You have known me since some ten years, I think; and
+I have known you. You were a clever boy in your studies; but it was
+your foible to fancy yourself cleverer than you were. Acting under that
+delusion, you pitted yourself against me on one or two occasions; and
+I leave it to your candid recollection whether you or I had the best of
+the encounter. You call yourself a man, now; but I make bold to say
+that the--discrepancy, let us call it--between you and me remains as
+conspicuous as ever it was. I see through you, sir, much more clearly
+than, by this light, I can see you. I am fond of you, Harvey; but I
+feel nothing but contempt for your present attitude. In the first place,
+conscious as you are of your skill with that weapon, you know that this
+affair--even had seconds been present--would have been, not a duel,
+but an assassination. You acted like a coward!--I say it, sir, like a
+coward!--and I hope you may live to be as much ashamed of yourself as
+I am now ashamed for you. Secondly, your conduct, considered in its
+relations to--to certain persons whom I will not name, is that of a boor
+and a blackguard. Suppose you had accomplished the cowardly murder--the
+cowardly murder, I said, sir--that you were bent upon to-night. Do you
+think that would be a grateful and acceptable return for the courtesy
+and confidence that have been shown you in that house?--a house, sir, to
+which I myself introduced you, under the mistaken belief that you were
+a gentleman, or, at least, could feign gentlemanly behavior! But I
+won’t--my feelings won’t allow me to enlarge further upon this point.
+But allow me to add, in the third place, that you have shown yourself
+a purblind donkey. Actually, you haven’t sense enough to know the
+difference between those who pull with you and those who pull against
+you. Now, I happen to know--to know, do you hear?--that had you
+succeeded in what you were just about to attempt, you would have removed
+your surest ally,--the surest, because his interests prompt him to favor
+yours. You pick out the one man who was doing his best to clear the
+obstacle out of your path, and what do you do?--Thank him?--Not you!
+You plot to kill him! But even had he been, as you in your stupidity
+imagined, your rival, do you think the course you adopted would have
+promoted your advantage? Let me tell you, sir, that you don’t know the
+kind of people you are dealing with. You would never have been permitted
+to cross their threshold again. And you may take my word for it, if
+ever you venture to recur to any such folly, I will see to it that you
+receive your deserts.--Well, I think we understand each other, now?”
+
+Freeman’s emotions had undergone several variations during the course of
+the mighty professor’s harangue. But he had ended by admitting the force
+of the argument; and the reminiscences of college lecturings aroused by
+the incident had tickled his sense of humor and quenched his anger. He
+looked at the professor with a sparkle of laughter in his eyes.
+
+“I have done very wrong, sir,” he said, “and I’m very sorry for it. If
+you won’t give me any bad marks this time, I’ll promise to be good in
+future.”
+
+“Ah! very smooth! To begin with, suppose you ask pardon of Senor Don
+Miguel de Mendoza for the affront you have put upon him.”
+
+To a soul really fearless, even an apology has no terrors. Moreover,
+Freeman’s night ride with Don Miguel, though brief in time, had sufficed
+to give him the measure of the Mexican’s character; and he respected
+it so little that he could no longer take the man seriously, or be
+sincerely angry with him. The professor’s assurance as to Don Miguel’s
+inoffensiveness had also its weight; and it was therefore with a quite
+royal gesture of amicable condescension that Freeman turned upon his
+late antagonist and held out his hand.
+
+“Senor Don Miguel de Mendoza,” said he, “I humbly tender you my
+apologies and crave your pardon. My conduct has been inexcusable; I beg
+you to excuse it. I deserve your reprobation; I entreat the favor of
+your friendship. Senor, between men of honor, a misunderstanding is a
+misunderstanding, and an apology is an apology. I lament the existence
+of the first; the professor, here, is witness that I lay the second at
+your feet. May I hope to receive your hand as a pledge that you restore
+me to the privilege of your good will?”
+
+Now, Don Miguel’s soul had been grievously exercised that night: he had
+been insulted, he had shivered beneath the shadow of death, he had been
+a prey to superstitious terrors, and he had been utterly perplexed by
+the professor’s eloquent address, whereof (as it was delivered in good
+American, and with a rapidity of utterance born of strong feeling) he
+had comprehended not a word, and the unexpected effect of which upon his
+late adversary he was at a loss to understand. Although, therefore,
+he had no stomach for battle, he was oppressed by a misgiving lest
+the whole transaction had been in some way planned to expose him
+to ridicule; and for this reason he was disposed to treat Freeman’s
+peaceful overtures with suspicion. His heart did not respond to those
+overtures, but neither was it stout enough to enable him to reject them
+explicitly. Accordingly, he adopted that middle course which, in spite
+of the proverb, is not seldom the least expedient. He disregarded
+the proffered hand, bowed very stiffly, and, saying, “Senor, I am
+satisfied,” stalked off with all the rigidity of one in whose veins
+flows the sangre azul of Old Castile. Freeman smiled superior upon his
+retreat, and then, producing a cigar-case, proceeded to light up with
+the professor. In this fragrant and friendly cloud we will leave them,
+and return for a few minutes to the house of General Trednoke.
