THE GOLDEN FLEECE

A Romance

By Julian Hawthorne

CHAPTER I. 

The professor crossed one long, lean leg over the other, and puncheddown the ashes in his pipe-bowl with the square tip of his middlefinger. The thermometer on the shady veranda marked eighty-seven degreesof heat, and nature wooed the soul to languor and revery; but nothingcould 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 aMesozoic--at any rate, Cenozoic--sea?"

The gentleman thus indignantly addressed contemplated his questionerwith the serenity of one conscious of freedom from geologicresponsibility. He was a man of about the professor's age, --say, sixtyyears, --but not like him in appearance. His figure was stately andmassive, --that of one who in his youth must have possessed vast physicalstrength, rigidly developed and disciplined. Well set upon his broadshoulders was a noble head, crowned with gray, wavy hair; the eyes andeyebrows were black and powerful, but the expression was kindly andhumorous. His moustache and the Roman convexity of his chin would haveconfirmed your conviction that he was a retired warrior; in which youwould have been correct, for General Trednoke always appeared what hewas, both outwardly and inwardly. His great frame, clad in white linen, was comfortably disposed in a Japanese straw arm-chair; yet there wasa soldierly poise in his attitude. He was smoking a large and excellentcigar; and a cup of coffee, with a tiny glass of cognac beside it, stoodon a mahogany stand at his elbow. 

"Do you remember, Meschines, the time I licked you at school?" heinquired, 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 aWest Point graduate, I will wager my pipe (which is worth its weight indiamonds) against that old woollen shirt of Montezuma's that you showedme yesterday, that I can lick you to-day, and forget all about it beforebedtime!"

"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 youngerthan you, and weighed five pounds less. Come, now: you don't mean to sayyou've forgotten Susan Brown!"

"Oh--ah--hah! Susan Brown! Well, I declare! And what brought her intoyour head, I should like to know?"

"Why, after breaking your heart first, and then mine, I lost sight ofher, and I don't think I have seen her since. But it appears she wasmarried to a fellow named Parsloe. "

"Don't fancy that name!" observed the professor, wagging his head andfrowning. "Has a mean sound to it. But what of it?"

"Well, she died, --rest her soul!--and Parsloe too. But they had adaughter, and she survives them. "

"And resembles her mother, eh?--No, Trednoke, the time for that sort ofthing has gone by with me. Susan might have had me, five-and-forty yearsago; 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, andnot--not old enough!"

At this tour de force, the general laughed softly, and finished hiscoffee. An old Indian, somewhat remarkable in appearance, with shaggywhite hair hanging down on his shoulders, stepped forward from the roomwhere 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 insight over the hill. There were several errands. "

"Muy buen!--I was going to say, Meschines, her father and mother leftthe girl poor, and she, being, apparently, clever and energetic, tookto----"

"I know!" the professor interrupted. "They all do it, when they areclever and energetic, and that's the end of them!--School-teaching!"

"Not at all, " returned General Trednoke. "She entered a dry-goodsstore. "

"Entered a dry-goods store! Well, there's nothing so extraordinary inthat. I've seen quantities of women do it, of all ages, colors, anddegrees. What did she buy there?"

"Oh, a fiddlestick!" exclaimed the general. "Why don't you keep quietand listen to my story? I say, she went into a great dry-goods store inNew 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 ofIchabod, by the way, Trednoke? But, seriously, it's too bad. Susan mayhave been fickle, but she was always aristocratic. And now her daughteris a shop-girl. You and I are avenged!"

"You are just as ridiculous, Meschines, as you were thirty or fiftyyears ago, " said the general, tranquilly. "You declaim for the sakeof hearing your own voice. Besides, what you say is un-American. GraceParsloe, as I was saying, got a place as shop-girl in one of the greatNew York stores. I don't say she mightn't have done worse: what I sayis, I doubt whether she could have done better. That house--I know oneof its founders, and I know what I'm talking about--is like an enormousfamily, where children are born, year after year, grow up, and taketheir places in life according to their quality and merit. What I meanis, that the boy who drives a wagon for them to-day, at three dollarsa week, may control one of their chief departments, or even become apartner, before they're done with him; and, mutatis mutandis, the samewith the girls. When these girls marry, it's apt to be into a higherrank of life than they were born in; and that fact, I take it, is a goodindication that their shop-girl experience has been an education and animprovement. They are given work to do, suited to their capacity, be itsmall or great; they are in the way of learning something of the greateconomic 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 knowabout! Oh, yes, I see your point. If the fathers of the big family AREfathers, and the children ARE children to them. .. All the same, I fancythe young ladies, when they marry into the higher social circles, asyou say they do, don't, as a rule, make their shop girl days a topic ofconversation at five-o'clock teas, or put 'Ex-shop-girl to So-and-so' atthe 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 tenminutes ago, Grace Parsloe is coming on here to make us a visit. Shefell ill, and her employers, after doing what could be done for her inthe way of medical attendance, made up their minds to give her a changeof climate. Now, you know, as she had originally gone to them with aletter from me, and as I live out here, on the borders of the Southerndesert, in a climate that has no equal, they naturally thought ofwriting to me about it. And of course I said I'd be delighted to haveher here, for a month, or a year, or whatever time it may be. She willbe a pleasure to me, and a friend for Miriam, and she may find a husbandsomewhere up or down the coast, who will give her a fortune, and thinkall the better of her because she, like him, had the ability and thepluck 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 aresponsible position in the shop, and----"

"Well, let us sink the shop, and get back to the rational andinstructive conversation that we--or, to be more accurate, that I wasengaged in when this digression began. I presume you are aware that allthe indications are lacustrine?"

Hereupon, a hammock, suspended near the talkers, and filled with whatappeared to be a bundle of lace and silken shawls, became agitated, anddeveloped at one end a slender arched foot in an open-work silk stockingand 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-waterindications 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 breakthe crust, and there you are!"

"Then, before the earthquakes, the Salt Lakes were fresh?" rejoined thehammock. 

"There was fresh water west of the Rockies and south of---- Why, " criedthe professor, interrupting himself, "when I was in Wyoming and aroundthere, this spring, in what they call the Bad Lands, --cliffs and buttesof indurated yellow clay and sandstone, worn and carved out by floodslong before the Aztecs started to move out of Canada, --I saw fossilbones sticking out of the cliffs, the least of which would make thefortune of a museum. That was between the Rockies and the Wahsatch. "

"People's bones?" asked the hammock, agitating itself again, and showinga glimpse of a smooth throat and a slender ankle. 

"Bless my soul! If there were people in those days they must have hadan anxious time of it!" returned the sage. "No, no, my dear. Therewas brontosaurus, and atlantosaurus, and hydrosaurus, andiguanodon, --lizards, you know, not like these little black fellows thatrun about in the pulverized feldspar here, but chaps eighty or a hundredfeet 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 offand left them high and dry. "

"But where did the water go to?"

The general chuckled at this juncture, and lit another cigar. "Sheknows more questions than you do the answers to them, " quoth he. "But Iwouldn't mind hearing where the water went to, myself. I should like tosee some of it back again. "

"Ask the earthquakes, and the sun. There's a hundred and thirty degreesof heat in some of these valleys, --abysses, rather, three or fourhundred feet below sea-level. The earth is very thin-skinned in thisregion, too, and whatever water wasn't evaporated from above would belikely to come to grief underneath. "

"But, professor, " said the musical voice, "I thought there was a lawthat water always seeks its own level. So how can there be empty placesbelow sea-level?"

"It's the fault of the aneroid barometer, my dear. We were verycomfortable and commonplace until that came along and revealedanomalies. The secret lies, I suppose, in the trend of the strata, which is generally north and south. You see the ridges cropping out allthrough 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 thewest, or the Colorado leaking in from the east. "

"In that case, " remarked the general, "a little more seismic disturbancemight 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 lakewill come back and make the desert fruitful, and that there are some whoknow the very place where the water will begin to flow. " And here thehammock, with a final convulsion, gave birth to a beautiful young woman, in a diaphanous silk dress and a white lace mantilla. She crossed theveranda, and seated herself on the broad arm of her father's chair. 

"Why, that's important!" said the general, arching his brows. "I wonderif Kamaiakan is one of those who know the place? If so, it might beworth his while to let me into the secret. "

"Oh, you couldn't go there! It's enchanted, and people who go near itdie. There are bones all about there, now. "

"This Kamaiakan appears to be a remarkable personage: where did you pickhim up?" inquired the professor. 

"It was rather the other way, " Trednoke replied, taking one of hisdaughter's hands in his, and caressing it. "We are appendages toKamaiakan. You look so natural, sitting there, Meschines, that I forgetit's thirty years since we met, and that all the significant events ofmy life have happened in that time, --the Mexican war, my marriage, andthe rest of it! I have been a widower ten years. "

"And I've been a bachelor for over sixty!" said Meschines, with a queerexpression. "Your wife was Spanish, was she not?"

"Her father was a Mexican of Andalusian descent. But her mother wasdescended from the race of Azatlan: there are records and relicsindicating that her ancestors were princes in Tenochtitlan before Cortezmade trouble there. "

"And I've been losing my heart to a princess, and never realized myaudacity!" exclaimed the professor, laying his hand on his waistcoat andmaking 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 musthave left it in papa's curiosity-room. "

"No: I'm an Aztec sacrifice!" cried the professor; and they alllaughed. "One would hardly have anticipated, " he resumed after a pause, addressing Trednoke, "that you would have made a double conquest, --firstof the men, and then of the woman!"

"The woman conquered me, without trying or wishing to, and then, becauseshe was a woman, took compassion on me. Whether my country has benefitedmuch by the Mexican annexation, I can't say; but I know Inez--made aheaven on earth for me, " concluded the general, in a low voice. Hiscountenance, 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 theresult, --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 firstknew them. It was a peculiar relation; not like that of a servant. Onefinds such things in Mexico. The conquered race were of as good strainas their conquerors; the blood of Montezuma was as blue as the bestof the Castilian. There were many intermarriages; and there are manyinstances of the survival of traditions and records; though the recordsare often symbolic, and would have no meaning to persons not initiated. But they have been sufficient to perpetuate ties of a personal naturethrough generation after generation; and the alliance between Kamaiakanand Inez was of this kind. His forefathers, I imagine, were priests, andpriests were a mighty power in Tenochtitlan. For aught I know, indeedKamaiakan may be an original priest of Montezuma's; no one knows hisage, but he does not look an hour older, to-day, than when I first sawhim, over twenty years ago. "

"He must be!" said Miriam, with some positiveness. "He has told me ofseeing and doing things hundreds of years ago. And he says----" Shepaused. 

"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 ofCortez, were very rich people, " continued Miriam, glancing at Meschines, and then letting her eyes wander across the garden, blooming withroses and fragrant with orange-trees, and so across the trellised vinestowards the soft outline of the mountains eastward. "A great part oftheir wealth was in the form of jewels and precious stones. When Corteztook the city, one of the priests, who was a relative of our family, putthe 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, " observedthe professor, genially. 

"A spell was put upon the spot, " Miriam went on, with a certainimaginative seriousness; for she loved romance and mystery so well, andwas of a temperament so poetical, that the wildest fairy-tales had asort of reality for her. "No one can find the treasure while the spellremains. But Kamaiakan understands the spell, and the conjuration whichdissolves it; and when he dissolves it, the treasure will be found. "

"And, between ourselves, " added the general, "Kamaiakan is himself thepriestly relative by whom the spell was wrought. He bears an enchantedlife, which cannot cease until he has restored the jewels to Miriam'shands. "

"There might be something in it, you know, " said Meschines, after apause. "The treasures of Montezuma have never been found. Is there noold chart or writing, in your collection of curiosities and relics, thatmight throw light on it?"

"The scriptures of Anahuac were of the hieroglyphictype, --picture-writing, " replied the other. "No, I fear there is nothingto 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?" inquiredthe professor, becoming more interested. "I took a fancy to that, youremember. 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 goldand precious stones. But wool, for some reason, they didn't wear; andyet this garment, as you can see for yourself, is pure wool; and that itis 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 ishidden is the place whence the water is to flow out; and the water isthe treasure. "

"Seriously, do you suppose that such a phenomenon as the return of aninland sea is physically practicable?" asked Trednoke. 

"No phenomenon, in this part of the world, would surprise me, " returnedMeschines. "The Colorado might break its barriers; or it is conceivablethat some huge stream, taking its rise in the heights hundreds of milesnorth and east of us, may be flowing through subterranean passages intothe sea, emerging from the sea-bottom hundreds of miles to the westward. Now, if a rattling good earthquake were to happen along, you might awakein the morning to find yourself on an island, or even under water. "

"A moderate Mediterranean would satisfy me, " the general said. "Iwouldn'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 theGreat American Desert would literally blossom as the rose. Even asit is, I expect a great deal of it will be redeemed by scientificirrigation. The soil only needs water to become inexhaustiblyproductive. Our desert, as you know, is not sand, like parts of theSahara; it has all the ingredients that go to nourish plants, only theirpresent powdery condition makes them unavailable. Now, I can, to-day, buy a hundred square miles of desert for a few dollars. You see thepoint, don't you?"

"And all you want is expert opinion as to the likelihood of findingwater?"

"The man who solves that question for me in the affirmative is welcometo 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 expertnessonly, but as to his good faith. He might prefer to sell the idea tosomebody 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 someinvestigations myself. But this is the first time I have spoken of it toany one. "

"I understand. And what of the investigations?"

"I can say that I found enough to interest me. I'll tell you aboutit some time. I should be glad to leave Miriam something to make herindependent. "

"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 justthe man you want, and can be trusted. He's a civil engineer, --HarveyFreeman: the Lord only knows in what part of the world he is at thisspeaking. 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, itwill 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 ussee! One for you Meschines. And this, I see, is from our friend MissParsloe, postmarked Santa Barbara. Why, she'll be here to-morrow, atthat rate. "

"Here's a queer coincidence!" exclaimed the professor, who had meanwhileopened his envelope and glanced through the contents. "The very man Iwas speaking of, --Harvey Freeman! Says he is in this neighborhood, hasheard I'm here, and is coming down to pay me a visit. Methinks I hearthe 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 courseof human events, and you can take a look at him, and act on your ownintuitions. I won't say on Princess Miriam's, for Harvey is a veryfine-looking fellow, and her intuitions might get confused. "

"A civil engineer!" said Miriam, with an intonation worthy of thedaughter of a West-Pointer and the descendant of an Aztec prince. 

