Coronado presently slipped down the companionway, found the colored
steward, chinked five dollars into his horny palm, and said, "My good
fellow, you must look out for me; I shall want a good deal of help during
the passage."

"Yes, sah, very good, sah," was the answer, uttered in a greasy chuckle,
as though it were the speech of a slab of bacon fat. "Make you up any
little thing, sah. Have a sup now, sah? Little gruel? Little brof?"

"No, thank you," returned Coronado, turning half sick at the mention of
those delicacies. "Nothing at present. By the way, one of the staterooms
is occupied I see. Who is the other passenger?"

"Dunno, sah; keeps hisself shut up, an' says nothin' to nobody. 'Pears
like he is sailin' under secret orders. Cur'ous' lookin' old gent; got
only one eye."

One eye! Coronado thought of the face which had frightened him out of San
Francisco, and wondered whether he were shut up in the Lolotte with it.

"One eye?" he asked. "Short, stout, dark old gentleman? Indeed! I think I
know him."

Stepping to the door of a stateroom which he had already noticed as being
kept closed, he tapped lightly. There was a muttering inside, a shuffling
as of some one getting out of a berth, and then a low inquiry in Spanish,
"Who is there?"

"Me, sah," returned Coronado, imitating, and imitating perfectly, the
accent of the steward, who meantime had gone forward, talking and
sniggering to himself, after an idiotic way that he had.

The door opened a trifle, and Coronado instantly slipped the toe of his
little boot into the crack, at the same time saying in his natural tone,
"My dear uncle!"

Seeing that he was discovered, Garcia gave his nephew entrance, closed the
door after him, locked it, and sat down trembling on the edge of the lower
berth, groaning and almost whimpering, "Ah, my son! Ah, my dear Carlos!
Oh, what a life I have to lead! Madre de Dios, what a life! I thought you
were one of my creditors. I did indeed, my dear Carlos, my son."

"I thought you went back to Santa Fe" was Coronado's reply.

"No, I did not go; I started, but I came back," mumbled Garcia. Then,
plucking up a little spirit, he turned his one eye for a moment on his
nephew's face, and added, "Why should I go to Santa Fe? I had no business
there. My business is here."

"But after your attempt at the hacienda?"

"My attempt! I made no attempt. All that was a mistake. Because I was
sick, I was frightened and did not know what to do. I ran away because you
told me to run. I had given her nothing. Yes, I did put something in her
chocolate, but it was my medicine. I meant to put in sugar, but I made a
mistake and went to the wrong pocket, the pocket of my medicine. That was
it, Carlos. I give you my word, word of a hidalgo, word of a Christian."

It was the same explanation which Coronado had invented to forestall
suspicions at the hacienda. It was surely a wonderful coincidence of
lying, and shows how great minds work alike. Vexed and angry as the nephew
was, he could scarcely help smiling.

"My dear uncle!" he exclaimed, grasping Garcia's pudgy hand
melodramatically. "The very thing that occurred to me! I told them so."

"Did you?" replied the old man, not much believing it. "Then all is well."

He wanted to ask how it was that Clara had survived her dose; but of
course curiosity on that subject must not find vent; it would be
equivalent to a confession.

"Where is she going?" were his next words.

"To Fort Yuma."

"To Fort Yuma! What for?"

"I may as well tell it," burst out Coronado angrily. "She is going there
to nurse that officer. He escaped, but he has been sick, and she _will_
go."

"She must not go," whispered Garcia. "Oh, the ----." And here he called
Clara a string of names which cannot be repeated. "She shall not go
there," he continued. "She will marry him. Then the property is gone, and
we are ruined. Oh, the ----." And then came another assortment of violent
and vile epithets, such as are not found in dictionaries.

Coronado was anxious to divert and dissipate a rage which might make
trouble; and as soon as he could get in a word, he asked, "But what have
you been doing, my uncle?"