+
+It will be remembered that something was said of Grace being privy to
+the nocturnal advances of Senor de Mendoza. We are not to suppose
+that this implies in her anything worse than an aptness to indulge in
+romantic adventure: the young lady enjoyed the mystery of romance,
+and knew that serenades, and whisperings over star-lit balconies, were
+proper to this latitude. It may be open to question whether she really
+was much interested in De Mendoza, save as he was a type of the adoring
+Spaniard. That the scene required: she could imagine him (for the
+time-being) to be the Cid of ancient legend, and she herself would enact
+a role of corresponding elevation. Grace would doubtless have prospered
+better had she been content with one adorer at a time; but, while
+turning to a new love, she was by no means disposed to loosen the chains
+of a former one; and, though herself as jealous as is a tiger-cat of her
+young, she could never recognize the propriety of a similar passion on
+the part of her victims. She had been indignant at Freeman’s apparent
+infidelity with Miriam; but when she had (as she imagined) discovered
+her mistake, she had listened with a heart at ease to the protestations
+of Don Miguel. She had parted from him that evening with a half
+expressed understanding that he was to reappear beneath her window
+before day-light; and she had pictured to herself a charming
+balcony-scene, such as she had beheld in Italian opera. Accordingly, she
+had attired herself in a becoming negligee, and had spent the fore part
+of the night somewhat restlessly, occasionally emerging on the veranda
+and gazing down into the perfumed gloom of the garden. At length she
+fancied that she heard footsteps. Whose could they be, unless Don
+Miguel’s? Grace retreated within her window to await developments. Don
+Miguel did not appear; but presently she descried a phantom-like figure
+ascending the flight of steps to the veranda. Could that be he? If so,
+he was bolder in his wooing than Grace had been prepared for. But surely
+that was a strange costume that he wore; nor did the unconscious harmony
+of the gait at all resemble the senor’s self-conscious strut. And
+whither was he going?
+
+It was but too evident that he was going straight to the room occupied
+by Miriam!
+
+This was too much for Grace’s equanimity. She stepped out of her window,
+and flitted with noiseless step along the veranda. The figure that she
+pursued entered the door of the house, and passed into the corridor
+traversing the wing. Grace was in time to see it cross the threshold of
+Miriam’s door, which stood ajar. She stole to the door, and peeped in.
+There was the figure; but of Miriam there was no trace.
+
+The figure slowly unfastened and threw back the hood which covered
+its head, at the same time turning round, so that its countenance was
+revealed. A torrent of black hair fell down over its shoulders. Grace
+uttered an involuntary exclamation. It was Miriam herself!
+
+The two gazed at each other a moment in silence. “Goodness me, dear!”
+ said Grace at last, in a faint voice, “how you have frightened me! I
+saw you go in, in that dress, and I thought you were a man! How my heart
+beats! What is the matter?”
+
+“This is strange!” murmured the other, after a pause. “I never heard
+such words; and yet I seem to understand, and even to speak them. It
+must be a dream. What are you?”
+
+“Why, Miriam, dear! don’t you know Grace?”
+
+“Oh! you think me Miriam. No; not yet!” She raised her hands, and
+pressed her fingers against her temples. “But I feel her--I feel her
+coming! Not yet, Kamaiakan! not so soon!--Do you know him?” she suddenly
+asked, throwing back her hair, and fixing an eager gaze on Grace.
+
+“Know who? Kamaiakan? Why, yes----”
+
+“No, not him! The youth,--the blue-eyed,--the fair beard above his
+lips----”
+
+“What are you talking about? Not Harvey Freeman!”
+
+“Harvey Freeman! Ah, how sweet a name! Harvey Freeman! I shall know it
+now!--Tell him,” she went on, laying her hand majestically upon Grace’s
+shoulder, and speaking with an impressive earnestness, “that Semitzin
+loves him!”
+
+“Semitzin?” repeated Grace, puzzled, and beginning to feel scared.
+
+“Semitzin!” the other said, pointing to her own heart. “She loves him:
+not as the child Miriam loves, but with the heart and soul of a mighty
+princess. When he knows Semitzin, he will think of Miriam no more.”
+
+“But who is Semitzin?” inquired Grace, with a fearful curiosity.
+
+“The Princess of Tenochtitlan, and the guardian of the great treasure,”
+ was the reply.
+
+“Good gracious! what treasure?”
+
+“The treasure of gold and precious stones hidden in the gorge of the
+desert hills. None knows the place of it but I; and I will give it to
+none but him I love.”
+
+“But you said that... Really, my dear, I don’t understand a bit! As for
+Mr. Freeman, he may care for Semitzin, for aught I know; but, I must
+confess, I think you’re mistaken in supposing he’s in love with you,--if
+that is what you mean. I met him before you did, you know; and if I were
+to tell you all that we----”
+
+“What are you or Miriam to me?--Ah! she comes!--The treasure--by the
+turning of the white pyramid--six hundred paces--on the right--the
+arch----” Her voice died away. She covered her face with her hands, and
+trembled violently. Slowly she let them fall, and stared around her.
+“Grace, is it you? Has anything happened? How came I like this? What is
+it?”
+
+“Well, if you don’t know, I’m afraid I can’t tell you. I had begun to
+think you had gone mad. It must be either that or somnambulism. Who is
+Semitzin?”
+
+“Semitzin? I never heard of him.”
+
+“It isn’t a man: it’s a princess. And the treasure?”
+
+“Am I asleep or awake? What are you saying?”
+
+“The white pyramid, you know----”
+
+“Don’t make game of me, Grace. If I have done anything----”
+
+“My dear, don’t ask me! I tell you frankly, I’m nonplussed. You were
+somebody else a minute ago.... The truth is, of course, you’ve been
+dreaming awake. Has any one else seen you beside me?”
+
+“Have I been out of my room?” asked Miriam, in dismay.
+
+“You must have been, I should think, to get that costume. Well, the best
+plan will be, I suppose, to say nothing about it to anybody. It shall be
+our secret, dear. If I were you, I would have one of the women sleep
+in your room, in case you got restless again. It’s just an attack of
+nervousness, probably,--having so many strangers in the house, all of a
+sudden. Now you must go to bed and get to sleep: it’s awfully late, and
+there’ll be ever so much going on to-morrow.”
+
+Grace herself slept little that night. She could not decide what to make
+of this adventure. Nowadays we are provided with a name for the peculiar
+psychical state which Miriam was undergoing, and with abundant instances
+and illustrations; but we perhaps know what it is no more than we did
+twenty-five or thirty years ago. Grace’s first idea had been that Miriam
+was demented; then she thought she was playing a part; then she did not
+know what to think; and finally she came to the conclusion that it was
+best to quietly await further developments. She would keep an eye on
+Freeman as well as on Miriam; something, too, might be gathered from Don
+Miguel; and then there was that talk about a treasure. Was that all the
+fabric of a dream, or was there truth at the bottom of it? She had
+heard something said about a treasure in the course of the general
+conversation the day before. If there really was a treasure, why might
+not she have a hand in the discovery of it? Miriam, in her abnormal
+state, had let fall some topographical hints that might prove useful.