Kamaiakan (who spoke only Spanish) had been gathering up some cushionsthat had fallen out of the hammock. Having replaced them, and cast aquick glance at Meschines, he withdrew. 

CHAPTER II. 

The Southern Pacific Railway passes, today, not far from the site ofGeneral Trednoke's ranch. But the events now to be narrated occurredsome years before the era of transcontinental railroads: they were inthe 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 insearch of an agreeable winter climate. The easiest way to reach him--ifyou were not pressed for time--was round the cape which forms thesouthernmost point of South America and sticks its sharp snoutinquiringly into the Antarctic solitudes, as if it scented somethingquestionable there. The speediest route, though open to strangediscomforts, was by way of the Isthmus; and then there were alwaysthe saddle, the wagon, and the stage, with the accompaniments ofroad-agents, tornadoes, deserts, and starvation. 

Miss Grace Parsloe came via the Isthmus; and the latter part of herjourney had been alleviated by the society of a young gentleman from NewYork, Freeman by name. There were other passengers on the vessel; butthese two discovered sympathies of origin and education which madecompanionship natural. They sat together at table, leaned side by sideover the taffrail, discussed their fellow-travellers, and investigatedeach other. As he lolled on the bench with folded arms and straw hattilted back from his forehead she, glancing side-long, as her mannerwas, saw a sunburnt aquiline nose, a moustache of a lighter brown thanthe visage which it decorated, a lean, strong jaw, and a muscular neck. His forehead, square and impending, was as white as ivory in comparisonwith the face below; his hair, in accordance with the fashion introducedby the late war, was cropped close. But what especially moved Miss Gracewere those long, lazy blue eyes, which seemed to tolerate everything, but to be interested in nothing, --hardly even in her. Now, Grace couldnot help knowing she was a pretty girl, and it was somewhat of a noveltyto her that Freeman should appear so indifferent. It would have beendifficult to devise a better opportunity than this to monopolizemasculine admiration, and she fell to speculating as to what sort ofan experience Mr. Freeman must have had, so to panoply him against hermagic. On the other hand, she was the recipient of whatever attentionshe could bring himself to detach from the horizon-line, or from hisown thoughts (which appeared to amount, practically, to about the samething). She had no other rivals; and a woman will submit amiably to agood deal of indifference, provided she be assured that no other womanis enjoying what she lacks. 

Freeman, for his part, had nothing to complain of. Grace Parsloe wasa singularly pretty girl. Singular properly qualifies her. She was notlike the others, --by which phrase he epitomized the numerous comelyyoung women whom he had, at various times and in several countries, attended, teased, and kissed. Both physically and mentally, she was veryfine-wrought. Her bones were small; her body and limbs were slender, butbeautifully fashioned. She was supple and vigorous. Grace is a productof brain as well as an effect of bodily symmetry: Grace had the qualityon 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 acrossthe cheek-bones, thence tapering to the chin. Her eyes were blue, but ofan Eastern strangeness of shape and setting; they were subject to greatand sudden changes of expression, depending, apparently, on the varyingstate of her emotions, and betraying an intensity more akin to theOriental temperament than to ours. There was in her something subtleand fierce; yet overlaying it, like a smooth and silken skin, were theconventional polish and bearing of an American school graduate. She was, in deed, noticeably artificial and self-conscious in manner and in theintonations of her speech; though it was an aesthetic delight to seeher move or pose, and the quality of her voice was music's self. ButFreeman, after due meditation, came to the conclusion that this was theoutcome of her recognition of her own singularity: in trying to be likeother people, she fell into caricature. Freeman, somehow, liked herthe better for it. Like most men of brain and pith, who have seen andthought much, he was thankful for a new thing, because, so far as itwent, it renewed him. It pleased him to imagine that he could, with aword or a look, cause this veil of artifice to be thrown aside, and theprimitive passion and fierceness behind it to start forth. He allowedhimself to imagine, with a certain satisfaction, that were he to makethis young woman jealous she would think nothing of thrusting a daggerbetween his ribs. Reality, --what a delight it is! The actual touch andfeeling of the spontaneous natural creature have been so buried beneathcenturies of hypocrisy and humbug that we have ceased to believe in themsave as a metaphysical abstraction. But even as water, long depressedunder-ground in perverse channels, surges up to the surface, and aboveit, at last, in a fountain of relief, so Nature, after enduring agesof outrage and banishment, leaps back to her rightful domain in someindividual 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 depthsof Persia or India at the present time, even, she might have appearedcommonplace. But here she was in conventional costume, with conventionalmanners. And, just as the nautch-girls, and other Oriental dancers andposturers, wear a costume which suggests nature more effectively thandoes nature itself, so did Grace's conventionality suggest to Freemanthe essential absence of conventionality more forcibly than if he hadseen her clad in a turban and translucent caftan, dancing off John theBaptist's head, or driving a nail into that of Sisera. Grace certainlyowed much of her importance to her situation, which rendered her foreignand piquante. But, then, everything, in this world, is relative. 

Racial types seem to be a failure: when they become very marked, therace deteriorates or vanishes. In the counties of England, after onlya thousand years, the women you meet in the rural districts and countrytowns all look like sisters. The Asiatics, of course, are much moresunk in type than the Anglo-Saxons; and they show us the way we would begoing. Only, there is hope in rapid transit and the cosmopolitan spirit, and especially in these United States, which bring together the endsof the earth, and place side by side a descendant of the Puritans likeFreeman, 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, --topaddle in miasmatic swamps with a view to the possibility of a canalin the remote, speculative future. He had given her a graphic andentertaining picture of the hideous and inconceivable life he had ledthere for six months, from which he had emerged the only member of aparty of nineteen (whites, blacks, and yellows) who was not either deadby disease, by violence, or by misadventure, or had barely escaped withlife and a shattered constitution. Freeman, after emerging from themiasmatic hell and lake of Gehenna, had taken a succession of baths, with soap and friction, had been attended by a barber and a tailor, andhad himself attended the best table to be found for love or money in thecharming town of Panama. He had also spent more than half of the weekof his sojourn there in sleep; and he was now in the best possiblecondition, physical and mental, --though not, he admitted, pecuniary. Asto morals, they had not reached that discussion yet. But, in all thathe did say, Freeman exhibited perfect unreserve and frankness, answeringwithout hesitation or embarrassment any question she chose to ask (andshe asked some curious ones). 

But when she asked him such an innocent thing as what he was after inCalifornia--an inquiry, by the way, put more in idleness than out ofcuriosity--Freeman stroked his yellow moustache with the thumb of thehand that held his Cuban cigarette, gazed with narrowed eyelids at thehorizon, and for some time made no reply at all. Finally he said thatCalifornia was a place he had never visited, and that it would be a pityto have been so near it and yet not have improved the opportunity oftaking a look at it. 

Grace instantly scented a mystery, and was not less promptly resolvedto fathom it. And what must be the nature of a mystery attaching to ahandsome 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, withan 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 inPanama. 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 headback, and allowed the smoke to escape slowly through his nostrils. Inthis manner, familiar to his deep-designing sex, he concealed a smile. Grace was, in some respects, as transparent as she was subtle. So longas the matter in hand did not touch her emotions, she had no difficultyin maintaining a deceptive surface; but emotion she could not disguise, though she was probably not aware of the fact; for emotion has atendency to shut one's own eyes and open what they can no longer see inone's self to the gaze of outsiders. 

"No, " he said, when he had recovered his composure. "But that won't makeany 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 herglance, but kept his profile steadily opposed, and went on smoking witha dreamy air, as if lost in memories and anticipations, sad, yet sweet. 

"Really, Mr. Freeman, I hardly thought--you have always seemed to careso little about anything--I didn't suspect you of so much sentiment. "

"I am like other men, " he returned, with a sigh. "My affections arenot given indiscriminately; but when they are given, --youunderstand, --I----"

"Oh, I understand: pray don't think it necessary to explain. I'msure I'm very far from wishing to listen to confidences aboutanother, --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 sixmonths. And though you and I haven't known each other long, I believeyou to be capable of appreciating what a man feels when he is on his wayto meet some one who----"

"Thank you! You are most considerate! But I shall be additionallyobliged if you would tell me in what respect I can have so far forgottenmyself as to lead you to think me likely to appreciate anything of thekind. I assure you, Mr. Freeman, I have never cared for any one; andnothing I have seen since I left home makes it probable that I shallbegin now. "

"I am sorry to hear that, " said Freeman, slowly drawing anothercigarette out of his bundle, and beginning to re-roll it with a dejectedair. 

"Indeed!"

"Yes: the fact is, I had hoped that you had begun to have a littlefriendly 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 thinkyou as beautiful and fascinating a woman as I have ever met; but ofcourse you can't help being beautiful and fascinating. Do I insult youby having eyes? If so, I am sorry, but you will have to make the best ofit. "

With this, he turned in his seat, and calmly confronted her. Beautifulshe certainly was, at that moment; but it was the beauty of an angryserpent. She had a pencil in her hand, with which, a little whilebefore, she had been sketching heads of some of the passengers in herlittle notebook. She was now handling this inoffensive object in sucha way as to justify the fancy that, had it been charged with a deadlypoison in its point, instead of with a bit of plumbago of the HHquality, 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 youare doing, when you have just told me that you love another woman, andare going to meet her?"

Freeman's brows gradually knitted themselves in a frown of apparentperplexity. "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 yourmeaning?"

"No, it wasn't. You are the only woman who has been in my thoughtsto-day. "

"Mr. Freeman!"

"Well?"

"You have intimated very clearly that you are engaged--married, foraught 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 oflaughter. 

She had been very pale. She now flushed all over her face, and jumped toher feet. 

"Sit down, " he said, laying a hand on her dress and (aided by a lurch ofthe vessel) pulling her into her seat again, "and listen to me. And thenI 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 metthere a fellow I used to know in New York. He told me that he hadrecently crossed the continent with Professor Meschines, who used toteach geology and botany at Yale College, when he and I were studentsthere. The professor had come over partly for the fun of the thing, andpartly to look for specimens in the line of his profession. My friendparted from him at San Francisco: the professor was going farthersouth. "

"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 oversixty years old, and has always been a good friend of mine; but I am notgoing to marry him. I am not engaged to him, he is not beautiful, noreven fascinating, except in the way of an elderly man of science. Andhe is the only human being, besides yourself, that I know or have everheard of on the Pacific coast. Now for your apology!"

Grace emitted a long breath, and sank back in her seat, with her handsclasped 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 hercompanion. 

After this pantomime, she exclaimed, in the lowest and most musical oftones, "Oh! how hateful you are!" Then she cried out with animation, "I believe you did it on purpose!" Finally, she sank back again, with asoft laugh and sparkling eyes, at the same time stretching out her rightarm towards him and placing her hand on his, with a whispered, "There, then!"

Freeman, accepting the hand for the apology, kissed it, and continued tohold 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 wouldbe 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 tomyself, --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 overher 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 inthe world are men enough to be a match for you. But what have you beendoing with yourself all this time? Why do you come to a place likethis?"

"Maybe I had a presentiment that. .. What nonsense we are talking! Butwhat 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 theywere 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 bothfell 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 ProfessorMeschines. "

"I see! The poor old professor! And he has remained a bachelor all hislife. "

"Mamma has often told me the story, and that the Trednoke boy went toWest Point, and distinguished himself in the Mexican war, and married aMexican 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'tthat a coincidence?"

"The first of a long series, I trust. Is this West-Pointer a permanentsettler here?"

"Yes, for ever so long, --twenty years. He's a widower, but he has adaughter---- 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 yoube 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 nevermade 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 suspectthat the past eighteen months of her life had been passed as employee ina New York dry-goods store. 

CHAPTER III. 

General Trednoke's house was built by Spanish missionaries in thesixteenth century; and in its main features it was little altered inthree hundred years. In a climate where there is no frost, walls ofadobe last as long as granite. The house consisted, practically, of butone story; for although there were rooms under the roof, they were usedonly for storage; no one slept in them. The plan of the building wasnot unlike that of a train of railway-cars, --or, it might be moreappropriate 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 communicateddirectly with each other, and, through low windows, gave on the verandain front; for the house was merely a comparatively narrow array ofapartments 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 dwellingof this type. But, as a matter of fact, they appear seductivelybeautiful. The thick white walls acquire a certain softness of tone; thesurface scales off here and there, and cracks and crevices appear. Ina 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 forit the price of the silk velvet, triple ply, which so much resemblesit. Nevertheless, there are compensations. The soil is inexhaustiblyfertile, and its fertility expresses itself in the most inveteratebeauty. Such colors and varieties of flowers exist nowhere else, andthey continue all the year round. Climbing vines storm the walls, andtoss 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 waterhad turned to flowers. In the garden, which extends over several acresat the front of the house, and, as it were, makes it an island ina gorgeous sea of petals, there are roses, almonds, oranges, vines, pomegranates, and a hundred rivals whose names are unknown to thepresent historian, marching joyfully and triumphantly through theseasons, 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 anythingelse. The faculty of appreciation wearies, and at last ceases totake note. It is like conversing with a person whose every word isan epigram. The senses have their limitations, and imagination andexpectation are half of beauty and delight, and the better half;otherwise we should have no souls. A single violet, discovered by chancein the by-ways of an April forest in New England, gives a pleasureas poignant as, and more spiritual than, the miles upon miles ofCalifornian splendors. 

Monotony is the ruling characteristic, --monotony of beauty, monotonyof desolation, monotony even of variety. The glorious blue overheadis monotonous: as for the thermometer, it paces up and down within thenarrowest limits, like a prisoner in his cell, or a meadow-lark hoppingto and fro in a seven-inch cage. The plan and aspect of the buildingsare monotonous, and so is the way of life of those who inhabit them. Fortunately, the sun does rise and set in Southern California: otherwiselife there would be at an absolute stand-still, with no past and nofuture. But, as it is, one can look forward to morning, and remember theevening. 

