Overland Part 25

"Not till the last moment. We shall need them to take us back."

Coronado inwardly cursed himself for venturing into this inferno, the haunting place of devils in human shape. Then his mind wandered to Saratoga, New York, Newport, and the other earthly heavens that were known to him. He hummed an air; it was the _brindisi_ of Lucrezia Borgia; it reminded him of pleasures which now seemed lost forever; he stopped in the middle of it. Between the a.s.sociations which it excited--the images of gayety and splendor, real or feigned--a commingling of kid gloves, bouquets, velvet cloaks, and n.o.ble names--between these glories which so attracted his hungry soul and the present environment of hideous deserts and savage pursuers, what a contrast there was! There, far away, was the success for which he longed; here, close at hand, was the peril which must purchase it. At that moment he was willing to deny his bargain with Garcia and the devil. His boldest desire was, "Oh that I were in Santa Fe!"

By Coronado's side rode a man who had not a thought for himself. A person who has not pa.s.sed years in the army can hardly imagine the sense of _responsibility_ which is ground into the character of an officer. He is a despot, but a despot who is constantly accountable for the welfare of his subjects, and who never pa.s.ses a day without many grave thoughts of the despots above him. Superior officers are in a manner his deities, and the Army Regulations have for him the weight of Scripture. He never forgets by what solemn rules of duty and honor he will be judged if he falls short of his obligations. This professional conscience becomes a destiny to him, and guides his life to an extent inconceivable by most civilians. He acquires a habit of watching and caring for others; he cannot help a.s.suming a charge which falls in his way. When he is not governed by the rule of obedience, he is governed by the rule of responsibility. The two make up his duty, and to do his duty is his existence.

At this moment our young West Pointer, only twenty-three or four years old, was gravely and grimly anxious for his four soldiers, for all these people whom circ.u.mstance had placed under his protection, and even for his army mules, provisions, and ammunition. His only other sentiment was a pa.s.sionate desire to prevent harm or even fear from approaching Clara Van Diemen. These two sentiments might be said to make up for the present his entire character. As we have already observed, he had not a thought for himself.

Presently it occurred to the youngster that he ought to cheer on his fellow-travellers.

Trotting up with a smile to Mrs. Stanley and Clara, he asked, "How do you bear it?"

"Oh, I am almost dead," groaned Aunt Maria. "I shall have to be tied on before long."

The poor woman, no longer youthful, it must be remembered, was indeed badly jaded. Her face was haggard; her general get-up was in something like scarecrow disorder; she didn't even care how she looked. So f.a.gged was she that she had once or twice dozed in the saddle and come near falling.

"It was outrageous to bring us here," she went on pettishly. "Ladies shouldn't be dragged into such hardships."

Thurstane wanted to say that he was not responsible for the journey; but he would not, because it did not seem manly to shift all the blame upon Coronado.

"I am very, very sorry," was his reply. "It is a frightful journey."

"Oh, frightful, frightful!" sighed Aunt Maria, twisting her aching back.

"But it will soon be over," added the officer. "Only twenty miles more to the river."

"The river! It seems to me that I could live if I could see a river. Oh, this desert! These perpetual rocks! Not a green thing to cool one's eyes.

Not a drop of water. I seem to be drying up, like a worm in the sunshine."

"Is there no water in the flasks?" asked Thurstane.

"Yes," said Clara. "But my aunt is feverish with fatigue."

"What I want is the sight of it--and rest," almost whimpered the elder lady.

"Will our horses last?" asked Clara. "Mine seems to suffer a great deal."

"They _must_ last," replied Thurstane, grinding his teeth quite privately.

"Oh, yes, they will last," he immediately added. "Even if they don't, we have mules enough."

"But how they moan! It makes me cringe to hear them."

"Twenty miles more," said Thurstane. "Only six hours at the longest. Only half a day."

"It takes less than half a day for a woman to die," muttered the nearly desperate Aunt Maria.

"Yes, when she sets about it," returned the officer. "But we haven't set about it, Mrs. Stanley. And we are not going to."

The weary lady had no response ready for words of cheer; she leaned heavily over the pommel of her saddle and rode on in silence.

"Ain't the same man she was," slyly observed Phineas Glover with a twist of his queer physiognomy.

Thurstane, though not fond of Mrs. Stanley, would not now laugh at her expense, and took no notice of the sarcasm. Glover, fearful lest he had offended, doubled the gravity of his expression and tacked over to a fresh subject.