+Well, she would work out the problem, sooner or later. To-morrow,
+when the others had gone off on their expedition, she would have
+ample leisure to sound Don Miguel, and, if he proved communicative and
+available, who could tell what might happen? But how very odd it all
+was! Who was Semitzin?
+
+While asking herself this question, Grace fell asleep; and by the
+time the summons to breakfast came, she had passed through thrilling
+adventures enough to occupy a new Scheherazade at least three years in
+the telling of them.
+
+
+
+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 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.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+Two horsemen, one of whom led a third horse, carrying a pack-saddle, had
+reached the borders of the desert just as the earthquake began. When
+the first shock came, they were riding past a grove of live-oaks: they
+immediately dismounted, made fast their horses, and lay down beside some
+bushes that skirted the grove. Neither the earthquake nor the storm was
+so severe as was the case farther eastward. In an hour all was over, and
+they remounted and continued their journey, guiding their course by the
+stars.
+
+“It was thus that we rode before, Kamaiakan,” remarked the younger of
+the two travellers. “Yonder bright star stood as it does now, and the
+hour of the night was the same. But this shaking of the earth makes
+me fear for the safety of that youth. The sands of the desert may have
+swept over him; or he may have perished in the hills.”
+
+“The purposes of the gods cannot be altered, Semitzin,” replied the old
+Indian, who perhaps would not have much regretted such a calamity as
+she suggested: it would be a simple solution of difficulties which might
+otherwise prove embarrassing. “It is my prayer, at all events, that the
+entrance to the treasure may not be closed.”
+
+“I care nothing for the treasure, unless I may share it with him,” she
+returned. “Since we spoke together beside the fountain, I have seen him.
+He looked upon me doubtfully, being, perhaps, perplexed because of these
+features of the child Miriam, which I am compelled to wear.”
+
+“Truly, princess, what is he, that you should think of him?” muttered
+Kamaiakan.
+
+“He satisfies my heart,” was the reply.
+
+“And I am resolved never again to give up this mortal habitation to her
+you call its rightful owner. I will never again leave this world, which
+I enjoy, for the unknown darkness out of which you called me.”
+
+“Princess, the gods do not permit such dealings. They may, indeed,
+suffer you to live again; but you must return as an infant, in flesh and
+bones of your own.”
+
+“The gods have permitted me to return as I have returned; and you well
+know, Kamaiakan, that, except you use your art to banish me and restore
+Miriam, there is nothing else that can work a change.”
+
+“Murder is not lawful, Semitzin; and to do as you desire would be an act
+not different from murder.”
+
+“On my head be it, then!” exclaimed the princess. “Would it be less a
+murder to send me back to nothingness than to let her remain there? Mine
+is the stronger spirit, and has therefore the better right to live.
+I ask of you only to do nothing. None need ever know that Miriam has
+vanished and that Semitzin lives in her place. I wear her body and her
+features, and I am content to wear her name also, if it must be so.”
+
+Kamaiakan was silent. He may well be pardoned for feeling troubled in
+the presence of a situation which had perhaps never before confronted a
+human being. Two women, both tenants of the same body, both in love with
+the same man, and therefore rivals of each other, and each claiming a
+right to existence: it was a difficult problem. The old Indian heartily
+wished that a separate tenement might be provided for each of these two
+souls, that they might fight out their quarrel in the ordinary way. But
+his magic arts did not extend to the creation of flesh and blood. At
+the same time, he could not but feel to blame for having brought this
+strenuous spirit of Semitzin once more into the world, and he was fain
+to admit that her claim was not without justification. His motives had
+been excellent, but he had not foreseen the consequences in which the
+act was to land him. Yet he more shrank from wronging Miriam than from
+disappointing Semitzin.
+
+But the latter was not to be put off by silence.
+
+“There has been a change since you and I last spoke together,” she
+said. “I am aware of it, though I know not how; but, in some manner,
+the things which Miriam has done are perceptible to me. When I was here
+before, she did but lean towards this youth; now she has given herself
+to him. She means to be united to him; and, if I again should vanish, I
+should never again find my way back. But it shall not be so; and there
+is a way, Kamaiakan, by which I can surely prevent it, even though you
+refuse to aid me.”
+
+“Indeed, princess, I think you mistake regarding the love of Miriam for
+this young man; they have seen little of each other; and it may be, as
+you yourself said, that he has perished in the wilderness.”
+
+“I believe he lives,” she answered: “I should know it, were it
+otherwise. But if I cannot have him, neither shall she. I have told you
+already that, unless you swear to me not to put forth your power upon
+me to dismiss me, I will not lead you to the treasure. But that is not
+enough; for men deceive, and you are a man. But if at any time hereafter
+I feel within me those pangs that tell me you are about to separate
+me from this world, at that moment, Kamaiakan, I will drive this knife
+through the heart of Miriam! If I cannot keep her body, at least it
+shall be but a corpse when I leave it. You know Semitzin; and you know
+that she will keep her word!”
+
+She reined in her horse, as she spoke, and sat gazing upon her companion
+with flashing eyes. The Indian, after a pause, made a gesture of gloomy
+resignation. “It shall be as you say, then, Semitzin; and upon your head
+be it! Henceforth, Miriam is no more. But do you beware of the vengeance
+of the gods, whose laws you have defied.”
+
+“Let the gods deal with me as they will,” replied the Aztecan. “A day of
+happiness with the man I love is worth an age of punishment.”
+
+Kamaiakan made no answer, and the two rode forward in silence.
+
+It was midnight, and a bright star, nearly in the zenith, seemed to hang
+precisely above the summit of the great white pyramid at the mouth of
+the gorge.
+
+“It was here that we stopped,” observed Semitzin. “We tied our horses
+among the shrubbery round yonder point. Thence we must go on foot.