Then, there are the not infrequent but seldom very destructiveearthquakes; the occasional cloud-bursts and tornadoes, sudden andviolent as a gunpowder-explosion; and, finally, the astounding contrastbetween the fertile regions and the desert. There are places where youcan stand with one foot planted in everlasting sterility and the otherin immortal verdure. In the midst of an arid and hopeless waste, youcome suddenly upon the brink of a narrow ravine, sharply defined asif cut out with an axe, and packed to the brim with enchanting andvoluptuous fertility. Or you will come upon mountains which sweep upwardout of burning death into sumptuous life. When the monotony of lifemeets the monotony of death, Southern California becomes a land ofcontrasts; and the contrasts themselves become monotonous. 

General Trednoke's ranch was very near the borders of these two mightyforces. An hour's easy ride would carry him to a region as barrenand apparently as irreclaimable as that through which Childe Rolandjourneyed in quest of the Dark Tower; lying, too, in a temperature sofiery that it coagulated the blood in the veins, and stopped the beatingof the heart. Underfoot were fine dust, and whitened bones; the airwas prismatic and magical, ever conjuring up phantom pictures, whosecharacteristic was that they were at the farthest remove from anypossible reality. The azure sky descended and became a lake; thepulsations of the atmosphere translated themselves into the rhythmiclapse of waves; spikes of sage-brush and blades of cactus became sylvanglades, and hamlets cheerful with inhabitants. Only, all was silent; andas you drew near, the scene trembled, altered, and was gone!

Hideous black lizards and horned toads crawl and hop amid thisdesolation; and the deadly little sidewinder rattlesnake lies basking inthe blaze of sunshine, which it distils into venom. Sometimes the levelplain is broken up into savage ridges and awful canons, along whose aridbottoms no water streams. As you stagger through their chaotic bottoms, you see vast boulders poised overhead, tottering to a fall; a shiverof earthquake, a breath of hurricane, and they come crashing andsplintering in destruction down. Along the sides of these acclivitiesextend long, level lines and furrows, marks of where the ocean flowedages 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 isthis 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 thecourt-yard. Here the business of the establishment is conducted. It isthe liveliest spot on the premises; though it is liveliness of a veryindolent sort. The veranda built around these sides is twenty feetin breadth, paved with tiles that have been worn into hollows byinnumerable lazy footsteps, mostly shoeless, for this side of the houseis frequented chiefly by the servants of the place, who are MexicanIndians. Ancient wooden settles are bolted to the walls; from hooks hangIndian 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 beyondcontinuing a placid organic existence. Boys and men saunter in and outof the court-yard, chatting or calling in their musical patois; oncein a while there is a thud and clatter of hoofs, a rider arriving ordeparting. It is an entertaining scene, charming in its monotony ofsmall changes and evolutions; you can sit watching it in a half-doze fortwenty years at a stretch, and it may seem only as many minutes, or viceversa. 

Most of the rooms in the wings are used for the kitchens and otherservants' quarters; but one large chamber is devoted to a specialpurpose of the general's own: it is a museum; the Curiosity-Room, hecalls it. It is lighted by two windows opening on opposite sides, oneon the court-yard, the other on an orange grove at the south end of thehouse. Besides being, in itself, a cool and pleasant spot, it is fullof interest to any one who cares about the relics and antiquities of anancient and vanishing race, concerning whom little is or ever will beknown. There are two students in it at this moment; though whether theyare studying antiquities is another matter. Let us give ear to theirdiscourse and be instructed. 

"But this was made for you to wear, Miss Trednoke. Try it. It fits youperfectly, 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 anylonger meeting his, seemed to turn their regard inward, and to traversestrange regions, not of this world. "I see some one who is myself, though I can never have been she: she is surrounded with brightness, andpeople not like ours; she thinks of things that I have never known. Itis 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 andtemperament; and every one knows how impressions are transmitted. If features and traits of character, why not particular thoughts andfeelings?"

"I think it is better not to try to explain these things, " said she, with the unconscious haughtiness which maidens acquire who have not seenthe world and are adored by their family. "They are great mysteries, --orelse 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 thecabinet. "Perhaps the thoughts came with the cap, " she remarked, smilingslightly. "I don't feel that way any more. I ought not to have spoken ofit. "

"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 himcontemplatively as she spoke, "and yet you are not. There is one of youthat thinks, and another that speaks. And you are not the same to myfather, 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 alittle pause. She never spoke hurriedly, or until after the comingspeech had passed into her face. 

Freeman laughed. "Well, " he said, "if I'm a hypocrite, I'm one of thosewho are made and not born. As a boy, I was frank enough. But a goodpart of my life has been spent with people who couldn't be trusted; andperhaps 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 anodd-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 thanMedea's eyes. But this fleece seems to have lost most of its gold. Thereis only a little gold embroidery. "

"It shows where the gold is hidden. "

"It's you that are concealing something now, Miss Trednoke. How can awoollen garment be a talisman?"

"The secret might be woven into it, perhaps, " replied Miriam, passingher fingers caressingly over the soft tunic. "Then, when the rightperson 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. "Andif you wanted to find the gold, you would trust to your science, ratherthan to this. "

"Well, gold-hunting is not in my line, at present. Every nugget has beenpaid for more than once, before it is found. Besides, there is somethingbetter than gold in Southern California, --something worth any labor toget. "

"What is it?" asked Miriam, turning her tranquil regard upon him. 

Harvey Freeman had never been deficient in audacity. But, standing inthe 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 toany other pretty woman he had ever met. For he felt that great pride andpassion were concealed beneath that tranquil surface: it was a naturethat might give everything to love, and would never pardon any frivolousparody thereof. Freeman had been acquainted with Miriam scarcely twodays, but he had already begun to perceive the main indications of acharacter which a lifetime might not be long enough wholly to explore. Marriage had never been among the enterprises he had, in the course ofhis career, proposed to himself: he did not propose it now: yet he darednot risk the utterance of a word that would lead Miriam to look at himwith an offended or contemptuous glance. It was not that she was, fromthe merely physical point of view, transcendently beautiful. His firstimpression of her, indeed, had been that she was merely an unusuallygood example of a type by no means rare in that region. But ere longhe became sensible of a spiritual quality in her which lifted her to alevel far above that which can be attained by mere harmony of featuresand proportions. Beneath the outward aspect lay a profound depth ofbeing, glimpses of which were occasionally discernible through her eyes, in the tones of her voice, in her smile, in unconscious movements ofher hands and limbs. Demonstrative she could never be; but she could, at will, feel with tropical intensity, and act with the swiftness andenergy of a fanatic. 

In Miriam's company, Freeman forgot every one save her, --evenhimself, --though she certainly made no effort to attract him or (beyondthe commonplaces of courtesy) to interest him. Consequently he hadbecome entirely oblivious of the existence of such a person as GraceParsloe, when, much to his irritation, he heard the voice of that younglady, mingled with others, approaching along the veranda. At the samemoment he experienced acute regret at the whim of fortune which had madehimself and that sprightly young lady fellow-passengers from Panama, andat the idle impulse which had prompted him to flirt with her. 

But the past was beyond remedy: it was his concern to deal with thepresent. In a few seconds, Grace entered the curiosity-room, followed byProfessor Meschines, and by a dashing young Mexican senor, whom Freemanhad met the previous evening, and who was called Don Miguel de Mendoza. The senor, to judge from his manner, had already fallen violently inlove with Grace, and was almost dislocating his organs of speech in theeffort to pay her romantic compliments in English. Freeman observed thiswith unalloyed satisfaction. But the look which Grace bent upon him andMiriam, on entering, and the ominous change which passed over her mobilecountenance, went far to counteract this agreeable impression. 

One story is good until another is told. Freeman had really thoughtGrace a fascinating girl, until he saw Miriam. There was no harm inthat: 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 nowabout to give an illustration of the passion of jealousy. But it was nother jealousy that Freeman minded: it was the prospect of Miriam's scornwhen she should surmise that he had given Grace cause to be jealous. Miriam was not the sort of character to enter into a competition withany other woman about a lover. He would lose her before he had a chanceto 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 stoppedjust 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 theutmost extent possible, "I am otherwise engaged. "

"Upon my word, " observed the professor, with a chuckle, "you'reno diplomatist, Harvey! What are you two about here? Investigatingantiquities?"

"The remains of ancient Mexico are more interesting than some of herrecent products, " returned Freeman, who wished to quarrel with somebody, and had promptly decided that Senor Don Miguel de Mendoza was the mostavailable person. He bowed to the latter as he spoke. 

"You--a--spoken to me?" said the senor, stepping forward with a politegrimace. "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 theSpaniards 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 onlyfrom such specimens of the modern Mexican as I happen to meet with. "

Don Miguel's sallow countenance turned greenish white. But, before hecould make a reply, Meschines, who scented mischief in the air, anddivined that the gentler sex must somehow be at the bottom of it, struckin. 

"You may consider yourself lucky, Harvey, in making the acquaintance ofa gentleman like Senor de Mendoza, who exemplifies the undimmed virtuesof Cortez and Torquemada. For my part, I brought him here in thehope that he might be able to throw some light on the mystery of thisembroidered 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 thedepths of that abyss which has no bottom. Miriam, who was not fond ofDon Miguel, but who felt constrained to exceptional courtesy in viewof Freeman's unwarrantable attack upon him, stood beside him and theProfessor; and Freeman and Grace were thus left to fight it out witheach other. 

But Grace had drawn her own conclusions from what had passed. Freemanhad insulted Don Miguel. Wherefore? Obviously, it could only be becausehe thought that she was flirting with him. In other words, Freeman wasjealous; and to be jealous is to love. Now, Grace was so constitutedthat, though she did not like to play second fiddle herself, yet shehad no objection to monopolizing all the members of the male species whomight happen, at a given moment, to be in sight. 

She had, consequently, already forgiven Freeman for his apparentunfaithfulness to her, by reason of his manifest jealousy of Don Miguel. As a matter of fact, he was not jealous, and he was unfaithful; butfate had decreed that there should be, for the moment, a game ofcross-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 Spanishmixtures myself. "

"One has to take what one can get, " said Freeman, referring to DonMiguel. 

"But it's all right now, " rejoined she, meaning that Freeman and herselfwere reconciled after their quarrel. 

"If you are satisfied, I am, " observed Freeman, too indifferent to carewhat she meant. 

"Only, you mustn't take that poor young man too seriously, " she wenton: "these Mexicans are absurdly demonstrative, but they don't meananything. "

"He won't, if he values his skin, " said Freeman, meaning that if DonMiguel attempted to interfere between himself and Miriam he would wringhis 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 ofattitude puzzled him a little, --"I'm glad you look at it that way. Idon't wish to be meddled with; that's all. "

"You shan't be, " she whispered; and then, just when they wereapproaching the point where their eyes might have been opened, in cameGeneral Trednoke. The group round the Golden Fleece broke up. 

The general wore his riding-dress, and his bearing was animated, thoughhe was covered with dust. 

"I was wondering what had become of you all, " he said, as the othersgathered about him. "I have been taking a canter to the eastward. Kamaiakan said this morning that one of the boys had brought news of acloud-burst in that direction. I rode far enough to ascertain that therehas really been something of the kind, and I think it has affected thearroyo on the farther side of the little sierra. Now, I don't know howyou gentlemen feel, but it occurred to me that it might be interestingto make up a little party of exploration to-morrow. Would you like totry it, Meschines?"

"To be sure I should!" the professor replied. "I imagine I can stand asmuch 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 beenintending to gratify my curiosity by making some such expedition on myown account. "

"Ah!" said the general, eying him with some intentness. "Well, we may beable to show you something more curious than you anticipate. --And now, Senor de Mendoza, there is only you left. May we count on your companyinto the desert?"

But the Mexican, with a bow and a grimace, excused himself. Scientificcuriosity was an unknown emotion to him; but he foresaw an opportunityto have Grace all to himself, and he meant to improve it. He also wishedleisure to think over some plan for getting rid of Senor Freeman, inwhom he scented a rival, and who, whether a rival or not, had behaved tohim with a lack of consideration in the presence of ladies. 

CHAPTER IV. 

General Trednoke's household went early to bed. As there wasmore accommodation in the old house than sufficed for its presentinhabitants, it followed that each of them had a regal allowance ofrooms. And when Grace Parsloe became one of the occupants, she wasallotted two commodious apartments at the extremity of the left wing. They communicated, through long windows, with the veranda in front, andby means of doors with the passage, or hall, traversing the house fromend to end. If, therefore, she happened to be sleepless, she might issueforth into the garden, and wander about there without let or hinderanceuntil she was ready to accept the wooing of the god of dreams; or, ifsupernatural terrors daunted her, she could in a few seconds transferherself and her fears to Miriam's chamber, which occupied the sameposition in the right wing that hers did in the left. 

The night, as is customary in that climate, where the atmosphere is pureand evaporation rapid, was cool and still. By ten o'clock there was nosound 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 harmlesspeople, --somewhat disposed, perhaps, to small pilferings, in an amiableand loyal way, but incapable of anything seriously criminal. There wereno locks on the doors, and most of them stood ajar. Tramps and burglarswere unknown. 

Miriam, having put on her night-dress, stood a few minutes at herwindow, gazing out on the soft darkness of the garden. All there waspeacefulness and fragrance. The leaves of the plants hung motionless;the blossoms seemed to hush themselves to the enjoyment of their ownsweetness. 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 rectangleof 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 bea pleasant place to live in. But one need not journey to Venus to find aworld where love is the ruling passion. Circumstances over which shehas no control may cause such a world to come into existence in a girl'sheart. 

She left the window at last, and got into bed, where she soon presentedan image of perfect repose. Meanwhile, in a dark corner of thecourt-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 ifyou examined it more narrowly you would have detected in it the vagueoutlines of a human figure, squatting on its haunches, with its headresting on its knees, and its arms clasped round them, --somewhat asfigures sit in Egyptian hieroglyphics, or like Aztecan mummies in thetomb. So still was it, it might itself have been a mummy. But ever andanon a blinking of the narrow eyes in the bronze countenance told thatit was no mummy, but a living creature. In fact, it was none other thanthe aged and austere Kamaiakan, who, for reasons best known to himself, chose to spend the hours usually devoted to rest in an attitude thatno European or white American could have maintained with comfort longerthan five minutes. 