By dint of questioning and guessing he made out the story of the old man's
adventures since leaving the hacienda. Garcia, in extreme terror of
hanging, had gone straight to San Francisco and taken passage for San
Diego, with the intention of not stopping until he should be at least as
far away as Santa Fe. But after a few hours at sea, he had recovered his
wits and his courage, and asked himself, why should he fly? If Clara died,
the property would be his, and if she survived, he ought to be near her;
while as for Carlos, he would surely never expose and hang a man who could
cut him off with a shilling. So he landed at Monterey, took the first
coaster back to San Francisco, lurked about the city until he learned that
the girl was still living, and was just about to put a bold front on the
matter by going to see her at the hacienda, when he learned accidentally
that she was on the point of voyaging southward. Puzzled and alarmed by
this, he resolved to accompany her in her wanderings, and succeeded in
getting himself quietly on board the Lolotte.

"Well, let us go on deck," said Coronado, when the old man had regained
his tranquillity. "But let us be gentle, my uncle. We know how to govern
ourselves, I hope. You will of course behave like a mother to our little
cousin. Congratulate her on her recovery; apologize for your awkward
mistake. It was caused by the coming on of the fit, you remember. A man
who is about to have an attack of epilepsy can't of course tell one pocket
from another. But such a man is all the more bound to be unctuous."

Clara received the old man cordially, although she would have preferred
not to see him there, fearing lest he should oppose her nursing project.
But as nothing was said on this matter, and as Garcia put his least cloven
foot foremost, the trio not only got on amicably together, but seemed to
enjoy one another's society. This was no common feat by the way; each of
the three had a great load of anxiety; it was wonderful that they should
not show it. Coronado, for instance, while talking like a bird song, was
planning how he could get rid of Garcia, and carry Clara back to San
Francisco. The idea of pushing the old man overboard was inadmissible; but
could he not scare him ashore at the next port by stories of a leak? As
for Clara, he could not imagine how to manage her, she was so potent with
her wealth and with her beauty. He was still thinking of these things, and
prattling mellifluously of quite other things, when the Lolotte luffed up
under the lee of the little island of Alcatraz.

"What does this mean?" he asked, looking suspiciously at the
fortifications, with the American flag waving over them.

"Stop here to take in commissary stores for Fort Yuma," explained the
thin, sallow, grave, meek-looking, and yet resolute Yankee mate.

The chain cable rattled through the hawse hole, and in no long while the
loading commenced, lasting until nightfall. During this time Coronado
chanced to learn that an officer was expected on board who would sail as
far as San Diego; and, as all uniforms were bugbears to him, he watched
for the new passenger with a certain amount of anxiety; taking care, by
the way, to say nothing of him to Clara. About eight in the evening, as
the girl was playing some trivial game of cards with Garcia in the cabin,
a splashing of oars alongside called Coronado on deck. It was already
dark; a sailor was standing by the manropes with a lantern; the captain
was saying in a grumbling tone, "Very late, sir."

"Had to wait for orders, captain," returned a healthy, ringing young voice
which struck Coronado like a shot.

"Orders!" muttered the skipper. "Why couldn't they have had them ready?
Here we are going to have a southeaster."

There was anxiety as well as impatience in his voice; but Coronado just
now could not think of tempests; his whole soul was in his eyes. The next
instant he beheld in the ruddy light of the lantern the face of the man
who was his evil genius, the man whose death he had so long plotted for
and for a time believed in, the man who, as he feared, would yet punish
him for his misdeeds. He was so thoroughly beaten and cowed by the sight
that he made a step or two toward the companionway, with the purpose of
hiding in the cabin. Then desperation gave him courage, and he walked
straight up to Thurstane.

"My dear Lieutenant!" he cried, trying to seize the young fellow's hand.
"Once more welcome to life! What a wonder! Another escape. You are a
second Orlando--almost a Don Quixote. And where are your two Sancho
Panzas?"

"You here!" was Thurstane's grim response, and he did not take the
proffered hand.

"Come!" implored Coronado, stepping toward the waist of the vessel and
away from the cabin. "This way, if you please," he urged, beckoning
earnestly. "I have a word to say to you in private."

Not a tone of this conversation had been heard below. Before the boat had
touched the side the crew were laboring at the noisy windlass with their
shouts of "Yo heave ho! heave and pawl! heave hearty ho!" while the mate
was screaming from the knight-heads, "Heave hearty, men--heave hearty.
Heave and raise the dead. Heave and away."

Amid this uproar Coronado continued: "You won't shake hands with me,
Lieutenant Thurstane. As a gentleman, speaking to another gentleman, I ask
an explanation."