+Follow me.”
+
+She struck her heels against her horse’s sides, and went forward. The
+long ride seemed to have wearied her not a whit. The lean and wiry
+Indian had already betrayed symptoms of fatigue; but the young princess
+appeared as fresh as when she started. Not once had she even taken a
+draught from her canteen; and yet she was closely clad, from head to
+foot, in the doublet and leggings of the Golden Fleece. One might have
+thought it had some magic virtue to preserve its wearer’s vitality; and
+possibly, as is sometimes seen in trance, the energy and concentration
+of the spirit reacted upon the body.
+
+She turned the corner of the pyramid, but had not ridden far when an
+object lying in her path caused her to halt and spring from the saddle.
+Kamaiakan also dismounted and came forward.
+
+The dead body of a mustang lay on the ground, crushed beneath the weight
+of a fragment of rock, which had evidently fallen upon it from a height.
+He had apparently been dead for some hours. He was without either saddle
+or bridle.
+
+“Do you know him?” demanded Semitzin.
+
+“It is Diego,” replied Kamaiakan. “I know him by the white star on his
+muzzle. He was ridden by the Senor Freeman. They must have come here
+before the earthquake. And there lie the saddle and the bridle. But
+where is Senor Freeman?”
+
+“He can be nowhere else than in this valley,” said Semitzin,
+confidently. “I knew that I should find him here. Through all the
+centuries, and across all spaces, we were destined to meet. His horse
+was killed, but he has escaped. I shall save him. Could Miriam have done
+this? Is he not mine by right?”
+
+“It is at least certain, princess,” responded the old man rather dryly,
+“that had it not been for Miriam you would never have met the Senor
+Freeman at all.”
+
+“I thank her for so much; and some time, perhaps, I will reward her by
+permitting her to have a glimpse of him for an hour,--or, at least,
+a minute. But not now, Kamaiakan,--not till I am well assured that no
+thought but of me can ever find its way into his heart. Come, let us go
+forward. We will find the treasure, and I will give it to my lord and
+lover.”
+
+“Shall we bring the pack-horse with us?” asked the Indian.
+
+“Yes, if he can find his way among these rocks. The earthquake has made
+changes here. See how the water pours from this spring! It has already
+made a stream down the valley. It shall guide us whither we are going.”
+
+Leaving their own horses, they advanced with the mule. But the trail,
+rough enough at best, was now well-nigh impassable. Masses of rock had
+fallen from above; large fissures and crevasses had been formed in the
+floor of the gorge, from some of which steaming vapors escaped,
+while others gave forth streams of water. The darkness added to the
+difficulties of the way, for, although the sky was now clear, the gloom
+was deceptive, and things distant seemed near. Occasionally a heavy,
+irregular sound would break the stillness, as some projection of a cliff
+became loosened and tumbled down the steep declivity.
+
+Semitzin, however, held on her way fearlessly and without hesitation,
+and the Indian, with the pack-horse, followed as best he might, now and
+then losing sight for a moment of the slight, grayish figure in front
+of him. At length she disappeared behind the jutting profile of a great
+promontory which formed a main angle of the gorge. When he came up with
+her, she was kneeling beside the prostrate form of a man, supporting his
+head upon her knee.
+
+Kamaiakan approached, and looked at the face of the man, which was
+pale; the eyes were closed. A streak of blood, from a wound on the head,
+descended over the right side of the forehead.
+
+“Is he dead?” the Indian asked.
+
+“He is not dead,” replied Semitzin. “A flying stone has struck him; but
+his heart beats: he will be well again.” She poured some water from her
+canteen over his face, and bent her ear over his lips. “He breathes,”
+ she said. Slipping one arm beneath his neck, she loosened the shirt at
+his throat and then stooped and kissed him. “Be alive for me, love,” she
+murmured. “My life is yours.”
+
+This exhortation seemed to have some effect. The man stirred slightly,
+and emitted a sigh. Presently he muttered, “I can--lick him--yet!”
+
+“He will live, princess,” remarked Kamaiakan. “But where is the
+treasure?”
+
+“My treasure is here!” was her reply; and again she bent to kiss the
+half-conscious man, who knew not of his good fortune. After an interval
+she added, “It is in the hollow beneath that archway. Go down three
+paces: on the wall at the left you will feel a ring. Pull it outwards,
+and the stone will give way. Behind it lies the chest in which the
+jewels are. But remember your promise!”
+
+Kamaiakan peered into the hollow, shook his head as one who loves not
+his errand, and stepped in. The black shadow swallowed him up. Semitzin
+paid no further attention to him, but was absorbed in ministering to her
+patient, whose strength was every moment being augmented, though he was
+not yet aware of his position. But all at once a choking sound came from
+within the cave, and in a few moments Kamaiakan staggered up out of the
+shadow, and sank down across the threshold of the arch.
+
+“Semitzin,” he gasped, in a faint voice, “the curse of the gods is upon
+the spot! The air within is poisonous. It withers the limbs and stops
+the breath. No one may touch the treasure and live. Let us go!”
+
+“The gods do not love those who fear,” replied the princess,
+contemptuously. “But the treasure is mine, and it may well be that no
+other hand may touch it. Fold that blanket, and lay it beneath his head.
+I will bring the jewels.”
+
+“Do not attempt it: it will be death!” exclaimed the old man.
+
+“Shall a princess come to her lover empty-handed? Do you watch beside
+him while I go. Ah, if your Miriam were here, I would not fear to have
+him choose between us!”
+
+With these words, Semitzin stepped across the threshold of the crypt,
+and vanished in its depths. The Indian, still dizzy and faint, knelt on
+the rock without, bowed down by sinister forebodings.
+
+Several minutes passed. “She has perished!” muttered Kamaiakan.
+
+Freeman raised himself on one elbow, and gazed giddily about him. “What
+the deuce has happened?” he demanded, in a sluggish voice. “Is that you,
+professor?”