An hour--two hours--passed away. Then Kamaiakan noiselessly arose, peered about him cautiously for a few moments, and passed out of thecourt-yard through the open gate. He turned to the left, and, stealingbeneath Miriam's windows, paused there for an instant and made certaingestures with his arms. Anon he continued his way to the garden, and wassoon concealed by the thick shrubbery. 

History requires us to follow him. The garden extended westward, andwas quite a spacious enclosure: one not familiar with its winding pathsmight easily lose himself there on a dark night. But Kamaiakan knewwhere he was going, and the way thither. He now stalked along moreswiftly, taking one turn after another, brushing aside the low-hangingboughs, and passing the loveliest flowers without a glance. He was asone preoccupied with momentous business. Presently he arrived at a smallopen space, remote and secluded. It was completely surrounded by tallshrubbery. In the centre was a basin of stone, evidently very ancient, filled to the brim with the clear water of a spring, which bubbled upfrom the bottom, and, overflowing by way of a gap in the edge, became asmall rivulet, which stole away in the direction of the sea. Across theslightly undulating surface of the basin trembled the radiance of thestar. 

Kamaiakan knelt down beside it, and, bending over, gazed intently intothe water. Presently he dipped his hands in it, and sprinkled shiningdrops over his own gaunt person, and over the ground in the vicinity ofthe spring. He made strange movements with his arms, bowed his headand erected it again, and traced curious figures on the ground with hisfinger. It appeared as if the venerable Indian had solemnly lost hissenses and had sought out this lonely spot to indulge the vagaries ofhis insanity. If so, his silence and deliberation afforded an exampleworthy of consideration by other lunatics. 

Suddenly he ceased his performance, and held himself in a listeningattitude. A light, measured sound was audible, accompanied by therustling of leaves. It came nearer. There was a glimpse of whitenessthrough the interstices of the surrounding foliage, and then a slenderfigure, clad in close-fitting raiment, entered the little circle. Itwore a sort of tunic, reaching half-way to the knees, and leggings ofthe same soft, grayish-white material. The head was covered with a sortof hood, which left only the face exposed; and this too might be coveredby a species of veil or mask, which, however, was now fastened back onthe headpiece, after the manner of a visor. The front of the tunic wasembroidered with fantastic devices in gold thread, brightened here andthere with precious stones; and other devices appeared on the hood. The face of this figure was pale and calm, with great dark eyes beneathblack 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 nora 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 makinga deep obeisance, touching his hand to her foot and then to his ownforehead and breast, he said, in a language that was neither Spanish norsuch 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 acertain stateliness of utterance unlike the usual manner of GeneralTrednoke's daughter: "I was glad to hear you call, and to see again thestars and the earth. Have you anything to tell?"

"There are events which may turn to our harm, most revered princess. Themaster 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 youtell me) bears the name of Miriam. Besides, are not Miriam and I unitedby the thread of descent?"

"Something of the spirit that is you dwells in her also, " said theIndian. 

"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 thatperplex me. I live and move in this mortal world, and yet (you tellme) three centuries have passed since what is called my death. To me itseems 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 havebeen--during this long lapse of time. Yet it must be that I live anotherlife: 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 ofthe 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 whenMontezuma was king. And well do I remember you, Kamaiakan!"

"It is true I live again, princess, though not in the flesh and bonesthat died with you in the past. But in the old days I was acquaintedwith mysteries, and learned the secrets of the world of spirits; andthis science still remained with me after the change, so that I was ableto know that I was I, and that you could be recalled to speak with methrough the tongue of Miriam. But there are some things that I do notknow; 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 thetreasure which, in the old times, you and I hid in the desert. I indeedremember the event, and somewhat of the region of the hiding; but Icannot put my hand upon the very spot. I have tried to discover it; butwhen I approach it my mind becomes confused between the present and thepast, 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 veryheavy. 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 hillsbefore us; we rode towards a great rock shaped like the pyramid on whichthe sacrifices were held in Tenochtitlan. We passed round its base, andentered a deep and narrow valley, that seemed to have been ploughed outof the heart of the earth and to descend into it. Then---- But what isit you wish to do with this treasure, Kamaiakan?"

"It belongs to your race, princess, and was hidden that the murderersof Montezuma might not seize it. I was bound by an oath, after the perilwas past, to restore it to the rightful owners. But our country remainedunder the rule of the conquerors; and my life went out. But now theconquerors have been conquered in their turn, and Miriam is the lastinheritor of your blood. When I have delivered to her this trust, mywork will be done, and I can return to the world which you inhabit. Thetime 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 mustbe no delay. The general has it in mind to discover the gates throughwhich the waters under-ground may arise and again form the sea whichflowed hereabouts in the ancient times. Now, this sea will fill theravine in which the treasure lies, and make it forever unattainable. Ayouth has also come here who is skilled in the sciences, and whom thegeneral 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 havebeen near such a one. Can it be so?"

"The other self, who now sleeps, knows of him, " replied the ancientIndian. "He is a well-looking youth, and I think he has a desire towardsher 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, andthrough barriers which separate the mind and memory of the past from thepresent. I--as you know, Kamaiakan--was never wedded; the fate of ourpeople, and my early end, kept that from me. But the thought of thatyouth is here, "--she put her hand on her bosom, --"and it seems to methat, 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 livehenceforth one life. "

"Such matters are beyond my knowledge, " said the Indian, shaking hishead. "The gods know what will be. It is for us, now, to regain thetreasure. 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 placeis but a ride of two or three hours from here. None must know of ourdeparture, for there are some here whom I do not trust. We must go bynight. You will wear the garments you now have on, without which allmight miscarry. "

"How can the garments affect the result, Kamaiakan?"

"A powerful spell is laid upon them, princess. Moreover, the characterswrought upon them, with gold thread and jewels, are mystical, and thesubstance of the garment itself has a virtue to preserve the wearer fromevil. 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 couldnot know itself in this world as now it can. "

As he spoke the last words, a low sound, wandering and muttering withan inward note, came palpitating on their ears through the night air. It seemed to approach from no direction that could be identified, yetit was at first remote, and then came nearer, and in a moment trembledaround them, and shivered in the solid earth beneath their feet; and inanother instant it had passed on, and was subdued slowly into silence inthe shadowy distance. No one who has once heard that sound can mistakeit for any other, or ever can forget it. The air had suddenly becomeclose and tense; and now a long breeze swept like a sigh through thegarden, dying away in a long-drawn wail; and out of the west came ahollow murmur, like that of a mighty wave breaking upon the shore of theocean. 

"The earthquake!" whispered Kamaiakan, rising to his feet. And then hepointed to the stone basin. "Look! the spring!"

"It is gone!" exclaimed Semitzin. 

And, in truth, the water, with a strange, sucking noise, disappearedthrough the bottom of the basin, leaving the glistening cavity which hadheld it, green with slimy water-weed, empty. 

"The time is near, indeed!" muttered the Indian. "The second shock maycause the waters from which this spring came to rise as no living manhas 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: thoughthe shock was but slight, some one might be awakened; and were you to bediscovered, our plans might go wrong. "

"Must I depart so soon?" said Semitzin, regretfully. "The earth isbeautiful, Kamaiakan: the smell of the flowers is sweet, and the starsin the sky are bright. To feel myself alive, to breathe, to walk, tosee, are sweet. Perhaps I have no other conscious life than this. Iwould like to remain as I am: I would like to see the sun shine, and tohear 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 oldman replied, with a troubled look. "The ways of the gods are not ourways. 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 intobeing again: you have made me know how pleasant this world is. Miriamsleeps: she need never know; she need never awake again. You werefaithful 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 melive 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 Miriamindeed? How could they guess the truth?"

"I will think of what you say, princess, " said Kamaiakan. "Somethingmay perhaps be done; but it must be done gradually: you would need muchinstruction in the ways of the new world before you could safely enterinto its life. Leave that to me. I am loyal as ever: is it not to fulfilthe 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 dayswe will meet and speak again. "

"The power is yours, Kamaiakan: it is well to argue, when with a wordyou can banish me forever! Yet what if I were to say that, unless youconsent to the thing I desire, I will not show you where the treasurelies?"

"Princess Semitzin!" exclaimed the Indian, "remember that it is notagainst me, but against the gods, that you would contend. The gods knowthat I have no care for treasure. But they will not forgive a brokenoath; and they will not hold that one guiltless through whom it isbrought to naught?"

"Well, we shall meet again, " answered Semitzin, after a pause. "But doyou remember that you, too, are not free from responsibility in thismatter. You have called me back: see to it that you do me justice. " Shewaved 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 thehouse. As she turned round one of the corners, she saw a man's figurebefore her, strolling slowly along in the same direction in which shewas going. In a few moments he heard her light footfall, and, facingabout, confronted her. She continued to advance until she was withinarm'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 sinceher eyes closed upon the world of Tenochtitlan, three hundred yearsbefore. 

The young man looked upon her with manifest surprise. It was too darkto distinguish anything clearly, but it did not take him long to surmisethat the figure was that of a woman, and her countenance, though changedin 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 atsuch an hour and in such a costume? He did not recognize the GoldenFleece, 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 utteredsome words in a soft, flowing language with which he was entirelyunacquainted. The next moment she had glided past him, and was out ofsight round the curve of the path, leaving him in a state of perplexitynot altogether gratifying. 

"What the deuce can it mean?" he muttered to himself. "I can't bemistaken about its being Miriam. And yet she didn't look at me as ifshe recognized me. What can she be doing out here at midnight? I supposeit's none of my business: in fact, she might very reasonably ask thesame question of me. And if I were to tell her that I had only riddenover 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 wiseas before. After all, it may have been somebody else. The image in mymind projected itself on her countenance. I certainly must be in love!I almost wish I'd never come here. This complication about the general'sirrigating scheme makes it awkward. I'm bound not to explain things tohim; and yet, if I don't, and he discovers (as he can't help doing) whatI am here for, nothing will persuade him that I haven't been playinga double game; and that would not be a promising preliminary towardsbecoming a member of his family. If Miriam were only Grace, now, itwould be plain sailing. Hello! who's this? Senor Don Miguel, as I'm asinner! What is he up to, pray? Can this be the explanation ofMiriam's escapade? I have a strong desire to blow a hole through thatfellow!--Buenas noches, Senor de Mendoza! I am enchanted to have theunexpected honor of meeting you. "

Senor de Mendoza turned round, disagreeably startled. It is only fair toexplain that he had not come hither with any lover-like designs towardsMiriam. Grace was the magnet that had drawn his steps to the Trednokes'garden, and the truth is that that enterprising young lady was notwithout a suspicion that he might turn up. Could this information havebeen imparted to Freeman, it would have saved much trouble; but, asit was, not only did he jump to the conclusion that Don Miguel was hisrival (and, seemingly, a not unsuccessful one), but a similar misgivingas to Freeman's purposes towards Grace found its way into the heart ofthe Spaniard. It was a most perverse trick of fate. 

The two men contemplated each other, each after his own fashion: DonMiguel 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 thatyour 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 admonishesthem, and, if they do not obey, one chastises them. "

"Do you talk of chastising Don Miguel de Mendoza? Senor, I will wash outthat insult with your blood!"

"Excellent! It is at your service for the taking. But, lest we disturbthe repose of our friends yonder, let us seek a more convenient spot. Inoticed a very pretty little glade on the right as I rode over here. Youare armed? Good! we will have this little affair adjusted within halfan hour. Yonder star--the planet of love, senor--shall see fair play. Andamos!"

CHAPTER V. 

Having mounted their steeds, the two sanguinary young gentlemen rodeonwards, side by side, but in silence; for the souls of those who haveresolved to slay each other find small delight in vain conversation. Moreover, there is that in the conscious proximity of death whichstimulates to thought much more than to speech. But Freeman preserved anoutward 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 hadtaken his life in his hand and brought it unscathed through dangers. Don Miguel, on the other hand, was troubled in spirit, and uneasy inthe flesh. He was one soon hot and soon cold; and this long ride to thedecisive event went much against his stomach. If the conflict hadtaken place there in the garden, while the fire of the insult was yetscorching him, he could have fought it out with good will; but now thenight air seemed chiller and chiller, and its frigidity crept into hisnerves: he doubted of the steadiness of his aim, bethought himself thatthe darkness was detrimental to accurate shooting, and wondered whetherSenor Freeman would think it necessary to fight across a handkerchief. He could not help regretting, too, that the quarrel had notbeen occasioned by some more definite and satisfactoryprovocation, --something which merely to think of would steel the heartto 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 ofconfident and cheerful serenity made him feel worse than ever. Was hebeing brought out here to be butchered for nothing, --he, Don Miguel deMendoza, who had looked forward to many pleasures in this life? It wastoo bad. It was true, the fortune of war might turn the other way; butDon Miguel was aware of a sensation in his bones which made this hopeweak. 

At length Freeman drew rein and glanced around him. They were in alonely 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 growthof wild mustard, whose slender stalks rose to more than the height of aman's head. On the other side was a grove of live-oak; and in front, theground 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 beingdisturbed. 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 arebent on. But I didn't venture to anticipate such speedy good fortune asyour obliging condescension has brought to pass, Don Miguel. "

"Caramba!" muttered the senor, shivering. He might have said more, butwas unwilling to trust his voice, or to waste nervous energy. 

Meanwhile, Freeman had dismounted, and was tethering his horse. Itoccurred to the senor that it would be easy to pull his gun, send abullet through his companion, and gallop away. He did not yield tothis temptation, partly from traditional feeling that it would not besuitable conduct for a De Mendoza, partly because he might miss the shotor only inflict a wound, and partly because such deeds demand a nervewhich, at that moment, was not altogether at his command. Instead, he slowly dismounted himself, and wondered whether it would ever bevouchsafed 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?" heinquired, pleasantly. "You can take your choice. I'm not particular, butI can recommend this as a sure thing, if you would like to try it. Itnever 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, witha 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 todo something sooner or later. Would that arrangement be agreeable toSenor 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: thatis, if you are quite ready?"

Accordingly they selected their stations, facing respectively aboutnorth 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 behindhis antagonist. "Santa Maria!" he faltered, "what is yonder? It is aspirit!"