Thurstane hesitated; he had ugly suspicions enough, but no proofs; and if
he could not prove guilt, he must not charge it.

"Is it because we abandoned you?" demanded Coronado. "We had reason. We
heard that you were dead. The muleteers reported Apaches. I feared for the
safety of the ladies. I pushed on. You, a gentleman and an officer--what
else would you have advised?"

"Let it go," growled Thurstane. "Let that pass. I won't talk of it--nor of
other things. But," and here he seemed to shake with emotion, "I want
nothing more to do with you--you nor your family. I have had suffering
enough."

"Ah, it is with _her_ that you quarrel rather than with me," inferred
Coronado impudently, for he had recovered his self-possession. "Certainly,
my poor Lieutenant! You have reason. But remember, so has she. She is
enormously rich and can have any one. That is the way these women
understand life."

"You will oblige me by saying not another word on that subject," broke in
Thurstane savagely. "I got her letter dismissing me, and I accepted my
fate without a word, and I mean never to see her again. I hope that
satisfies you."

"My dear Lieutenant," protested Coronado, "you seem to intimate that I
influenced her decision. I beg you to believe, on my word of honor as a
gentleman, that I never urged her in any way to write that letter."

"Well--no matter--I don't care," replied the young fellow in a voice like
one long sob. "I don't care whether you did or not. The moment she could
write it, no matter how or why, that was enough. All I ask is to be left
alone--to hear no more of her."

"I am obliged to speak to you of her," said Coronado. "She is aboard."

"Aboard!" exclaimed Thurstane, and he made a step as if to reach the shore
or to plunge into the sea.

"I am sorry for you," said Coronado, with a simplicity which seemed like
sincerity. "I thought it my duty to warn you."

"I cannot go back," groaned the young fellow. "I must go to San Diego. I
am under orders."

"You must avoid her. Go to bed late. Get up early. Keep out of her way."

Turning his back, Thurstane walked away from this cruel and hated
counsellor, not thinking at all of him however, but rather of the deep
beneath, a refuge from trouble.

We must slip back to his last adventure with Texas Smith, and learn a
little of what happened to him then and up to the present time.

It will be remembered how the bushwhacker sat in ambush; how, just as he
was about to fire at his proposed victim, his horse whinnied; and how this
whinny caused Thurstane's mule to rear suddenly and violently. The rearing
saved the rider's life, for the bullet which was meant for the man buried
itself in the forehead of the beast, and in the darkness the assassin did
not discover his error. But so severe was the fall and so great
Thurstane's weakness that he lost his senses and did not come to himself
until daybreak.

There he was, once more abandoned to the desert, but rich in a full
haversack and a dead mule. Having breakfasted, and thereby given head and
hand a little strength, he set to work to provide for the future by
cutting slices from the carcass and spreading them out to dry, well
knowing that this land of desolation could furnish neither wolf nor bird
of prey to rob his larder. This work done, he pushed on at his best speed,
found and fed his companions, and led them back to the mule, their
storehouse. After a day of rest and feasting came a march to the Cactus
Pass, where the three were presently picked up by a caravan bound to Santa
Fe, which carried them on for a number of days until they met a train of
emigrants going west. Thus it was that Glover reached California, and
Thurstane and Sweeny Fort Yuma.

Once in quiet, the young fellow broke down, and for weeks was too sick to
write to Clara, or to any one. As soon as he could sit up he sent off
letter after letter, but after two months of anxious suspense no answer
had come, and he began to fear that she had never reached San Francisco.
At last, when he was half sick again with worrying, arrived a horrible
epistle in Clara's hand and signed by her name, informing him of her
monstrous windfall of wealth and terminating the engagement. The crudest
thing in this cruel forgery was the sentence, "Do you not think that in
paying courtship to me in the desert you took unfair advantage of my
loneliness?"

She had trampled on his heart and flouted his honor; and while he writhed
with grief he writhed also with rage. He could not understand it; so
different from what she had seemed; so unworthy of what he had believed
her to be! Well, her head had been turned by riches; it was just like a
woman; they were all thus. Thus said Thurstane, a fellow as ignorant of
the female kind as any man in the army, and scarcely less ignorant than
the average man of the navy. He declared to himself that he would never
have anything more to do with her, nor with any of her false sex. At
twenty-three he turned woman-hater, just as Mrs. Stanley at forty-five had
turned man-hater, and perhaps for much the same sort of reason.