+
+Suddenly, a rending and rushing sound burst from the cave. Following it,
+Semitzin appeared at the entrance, dragging a heavy metal box, which she
+grasped by a handle at one end. Immediately in her steps broke forth a
+great volume of water, boiling up as if from a caldron. It filled the
+cave, and poured like a cataract into the gorge. The foundations of the
+great deep seemed to be let loose.
+
+Semitzin lifted from her face the woollen mask, or visor, which she had
+closed on entering the cave. She was panting from exertion, but neither
+her physical nor her mental faculties were abated. She spoke sharply and
+imperiously:
+
+“Bring up the mule, and help me fasten the chest upon him. We must reach
+higher ground before the waters overtake us. And now----” She turned
+to Freeman, who by this time was sitting up and regarding her with
+stupefaction.
+
+“Miriam!” was all he could utter.
+
+She shook her head, and smiled. “I am she who loves you, and whom you
+will love. I give you life, and fortune, and myself. But come: can you
+mount and ride?”
+
+“I can’t make this out,” he said, struggling, with her assistance, to
+his feet. “I have read fairy-tales, but this... Kamaiakan, too!”
+
+Semitzin, meanwhile, brought him to the mule, and half mechanically he
+scrambled into the saddle, the chest being made fast to the crupper.
+Semitzin seized the bridle, and started up the gorge, Kamaiakan bringing
+up the rear. The lower levels were already filling with water, which
+came pouring out through the archway in a full flood, seemingly
+inexhaustible.
+
+“I see how it is,” mumbled Freeman, half to himself. “The earthquake--I
+remember! I got hit somehow. They came from the ranch to hunt me up. But
+where are the general and Professor Meschines? How long ago was it?
+And how came Miriam... Could the mirage have had anything to do with
+it?--Here, let me walk,” he called out to her, “and you get up and
+ride.”
+
+She turned her head, smiling again, but hurried on without speaking.
+The roar of the torrent followed them. Once or twice the mule came near
+losing his footing. Freeman, whose head was swimming, and his brains
+buzzing like a hive of bees, had all he could do to maintain his
+equilibrium in the saddle. He was excruciatingly thirsty, and the
+gurgling of waters round about made him wish he might dismount and
+plunge into them. But he lacked power to form a decided purpose, and
+permitted the more energetic will to control him. It might have been
+minutes, or it might have been hours, for all he knew: at last they
+halted, near the base of the white pyramid.
+
+“Here we are safe,” said Semitzin, coming to his side. “Lean on me, my
+love, and I will lift you down.”
+
+“Oh, I’m not quite so bad as that, you know,” said Freeman, with a
+feeble laugh; and, to prove it, he blundered off the saddle, and came
+down on the ground with a thwack. He picked himself up, however, and
+recollecting that he had a flask with brandy in it, he felt for it,
+found it intact, and, with an inarticulate murmur of apology, raised it
+to his lips. It was like the veritable elixir of life: never in his life
+before had Freeman quaffed so deep a draught of the fiery spirit. It was
+just what he wanted.
+
+But he felt oddly embarrassed. He did not know what to make of Miriam.
+It was not her strange costume merely, but she seemed to have put
+on--or put off--something with it that made a difference in her. She was
+assertive, imperious; as loving, certainly, as lover could wish, but not
+in the manner of the Miriam he knew. He might have liked the new Miriam
+better, had he not previously fallen in love with the former one. He
+could not make advances to her: he had no opportunity to do so: she was
+making advances to him!
+
+“My love,” she said, standing before him, “I have come back to the world
+for your sake. Before Semitzin first saw you, her heart was yours. And
+I come to you, not poor, but with the riches and power of the princes of
+Tenochtitlan. You shall see them: they are yours!--Kamaiakan, take down
+the chest.”
+
+“What’s that about Semitzin?” inquired Freeman. “I’m not aware that I
+knew any such person.”
+
+“Kamaiakan!” repeated the other, raising her voice, and not hearing
+Freeman’s last words. Kamaiakan was nowhere to be seen. Both Freeman and
+she had supposed that he was following on behind the mule; but he
+had either dropped behind, or had withdrawn somewhere. “O Kamaiakan!”
+ shouted Freeman, as loud as he could.
+
+A distant hail, from the direction of the desert, seemed to reply.
+
+“That can’t be he,” said Freeman. “It was at least a quarter of a mile
+off, and the wrong direction, too. He’s in the gorge, if he’s anywhere.”
+
+“Hark!” said Semitzin.
+
+They listened, and detected a low murmur, this time from the gorge.
+
+“He’s fallen down and hurt himself,” said Freeman. “Let’s go after him.”
+
+In a few moments they stumbled upon the old Indian, reclining with his
+shoulders against a rock, and gasping heavily.
+
+“My princess,” he whispered, as she bent over him, “I am dying. The
+poisonous air in the cave was fatal to me, though the spell that is upon
+the Golden Fleece protected you. I have done what the gods commanded. I
+am absolved of my vow. The treasure is safe.”
+
+“Nonsense! you’re all right!” exclaimed Freeman. “Here, take a pull at
+this flask. It did me all the good in the world!”
+
+But the old man put it aside, with a feeble gesture of the hand. “My
+time is come,----” said he.--“Semitzin, I have been faithful.”
+
+“Semitzin, again!” muttered Freeman. “What does it mean?”
+
+“But what is this?” cried the girl, suddenly starting to her feet. “I
+feel the sleep coming on me again! I feel Miriam returning! Kamaiakan,
+have you betrayed me at the last?”
+
+“No, no, princess, I have done nothing,” said he, in a voice scarcely
+audible. “But, with death, the strength of my will goes from me, and I
+can no longer keep you in this world. The spirit of Miriam claims her
+rightful body, and you must struggle against her alone. The gods will
+not be defied: it is the law!”
+
+His voice sank away into nothing, and his beard drooped upon his breast.
+
+“He’s dying, sure enough, poor old chap,” said Freeman. “But what is
+all this about? I never heard anything like this language you two talk
+together.”
+
+Semitzin turned towards him, and her eyes were blazing.
