The Golden Fleece Part 9

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

Curiosity, if not especially feminine, is at least human. Miriam descended the steps, Freeman beside her. They strolled down the path, amidst the flowers.

"You said, yesterday," he began, "that I would say one thing and be another. Now I am going to tell you what I am. And afterwards I'll tell you why I tell it. In the first place, you know, I'm a civil engineer, and that includes, in my case, a good deal of knowledge about geology and things of that sort. I have sometimes been commissioned to make geological surveys for Eastern capitalists. Lately I've been ca.n.a.l-digging on the Isthmus; but the other day I got a notification from some men in Boston and New York to come out here on a secret mission."

"Secret, Mr. Freeman?"

"Yes: you will understand directly. These men had heard enough about the desert valleys of this region to lead them to think that it might be reclaimed and so be made very valuable. Such lands can be bought now for next to nothing; but, if the theories that control these capitalists are correct, they could afterwards be sold at a profit of thousands per cent. So it's indispensable that the object of my being here should remain unknown; otherwise, other persons might step in and antic.i.p.ate the designs of this company."

"If those are your orders, why do you speak to me?"

"There's a reason for doing it that outweighs the reasons against it. I trust you with the secret: yet I don't mean to bind you to secrecy. You will have a perfect right to tell it: the only result would be that I should be discredited with my employers; and there is nothing to warrant me in supposing that you would be deterred by that."

"I don't ask to know your secret: I think you had better say no more."

Freeman shook his head. "I must speak," said he. "I don't care what becomes of me, so long as I stand right in your opinion,--your father's and yours. I am here to find out whether this desert can be flooded,--irrigated,--whether it's possible, by any means, to bring water upon it. If my report is favorable, the company will purchase hundreds, or thousands, of square miles, and, incidentally, my own fortune will be made."

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

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

Miriam walked on some steps in silence. "It is no fault of yours," she said at last. "You owe us nothing. You must carry out your orders."

"Yes; but what is to prevent your father from thinking that I stole his idea and then used it against him?"

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

They had now come to the little enclosed s.p.a.ce where the fountain basin was; and by tacit consent they seated themselves upon it. Miriam gave an exclamation of surprise. "The water is gone!" she said. "How strange!"

"Perhaps it has gone to meet us at our rendezvous in the desert.--No: if I tell your father, I should be unfaithful to my employers. But there's another alternative: I can resign my appointment, and let my place be taken by another."

"And give up your chance of a fortune? You mustn't do that."

"What is it to you what becomes of me?"

"I wish nothing but good to come to you," said she, in a low voice.

"I have never wanted to have a fortune until now. And I must tell you the reason of that, too. A man without a fortune does very well by himself. He can knock about, and live from hand to mouth. But when he wants to live for somebody else,--even if he has only a very faint hope of getting the opportunity of doing it,--then he must have some settled means of livelihood to justify him. So I say I am in a difficult position. For if I give this up, I must go away; and if I go away, I must give up even the little hope I have."

"Don't go away," said Miriam, after a pause.

"Do you know what you are saying?" He hesitated a moment, looking at her as she looked down at the empty basin. "My hope was that you might love me; for I love you, to be my wife."

The color slowly rose in Miriam's face: at length she hid it in her hands. "Oh, what is it?" she said, almost in a whisper. "I have known you only three days. But it seems as if I must have known you before.

There is something in me that is not like myself. But it is the deepest thing in me; and it loves you: yes, I love you!"

Her hands left her face, and there was a light in her eyes which made Freeman, in the midst of his rejoicing, feel humble and unworthy. He felt himself in contact with something pure and sacred. At the same moment, the recollection recurred to him of the figure he had seen the night before, with the features of Miriam. Was it she indeed? Was this she? To doubt the ident.i.ty of the individual is to lose one's footing on the solid earth. For the first time it occurred to him that this doubt might affect Miriam herself. Was she obscurely conscious of two states of being in herself, and did she therefore fear to trust her own impulses? But, again, love is the master-pa.s.sion; its fire fuses all things, and gives them unity. Would not this love that they confessed for each other burn away all that was abnormal and enigmatic, and leave only the unerring human heart, that knows its own and takes it? These reflections pa.s.sed through Freeman's mind in an instant of time. But he was no metaphysician, and he obeyed the sane and wholesome instinct which has ever been man's surest and safest guide through the mysteries and bewilderments of existence. He took the beautiful woman in his arms and kissed her.