Shortly after Thurstane had received what he called his cashiering, his
company was ordered from Fort Yuma to San Francisco. It had garrisoned the
Alcatraz fort only two days, and he had not yet had a chance to visit the
city, when he was sent on this expedition to San Diego to hunt down a
deserting quartermaster-sergeant. The result was that he found himself
shipped for a three days' voyage with the woman who had made him first the
happiest man in the army and then the most miserable.

How should he endure it? He would not see her; the truth is that he could
not endure the trial; but what he said to himself was that he _would_ not.
In the darkness tears forced their way out of his eyes and mingled with
the spray which the wind was already flinging over the bows. Crying! Three
months ago, if any man had told him that he was capable of it, he would
have considered himself insulted and would have felt like fighting. Now he
was not even ashamed of it, and would hardly have been ashamed if it had
been daylight. He was so thoroughly and hopelessly miserable that he did
not care what figure he cut.

But, once more, what should he do? Oh, well, he would follow Coronado's
advice; yes, damn him! follow the scoundrel's advice; he could think of
nothing for himself. He would stay out until late; then he would steal
below and go to bed; after that he would keep his stateroom. However, it
was unpleasant to remain where he was, for the spray was beginning to
drench the waist as well as the forecastle; and, the quarter-deck being
clear of passengers, he staggered thither, dropped under the starboard
bulwark, rolled himself in his cloak, and lay brooding.

Meanwhile Coronado had amused Clara below until he felt seasick and had to
take to his berth. Escaping thus from his duennaship, she wanted to see a
storm, as she called the half-gale which was blowing, and clambered
bravely alone to the quarter-deck, where the skipper took her in charge,
showed her the compass, walked her up and down a little, and finally gave
her a post at the foot of the shrouds. Thurstane had recognized her by the
light of the binnacle, and once more he thought, as weakly as a scared
child, "What shall I do?" After hiding his face for a moment he uncovered
it desperately, resolving to see whether she would speak. She did look at
him; she even looked steadily and sharply, as if in recognition; but after
a while she turned tranquilly away to gaze at the sea.

Forgetting that no lamp was shining upon him, and that she probably had no
cause for expecting to find him here, Thurstane believed that she had
discovered who he was and that her mute gesture confirmed his rejection.
Under this throttling of his last hope he made no protest, but silently
wished himself on the battle-field, falling with his face to the foe. For
several minutes they remained thus side by side.

The Lolotte was now well at sea, the wind and waves rising rapidly, the
motion already considerable. Presently there was an order of "Lay aloft
and furl the skysails," and then short shouts resounded from the darkness,
showing that the work was being done. But in spite of this easing the
vessel labored a good deal, and heavy spurts of spray began to fly over
the quarter-deck rail.

"I think, Miss, you had better go below unless you want to get wet,"
observed the skipper, coming up to Clara. "We shall have a splashing night
of it."

Taking the nautical arm, Clara slid and tottered away, leaving Thurstane
lying on the sloppy deck.




CHAPTER XXXIX.


Had Clara recognized Thurstane, she would have thrown herself into his
arms, and he would hardly have slept that night for joy.

As it was, he could not sleep for misery; festering at heart because of
that letter of rejection; almost maddened by his supposed discovery that
she would not speak to him, yet declaring to himself that he never would
have married her, because of her money; at the same time worshipping and
desiring her with passion; longing to die, but longing to die for her;
half enraged, and altogether wretched.

Meantime the southeaster, dead ahead and blowing harder every minute, was
sending its seas further and further aft. He left his wet berth on the
deck, reeled, or rather was flung, to the stern of the vessel, lodged
himself between the little wheel-house and the taffrail, and watched a
scene in consonance with his feelings. Innumerable twinklings of stars
faintly illuminated a cloudless, serene heaven, and a foaming, plunging
ocean. The slender, dark outlines of the sailless upper masts were leaning
sharply over to leeward, and describing what seemed like mystic circles
and figures against the lighter sky. The crests of seas showed with
ghostly whiteness as they howled themselves to death near by, or dashed
with a jar and a hoarse whistle over the bulwarks, slapping against the
sails and pounding upon the decks. The waves which struck the bows every
few seconds gave forth sounds like the strokes of Thor's hammer, and made
everything tremble from cathead to stempost.