+
+“She shall not have you!” she cried. “I have won you--I have saved
+you--you are mine! What is Miriam? Can she be to you what I could
+be?--You shall never have him!” she continued, seeming to address some
+presence invisible to all eyes but hers. “If I must go, you shall go
+with me!” She fumbled in her belt, caught the handle of a knife there,
+and drew it. She lifted it against her heart; but even then there was an
+uncertainty in her movement, as if her mind were divided against itself,
+or had failed fully to retain the thread of its purpose. But Freeman,
+who had passed rapidly from one degree of bewilderment to another, was
+actually relieved to see, at last, something that he could understand.
+Miriam--for some reason best known to herself--was about to do herself
+a mischief. He leaped forward, caught her in his arms, and snatched the
+knife from her grasp.
+
+For a few moments she struggled like a young tiger. And it was
+marvellous and appalling to hear two voices come from her, in
+alternation, or confusedly mingled. One said, “Let me kill her! I will
+not go! Keep back, you pale-faced girl!” and then a lower, troubled
+voice, “Do not let her come! Her face is terrible! What are those
+strange creatures with her? Harvey, where are you?”
+
+At last, with a fierce cry, that died away in a shuddering sigh, the
+form of flesh and blood, so mysteriously possessed, ceased to struggle,
+and sank back in Freeman’s arms. His own strength was well-nigh at an
+end. He laid her on the ground, and, sitting beside her, drew her head
+on his knee. He had been in the land of spirits, contending with unknown
+powers, and he was faint in mind and body.
+
+Yet he was conscious of the approaching tread of horses’ feet, and
+recollected the hail that had come from the desert. Soon loomed up
+the shadowy figures of mounted men, and they came so near that he was
+constrained to call out, “Mind where you’re going! You’ll be over us!”
+
+“Who are you?” said a voice, which sounded like that of General
+Trednoke, as they reined up.
+
+“There’s Kamaiakan, who’s dead; and Miriam Trednoke, who has been out of
+her mind, but she’s got over it now, I guess; and I,--Harvey Freeman.”
+
+“My daughter!” exclaimed General Trednoke.
+
+“My boy!” cried Professor Meschines. “Well, thank God we’ve found you,
+and that some of you are alive, at any rate!”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+As it was still some hours before dawn, and Freeman was too weak to
+travel, it was decided to encamp beside the pyramid till the following
+evening, and then make the trip across the desert in the comparative
+coolness of starlight. Meanwhile, there was something to be done, and
+much to be explained.
+
+The spirit of Kamaiakan had passed away, apparently at the same moment
+that the peculiar case of “possession” under which Miriam had suffered
+came to an end. They determined to bury him at the foot of the great
+pyramid, which would form a fitting monument of his antique character
+and virtues.
+
+Miriam, after her struggle, had lapsed into a state of partial lethargy,
+from which she was aroused gradually. It was then found that she could
+give no account what ever of how or why she came there. The last thing
+she distinctly remembered was standing on the veranda at the ranch and
+looking towards the east. She was under the impression that Kamaiakan
+had approached and spoken with her, but of that she was not certain. The
+next fact in her consciousness was that she was held in Freeman’s arms,
+with a feeling that she had barely escaped from some great peril. She
+could recall nothing of the journey down the gorge, of the adventure
+at the bottom of it, or of the return. It was only by degrees that some
+partial light was thrown upon this matter. Freeman knew that he was at
+the entrance of the cave when the earthquake began, and he remembered
+receiving a blow on the head. Consequently it must have been at
+that spot that Miriam and the Indian found him. He had, too, a vague
+impression of seeing Miriam coming out of the cave, dragging the chest;
+and there, sure enough, was a metal box, strapped to the saddle of the
+pack-mule. But the mystery remained very dense. And although the
+reader is in a position to analyze events more closely than the actors
+themselves could do, it may be doubted whether the essential mystery is
+much clearer to him than it was to them.
+
+“We know that the ancient Aztecan priests were adepts in magic,”
+ observed the professor, “and it’s natural that some of their learning
+should have descended to their posterity. We have been clever in giving
+names to such phenomena, but we know perhaps even less about their
+esoteric meaning than the Aztecans did. I should judge that Miriam would
+be what is called a good ‘subject.’ Kamaiakan discovered that fact;
+and as for what followed, we can only infer it from the results. I was
+always an admirer of Kamaiakan; but I must say I am the better resigned
+to his departure, from the reflection that Miriam will henceforth be
+undisturbed in the possession of her own individuality.”
+
+“As near as I could make out, she called herself Semitzin,” put in
+Freeman.
+
+“Semitzin?” repeated the general. “Why, if I’m not mistaken, there are
+accounts of an Aztecan princess of that name, an ancestress of my wife’s
+family, in some old documents that I have in a box, at home.”
+
+“That would only add the marvel of heredity to the other marvels,” said
+Meschines. “Suppose we leave the things we can’t understand, and come to
+those we can?”
+
+“I have something to say, General Trednoke,” said Freeman.
+
+“I think I have already guessed what it may be, Mr. Freeman,” returned
+the general, gravely. “Old people have eyes, and hearts too, as well as
+young ones.”
+
+“Come, Trednoke,” interposed the professor, with a chuckle, “your eyes
+might not have seen so much, if I hadn’t held the lantern.”
+
+“I love your daughter, and I told her so yesterday morning,” went on
+Freeman, after a pause. “I meant to tell you on my return. I know
+I don’t appear desirable as a son-in-law. But I came here on a
+commission----”
+
+“Meschines and I have talked it all over,” the general said. “When
+an old West-Pointer and a professor of physics get together, they are
+sometimes able to put two and two together. And, to tell the truth,
+I received a letter from a member of your syndicate, who is also
+an acquaintance of mine, which explained your position. Under the
+circumstances, I consider your course to have been honorable. You and
+I were both in search of the same thing, and now, as it appears, nature
+has sent an earthquake to do our affair for us. No operations of ours
+could have achieved such a result as last night’s disturbance did; and
+if that do not prove effective, nothing else will.”