"This is real and right, if anything is," said he. "If there are ghosts about, you and I, at any rate, are flesh and blood, and where we belong.

As to the irrigation sc.r.a.pe, there must be some way out of it: if not, no matter! You and I love each other, and the world begins from this moment!"

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

"No doubt we shall all know more to-morrow than we do to-day," returned her lover, not knowing how abundantly his prophecy would be fulfilled: he was over-flowing with the fearless and enormous joy of a young man who has attained at one bound the summit of his desire. "There! they are calling for me. Good-by, my darling. Be yourself, and think of nothing but me."

A short ride brought the little cavalcade to the borders of the desert.

Here, by common consent, a halt was made, to draw breath, as it were, before taking the final plunge into the fiery furnace.

"Before we go farther," said General Trednoke, approaching Freeman, as he was tightening his girths, "I must tell you what is the object of this expedition."

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

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

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

"I'm not at liberty, at present, to explain," Freeman answered. "All I can say is that I don't feel justified in a.s.sisting you in your affair, and I am not able to confide my own to you. I wish you to put the least uncharitable construction you can on my conduct. To-morrow, if we all live, I may say more; now, the most I can tell you is that I am not entirely a free agent. Meantime--Hasta luego."

Against this unexpected resolve the general cordially protested and the professor scoffed and contended; but Freeman stayed firm. He had with him provisions enough to last him three days, and a supply of water; and in a small case he carried a compact a.s.sortment of instruments for scientific observation. "Take your departure in whatever direction you like," said he, "and I will take mine at an angle of not less than fifteen degrees from it. If I am not back in three days, you may conclude something has happened."

It was certainly very hot. Freeman had been accustomed to torrid suns in the Isthmus; but this was a sun indefinitely multiplied by reflections from the dusty surface underfoot. Nor was it the fine, ethereal fire of the Sahara: the atmosphere was dead and heavy; for the rider was already far below the level of the Pacific, whose cool blue waves rolled and rippled many leagues to the westward, as, aeons ago, they had rolled and rippled here. There was not a breath of air. Freeman could hear his heart beat, and the veins in his temples and wrists throbbed. The sweat rose on the surface of his body, but without cooling it. The pony which he bestrode, a bony and sinewy beast of the toughest description, trod onwards doggedly, but with little animation. Freeman had no desire to push him. Were the little animal to overdo itself, nothing in the future could be more certain than that his master would never see the Trednoke ranch again. It seemed unusually hot, even for that region.

There was little in the way of outward incident to relieve the monotony of the journey. Now and then a short, thick rattlesnake, with horns on its ugly head, wriggled out of his path. Now and then his horse's hoof almost trod upon a hideous, flat lizard, also horned. Here and there the uncouth projections of a cactus pushed upwards out of the dust; some of these the mustang nibbled at, for the sake of their juice. Freeman wondered where the juice came from. The floor of the desert seemed for the most part level, though there was a gradual dip towards the east and northeast, and occasionally mounds and ridges of wind-swept dust, sometimes upwards of fifty feet in height, broke the uniformity. The soil was largely composed of powdered feldspar; but there were also tracts of gravel s.h.i.+ngle, of yellow loam, and of alkaline dust. In some places there appeared a salt efflorescence, sprouting up in a sort of ghastly vegetation, as if death itself had acquired a sinister life.

Elsewhere, the ground quaked and yielded underfoot, and it became necessary to make detours to avoid these arid bogs. Once or twice, too, Freeman turned aside lest he should trample upon some dry bones that protruded in his path,--bones that were their own monument, and told their own story of struggle, agony, exhaustion, and despair.

None of these things had any depressing effect on Freeman's spirit.