Every now and then there were hoarse orders from the captain on the
quarter-deck, echoed instantly by sharp yells from the mate in the waist.
Now it was, "Lay aloft and furl the fore royal;" and ten minutes later,
"Lay aloft and furl the main royal." Scarcely was this work done before
the shout came, "Lay aloft and reef the fore-t'gallant-s'l;" followed
almost immediately by "Lay aloft and reef the main-t'gallant-s'l." Next
came, "Lay out forrard and furl the flying jib." Each command was
succeeded by a silent, dark darting of men into the rigging, and presently
a trampling on deck and a short, sharp singing out at the ropes, with
cries from aloft of "Haul out to leeward; taut hand; knot away."

Under the reduced sail the brig went easier for a while; but the half gale
had made up its mind to be a hurricane. It was blowing more savagely every
second. One after another the topgallant sails were double-reefed,
close-reefed, and at last furled. The watch on deck had its hands full to
accomplish this work, so powerfully did the wind drag on the canvas.
Presently, far away forward--it seemed on board some other craft, so faint
was the sound--there came a bang, bang, bang! on the scuttle of the
forecastle, and a hollow shout of "All hands reef tops'ls ahoy!"

Up tumbled the "starbowlines," or starboard watch, and joined the
"larbowlines" in the struggle with the elements. No more sleep that night
for man, boy, mate, or master. Reef after reef was taken in the topsails,
until they were two long, narrow shingles of canvas, and still the wind
brought the vessel well down on her beam ends, as if it would squeeze her
by main force under water. The men were scarcely on deck from their last
reefing job, when boom! went the jib, bursting out as if shot from a
cannon, and then whipping itself to tatters.

"Lay out forrard!" screamed the mate. "Lay out and furl it."

After a desperate struggle, half the time more or less under water, two
men dragged in and fastened the fragments of the jib, while others set the
foretop-mast staysail in its place. But the wind was full of mischief; it
seemed to be playing with the ship's company; it furnished one piece of
work after another with dizzying rapidity. Hardly was the jib secured
before the great mainsail ripped open from top to bottom, and in the same
puff the close-reefed foretopsail split in two with a bang, from earing to
earing. Now came the orders fast and loud: "Down yards! Haul out reef
tackle! Lay out and furl! Lay out and reef!"

It was a perfect mess; a score of ropes flying at once; the men rolling
about and holding on; the sails slapping like mad, and ends of rigging
streaming off to leeward. After an exhausting fight the mainsail was
furled, the upper half of the topsail set close-reefed, and everything
hauled taut again. Now came an hour or so without accident, but not
without incessant and fatiguing labor, for the two royal yards were
successively sent down to relieve the upper masts, and the foretopgallant
sail, which had begun to blow loose, was frapped with long pieces of
sinnet.

During this period of comparative quiet Thurstane ventured an attempt to
reach his stateroom. The little gloomy cabin was going hither and thither
in a style which reminded him of the tossings of Gulliver's cage after it
had been dropped into the sea by the Brobdingnag eagle. The steward was
seizing up mutinous trunks and chairs to the table legs with rope-yarns.
The lamp was swinging and the captain's compass see-sawing like monkeys
who had gone crazy in bedlams of tree-tops. From two of the staterooms
came sounds which plainly confessed that the occupants were having a bad
night of it.

"How is the lady passenger?" Thurstane could not help whispering.

"Guess she's asleep, sah," returned the negro. "Fus-rate sailor, sah. But
them greasers is having tough times," he grinned. "Can't abide the sea,
greasers can't, sah."

Smiling with a grim satisfaction at this last statement, Thurstane gave
the man a five-dollar piece, muttered, "Call me if anything goes wrong,"
and slipped into his narrow dormitory. Without undressing, he lay down and
tried to sleep; but, although it was past midnight, he stayed broad awake
for an hour or more; he was too full of thoughts and emotions to find easy
quiet in a pillow. Near him--yes, in the very next stateroom--lay the
being who had made his life first a heaven and then a hell. The present
and the past struggled in him, and tossed him with their tormenting
contest. After a while, too, as the plunging of the brig increased, and he
heard renewed sounds of disaster on deck, he began to fear for Clara's
safety. It was a strange feeling, and yet a most natural one. He had not
ceased to love; he seemed indeed to love her more than ever; to think of
her struggling in the billows was horrible; he knew even then that he
would willingly die to save her. But after a time the incessant motion
affected him, and he dozed gradually into a sound slumber.