+
+“If it turns out well, I was promised a share in the benefits,” said
+Freeman, “and that would put me in a rather better condition, from a
+worldly point of view.”
+
+“After all,” interrupted Meschines, “you found your way to the spot from
+which the waters broke forth, and may fairly be entitled to the credit
+of the discovery.--Eh, Trednoke? At any rate, we found nothing.--Yes,
+I think they’ll have to admit you to partnership, Harvey: and Miriam
+too,--who, by the way, seems to be the only one who actually penetrated
+into this cave you speak of. Maybe the removal of the chest pulled
+the plug out of the bung-hole, as it were: the escape of confined air
+through such a vent would be apt to draw water along with it. By the
+way, let’s have a look at this same chest: it looks solid enough to hold
+something valuable.”
+
+“I would like, in the first place, to hear what General Trednoke has to
+say about what I have told him,” said Freeman, clearing his throat.
+
+“Miriam,” said the general, “do you wish to be married to this young
+man?”
+
+The old soldier was sitting with her hand in his, and he turned to her
+as he spoke. She threw her arms round his neck, and pressed her face
+against his shoulder. “He is to me what you were to mamma,” she said, so
+that only he could hear.
+
+“Then be to him what she was to me,” answered the general, kissing her.
+“Ah me, little girl! I am old, but perhaps this is the right way for
+me to grow young again. Well, if you are of the same mind six months
+hence----”
+
+“Worse; it will be much worse, then,” murmured the professor. “Better
+make it three.”
+
+The chest was made of some alloy of steel and nickel, impervious to
+rust, and very hard. It resisted all gentle methods of attack, and it
+was finally found necessary to force the lock with a charge of powder.
+Within was found another case, which was pried open with the point of
+the general’s bowie-knife.
+
+It was filled to the brim with precious stones, most of them removed
+from their settings. But such of the gold-work as remained showed the
+jewels to be of ancient Aztecan origin. There was value enough in the
+box to buy and stock a dozen ranches as big as the general’s, and leave
+heirlooms enough to decorate a family larger than that of the most
+fruitful of the ancient patriarchs.
+
+“I call that quite a respectable dowry,” remarked Meschines. “Upon my
+soul, Miriam, if I had known what you had up your sleeve, I should have
+thought twice before allowing a ‘civil engineer’--do you remember?--to
+run off with you so easily.”
+
+
+At dawn, they prepared the body of old Kamaiakan for its interment. In
+doing this, the professor noted the peculiar appearance of the corpse.
+
+“The flesh is absolutely withered,” said he, “especially those parts
+which were uncovered. It must have been subjected to the action of some
+destructive vapor or gas, fatal not only to breathe, but to come in
+contact with. I have heard of poisonous emanations proceeding from the
+ground in these regions, but I never saw an instance of their effects
+before. That skull that you say you found, Harvey, was probably that of
+a victim of the same cause. But it is strange that Miriam, who must have
+remained some time in the very midst of it, should have escaped without
+a mark, or even any inconvenience.”
+
+“Kamaiakan ascribed it to the magic of the Golden Fleece,” said Freeman.
+
+“Well,” rejoined the other, “he may have been right; but, for my part,
+the only magic that I can find in it lies in the fact that it is made of
+pure wool, which undoubtedly possesses remarkable sanative properties;
+or maybe the fiery soul of Semitzin was powerful enough to repel all
+harmful influences. The poor old fellow himself, being clad in cotton,
+and with no soul but his own, was destroyed. Let us wrap him in his
+blanket, and bid him farewell--and with him, I hope, to all that is
+uncanny and abnormal in the lives of you young folks!”
+
+
+The last rites having been paid to the dead, the party mounted their
+horses and rode out of the gorge on to the long levels of the desert.
+
+“Who come yonder?” said Freeman.
+
+“A couple of Mexicans, I think,” said the general.
+
+“One of them is a woman,” said Meschines.
+
+“They look very weary,” remarked Freeman.
+
+Miriam fixed her eyes on the approaching pair for a moment, and then
+said, “They are Senor de Mendoza and Grace Parsloe.”
+
+And so, indeed, they were; and thus, in this lonely spot, all the
+dramatis personae of this history found themselves united.
+
+In answer to the obvious question, how Grace and De Mendoza happened
+to be there, it transpired that, left to their own devices, they had
+undertaken no less an enterprise than to discover the hidden treasure.
+Grace had communicated to the Mexican such bits of information as she
+had picked up and such surmises as she had formed, and he had been able
+to supplement her knowledge to an extent that seemed to justify them in
+attempting the adventure,--not to mention the fact that Don Miguel (such
+was the ardor of his sentiment for Grace) would, had she desired it,
+have gone with her into a fiery furnace or a den of lions. Grace, who
+was ambitious as well as romantic, and who longed for the power and
+independence that wealth would give, was all alight with the idea of
+capturing the hoard of Montezuma: her social position would be altered
+at a stroke, and the world would be at her feet. Whether she would then
+have rewarded Don Miguel for his devotion, is possibly open to doubt:
+the sudden acquisition of boundless wealth has been known to turn larger
+heads than hers. Fortunately, however, this temptation was withheld from
+her: so far from finding the treasure, she and Don Miguel very soon
+lost themselves in the desert, and had been wandering about ever since,
+dolely uncomfortable, and in no small danger of losing their lives. They
+were already at the end of their last resource when they happened to
+encounter the other party, as we have seen; and immeasurable was their
+joy at the unlooked-for deliverance. So there was another halt, to
+enable them to rest and recuperate; and it was not until the evening of
+that day that the journey was finally resumed.
