Читать книгу Overland - John William De Forest - Страница 9

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At the shout which Coronado uttered on seeing Texas Smith's pistol aimed at Thurstane, the assassin turned his head, discovered the train, and, lowering his weapon, rode peacefully alongside of his intended victim.

Captain Phin Glover's mule was found grazing behind the butte, in the midst of the gallant Captain's dishevelled baggage, while the robbers had vanished by a magic which seemed quite natural in this scenery of grotesque marvels. They had unquestionably seen or heard their pursuers; but how had they got into the bowels of the earth to escape them?

Thurstane presently solved the mystery by pointing out three crouching figures on the flat cap of stone which surmounted the shales and marl of the butte. Bare feet and desperation of terror could alone explain how they had reached this impossible refuge. Texas Smith immediately consoled himself for his disappointment as to Thurstane by shooting two of these wretches before his hand could be stayed.

"They're nothin' but Injuns," he said, with a savage glare, when the Lieutenant struck aside his revolver and called him a murdering brute.

The third skulker took advantage of the cessation of firing to tumble down from his perch and fly for his life. The indefatigable Smith broke away from Thurstane, dashed after the pitiful fugitive, leaned over him as he ran, and shot him dead.

"I have a great mind to blow your brains out, you beast," roared the disgusted officer, who had followed closely. "I told you not to shoot that man." And here he swore heartily, for which we must endeavor to forgive him, seeing that he belonged to the army.

Coronado interfered. "My dear Lieutenant! after all, they were robbers. They deserved punishment." And so on.

Texas Smith looked less angry and more discomfited than might have been expected, considering his hardening life and ferocious nature.

"Didn't s'p'ose you really keered much for the cuss," he said, glancing respectfully at the imperious and angry face of the young officer.

"Well, never mind now," growled Thurstane. "It's done, and can't be undone. But, by Jove, I do hate useless massacre. Fighting is another thing."

Sheathing his fury, he rode off rapidly toward the wagons, followed in silence by the others. The three dead vagabonds (perhaps vagrants from the region of Abiquia) remained where they had fallen, one on the stony plain and two on the cap of the butte. The train, trending here toward the northwest, passed six hundred yards to the north of the scene of slaughter; and when Clara and Mrs. Stanley asked what had happened, Coronado told them with perfect glibness that the robbers had got away.

The rescued man, delighted at his escape and the recovery of his mule and luggage, returned thanks right and left, with a volubility which further acquaintance showed to be one of his characteristics. He was a profuse talker; ran a stream every time you looked at him; it was like turning on a mill-race.

"Yes, capm, out of Fair Haven," he said. "Been in the coastin' 'n' Wes' Injy trade. Had 'n unlucky time out las' few years. Had a schuner burnt in port, 'n' lost a brig at sea. Pooty much broke me up. Wife 'n' dahter gone into th' oyster-openin' business. Thought I'd try my han' at openin' gold mines in Californy. Jined a caravan at Fort Leavenworth, 'n' lost my reckonin's back here a ways."

We must return to love matters. However amazing it may be that a man who has no conscience should nevertheless have a heart, such appears to have been the case with that abnormal creature Coronado. The desert had made him take a strong liking to Clara, and now that he had a rival at hand he became impassioned for her. He began to want to marry her, not alone for the sake of her great fortune, but also for her own sake. Her beauty unfolded and blossomed wonderfully before his ardent eyes; for he was under that mighty glamour of the emotions which enables us to see beauty in its completeness; he was favored with the greatest earthly second-sight which is vouchsafed to mortals.

Only in a measure, however; the money still counted for much with him. He had already decided what he would do with the Muñoz fortune when he should get it. He would go to New York and lead a life of frugal extravagance, economical in comforts (as we understand them) and expensive in pleasures. New York, with its adjuncts of Saratoga and Newport, was to him what Paris is to many Americans. In his imagination it was the height of grandeur and happiness to have a box at the opera, to lounge in Broadway, and to dance at the hops of the Saratoga hotels. New Mexico! he would turn his back on it; he would never set eyes on its dull poverty again. As for Clara? Well, of course she would share in his gayeties; was not that enough for any reasonable woman?

But here was this stumbling-block of a Thurstane. In the presence of a handsome rival, who, moreover, had started first in the race, slow was far from being sure. Coronado had discovered, by long experience in flirtation and much intelligent meditation upon it, that, if a man wants to win a woman, he must get her head full of him. He decided, therefore, that at the first chance he would give Clara distinctly to understand how ardently he was in love with her, and so set her to thinking especially of him, and of him alone. Meantime, he looked at her adoringly, insinuated compliments, performed little services, walked his horse much by her side, did his best in conversation, and in all ways tried to outshine the Lieutenant.

He supposed that he did outshine him. A man of thirty always believes that he appears to better advantage than a man of twenty-three or four. He trusts that he has more ideas, that he commits fewer absurdities, that he carries more weight of character than his juvenile rival. Coronado was far more fluent than Thurstane; had a greater command over his moods and manners, and a larger fund of animal spirits; knew more about such social trifles as women like to hear of; and was, in short, a more amusing prattler of small talk. There was a steady seriousness about the young officer—something of the earnest sentimentality of the great Teutonic race—which the mercurial Mexican did not understand nor appreciate, and which he did not imagine could be fascinating to a woman. Knowing well how magnetic passion is in its guise of Southern fervor, he did not know that it is also potent under the cloak of Northern solemnity.