Freeman had his wits about him, and perhaps entertained a not too highopinion of Mexican fair play. So, before turning round, he advanced tillhe was alongside his companion. Then he looked, and saw something whichwas certainly enigmatic. 

Among the wild-mustard plants there appeared a moving luminosity, having an irregular, dancing motion, as of a will-o'-the-wisp singularlyagitated. Sometimes it uplifted itself on high, then plunged downwards, and again jerked itself from side to side; occasionally it would quitevanish for an instant. Accompanying this manifestation there was aclawing and reaching of shadowy arms: altogether, it was as if sometitanic spectral grasshopper, with a heart of fire, were writhing andkicking in convulsions of phantom agony. Such an apparition, in an hourand a place so lonely, might stagger a less superstitious soul than thatof Don Miguel de Mendoza. 

Freeman gazed at it for a moment in silence. It mystified him, andthen irritated him. When one is bent heart and soul upon an importantenterprise, any interruption is an annoyance. Perhaps there was in theyoung American's nature just enough remains of belief in witches andhobgoblins 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. Theluminous object disappeared with a faint explosive sound, followed by ashout unmistakably human. The long stems of the wild mustard swayedand parted, and out sprang a figure, which ran straight towards the twoyoung men. 

Hereupon, Don Miguel, hissing out an appeal to the Virgin and thesaints, turned and fled. 

Meanwhile, the mysterious figure continued its onward career; andFreeman once more levelled his weapon, --when a voice, which gave himsuch a start of surprise as well-nigh caused him to pull the triggerfor sheer lack of self-command, called out, "Why, you abominable youngvillain! 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. Heheld in one hand a shattered lantern mounted on the end of a pole, andin the other a long-handled net of gauze, such as entomologists use tocatch moths withal. Under his left arm was slung a brown japanned case, in which he presumably deposited the spoils of his skill. Freeman's shothad not only smashed and extinguished the lantern which served as baitfor the game, but had also given the professor a disagreeable reminderthat the tenure of human life is as precarious as that of the silly mothwhich allows itself to be lured to destruction by shining promises ofbliss. 

"Upon my soul, professor, I am very sorry, " said Freeman. "You haveno idea how formidable you looked; and you could hardly expect me toimagine that you would be abroad at such an hour----"

"And why not, I should like to know?" shouted the professor, toweringwith indignation. "Was I doing anything to be ashamed of? And what areyou doing here, pray, with loaded revolvers in your hands?--Hallo! who'sthis?" he exclaimed, as Don Miguel advanced doubtfully out of the gloom. "Senor de Mendoza, as I'm a sinner! and armed, too! Well, really! Areyou two out on a murdering expedition?--Oho!" he went on, in a changedtone, glancing keenly from one to another: "methinks I see the bottom ofthis mystery. You have ridden forth, like the champions of romance, to do doughty deeds upon each other!--Is it not so, Don Miguel?" hedemanded, turning his fierce spectacles suddenly on that young man. 

Don Miguel, ignoring a secret gesture from Freeman, admitted that he hadbeen 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 yourseconds?"

"My dear sir, " said Freeman, "I assure you it's all a mistake. We justhappened to meet at the gen--er--happened to meet, and were riding hometogether----"

"Now, listen to me, Harvey, " the professor interrupted, holding up anexpository finger. "You have known me since some ten years, I think; andI have known you. You were a clever boy in your studies; but it wasyour foible to fancy yourself cleverer than you were. Acting under thatdelusion, you pitted yourself against me on one or two occasions; andI leave it to your candid recollection whether you or I had the best ofthe encounter. You call yourself a man, now; but I make bold to saythat the--discrepancy, let us call it--between you and me remains asconspicuous as ever it was. I see through you, sir, much more clearlythan, by this light, I can see you. I am fond of you, Harvey; but Ifeel nothing but contempt for your present attitude. In the first place, conscious as you are of your skill with that weapon, you know that thisaffair--even had seconds been present--would have been, not a duel, but an assassination. You acted like a coward!--I say it, sir, like acoward!--and I hope you may live to be as much ashamed of yourself asI am now ashamed for you. Secondly, your conduct, considered in itsrelations to--to certain persons whom I will not name, is that of a boorand a blackguard. Suppose you had accomplished the cowardly murder--thecowardly murder, I said, sir--that you were bent upon to-night. Do youthink that would be a grateful and acceptable return for the courtesyand confidence that have been shown you in that house?--a house, sir, towhich I myself introduced you, under the mistaken belief that you werea gentleman, or, at least, could feign gentlemanly behavior! But Iwon'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 yourselfa purblind donkey. Actually, you haven't sense enough to know thedifference between those who pull with you and those who pull againstyou. Now, I happen to know--to know, do you hear?--that had yousucceeded in what you were just about to attempt, you would have removedyour surest ally, --the surest, because his interests prompt him to favoryours. You pick out the one man who was doing his best to clear theobstacle 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 stupidityimagined, your rival, do you think the course you adopted would havepromoted your advantage? Let me tell you, sir, that you don't know thekind of people you are dealing with. You would never have been permittedto cross their threshold again. And you may take my word for it, ifever you venture to recur to any such folly, I will see to it that youreceive your deserts. --Well, I think we understand each other, now?"

Freeman's emotions had undergone several variations during the course ofthe mighty professor's harangue. But he had ended by admitting the forceof the argument; and the reminiscences of college lecturings aroused bythe incident had tickled his sense of humor and quenched his anger. Helooked 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. Ifyou won't give me any bad marks this time, I'll promise to be good infuture. "

"Ah! very smooth! To begin with, suppose you ask pardon of Senor DonMiguel 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 sufficedto give him the measure of the Mexican's character; and he respectedit so little that he could no longer take the man seriously, or besincerely angry with him. The professor's assurance as to Don Miguel'sinoffensiveness had also its weight; and it was therefore with a quiteroyal gesture of amicable condescension that Freeman turned upon hislate antagonist and held out his hand. 

"Senor Don Miguel de Mendoza, " said he, "I humbly tender you myapologies and crave your pardon. My conduct has been inexcusable; I begyou to excuse it. I deserve your reprobation; I entreat the favor ofyour friendship. Senor, between men of honor, a misunderstanding is amisunderstanding, and an apology is an apology. I lament the existenceof the first; the professor, here, is witness that I lay the second atyour feet. May I hope to receive your hand as a pledge that you restoreme to the privilege of your good will?"

Now, Don Miguel's soul had been grievously exercised that night: he hadbeen insulted, he had shivered beneath the shadow of death, he had beena prey to superstitious terrors, and he had been utterly perplexed bythe professor's eloquent address, whereof (as it was delivered in goodAmerican, and with a rapidity of utterance born of strong feeling) hehad comprehended not a word, and the unexpected effect of which upon hislate adversary he was at a loss to understand. Although, therefore, he had no stomach for battle, he was oppressed by a misgiving lestthe whole transaction had been in some way planned to expose himto ridicule; and for this reason he was disposed to treat Freeman'speaceful overtures with suspicion. His heart did not respond to thoseovertures, but neither was it stout enough to enable him to reject themexplicitly. Accordingly, he adopted that middle course which, in spiteof the proverb, is not seldom the least expedient. He disregardedthe proffered hand, bowed very stiffly, and, saying, "Senor, I amsatisfied, " stalked off with all the rigidity of one in whose veinsflows the sangre azul of Old Castile. Freeman smiled superior upon hisretreat, and then, producing a cigar-case, proceeded to light up withthe 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 tothe nocturnal advances of Senor de Mendoza. We are not to supposethat this implies in her anything worse than an aptness to indulge inromantic adventure: the young lady enjoyed the mystery of romance, and knew that serenades, and whisperings over star-lit balconies, wereproper to this latitude. It may be open to question whether she reallywas much interested in De Mendoza, save as he was a type of the adoringSpaniard. That the scene required: she could imagine him (for thetime-being) to be the Cid of ancient legend, and she herself would enacta role of corresponding elevation. Grace would doubtless have prosperedbetter had she been content with one adorer at a time; but, whileturning to a new love, she was by no means disposed to loosen the chainsof a former one; and, though herself as jealous as is a tiger-cat of heryoung, she could never recognize the propriety of a similar passion onthe part of her victims. She had been indignant at Freeman's apparentinfidelity with Miriam; but when she had (as she imagined) discoveredher mistake, she had listened with a heart at ease to the protestationsof Don Miguel. She had parted from him that evening with a halfexpressed understanding that he was to reappear beneath her windowbefore day-light; and she had pictured to herself a charmingbalcony-scene, such as she had beheld in Italian opera. Accordingly, shehad attired herself in a becoming negligee, and had spent the fore partof the night somewhat restlessly, occasionally emerging on the verandaand gazing down into the perfumed gloom of the garden. At length shefancied that she heard footsteps. Whose could they be, unless DonMiguel's? Grace retreated within her window to await developments. DonMiguel did not appear; but presently she descried a phantom-like figureascending 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 surelythat was a strange costume that he wore; nor did the unconscious harmonyof the gait at all resemble the senor's self-conscious strut. Andwhither was he going?

It was but too evident that he was going straight to the room occupiedby 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 shepursued entered the door of the house, and passed into the corridortraversing the wing. Grace was in time to see it cross the threshold ofMiriam'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 coveredits head, at the same time turning round, so that its countenance wasrevealed. A torrent of black hair fell down over its shoulders. Graceuttered 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! Isaw you go in, in that dress, and I thought you were a man! How my heartbeats! What is the matter?"

"This is strange!" murmured the other, after a pause. "I never heardsuch words; and yet I seem to understand, and even to speak them. Itmust 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, andpressed her fingers against her temples. "But I feel her--I feel hercoming! Not yet, Kamaiakan! not so soon!--Do you know him?" she suddenlyasked, 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 hislips----"

"What are you talking about? Not Harvey Freeman!"

"Harvey Freeman! Ah, how sweet a name! Harvey Freeman! I shall know itnow!--Tell him, " she went on, laying her hand majestically upon Grace'sshoulder, and speaking with an impressive earnestness, "that Semitzinloves 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 mightyprincess. 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 thedesert hills. None knows the place of it but I; and I will give it tonone but him I love. "

"But you said that. .. Really, my dear, I don't understand a bit! As forMr. Freeman, he may care for Semitzin, for aught I know; but, I mustconfess, I think you're mistaken in supposing he's in love with you, --ifthat is what you mean. I met him before you did, you know; and if I wereto tell you all that we----"

"What are you or Miriam to me?--Ah! she comes!--The treasure--by theturning of the white pyramid--six hundred paces--on the right--thearch----" Her voice died away. She covered her face with her hands, andtrembled violently. Slowly she let them fall, and stared around her. "Grace, is it you? Has anything happened? How came I like this? What isit?"

"Well, if you don't know, I'm afraid I can't tell you. I had begun tothink you had gone mad. It must be either that or somnambulism. Who isSemitzin?"

"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 weresomebody else a minute ago. .. . The truth is, of course, you've beendreaming 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 bestplan will be, I suppose, to say nothing about it to anybody. It shall beour secret, dear. If I were you, I would have one of the women sleepin your room, in case you got restless again. It's just an attack ofnervousness, probably, --having so many strangers in the house, all of asudden. Now you must go to bed and get to sleep: it's awfully late, andthere'll be ever so much going on to-morrow. "

Grace herself slept little that night. She could not decide what to makeof this adventure. Nowadays we are provided with a name for the peculiarpsychical state which Miriam was undergoing, and with abundant instancesand illustrations; but we perhaps know what it is no more than we didtwenty-five or thirty years ago. Grace's first idea had been that Miriamwas demented; then she thought she was playing a part; then she did notknow what to think; and finally she came to the conclusion that it wasbest to quietly await further developments. She would keep an eye onFreeman as well as on Miriam; something, too, might be gathered from DonMiguel; and then there was that talk about a treasure. Was that all thefabric of a dream, or was there truth at the bottom of it? She hadheard something said about a treasure in the course of the generalconversation the day before. If there really was a treasure, why mightnot she have a hand in the discovery of it? Miriam, in her abnormalstate, 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 haveample leisure to sound Don Miguel, and, if he proved communicative andavailable, who could tell what might happen? But how very odd it allwas! Who was Semitzin?

While asking herself this question, Grace fell asleep; and by thetime the summons to breakfast came, she had passed through thrillingadventures enough to occupy a new Scheherazade at least three years inthe telling of them. 

CHAPTER VI. 

By nine o'clock in the morning, Professor Meschines and Harvey Freemanhad ridden up to the general's ranch, equipped for the expedition. Thegeneral's preparations were not yet quite completed. A couple of muleswere being loaded with the necessary outfit. It was proposed to beout two days, camping in the open during the intervening night. Itwas necessary to take water as well as solid provisions. Leaving theirhorses in the care of a couple of stable-boys, Meschines and Freemanmounted the veranda, and were there greeted by General Trednoke. 

"I'm afraid we'll have a hot ride of it, " he observed. "The atmosphereis rather oppressive. Kamaiakan tells me there was a touch of earthquakelast night. "

"I thought I noticed some disturbance, ----" returned the professor, with a stealthy side-glance at Freeman, --"something in the nature of anexplosion. "

"Earthquakes are common in this region, aren't they?" Freeman said. 

"They have made it what it is, and may unmake it again, " replied thegeneral. "The earthquake is the father of the desert, as the Indianssay; 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 waslooking a trifle pale this morning. But you must see for yourself. Herethey come. "

Grace, who was a little taller than Miriam, had thrown one arm roundthat young lady's waist, with a view, perhaps, to forming a picture inwhich she should not be the secondary figure. In fact, they were bothof them very pretty; but Freeman had become blind to any beauty butMiriam's. Moreover, he was resolved to have some private conversationwith her during the few minutes that were available. A conversation withthe professor, and some meditations of his own, had suggested to him aline of attack upon Grace. 

"I'm afraid you were disturbed by the earthquake last night?" he said toher. 

"An earthquake? Why should you think so?"

"You look as if you had passed a restless night. I saw Senor de Mendozathis morning. He seems to have had a restless time of it, too. But heis a romantic person, and probably, if an earthquake did not make himsleepless, something else might. " He looked at her a moment, and thenadded, with a smile, "But perhaps this is not news to you?"