+
+Meanwhile, Grace had time to think over all that happened, and to arrive
+at certain conclusions. She was at bottom a good girl, though liable
+to be led away by her imagination, her vanity, and her temperament. Don
+Miguel’s best qualities had revealed themselves to her in the desert: he
+had always thought of her before himself, had done all that in him lay
+to save her from fatigue and suffering, and had stuck to her faithfully
+when he might perhaps have increased his own chances of escape by
+abandoning her. Did not such a man deserve to be rewarded?--especially
+as he was a handsome fellow, of good family, and possessed of quite a
+respectable income. Moreover, Harvey Freeman was now beyond her reach:
+he was going to marry Miriam, and she had realized that her own brief
+infatuation for him had had no very deep root after all. Accordingly,
+she smiled encouragingly upon Don Miguel, and before they set out on
+their homeward ride she had vouchsafed him the bliss of knowing that he
+might call her his.
+
+The general, as her guardian, did not withhold his approval; but when
+Grace drew him aside and besought him never to reveal to her intended
+the fact that she had once been a shop-girl, the old warrior smiled.
+
+“You can depend upon me to keep your secret, if you wish it, my dear,”
+ said he; “but I warn you that such concealments between husband and wife
+are not wise. He loves you and would only love you the more for your
+frankness in confessing what you seem to consider a discreditable
+episode: though I for my part am free to tell you that you will be lucky
+if your future life affords you the opportunity of doing anything else
+so much to your credit. But the chances are that he will find it out
+sooner or later; and that may not be so agreeable, either to him or to
+you. Better tell him all now.”
+
+But Grace pictured to herself the aristocratic pride of an hidalgo
+shocked by the suggestion of the plebeianism of trade; and she would not
+consent to the revelation. But the general’s prediction was fulfilled
+sooner than might have been expected.
+
+For, after they were married, Don Miguel decided to visit the Atlantic
+coast on the wedding journey; and one of the first notable places they
+reached was, of course, New York. Don Miguel was delighted, and was
+never weary of strolling up Fifth Avenue and down Broadway, with his
+beautiful wife on his arm. He marvelled at the vast white pile of
+the Fifth Avenue Hotel; he frowned at the Worth Monument; he stared
+inexhaustibly into the shop-windows; he exclaimed with admiration at
+the stupendous piles of masonry which contained the goods of New York’s
+merchant princes. It seemed to be his opinion that the possessors of so
+much palpable wealth must be the true aristocracy of the country.
+
+And one afternoon it happened that as they were strolling along
+Broadway, between Twenty-third Street and Union Square, and were
+crossing one of the side-streets, a horse belonging to one of Lord and
+Taylor’s delivery-wagons became frightened, and bolted round the corner.
+One of the hind wheels of the vehicle came in contact with Grace’s
+shoulder, and knocked her down. The blow and the fall stunned her. Don
+Miguel’s grief and indignation were expressed with tropical energy; and
+a by-stander said, “Better carry her into the store, mister; it’s their
+wagon run her down, and they can’t do less than look after her.”
+
+The counsel seemed reasonable, and Don Miguel, with the assistance of
+a policeman, lifted his wife and bore her into the stately shop. One
+of the floor-walkers met them at the door; he cast a glance at their
+burden, and exclaimed, “Why, it’s Miss Parsloe!” And immediately a
+number of the employees gathered round, all regarding her with interest
+and sympathy, all anxious to help, and--which was what mystified Don
+Miguel--all calling her by name! How came they to know Grace Parsloe?
+Nay, they even glanced at Don Miguel, as if to ask what was HIS business
+with the beautiful unconscious one!
+
+“This lady are my wife,” he said, with dignity. “She not any more Miss
+Parsloe.”
+
+“Oh, Grace has got married!” exclaimed the young ladies, one to another;
+and then an elderly man, evidently in authority, came forward and said,
+“I suppose you are aware, sir, that Miss Parsloe was formerly one of our
+girls here; and a very clever and useful girl she was. I need not say
+how sorry we are for this accident: I have sent for the physician: but
+I cannot but be glad that the misfortune has at least given me the
+opportunity of telling you how highly your wife was valued and respected
+here.”
+
+At this juncture, Grace opened her eyes: she looked from one face to
+another, and knew that fate had brought the truth to light. But the
+physical shock tempered the severity of the mental one: besides, she
+could not help being pleased at the sight of so many well-remembered and
+friendly faces; and, finally, her husband did not look by any means so
+angry and scandalized as she had feared he would. Indeed, he appeared
+almost gratified. The truth probably was, he was flattered to see his
+wife the centre of so much interest and attention, and at the discovery
+that she had been in some way an honored appanage of so imposing an
+establishment. So, by the time Grace was well enough to be driven back
+to her hotel, the senor was prattling cheerfully and familiarly with all
+and sundry, and was promising to bring his wife back there the next day,
+to talk over old times with her former associates.
+
+Such was Grace’s punishment: it was not very severe; but then her fault
+had been a venial one; and the episode was of much moral benefit to her.
+She liked her husband all the better for having nothing more to conceal
+from him; her vanity was rebuked, and her false pride chastened;
+and when, in after-years, her pretty daughters and black-haired sons
+gathered about her knees, she was wont to warn them sagely against the
+un-American absurdity of fearing to work for their living, or being
+ashamed to have it known.
+
+But the married life of Miriam and Harvey Freeman was characteristically
+American in its happiness. The representatives of the oldest and of the
+latest inhabitants of this continent, their union seemed to produce the
+flower of what was best in both. Their wedding is still remembered in
+that region, as being everything that a Southern Californian wedding
+should be; and the bride, as she stood at the altar, looked what she
+was,--one of those women who, more than anything else in this world,
+are fitted to bring back to earth the gentle splendors of the Garden
+of Eden. In her dark eyes, as she fixed them upon Freeman, there was
+a mystic light, telling of fathomless depths of tenderness and
+intelligence: it seemed to her husband that love had expanded and
+uplifted her; or perhaps that other spirit in her, which had battled
+with her own, had now become reconciled, and therefore yielded up
+whatever it had of good and noble to aggrandize the gentle victory of
+its conqueror. Somehow, somewhere, in Miriam’s nature, Semitzin lived;
+and, as a symbol of the peace and atonement that were the issue of
+her strange interior story, her husband preserves with reverence and
+affection the mysterious garment called the Golden Fleece.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Golden Fleece, by Julian Hawthorne
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