Hours later the jerking and pitching became so furious that it awakened
him, and when he rose on his elbow he was thrown out of his berth by a
tremendous lurch. Sitting up with his feet braced, he listened for a
little to the roar of the tempest, the trampling feet on deck, and the
screaming orders. Evidently things were going hardly above; the storm was
little less than a tornado. Seriously anxious at last for Clara--or, as he
tried to call her to himself, Miss Van Diemen--he stole out of his room,
clambered or fell up the companionway, opened the door after a struggle
with a sea which had just come inboard, got on to the quarter-deck, and,
holding by the shrouds, quailed before a spectacle as sublime and more
terrible than the Great Canon of the Colorado.

It was daylight. The sun was just rising from behind a waste of waters; it
revealed nothing but a waste of waters. All around the brig, as far as the
eye could reach, the Pacific was one vast tumble of huge blue-gray,
mottled masses, breaking incessantly in long, curling ridges, or lofty,
tossing steeps of foam. Each wave was composed of scores of ordinary
waves, just as the greater mountains are composed of ranges and peaks.
They seemed moving volcanoes, changing form with every minute of their
agony, and spouting lavas of froth. All over this immense riot of
tormented deeps rolled beaten and terrified armies of clouds. The wind
reigned supreme, driving with a relentless spite, a steady and obdurate
pressure, as if it were a current of water. It pinned the sailors to the
yards, and nearly blew Thurstane from the deck.

The Lolotte was down to close-reefed topsails, close-reefed spencer and
spanker, and storm-jib. Even upon this small and stout spread of canvas
the wind was working destruction, for just as Thurstane reached the deck
the jib parted and went to leeward in ribbons. Sailors were seen now on
the bowsprit fighting at once with sea and air, now buried in water, and
now holding on against the storm, and slowly gathering in the flapping,
snapping fragments. Next a new jib (a third one) was bent on, hoisted
half-way, and blown out like a piece of wet paper. Almost at the same
moment the captain saw threatening mouths grimace in the mainsail, and
screamed "Never mind there forrard. Lay up on the maintawps'l yard. Lay up
and furl."

After half an hour's fight, the sail bagging and slatting furiously, it
was lashed anyway around the yard, and the men crawled slowly down again,
jammed and bruised against the shrouds by the wind. Every jib and
forestaysail on board having now been torn out, the brig remained under
close-reefed foretopsail, spencer, and spanker, and did little but drift
to leeward. The gale was at its height, blowing as if it were shot out of
the mouths of cannon, and chasing the ocean before it in mountains of
foam. One thing after another went; the topgallants shook loose and had to
be sent down; the chain bobstays parted and the martingale slued out of
place; one of the anchors broke its fastenings and hammered at the side;
the galley gave way and went slopping into the lee scuppers. No food that
morning except dry crackers and cold beef; all hands laboring exhaustingly
to repair damages and make things taut. For more than half an hour three
men were out on the guys and backropes endeavoring to reset the
martingale, deluged over and over by seas, and at last driven in beaten.
Others were relashing the galley, hauling the loose anchor and all the
anchors up on the rail, and resetting the loose lee rigging, which
threatened at every lurch to let the masts go by the board.

Thurstane presently learned that the wind had changed during the night, at
first dropping away for a couple of hours, then reopening with fresh rage
from the west, and finally hauling around into the northwest, whence it
now came in a steady tempest. The vessel too had altered her course; she
was no longer beating in long tacks toward the southeast; she was heading
westward and struggling to get away from the land. Thurstane asked few
questions; he was a soldier and had learned to meet fate in silence; he
knew too that men weighted with responsibilities do not like to be
catechised. But he guessed from the frequent anxious looks of the captain
eastward that the California coast was perilously near, and that the brig
was more likely to be drifting toward it than making headway from it.
Surveying through his closed hands the stormy windward horizon, he gave up
all thoughts of getting away from Clara by reaching San Diego, and turned
toward the idea of saving her from shipwreck.