"He didn't come--I didn't see him, " returned Grace, wishing, ere thewords had left her lips, that she had kept her mouth shut. Freemancontinued to smile. How much did he know? She felt that it might beinexpedient to continue the conversation. Casting about for a pretextfor retreat, her eyes fell upon Meschines. 

"Oh, there's the dear professor! I must speak to him a moment, " sheexclaimed, vivaciously; and she slipped her arm from Miriam's waist, andwas off, leaving Freeman in possession of the field, and of the monopolyof Miriam's society. 

"Miss Trednoke, " said he, gravely, "I have something to tell you, inorder to clear myself from a possible misunderstanding. It may happenthat I shall need your vindication with your father. Will you give it?"

"What vindication do you need, that I can give?" asked she, opening herdark eyes upon him questioningly. 

"That's what I wish to explain. I am in a difficult position. Would youmind stepping down into the garden? It won't take a minute. "

Curiosity, if not especially feminine, is at least human. Miriamdescended 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 beanother. Now I am going to tell you what I am. And afterwards I'll tellyou 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 geologyand things of that sort. I have sometimes been commissioned tomake geological surveys for Eastern capitalists. Lately I've beencanal-digging on the Isthmus; but the other day I got a notificationfrom some men in Boston and New York to come out here on a secretmission. "

"Secret, Mr. Freeman?"

"Yes: you will understand directly. These men had heard enough aboutthe desert valleys of this region to lead them to think that it might bereclaimed and so be made very valuable. Such lands can be bought now fornext to nothing; but, if the theories that control these capitalistsare correct, they could afterwards be sold at a profit of thousandsper cent. So it's indispensable that the object of my being here shouldremain unknown; otherwise, other persons might step in and anticipatethe 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. Itrust you with the secret: yet I don't mean to bind you to secrecy. Youwill have a perfect right to tell it: the only result would be that Ishould be discredited with my employers; and there is nothing to warrantme 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 whatbecomes of me, so long as I stand right in your opinion, --yourfather's and yours. I am here to find out whether this desert can beflooded, --irrigated, --whether it's possible, by any means, to bringwater upon it. If my report is favorable, the company will purchasehundreds, or thousands, of square miles, and, incidentally, my ownfortune will be made. "

"Why, that's the very thing----" She stopped. 

"The very thing your father had thought of! Yes, so I imagined, thoughhe has not told me so in so many words. So I'm in the position ofsurreptitiously taking away the prospective fortune of a man whom Irespect and honor, and who treats me as a friend. "

Miriam walked on some steps in silence. "It is no fault of yours, " shesaid 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 hisidea and then used it against him?"

"You can tell him the truth: he could not complain; and why shouldyou care if he did? I know that men separate business from--from otherthings. "

They had now come to the little enclosed space where the fountain basinwas; and by tacit consent they seated themselves upon it. Miriam gave anexclamation of surprise. "The water is gone!" she said. "How strange!"

"Perhaps it has gone to meet us at our rendezvous in the desert. --No: ifI tell your father, I should be unfaithful to my employers. But there'sanother alternative: I can resign my appointment, and let my place betaken 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 youthe reason of that, too. A man without a fortune does very well byhimself. He can knock about, and live from hand to mouth. But when hewants to live for somebody else, --even if he has only a very faint hopeof getting the opportunity of doing it, --then he must have some settledmeans of livelihood to justify him. So I say I am in a difficultposition. For if I give this up, I must go away; and if I go away, Imust 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 heras she looked down at the empty basin. "My hope was that you might loveme; for I love you, to be my wife. "

The color slowly rose in Miriam's face: at length she hid it in herhands. "Oh, what is it?" she said, almost in a whisper. "I have knownyou 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 deepestthing in me; and it loves you: yes, I love you!"

Her hands left her face, and there was a light in her eyes which madeFreeman, in the midst of his rejoicing, feel humble and unworthy. Hefelt himself in contact with something pure and sacred. At the samemoment, the recollection recurred to him of the figure he had seen thenight before, with the features of Miriam. Was it she indeed? Was thisshe? To doubt the identity of the individual is to lose one's footing onthe solid earth. For the first time it occurred to him that this doubtmight affect Miriam herself. Was she obscurely conscious of two statesof being in herself, and did she therefore fear to trust her ownimpulses? But, again, love is the master-passion; its fire fuses allthings, and gives them unity. Would not this love that they confessedfor each other burn away all that was abnormal and enigmatic, and leaveonly the unerring human heart, that knows its own and takes it? Thesereflections passed through Freeman's mind in an instant of time. Buthe was no metaphysician, and he obeyed the sane and wholesome instinctwhich has ever been man's surest and safest guide through the mysteriesand bewilderments of existence. He took the beautiful woman in his armsand kissed her. 

"This is real and right, if anything is, " said he. "If there are ghostsabout, 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 thismoment!"

"My father must know to-morrow, " said Miriam. 

"No doubt we shall all know more to-morrow than we do to-day, " returnedher lover, not knowing how abundantly his prophecy would be fulfilled:he was over-flowing with the fearless and enormous joy of a young manwho has attained at one bound the summit of his desire. "There! they arecalling for me. Good-by, my darling. Be yourself, and think of nothingbut 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, ashe was tightening his girths, "I must tell you what is the object ofthis expedition. "

"It is not necessary, general, " replied the young man, straighteninghimself and looking the other in the face; "for from this point ourpaths lie apart. "

"Why so?" demanded the general, in surprise. 

"What's that?" exclaimed Meschines, coming up, and adjusting hisspectacles. 

"I'm not at liberty, at present, to explain, " Freeman answered. "All Ican 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 leastuncharitable construction you can on my conduct. To-morrow, if we alllive, I may say more; now, the most I can tell you is that I am notentirely a free agent. Meantime--Hasta luego. "

Against this unexpected resolve the general cordially protested and theprofessor scoffed and contended; but Freeman stayed firm. He had withhim provisions enough to last him three days, and a supply of water;and in a small case he carried a compact assortment of instruments forscientific observation. "Take your departure in whatever directionyou like, " said he, "and I will take mine at an angle of not lessthan fifteen degrees from it. If I am not back in three days, you mayconclude something has happened. "

It was certainly very hot. Freeman had been accustomed to torrid suns inthe Isthmus; but this was a sun indefinitely multiplied by reflectionsfrom the dusty surface underfoot. Nor was it the fine, ethereal fire ofthe Sahara: the atmosphere was dead and heavy; for the rider was alreadyfar below the level of the Pacific, whose cool blue waves rolled andrippled many leagues to the westward, as, aeons ago, they had rolledand rippled here. There was not a breath of air. Freeman could hear hisheart beat, and the veins in his temples and wrists throbbed. The sweatrose on the surface of his body, but without cooling it. The pony whichhe bestrode, a bony and sinewy beast of the toughest description, trodonwards doggedly, but with little animation. Freeman had no desire topush him. Were the little animal to overdo itself, nothing in the futurecould be more certain than that his master would never see the Trednokeranch again. It seemed unusually hot, even for that region. 

There was little in the way of outward incident to relieve the monotonyof the journey. Now and then a short, thick rattlesnake, with horns onits ugly head, wriggled out of his path. Now and then his horse's hoofalmost trod upon a hideous, flat lizard, also horned. Here and there theuncouth projections of a cactus pushed upwards out of the dust; someof these the mustang nibbled at, for the sake of their juice. Freemanwondered where the juice came from. The floor of the desert seemed forthe most part level, though there was a gradual dip towards the eastand northeast, and occasionally mounds and ridges of wind-swept dust, sometimes upwards of fifty feet in height, broke the uniformity. Thesoil was largely composed of powdered feldspar; but there were alsotracts of gravel shingle, of yellow loam, and of alkaline dust. In someplaces there appeared a salt efflorescence, sprouting up in a sort ofghastly vegetation, as if death itself had acquired a sinister life. Elsewhere, the ground quaked and yielded underfoot, and it becamenecessary to make detours to avoid these arid bogs. Once or twice, too, Freeman turned aside lest he should trample upon some dry bones thatprotruded in his path, --bones that were their own monument, and toldtheir 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, therewas nothing but trouble in sight, whether he succeeded or failed in hispresent mission. In the former case, he would find himself in a hostileposition as regarded the man he most desired to conciliate; in thelatter, he would remain the mere rolling stone that he was before, andlove itself would forbid him to ask the woman he loved to share hisuncertain existence. But Freeman was not logical: he was happy, and hecould 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 thesummits of a range of abrupt hills, the borders of a valley or ravinewhich he wished to explore. Gradually, as he rode, his shadow lengthenedbefore him. It was his only companion; and yet he felt no sense ofloneliness. Miriam was in his heart, and kept it fresh and bold. Evenhunger and thirst he scarcely felt. Who can estimate the therapeutic andhygienic effects of love?

The mustang could not share his rider's source of content, but he mayhave been conscious, through animal instincts whereof we know nothing, of an uplifting and encouraging spirit. At all events, he kept up hissteady lope without faltering or apparent effort, and seemed to requirenothing more than the occasional wetting which Freeman administered tohis nose. There would probably be some vegetation, and perhaps water, onthe hills; and that prospect may likewise have helped him along. 

Nevertheless, man and beast may well have welcomed the hour when thecraggy acclivities of that lonely range became so near that they seemedto loom above their heads. Freeman directed his steps towards thesouthern extremity, where a huge, pallid mass, of almost regularpyramidal form, reared itself aloft like a monument. He skirted the baseof the pyramid, and there opened on his view a narrow, winding valley, scarcely half a mile in apparent breadth, and of a very wild andsavage aspect. Its general direction was nearly north and south, and itdeclined downwards, as if seeking the interior of the earth. In fact, itlooked not unlike those imaginative pictures of the road to the infernalregions described by the ancient poets. One could picture Pluto in hischariot, with Proserpine beside him, thundering downwards behind hisblack horses, on the way to those sombre and magnificent regions whichare hollowed out beneath the surface of the planet. 

Freeman, however, presently saw a sight which, if less spectacularlyimpressive, was far more agreeable to his eyes. On a shelf or cup ofthe declivity was a little clump of vegetation, and in the midst of itwelled up a thin stream of water. The mustang scrambled eagerly towardsit, 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 suchsatisfaction that it was evident the water was not salt. Freeman laidhimself prone upon the brink, and followed his steed's example. Thedraught was cool and pure. 

"I didn't know how much I wanted it!" said he to himself. "It must comefrom a good way down. If I could only bring the parent stream to thesurface, my mission would be on a fair road to success. "

An examination of the spring revealed the fact that it could not havebeen long in existence. Indeed, there were no traces whatever of longcontinuance. The aperture in the rock through which it trickled bore theappearance of having been recently opened; fragments were lying near itthat seemed to have been just broken off. The bed of the little streamwas entirely free from moss or weeds; and after proceeding a shortdistance it dwindled and disappeared, either sucked up in vapor by thetorrid air, or absorbed into the dusty soil. Manifestly, it was a recentcreation. 

"And, to be sure, why not?" ejaculated Freeman. "There was an earthquakelast night, which swallowed up the spring in the Trednokes' garden:probably that same earthquake brought this stream to light. It vanishedthere, to reappear here. Well, the loss is not important to them, butthe gain is very important to me. It is as if Miriam had come with acup of water to refresh her lover in the desert. God bless her! She hasrefreshed me indeed, soul and body!"

He removed the saddle from the mustang, and turned him loose to make thebest of such scanty herbage as he could find. Then he unpacked hisown provisions, and made a comfortable meal; after which he rolleda cigarette and reclined on the spot most available, to rest andrecuperate. The valley, or gorge, lay before him in the afternoon light. It was a strange and savage spectacle. Had it been torn asunder by somestupendous explosion, it could not have presented a rougher or morechaotic aspect. To look at it was like beholding the secret places ofthe 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 onbases seemingly insufficient, ready to topple over on the unwary passerbeneath. A short distance to the northward the ravine had a turn, and aprojecting promontory hid its further extreme from sight. Freeman madeup his mind to follow it up on foot, after the descending sun shouldhave thrown a shadow over it. The indications, in his judgment, werenot without promise that a system of judiciously-applied blastings mightopen up a source of water that would transform this dreadful barrennessinto something quite different. 

The shade of the great pyramid fell upon him as he lay, but thetumultuous wall opposite was brilliantly illuminated: the sky, over it, was of a peculiar brassy hue, but entirely cloudless. The radiationsfrom the baked surface, ascending vertically, made the rocky bastionseem to quiver, as if it were a reflection cast on undulating water. The wreaths of tobacco-smoke that emanated from Freeman's mouth alsoascended, until they touched the slant of sunlight overhead. As theyoung man's eyes followed these, something happened that caused him toutter an exclamation and raise himself on one arm. 

All at once, in the vacant air diagonally above him, a sort of shadowyshimmer seemed to concentrate itself, which was rapidly resolved intocolor and form. It was much as if some unseen artist had swept a massof mingled hues on a canvas and then had worked them with magical speedinto a picture. There appeared a breadth of rolling country, coveredwith verdure, and in the midst of it the white walls and long, shadowedveranda of an adobe house. Freeman saw the vines clambering over theeaves and roof, the vases of earthenware suspended between the pillarsand overflowing with flowers, the long windows, the steps descendinginto the garden. Now a figure clad in white emerged from the door andadvanced slowly to the end of the veranda. He recognized the gait andbearing: he could almost fancy he discerned the beloved features. Shestood there for a moment, gazing, as it seemed, directly at him. She raised her hands, and pressed them to her lips, then threw themoutwards, with a gesture eloquent of innocent and tender passion. Freeman's heart leaped: involuntarily he stretched out his arms, andmurmured, "Miriam!" The next moment, a tall, dark figure, with whitehair, wrapped in a blanket, came stalking behind her, and made abeckoning movement. Miriam did not turn, but her bearing changed; herhands fell to her sides; she seemed bewildered. Freeman sprang angrilyto his feet: the picture became blurred; it flowed into streaks of vaguecolor; it was gone. There were only the brassy sky, and the paintedcrags quivering in the heat. 