His heart was singing with joy. To a mind logically disposed, there was nothing but trouble in sight, whether he succeeded or failed in his present mission. In the former case, he would find himself in a hostile position as regarded the man he most desired to conciliate; in the latter, he would remain the mere rolling stone that he was before, and love itself would forbid him to ask the woman he loved to share his uncertain existence. But Freeman was not logical: he was happy, and he could not help it. He had kissed Miriam, and she loved him.

His course lay a few degrees north of east. Far across the plain, dancing and turning somersaults in the fantastic atmosphere, were the summits of a range of abrupt hills, the borders of a valley or ravine which he wished to explore. Gradually, as he rode, his shadow lengthened before him. It was his only companion; and yet he felt no sense of loneliness. Miriam was in his heart, and kept it fresh and bold. Even hunger and thirst he scarcely felt. Who can estimate the therapeutic and hygienic effects of love?

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

Nevertheless, man and beast may well have welcomed the hour when the craggy acclivities of that lonely range became so near that they seemed to loom above their heads. Freeman directed his steps towards the southern extremity, where a huge, pallid ma.s.s, of almost regular pyramidal form, reared itself aloft like a monument. He skirted the base of the pyramid, and there opened on his view a narrow, winding valley, scarcely half a mile in apparent breadth, and of a very wild and savage aspect. Its general direction was nearly north and south, and it declined downwards, as if seeking the interior of the earth. In fact, it looked not unlike those imaginative pictures of the road to the infernal regions described by the ancient poets. One could picture Pluto in his chariot, with Proserpine beside him, thundering downwards behind his black horses, on the way to those sombre and magnificent regions which are hollowed out beneath the surface of the planet.

Freeman, however, presently saw a sight which, if less spectacularly impressive, was far more agreeable to his eyes. On a shelf or cup of the declivity was a little clump of vegetation, and in the midst of it welled up a thin stream of water. The mustang scrambled eagerly towards it, and, before Freeman had had time to throw himself out of the saddle, he had plunged his muzzle into the rivulet. He sucked it down with such satisfaction that it was evident the water was not salt. Freeman laid himself p.r.o.ne upon the brink, and followed his steed's example. The draught was cool and pure.

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

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

"And, to be sure, why not?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Freeman. "There was an earthquake last night, which swallowed up the spring in the Trednokes' garden: probably that same earthquake brought this stream to light. It vanished there, to reappear here. Well, the loss is not important to them, but the gain is very important to me. It is as if Miriam had come with a cup of water to refresh her lover in the desert. G.o.d bless her! She has refreshed me indeed, soul and body!"

He removed the saddle from the mustang, and turned him loose to make the best of such scanty herbage as he could find. Then he unpacked his own provisions, and made a comfortable meal; after which he rolled a cigarette and reclined on the spot most available, to rest and recuperate. The valley, or gorge, lay before him in the afternoon light.

It was a strange and savage spectacle. Had it been torn asunder by some stupendous explosion, it could not have presented a rougher or more chaotic aspect. To look at it was like beholding the secret places of the earth. The rocky walls were of different colors, yellow, blue, and red, in many shades and gradations. They towered ruggedly upwards, sharply shadowed and brightly lighted, mounting in regular pinnacles, parting in black crevices; here and there vast ma.s.ses hung poised on bases seemingly insufficient, ready to topple over on the unwary pa.s.ser beneath. A short distance to the northward the ravine had a turn, and a projecting promontory hid its further extreme from sight. Freeman made up his mind to follow it up on foot, after the descending sun should have thrown a shadow over it. The indications, in his judgment, were not without promise that a system of judiciously-applied blastings might open up a source of water that would transform this dreadful barrenness into something quite different.

The shade of the great pyramid fell upon him as he lay, but the tumultuous wall opposite was brilliantly illuminated: the sky, over it, was of a peculiar bra.s.sy hue, but entirely cloudless. The radiations from the baked surface, ascending vertically, made the rocky bastion seem to quiver, as if it were a reflection cast on undulating water.

The wreaths of tobacco-smoke that emanated from Freeman's mouth also ascended, until they touched the slant of sunlight overhead. As the young man's eyes followed these, something happened that caused him to utter an exclamation and raise himself on one arm.