"Shouldn't know whether to feel proud 'f myself or not, 'f I'd made this country, Capm. Depends on what 'twas meant for. If 'twas meant to live in, it's the poorest outfit I ever did see. If 'twas meant to scare folks, it's jest up to the mark. 'Nuff to frighten a crow into fits. Capm, it fairly seems more than airthly; puts me in mind 'f things in the Pilgrim's Progress--only worse. Sh'd say it was like five thousin' Valleys 'f the Shadow 'f Death tangled together. Tell ye, believe Christian 'd 'a' backed out 'f he'd had to travel through here. Think Mr. Coronado 's all right in his top hamper, Capm? Do, hey? Wal, then I'm all wrong; guess I'm 's crazy's a bedbug. Wouldn't 'a'ketched me steerin' this course of my own free will 'n' foreknowledge. Jest look at the land now. Don't it look like the bottomless pit blowed up 'n' gone to smash? Tell ye, 'f the Old Boy himself sh'd ride up alongside, shouldn't be a mite s'prised to see him.

Sh'd reckon he had a much bigger right to be s'prised to ketch me here."

After some further riding, shaking his sandy head, staring about him and whistling, he broke out again.

"Tell ye, Capm, this beats my imagination. Used to think I c'd yarn it pooty consid'able. But never can tell this. Never can do no manner 'f jestice to it. Look a there now. There's a nateral bridge, or 'n unnateral one. There's a hole blowed through a forty foot rock 's clean 's though 'twas done with Satan's own field-piece, sech 's Milton tells about. An'

there's a steeple higher 'n our big one in Fair Haven. An' there's a church, 'n' a haystack. If the devil hain't done his biggest celebratin'

'n' carpenterin' 'n' farmin' round here, d'no 's I know where he has done it. Beats _me_, Capm; cleans me out. Can't do no jestice to it. Can't talk about it. Seems to me 's though I was a fool."

Yes, even Phineas Glover's small and sinewy soul (a psyche of the size, muscular force, and agility of a flea) had been seized, oppressed, and in a manner smashed by the hideous sublimity of this wilderness of sandstone, basalt, and granite.

Two hours pa.s.sed, during which, from the nature of the ground, the travellers could neither see nor be seen by their pursuers. Then came a breathless ascent up another of the monstrous sandstone terraces.

Thurstane ordered every man to dismount, so as to spare the beasts as much as possible. He walked by the side of Clara, patting, coaxing, and cheering her suffering horse, and occasionally giving a heave of his solid shoulder against the trembling haunches.

"Let me walk," the girl presently said. "I can't bear to see the poor beast so worried."

"It would be better, if you can do it," he replied, remembering that she might soon have to call upon the animal for speed.

She dismounted, clasped her hands over his arm, and clambered thus. From time to time, when some rocky step was to be surmounted, he lifted her bodily up it.

"How can you be so strong?" she said, looking at him wonderingly and gratefully.

"Miss Van Diemen, you give me strength," he could not help responding.

At last they were at the summit of the rugged slope. The animals were trembling and covered with sweat; some of them uttered piteous whinnyings, or rather bleatings, like distressed sheep; five or six lay down with hollow moans and rumblings. It was absolutely necessary to take a short rest.

Looking ahead, Thurstane saw that they had reached the top of the tableland which lies south of the San Juan, and that nothing was before them for the rest of the day but a rolling plateau seamed with meandering fissures of undiscoverable depth. Traversable as the country was, however, there was one reason for extreme anxiety. If they should lose the trail, if they should get on the wrong side of one of those profound and endless chasms, they might reach the river at a point where descent to it would be impossible, and might die of thirst within sight of water. For undoubtedly the San Juan flowed at the bottom of one of those amazing canons which gully this Mer de Glace in stone.

An error of direction once committed, the enemy would not give them time to retrieve it, and they would be slaughtered like mad dogs with the foam on their mouths.

Thurstane remembered that it would be his terrible duty in the last extremity to send a bullet through the heart of the woman he worshipped, rather than let her fall into the hands of brutes who would only grant her a death of torture and dishonor. Even his steady soul failed for a moment, and tears of desperation gathered in his eyes. For the first time in years he looked up to heaven and prayed fervently.

From the unknown destiny ahead he turned to look for the fate which pursued. Walking with Coronado to the brink of the colossal terrace, and sheltering himself from the view of the rest of the party, he scanned the trail with his gla.s.s. The dark line had now become a series of dark specks, more than a hundred and fifty in number, creeping along the arid floor of the lower plateau, and reminding him of venomous insects.

"They are not five miles from us," shuddered the Mexican. "Cursed beasts!

Devils of h.e.l.l!"

"They have this hill to climb," said Thurstane, "and, if I am not mistaken, they will have to halt here, as we have done. Their ponies must be pretty well f.a.gged by this time."

"They will get a last canter out of them," murmured Coronado. His soul was giving way under his hardships, and it would have been a solace to him to weep aloud. As it was, he relieved himself with a storm of blasphemies.

Oaths often serve to a man as tears do to a woman.

"We must trot now," he said presently.

"Not yet. Not till they are within half a mile of us. We must spare our wind up to the last minute."