"That was not a mirage: it was a miracle, " muttered the young man tohimself. "Forty miles at least, and it seemed scarcely three hundredyards! What does it mean?"

The sun sank behind the hills, and a transparent shadow filled thegorge. Freeman, uneasy in mind, and unable to remain inactive, filledhis canteen at the spring, and descended to the rugged trail at thebottom. Clambering over boulders, leaping across narrow chasms, lettinghimself down from ledges, his preoccupation soon left him, and physicalexertion took the precedence. Half an hour's work brought him to theout-jutting promontory which had concealed the further reaches ofthe valley. These now lay before him, merging imperceptibly intoindistinctness. 

"This atmosphere is unbearable, " said Freeman. "I must get a littlehigher up. " He turned to the right, and saw a natural archway, ofno great height, formed in the rock. The arch itself was white; thesuper-incumbent stone was of a dull red hue. On the left flank of thearch were a series of inscribed characters, which might have been cut bya human hand, or might have been a mere natural freak. They looked likesome rude system of hieroglyphics, and bore no meaning to Freeman'smind. 

A sort of crypt or deep recess was hollowed out beneath the arch, thefull extent of which Freeman was unable to discern. The floor of itdescended in ridges, like a rough staircase. He stood for a few momentspeering into the gloom, tempted by curiosity to advance, but restrainedpartly by the gathering darkness, and partly by the oppressiveness ofthe atmosphere, which produced a sensation of giddiness. Something whitegleamed on the threshold of the crypt. He picked it up. It was a humanskull; but even as he lifted it it came apart in his hands and crumbledinto fragments. Freeman's nerves were strong, but he shudderedslightly. The loneliness, the silence, the mystery, and the strangelight-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 hisfeet, and went rolling and reverberating up and down the canon. It diedaway, but was immediately followed by another yet more loud, and theground shook and swayed beneath his feet. A gigantic boulder, poisedhigh up on the other side of the canon, was unseated, and fell with aterrific crash. A hot wind swept sighing through the valley, and theair rapidly became dark. Again came the sigh, rising to a shriek, withroarings and thunderings that seemed to proceed both from the heavensand from the earth. 

A dazzling flash of lightning split the air, bathing it for an instantin the brightness of day: in that instant Freeman saw the bolt strikethe great white pyramid and splinter its crest into fragments, while thewhole surface of the gorge heaved and undulated like a stormy sea. Hehad been staggering as best he might to a higher part of the ravine; butnow 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, hadreached the borders of the desert just as the earthquake began. Whenthe first shock came, they were riding past a grove of live-oaks: theyimmediately dismounted, made fast their horses, and lay down beside somebushes that skirted the grove. Neither the earthquake nor the storm wasso severe as was the case farther eastward. In an hour all was over, andthey remounted and continued their journey, guiding their course by thestars. 

"It was thus that we rode before, Kamaiakan, " remarked the younger ofthe two travellers. "Yonder bright star stood as it does now, and thehour of the night was the same. But this shaking of the earth makesme fear for the safety of that youth. The sands of the desert may haveswept over him; or he may have perished in the hills. "

"The purposes of the gods cannot be altered, Semitzin, " replied the oldIndian, who perhaps would not have much regretted such a calamity asshe suggested: it would be a simple solution of difficulties which mightotherwise prove embarrassing. "It is my prayer, at all events, that theentrance to the treasure may not be closed. "

"I care nothing for the treasure, unless I may share it with him, " shereturned. "Since we spoke together beside the fountain, I have seen him. He looked upon me doubtfully, being, perhaps, perplexed because of thesefeatures of the child Miriam, which I am compelled to wear. "

"Truly, princess, what is he, that you should think of him?" mutteredKamaiakan. 

"He satisfies my heart, " was the reply. 

"And I am resolved never again to give up this mortal habitation to heryou call its rightful owner. I will never again leave this world, whichI 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 andbones of your own. "

"The gods have permitted me to return as I have returned; and you wellknow, Kamaiakan, that, except you use your art to banish me and restoreMiriam, there is nothing else that can work a change. "

"Murder is not lawful, Semitzin; and to do as you desire would be an actnot different from murder. "

"On my head be it, then!" exclaimed the princess. "Would it be less amurder to send me back to nothingness than to let her remain there? Mineis 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 hasvanished and that Semitzin lives in her place. I wear her body and herfeatures, 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 inthe presence of a situation which had perhaps never before confronted ahuman being. Two women, both tenants of the same body, both in love withthe same man, and therefore rivals of each other, and each claiming aright to existence: it was a difficult problem. The old Indian heartilywished that a separate tenement might be provided for each of these twosouls, that they might fight out their quarrel in the ordinary way. Buthis magic arts did not extend to the creation of flesh and blood. Atthe same time, he could not but feel to blame for having brought thisstrenuous spirit of Semitzin once more into the world, and he was fainto admit that her claim was not without justification. His motives hadbeen excellent, but he had not foreseen the consequences in which theact was to land him. Yet he more shrank from wronging Miriam than fromdisappointing Semitzin. 

But the latter was not to be put off by silence. 

"There has been a change since you and I last spoke together, " shesaid. "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 herebefore, she did but lean towards this youth; now she has given herselfto him. She means to be united to him; and, if I again should vanish, Ishould never again find my way back. But it shall not be so; and thereis a way, Kamaiakan, by which I can surely prevent it, even though yourefuse to aid me. "

"Indeed, princess, I think you mistake regarding the love of Miriam forthis young man; they have seen little of each other; and it may be, asyou yourself said, that he has perished in the wilderness. "

"I believe he lives, " she answered: "I should know it, were itotherwise. But if I cannot have him, neither shall she. I have told youalready that, unless you swear to me not to put forth your power uponme to dismiss me, I will not lead you to the treasure. But that is notenough; for men deceive, and you are a man. But if at any time hereafterI feel within me those pangs that tell me you are about to separateme from this world, at that moment, Kamaiakan, I will drive this knifethrough the heart of Miriam! If I cannot keep her body, at least itshall be but a corpse when I leave it. You know Semitzin; and you knowthat she will keep her word!"

She reined in her horse, as she spoke, and sat gazing upon her companionwith flashing eyes. The Indian, after a pause, made a gesture of gloomyresignation. "It shall be as you say, then, Semitzin; and upon your headbe it! Henceforth, Miriam is no more. But do you beware of the vengeanceof the gods, whose laws you have defied. "

"Let the gods deal with me as they will, " replied the Aztecan. "A day ofhappiness 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 hangprecisely above the summit of the great white pyramid at the mouth ofthe gorge. 

"It was here that we stopped, " observed Semitzin. "We tied our horsesamong 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. Thelong ride seemed to have wearied her not a whit. The lean and wiryIndian had already betrayed symptoms of fatigue; but the young princessappeared as fresh as when she started. Not once had she even taken adraught from her canteen; and yet she was closely clad, from head tofoot, in the doublet and leggings of the Golden Fleece. One might havethought it had some magic virtue to preserve its wearer's vitality; andpossibly, as is sometimes seen in trance, the energy and concentrationof the spirit reacted upon the body. 

She turned the corner of the pyramid, but had not ridden far when anobject 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 weightof 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 saddleor bridle. 

"Do you know him?" demanded Semitzin. 

"It is Diego, " replied Kamaiakan. "I know him by the white star on hismuzzle. He was ridden by the Senor Freeman. They must have come herebefore the earthquake. And there lie the saddle and the bridle. Butwhere 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 thecenturies, and across all spaces, we were destined to meet. His horsewas killed, but he has escaped. I shall save him. Could Miriam have donethis? 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 SenorFreeman at all. "

"I thank her for so much; and some time, perhaps, I will reward her bypermitting 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 nothought but of me can ever find its way into his heart. Come, let us goforward. We will find the treasure, and I will give it to my lord andlover. "

"Shall we bring the pack-horse with us?" asked the Indian. 

"Yes, if he can find his way among these rocks. The earthquake has madechanges here. See how the water pours from this spring! It has alreadymade 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 hadfallen from above; large fissures and crevasses had been formed in thefloor of the gorge, from some of which steaming vapors escaped, while others gave forth streams of water. The darkness added to thedifficulties of the way, for, although the sky was now clear, the gloomwas deceptive, and things distant seemed near. Occasionally a heavy, irregular sound would break the stillness, as some projection of a cliffbecame 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 andthen losing sight for a moment of the slight, grayish figure in frontof him. At length she disappeared behind the jutting profile of a greatpromontory which formed a main angle of the gorge. When he came up withher, she was kneeling beside the prostrate form of a man, supporting hishead upon her knee. 

Kamaiakan approached, and looked at the face of the man, which waspale; 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; buthis heart beats: he will be well again. " She poured some water from hercanteen over his face, and bent her ear over his lips. "He breathes, "she said. Slipping one arm beneath his neck, she loosened the shirt athis throat and then stooped and kissed him. "Be alive for me, love, " shemurmured. "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 thetreasure?"

"My treasure is here!" was her reply; and again she bent to kiss thehalf-conscious man, who knew not of his good fortune. After an intervalshe added, "It is in the hollow beneath that archway. Go down threepaces: 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 thejewels are. But remember your promise!"

Kamaiakan peered into the hollow, shook his head as one who loves nothis errand, and stepped in. The black shadow swallowed him up. Semitzinpaid no further attention to him, but was absorbed in ministering to herpatient, whose strength was every moment being augmented, though he wasnot yet aware of his position. But all at once a choking sound came fromwithin the cave, and in a few moments Kamaiakan staggered up out of theshadow, and sank down across the threshold of the arch. 

"Semitzin, " he gasped, in a faint voice, "the curse of the gods is uponthe spot! The air within is poisonous. It withers the limbs and stopsthe 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 noother 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 besidehim while I go. Ah, if your Miriam were here, I would not fear to havehim 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 onthe 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. "Whatthe 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 shegrasped by a handle at one end. Immediately in her steps broke forth agreat volume of water, boiling up as if from a caldron. It filled thecave, and poured like a cataract into the gorge. The foundations of thegreat deep seemed to be let loose. 

Semitzin lifted from her face the woollen mask, or visor, which she hadclosed on entering the cave. She was panting from exertion, but neitherher physical nor her mental faculties were abated. She spoke sharply andimperiously:

"Bring up the mule, and help me fasten the chest upon him. We must reachhigher ground before the waters overtake us. And now----" She turnedto Freeman, who by this time was sitting up and regarding her withstupefaction. 

"Miriam!" was all he could utter. 

She shook her head, and smiled. "I am she who loves you, and whom youwill love. I give you life, and fortune, and myself. But come: can youmount and ride?"

"I can't make this out, " he said, struggling, with her assistance, tohis feet. "I have read fairy-tales, but this. .. Kamaiakan, too!"

Semitzin, meanwhile, brought him to the mule, and half mechanically hescrambled into the saddle, the chest being made fast to the crupper. Semitzin seized the bridle, and started up the gorge, Kamaiakan bringingup the rear. The lower levels were already filling with water, whichcame pouring out through the archway in a full flood, seeminglyinexhaustible. 

"I see how it is, " mumbled Freeman, half to himself. "The earthquake--Iremember! I got hit somehow. They came from the ranch to hunt me up. Butwhere are the general and Professor Meschines? How long ago was it?And how came Miriam. .. Could the mirage have had anything to do withit?--Here, let me walk, " he called out to her, "and you get up andride. "

She turned her head, smiling again, but hurried on without speaking. The roar of the torrent followed them. Once or twice the mule came nearlosing his footing. Freeman, whose head was swimming, and his brainsbuzzing like a hive of bees, had all he could do to maintain hisequilibrium in the saddle. He was excruciatingly thirsty, and thegurgling of waters round about made him wish he might dismount andplunge into them. But he lacked power to form a decided purpose, andpermitted the more energetic will to control him. It might have beenminutes, or it might have been hours, for all he knew: at last theyhalted, near the base of the white pyramid. 

"Here we are safe, " said Semitzin, coming to his side. "Lean on me, mylove, and I will lift you down. "

"Oh, I'm not quite so bad as that, you know, " said Freeman, with afeeble laugh; and, to prove it, he blundered off the saddle, and camedown on the ground with a thwack. He picked himself up, however, andrecollecting that he had a flask with brandy in it, he felt for it, found it intact, and, with an inarticulate murmur of apology, raised itto his lips. It was like the veritable elixir of life: never in his lifebefore had Freeman quaffed so deep a draught of the fiery spirit. It wasjust 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 puton--or put off--something with it that made a difference in her. She wasassertive, imperious; as loving, certainly, as lover could wish, but notin the manner of the Miriam he knew. He might have liked the new Miriambetter, had he not previously fallen in love with the former one. Hecould not make advances to her: he had no opportunity to do so: she wasmaking advances to him!

"My love, " she said, standing before him, "I have come back to the worldfor your sake. Before Semitzin first saw you, her heart was yours. AndI come to you, not poor, but with the riches and power of the princes ofTenochtitlan. You shall see them: they are yours!--Kamaiakan, take downthe chest. "

"What's that about Semitzin?" inquired Freeman. "I'm not aware that Iknew any such person. "

"Kamaiakan!" repeated the other, raising her voice, and not hearingFreeman's last words. Kamaiakan was nowhere to be seen. Both Freeman andshe had supposed that he was following on behind the mule; but hehad 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 mileoff, 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 hisshoulders against a rock, and gasping heavily. 

"My princess, " he whispered, as she bent over him, "I am dying. Thepoisonous air in the cave was fatal to me, though the spell that is uponthe Golden Fleece protected you. I have done what the gods commanded. Iam absolved of my vow. The treasure is safe. "

"Nonsense! you're all right!" exclaimed Freeman. "Here, take a pull atthis flask. It did me all the good in the world!"

But the old man put it aside, with a feeble gesture of the hand. "Mytime 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. "Ifeel 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 scarcelyaudible. "But, with death, the strength of my will goes from me, and Ican no longer keep you in this world. The spirit of Miriam claims herrightful body, and you must struggle against her alone. The gods willnot 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 isall this about? I never heard anything like this language you two talktogether. "

Semitzin turned towards him, and her eyes were blazing. 