Unluckily for Coronado, Clara was half Teutonic, and could comprehend the tone of her father's race. Notwithstanding Thurstane's shyness and silences, she discovered his moral weight and gathered his unspoken meanings. There was more in this girl than appeared on the surface. Without any power of reasoning concerning character, and without even a disposition to analyze it, she had an instinctive perception of it. While her talk was usually as simple as a child's, and her meditations on men and things were not a bit systematic or logical, her decisions and actions were generally just what they should be.

Some one may wish to know whether she was clever enough to see through the character of Coronado. She was clever enough, but not corrupt enough. Very pure people cannot fully understand people who are very impure. It is probable that angels are considerably in the dark concerning the nature of the devil, and derive their disagreeable impression of him mainly from a consideration of his actions. Clara, limited to a narrow circle of good intentions and conduct, might not divine the wide regions of wickedness through which roved the soul of Coronado, and must wait to see his works before she could fairly bring him to judgment.

Of course she perceived that in various ways he was insincere. When he prattled compliments and expressions of devotion, whether to herself or to others, she made Spanish allowance. It was polite hyperbole; it was about the same as saying good-morning; it was a cheerful way of talking that they had in Mexico; she knew thus much from her social experience. But while she cared little for his adulations, she did not because of them consider him a scoundrel, nor necessarily a hypocrite.

Coronado found and improved opportunities to talk in asides with Clara. Thurstane, the modest, proud, manly youngster, who had no meannesses or trickeries by nature, and had learned none in his honorable profession, would not allow himself to break into these dialogues if they looked at all like confidences. The more he suspected that Coronado was courting Clara, the more resolutely and grimly he said to himself, "Stand back!" The girl should be perfectly free to choose between them; she should be influenced by no compulsions and no stratagems of his; was he not "an officer and a gentleman"?

"By Jove! I am miserable for life," he thought when he suspected, as he sometimes did, that they two were in love. "I'll get myself killed in my next fight. I can't bear it. But I won't interfere. I'll do my duty as an honorable man. Of course she understands me."

But just at this point Clara failed to understand him. It is asserted by some philosophers that women have less conscience about "cutting each other out," breaking up engagements, etc., than men have in such matters. Love-making and its results form such an all-important part of their existence, that they must occasionally allow success therein to overbear such vague, passionless ideas as principles, sentiments of honor, etc. It is, we fear, highly probable that if Clara had been in love with Ralph, and had seen her chance of empire threatened by a rival, she would have come out of that calm innocence which now seemed to enfold her whole nature, and would have done such things as girls may do to avert catastrophes of the affections. She now thought to herself, If he cares for me, how can he keep away from me when he sees Coronado making eyes at me? She was a little vexed with him for behaving so, and was consequently all the sweeter to his rival. This when Ralph would have risked his commission for a smile, and would have died to save her from a sorrow!

Presently this slightly coquettish, yet very good and lovely little being—this seraph from one of Fra Angelica's pictures, endowed with a frailty or two of humanity—found herself the heroine of a trying scene. Coronado hastened it; he judged her ready to fall into his net; he managed the time and place for the capture. The train had been ascending for some hours, and had at last reached a broad plateau, a nearly even floor of sandstone, covered with a carpet of thin earth, the whole noble level bare to the eye at once, without a tree or a thicket to give it detail. It was a scene of tranquillity and monotony; no rains ever disturbed or remoulded the tabulated surface of soil; there, as distinct as if made yesterday, were the tracks of a train which had passed a year before.

"Shall we take a gallop?" said Coronado. "No danger of ambushes here."

Clara's eyes sparkled with youth's love of excitement, and the two horses sprang off at speed toward the centre of the plateau. After a glorious flight of five minutes, enjoyed for the most part in silence, as such swift delights usually are, they dropped into a walk two miles ahead of the wagons.

"That was magnificent," Clara of course said, her face flushed with pleasure and exercise.

"You are wonderfully handsome," observed Coronado, with an air of thinking aloud, which disguised the coarse directness of the flattery. In fact, he was so dazzled by her brilliant color, the sunlight in her disordered curls, and the joyous sparkling of her hazel eyes, that he spoke with an ingratiating honesty.

Clara, who was in one of her unconscious and innocent moods, simply replied, "I suppose people are always handsome enough when they are happy."

"Then I ought to be lovely," said Coronado. "I am happier than I ever was before."

"Coronado, you look very well," observed Clara, turning her eyes on him with a grave expression which rather puzzled him. "This out-of-door life has done you good."

"Then I don't look very well indoors?" he smiled.

"You know what I mean, Coronado. Your health has improved, and your face shows it."

Fearing that she was not in an emotional condition to be bewildered and fascinated by a declaration of love, he queried whether he had not better put off his enterprise until a more susceptible moment. Certainly, if he were without a rival; but there was Thurstane, ready any and every day to propose; it would not do to let him have the first word, and cause the first heart-beat. Coronado believed that to make sure of winning the race he must take the lead at the start. Yes, he would offer himself now; he would begin by talking her into a receptive state of mind; that done, he would say with all his eloquence, "I love you."

We must not suppose that the declaration would be a pure fib, or anything like it. The man had no conscience, and he was almost incomparably selfish, but he was capable of loving, and he did love. That is to say, he was inflamed by this girl's beauty and longed to possess it. It is a low species of affection, but it is capable of great violence in a man whose physical nature is ardent, and Coronado's blood could take a heat like lava. Already, although he had not yet developed his full power of longing, he wanted Clara as he had never wanted any woman before. We can best describe his kind of sentiment by that hungry, carnal word wanted.

After riding in silent thought for a few rods, he said, "I have lost my good looks now, I suppose."

"What do you mean, Coronado?"