None of the other passengers came on deck this morning. Garcia, horribly
seasick and frightened, held on desperately to his berth, and passed the
time in screaming for the "stewrt," cursing his evil surroundings, calling
everybody he could think of pigs, dogs, etc., and praying to saints and
angels. Coronado, not less sick and blasphemous, had more command over his
fears, and kept his prayers for the last pinch. Clara, a much better
sailor, and indeed an uncommonly good one, was so far beaten by the motion
that she did not get up, but lay as quiet as the brig would let her,
patiently awaiting results, now and then smiling at Garcia's shouts, but
more frequently thinking of Thurstane, and sometimes praying that she
might find him alive at Fort Yuma.

The steward carried cold beef, hard bread, brandy, coffee, and gruel (made
in his pantry) from stateroom to stateroom. The girl ate heartily,
inquired about the storm, and asked, "When shall we get there?" Garcia and
Coronado tried a little of the gruel and a good deal of the brandy and
water, and found, as people usually do under such circumstances, that
nothing did them any good. The old man wanted to ask the steward a hundred
questions, and yelled for his nephew to come and translate for him.
Coronado, lying on his back, made no answer to these cries of despair,
except in muttered curses and sniffs of angry laughter. So passed the
morning in the cabin.

Thurstane remained on deck, eating in soldierly fashion, his pockets full
of cold beef and crackers, and his canteen (for every infantry officer
learns to carry one) charged with hot coffee. He was pretty wet, inasmuch
as the spray showered incessantly athwart ships, while every few minutes
heavy seas came over the quarter bulwarks, slamming upon the deck like the
tail of a shark in his agonies. During the morning several great combers
had surmounted the port bow and rushed aft, carrying along everything
loose or that could be loosened, and banging against the companion door
with the force of a runaway horse. And these deluges grew more frequent,
for the gale was steadily increasing in violence, howling and shrieking
out of the gilded eastern horizon as if Lucifer and his angels had been
hurled anew from heaven.

About noon the close-reefed foretopsail burst open from earing to earing,
and then ripped up to the yard, the corners stretching out before the wind
and cracking like musket shots. To set it again was impossible; the orders
came, "Down yard--haul out reef tackle;" then half a dozen men laid out on
the spar and began furling. Scarcely was this terrible job well under way
when a whack of the slatting sail struck a Kanaka boy from his hold, and
he was carried to leeward by the gale as if he had been a bag of old
clothes, dropping forty feet from the side into the face of a monstrous
billow. He swam for a moment, but the next wave combed over him and he
disappeared. Then he was seen further astern, still swimming and with his
face toward the brig; then another vast breaker rushed upon him with a
lion-like roar, and he was gone. Nothing could be done; no boat might live
in such a sea; it would have been perilous to change course. The captain
glanced at the unfortunate, clenched his fists desperately, and turned to
his rigging. Another man took the vacant place on the yard, and the hard,
dizzy, frightful labor there went on unflaggingly, with the usual cries of
"Haul out, knot away," etc. It was one of the forms of a sailor's funeral.

No time for comments or emotions; the gale filled every mind every minute.
It was soon found that the spanker, a pretty large sail, well aft and not
balanced by any canvas at the bow, drew too heavily on the stern and made
steering almost impossible. A couple of Kanakas were ordered to reef it,
but could do nothing with it; the skipper cursed them for "sojers" (our
infantryman smiling at the epithet) and sent two first-class hands to
replace them; but these also were completely beaten by the hurricane. It
was not till a whole watch was put at the job that the big, bellying sheet
could be hauled in and made fast in the reef knots. The brig now had not a
rag out but her spencer and reduced spanker, both strong, small, and low
sails, eased a good deal by their slant, shielded by the elevated
port-rail, and thus likely to hold. But it was not sailing; it was simply
lying to. The vessel rose and fell on the monstrous waves, but made
scarcely more headway than would a tub, and drifted fast toward the still
unseen California coast.