"She shall not have you!" she cried. "I have won you--I have savedyou--you are mine! What is Miriam? Can she be to you what I couldbe?--You shall never have him!" she continued, seeming to address somepresence invisible to all eyes but hers. "If I must go, you shall gowith 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 anuncertainty 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, wasactually relieved to see, at last, something that he could understand. Miriam--for some reason best known to herself--was about to do herselfa mischief. He leaped forward, caught her in his arms, and snatched theknife from her grasp. 

For a few moments she struggled like a young tiger. And it wasmarvellous and appalling to hear two voices come from her, inalternation, or confusedly mingled. One said, "Let me kill her! I willnot go! Keep back, you pale-faced girl!" and then a lower, troubledvoice, "Do not let her come! Her face is terrible! What are thosestrange creatures with her? Harvey, where are you?"

At last, with a fierce cry, that died away in a shuddering sigh, theform of flesh and blood, so mysteriously possessed, ceased to struggle, and sank back in Freeman's arms. His own strength was well-nigh at anend. He laid her on the ground, and, sitting beside her, drew her headon his knee. He had been in the land of spirits, contending with unknownpowers, and he was faint in mind and body. 

Yet he was conscious of the approaching tread of horses' feet, andrecollected the hail that had come from the desert. Soon loomed upthe shadowy figures of mounted men, and they came so near that he wasconstrained to call out, "Mind where you're going! You'll be over us!"

"Who are you?" said a voice, which sounded like that of GeneralTrednoke, as they reined up. 

"There's Kamaiakan, who's dead; and Miriam Trednoke, who has been out ofher 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 totravel, it was decided to encamp beside the pyramid till the followingevening, and then make the trip across the desert in the comparativecoolness of starlight. Meanwhile, there was something to be done, andmuch to be explained. 

The spirit of Kamaiakan had passed away, apparently at the same momentthat the peculiar case of "possession" under which Miriam had sufferedcame to an end. They determined to bury him at the foot of the greatpyramid, which would form a fitting monument of his antique characterand 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 couldgive no account what ever of how or why she came there. The last thingshe distinctly remembered was standing on the veranda at the ranch andlooking towards the east. She was under the impression that Kamaiakanhad approached and spoken with her, but of that she was not certain. Thenext 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. Shecould recall nothing of the journey down the gorge, of the adventureat the bottom of it, or of the return. It was only by degrees that somepartial light was thrown upon this matter. Freeman knew that he was atthe entrance of the cave when the earthquake began, and he rememberedreceiving a blow on the head. Consequently it must have been atthat spot that Miriam and the Indian found him. He had, too, a vagueimpression of seeing Miriam coming out of the cave, dragging the chest;and there, sure enough, was a metal box, strapped to the saddle of thepack-mule. But the mystery remained very dense. And although thereader is in a position to analyze events more closely than the actorsthemselves could do, it may be doubted whether the essential mystery ismuch 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 learningshould have descended to their posterity. We have been clever in givingnames to such phenomena, but we know perhaps even less about theiresoteric meaning than the Aztecans did. I should judge that Miriam wouldbe what is called a good 'subject. ' Kamaiakan discovered that fact;and as for what followed, we can only infer it from the results. I wasalways an admirer of Kamaiakan; but I must say I am the better resignedto his departure, from the reflection that Miriam will henceforth beundisturbed in the possession of her own individuality. "

"As near as I could make out, she called herself Semitzin, " put inFreeman. 

"Semitzin?" repeated the general. "Why, if I'm not mistaken, there areaccounts of an Aztecan princess of that name, an ancestress of my wife'sfamily, in some old documents that I have in a box, at home. "

"That would only add the marvel of heredity to the other marvels, " saidMeschines. "Suppose we leave the things we can't understand, and come tothose we can?"

"I have something to say, General Trednoke, " said Freeman. 

"I think I have already guessed what it may be, Mr. Freeman, " returnedthe general, gravely. "Old people have eyes, and hearts too, as well asyoung ones. "

"Come, Trednoke, " interposed the professor, with a chuckle, "your eyesmight not have seen so much, if I hadn't held the lantern. "

"I love your daughter, and I told her so yesterday morning, " went onFreeman, after a pause. "I meant to tell you on my return. I knowI don't appear desirable as a son-in-law. But I came here on acommission----"

"Meschines and I have talked it all over, " the general said. "Whenan old West-Pointer and a professor of physics get together, they aresometimes able to put two and two together. And, to tell the truth, I received a letter from a member of your syndicate, who is alsoan acquaintance of mine, which explained your position. Under thecircumstances, I consider your course to have been honorable. You andI were both in search of the same thing, and now, as it appears, naturehas sent an earthquake to do our affair for us. No operations of ourscould have achieved such a result as last night's disturbance did; andif that do not prove effective, nothing else will. "

"If it turns out well, I was promised a share in the benefits, " saidFreeman, "and that would put me in a rather better condition, from aworldly point of view. "

"After all, " interrupted Meschines, "you found your way to the spot fromwhich the waters broke forth, and may fairly be entitled to the creditof the discovery. --Eh, Trednoke? At any rate, we found nothing. --Yes, I think they'll have to admit you to partnership, Harvey: and Miriamtoo, --who, by the way, seems to be the only one who actually penetratedinto this cave you speak of. Maybe the removal of the chest pulledthe plug out of the bung-hole, as it were: the escape of confined airthrough such a vent would be apt to draw water along with it. By theway, let's have a look at this same chest: it looks solid enough to holdsomething valuable. "

"I would like, in the first place, to hear what General Trednoke has tosay about what I have told him, " said Freeman, clearing his throat. 

"Miriam, " said the general, "do you wish to be married to this youngman?"

The old soldier was sitting with her hand in his, and he turned to heras he spoke. She threw her arms round his neck, and pressed her faceagainst his shoulder. "He is to me what you were to mamma, " she said, sothat 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 forme to grow young again. Well, if you are of the same mind six monthshence----"

"Worse; it will be much worse, then, " murmured the professor. "Bettermake it three. "

The chest was made of some alloy of steel and nickel, impervious torust, and very hard. It resisted all gentle methods of attack, and itwas finally found necessary to force the lock with a charge of powder. Within was found another case, which was pried open with the point ofthe general's bowie-knife. 

It was filled to the brim with precious stones, most of them removedfrom their settings. But such of the gold-work as remained showed thejewels to be of ancient Aztecan origin. There was value enough in thebox to buy and stock a dozen ranches as big as the general's, and leaveheirlooms enough to decorate a family larger than that of the mostfruitful of the ancient patriarchs. 

"I call that quite a respectable dowry, " remarked Meschines. "Upon mysoul, Miriam, if I had known what you had up your sleeve, I should havethought twice before allowing a 'civil engineer'--do you remember?--torun off with you so easily. "

At dawn, they prepared the body of old Kamaiakan for its interment. Indoing this, the professor noted the peculiar appearance of the corpse. 

"The flesh is absolutely withered, " said he, "especially those partswhich were uncovered. It must have been subjected to the action of somedestructive vapor or gas, fatal not only to breathe, but to come incontact with. I have heard of poisonous emanations proceeding from theground in these regions, but I never saw an instance of their effectsbefore. That skull that you say you found, Harvey, was probably that ofa victim of the same cause. But it is strange that Miriam, who must haveremained some time in the very midst of it, should have escaped withouta 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 ofpure wool, which undoubtedly possesses remarkable sanative properties;or maybe the fiery soul of Semitzin was powerful enough to repel allharmful influences. The poor old fellow himself, being clad in cotton, and with no soul but his own, was destroyed. Let us wrap him in hisblanket, and bid him farewell--and with him, I hope, to all that isuncanny and abnormal in the lives of you young folks!"

The last rites having been paid to the dead, the party mounted theirhorses 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 thensaid, "They are Senor de Mendoza and Grace Parsloe. "

And so, indeed, they were; and thus, in this lonely spot, all thedramatis personae of this history found themselves united. 

In answer to the obvious question, how Grace and De Mendoza happenedto be there, it transpired that, left to their own devices, they hadundertaken no less an enterprise than to discover the hidden treasure. Grace had communicated to the Mexican such bits of information as shehad picked up and such surmises as she had formed, and he had been ableto supplement her knowledge to an extent that seemed to justify them inattempting the adventure, --not to mention the fact that Don Miguel (suchwas 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, whowas ambitious as well as romantic, and who longed for the power andindependence that wealth would give, was all alight with the idea ofcapturing the hoard of Montezuma: her social position would be alteredat a stroke, and the world would be at her feet. Whether she would thenhave rewarded Don Miguel for his devotion, is possibly open to doubt:the sudden acquisition of boundless wealth has been known to turn largerheads than hers. Fortunately, however, this temptation was withheld fromher: so far from finding the treasure, she and Don Miguel very soonlost themselves in the desert, and had been wandering about ever since, dolely uncomfortable, and in no small danger of losing their lives. Theywere already at the end of their last resource when they happened toencounter the other party, as we have seen; and immeasurable was theirjoy at the unlooked-for deliverance. So there was another halt, toenable them to rest and recuperate; and it was not until the evening ofthat day that the journey was finally resumed. 

Meanwhile, Grace had time to think over all that happened, and to arriveat certain conclusions. She was at bottom a good girl, though liableto be led away by her imagination, her vanity, and her temperament. DonMiguel's best qualities had revealed themselves to her in the desert: hehad always thought of her before himself, had done all that in him layto save her from fatigue and suffering, and had stuck to her faithfullywhen he might perhaps have increased his own chances of escape byabandoning her. Did not such a man deserve to be rewarded?--especiallyas he was a handsome fellow, of good family, and possessed of quite arespectable income. Moreover, Harvey Freeman was now beyond her reach:he was going to marry Miriam, and she had realized that her own briefinfatuation for him had had no very deep root after all. Accordingly, she smiled encouragingly upon Don Miguel, and before they set out ontheir homeward ride she had vouchsafed him the bliss of knowing that hemight call her his. 

The general, as her guardian, did not withhold his approval; but whenGrace drew him aside and besought him never to reveal to her intendedthe 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 wifeare not wise. He loves you and would only love you the more for yourfrankness in confessing what you seem to consider a discreditableepisode: though I for my part am free to tell you that you will be luckyif your future life affords you the opportunity of doing anything elseso much to your credit. But the chances are that he will find it outsooner or later; and that may not be so agreeable, either to him or toyou. Better tell him all now. "

But Grace pictured to herself the aristocratic pride of an hidalgoshocked by the suggestion of the plebeianism of trade; and she would notconsent to the revelation. But the general's prediction was fulfilledsooner than might have been expected. 

For, after they were married, Don Miguel decided to visit the Atlanticcoast on the wedding journey; and one of the first notable places theyreached was, of course, New York. Don Miguel was delighted, and wasnever weary of strolling up Fifth Avenue and down Broadway, with hisbeautiful wife on his arm. He marvelled at the vast white pile ofthe Fifth Avenue Hotel; he frowned at the Worth Monument; he staredinexhaustibly into the shop-windows; he exclaimed with admiration atthe stupendous piles of masonry which contained the goods of New York'smerchant princes. It seemed to be his opinion that the possessors of somuch palpable wealth must be the true aristocracy of the country. 

And one afternoon it happened that as they were strolling alongBroadway, between Twenty-third Street and Union Square, and werecrossing one of the side-streets, a horse belonging to one of Lord andTaylor's delivery-wagons became frightened, and bolted round the corner. One of the hind wheels of the vehicle came in contact with Grace'sshoulder, and knocked her down. The blow and the fall stunned her. DonMiguel's grief and indignation were expressed with tropical energy; anda by-stander said, "Better carry her into the store, mister; it's theirwagon run her down, and they can't do less than look after her. "

The counsel seemed reasonable, and Don Miguel, with the assistance ofa policeman, lifted his wife and bore her into the stately shop. Oneof the floor-walkers met them at the door; he cast a glance at theirburden, and exclaimed, "Why, it's Miss Parsloe!" And immediately anumber of the employees gathered round, all regarding her with interestand sympathy, all anxious to help, and--which was what mystified DonMiguel--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 businesswith the beautiful unconscious one!

"This lady are my wife, " he said, with dignity. "She not any more MissParsloe. "

"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 ourgirls here; and a very clever and useful girl she was. I need not sayhow sorry we are for this accident: I have sent for the physician: butI cannot but be glad that the misfortune has at least given me theopportunity of telling you how highly your wife was valued and respectedhere. "

At this juncture, Grace opened her eyes: she looked from one face toanother, and knew that fate had brought the truth to light. But thephysical shock tempered the severity of the mental one: besides, shecould not help being pleased at the sight of so many well-remembered andfriendly faces; and, finally, her husband did not look by any means soangry and scandalized as she had feared he would. Indeed, he appearedalmost gratified. The truth probably was, he was flattered to see hiswife the centre of so much interest and attention, and at the discoverythat she had been in some way an honored appanage of so imposing anestablishment. So, by the time Grace was well enough to be driven backto her hotel, the senor was prattling cheerfully and familiarly with alland 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 faulthad 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 concealfrom him; her vanity was rebuked, and her false pride chastened;and when, in after-years, her pretty daughters and black-haired sonsgathered about her knees, she was wont to warn them sagely against theun-American absurdity of fearing to work for their living, or beingashamed to have it known. 

But the married life of Miriam and Harvey Freeman was characteristicallyAmerican in its happiness. The representatives of the oldest and of thelatest inhabitants of this continent, their union seemed to produce theflower of what was best in both. Their wedding is still remembered inthat region, as being everything that a Southern Californian weddingshould be; and the bride, as she stood at the altar, looked what shewas, --one of those women who, more than anything else in this world, are fitted to bring back to earth the gentle splendors of the Gardenof Eden. In her dark eyes, as she fixed them upon Freeman, there wasa mystic light, telling of fathomless depths of tenderness andintelligence: it seemed to her husband that love had expanded anduplifted her; or perhaps that other spirit in her, which had battledwith her own, had now become reconciled, and therefore yielded upwhatever it had of good and noble to aggrandize the gentle victory ofits conqueror. Somehow, somewhere, in Miriam's nature, Semitzin lived;and, as a symbol of the peace and atonement that were the issue ofher strange interior story, her husband preserves with reverence andaffection the mysterious garment called the Golden Fleece.