All might still have gone well had the northwester continued as it was.
But about noon this tempest, which already seemed as furious as it could
possibly be, suddenly increased to an absolute hurricane, the wind fairly
shoving the brig sidelong over the water. Bang went the spanker, and then
bang the spencer, both sails at once flying out to leeward in streamers,
and flapping to tatters before the men could spring on the booms to secure
them. The destruction was almost as instant and complete as if it had been
effected by the broadside of a seventy-four fired at short range.

"Bend on the new spencer," shouted the captain. "Out with it and up with
it before she rolls the sticks out of her."

But the rolling commenced instantly, giving the sailors no time for their
work. No longer steadied by the wind, the vessel was entirely at the mercy
of the sea, and went twice on her beam ends for every billow, first to lee
and then to windward. Presently a great, white, hissing comber rose above
her larboard bulwark, hung there for a moment as if gloating on its prey,
and fell with the force of an avalanche, shaking every spar and timber
into an ague, deluging the main deck breast high, and swashing knee-deep
over the quarter-deck. The galley, with the cook in it, was torn from its
lashings and slung overboard as if it had been a hencoop. The companion
doors were stove in as if by a battering ram, and the cabin was flooded in
an instant with two feet of water, slopping and lapping among the baggage,
and stealing under the doors of the staterooms. The sailors in the waist
only saved themselves by rushing into the rigging during the moment in
which the breaker hung suspended.

Nothing could be done; the vessel must lift herself from this state of
submergence; and so she did, slowly and tremulously, like a sick man
rising from his bed. But while the ocean within was still running out of
her scuppers, the ocean without assaulted her anew. Successive billows
rolled under her, careening her dead weight this way and that, and keeping
her constantly wallowing. No rigging could bear such jerking long, and
presently the dreaded catastrophe came.

The larboard stays of the foremast snapped first; then the shrouds on the
same side doubled in a great bight and parted; next the mast, with a loud,
shrieking crash, splintered and went by the board. It fell slowly and with
an air of dignified, solemn resignation, like Caesar under the daggers of
the conspirators. The cross stays flew apart like cobwebs, but the lee
shrouds unfortunately held good; and scarcely was the stick overboard
before there was an ominous thumping at the sides, the drum-beat of death.
It was like guns turned on their own columns; like Pyrrhus's elephants
breaking the phalanx of Pyrrhus.

"Axes!" roared the captain at the first crack. "Axes!" yelled the mate as
the spar reeled into the water. "Lay forward and clear the wreck," were
the next orders; "cut away with your knives."

Two axes were got up from below; the sailors worked like beavers,
waist-deep in water; one, who had lost his knife, tore at the ropes with
his teeth. After some minutes of reeling, splashing, chopping, and
cutting, the fallen mast, the friend who had become an enemy, the angel
who had become a demon, was sent drifting through the creamy foam to
leeward. Meantime the mate had sounded the pumps, and brought out of them
a clear stream of water, the fresh invasion of ocean.

Directly on this cruel discovery, and as if to heighten its horror to the
utmost, the captain, clinging high up the mainmast shrouds, shouted,
"Landa-lee! Get ready the boats."

Without a word Thurstane hurried down into the cabin to save Clara from
this twofold threatening of death.




CHAPTER XL.


When Thurstane got into the cabin, he found it pretty nearly clear of
water, the steward having opened doors and trap-doors and drawn off the
deluge into the hold.

The first object that he saw, or could see, was Clara, curled up in a
chair which was lashed to the mast, and secured in it by a lanyard. As he
paused at the foot of the stairway to steady himself against a sickening
lurch, she uttered a cry of joy and astonishment, and held out her hand.
The cry was not speech; her gladness was far beyond words; it was simply
the first utterance of nature; it was the primal inarticulate language.

He had expected to stand at a distance and ask her leave to save her life.
Instead of that, he hurried toward her, caught her in his arms, kissed her
hand over and over, called her pet names, uttered a pathetic moan of grief
and affection, and shook with inward sobbing. He did not understand her;
he still believed that she had rejected him--believed that she only
reached out to him for help. But he never thought of charging her with
being false or hard-hearted or selfish. At the mere sight of her asking
rescue of him he devoted himself to her. He dared to kiss her and call her
dearest, because it seemed to him that in this awful moment of perhaps
mortal separation he might show his love. If they were to be torn apart by
death, and sepulchred possibly in different caves of the ocean, surely his
last farewell might be a kiss.