Robert Ames Bennet

“ I heard Doña Marguerite sob. But Alisanda neither wept nor sobbed. She gazed upward, with a spiritual glow in her dark eyes.
"God will do unto us according to His holy will!" she said.
"Ave Maria de los Dolores!" sobbed Doña Marguerite.
Alisanda looked down at me with the gaze which opened to me those fathomless wells of mystery.
"Juan," she said, "they tell me we can never wed. If such be the will of God, we must submit. But—" She held up the gold crucifix of the rosary which hung about her neck—"by la vera cruz I vow to you, beloved, I will wed none other mortal than yourself. ”

“ Blake drew back from her, his head downbent in sudden despondency. "So you've found out you don't feel the same?"
Her eyes dimmed with tears of compassion for him, but her voice was as firm as before. "I loved Tom Blake because he was so manly, so strong! I still love that Tom Blake. You are not sure that you are strong."
"But if I knew I had your love back of me, Jenny!"
"That's it—you wish to lean on me! It's weak; it's not like you. You won my love by your courage, your resolution, your strength! All my love for you is based on your strength. ”

“ I faced to front, and saw floating towards us a vision as wondrously beautiful as a Buddhist angel. Against the jet blackness of her high coiffure glinted comb crests and pin heads of amber and coral, while from slender throat to tiny feet she was enveloped in a robe of scarlet silk, gorgeously embroidered with flowers in gold thread, and her plump little hand fluttered a vividly colored fan.
Like my friend’s, the girl’s face showed the samurai type in its oval contour, small mouth, and aristocratic nose,—features so markedly different from the broad, flat faces of the lower classes. ”

“ A guttural command started the pony off at a walk. The direction chosen by his mistress was northwest, aslant the Basin, almost at right angles to the jagged hill where she had seen the smoke puffs.
For a while Lennon tottered and reeled like a drunken man. Time and again he stumbled and would have sunk down upon the hot sand but for the convulsive clutch of his left hand on the pony's mane and the strong support of Carmena at his other side. He was giddy and nauseated and leaden-footed. Every step required an agonized effort of will power. ”

“ From a growl Blake’s voice burst into a roar of fury, and he sprang upon Winthrope like a wild beast. His hands closed upon the Englishman’s throat, and he began to shake him about, paying no heed to the blows his victim showered upon his face and body, blows which soon began to lessen in force.
Terror-stricken, Miss Leslie put her hands over her eyes, and began to scream–the piercing shriek that will unnerve the strongest man. Blake paused as though transfixed, and as the half-suffocated Englishman struggled in his grasp, he flung him on the ground, and turned to the screaming girl. ”

“ All earthly journeys and joys have an ending. The buckboard creaked up over the round of the last and highest hill, and they came in sight of the little shack town down across the broad valley. Though five miles away, every house, every telegraph pole, even the thin lines of the railroad rails appeared through the dry clear air as distinct as a miniature painting. Miles beyond, on the far side of the valley, uprose the huge bulk of Split Peak, with its white-mantled shoulders and craggy twin peaks.
But neither Ashton nor Isobel exclaimed on this magnificent view of valley and peak. ”

“ You would shield his good name as you would shield your own. Yet I am the daughter of a rustler, of a moonshiner, of a drunken criminal."
"No," denied Lennon. "You are the daughter of an unfortunate gentleman, who paid bitterly for his mistakes—who gave his life in an attempt to save you and the child whom he had taken in and sheltered. Let God judge whether he was not far more victim than wrongdoer."
"But the daughter of a weak man——"
Lennon smiled into her troubled eyes.
"You glory of the desert—you cactus blossom! It was your very strength that repelled me, like the spines of the cactus. ”

“ Presently Gengo led me across a bridge to a gateway whose guards seemed to have deserted their post. After pausing to peer about in an odd manner, my guide hurried me through the gateway with feverish haste. I found myself in one of the palace gardens. We advanced quickly along a narrow clean-swept path, between coppices tenanted only by birds, and our course was so full of irregular twists and turns that I soon lost our bearings.
After a few minutes we came to a small pagoda-roofed kiosk, or summer-house, in the midst of a grove of gnarled old cherry trees. ”

“ What he thought of Genevieve Leslie was plainly evident in his convulsed face and dilated eyes. If he could be so overwrought by the mere remembrance of a danger that she had escaped, he must love her, not as most men love, but with all the depth and strength of his powerful nature. Lord James's lips pressed together and his gray eyes clouded with pain.
"Close shave, heh?" he muttered.
"Yes," replied Blake. He drew in a deep breath, and added, "Not the first, though, nor the last. But a miss is as good as a mile, hey, Jimmy boy?" ”

“ Her loveliness was part with the night and the moonlight and the scarlet bloom of the climber upon the balcony rail.
At last I could no longer endure the thought that she was lost to me; I could no longer deny utterance to my love and longing.
"Alisanda! dearest one! Is there then no hope that I may win you? I have no gallant speeches—my love is voiceless; no less is it a love that shall endure always. Alisanda! my dearest one! is my love of no worth to you? Let your heart speak! ”

“ I had lived too close to Yoritomo to escape the influence of his Buddhistic philosophy and his samurai contempt for death. My love for my little Madonna Princess was greater than my love of life, and I knew that only a love equal to my own could have enabled her to overcome the extreme modesty and reserve of her breeding. I believed that death would unite us in the next life, if not in many future lives; while, if Setsu opposed me, I could not hope to win my darling in this life.
“Say the word, girl!” I repeated.
“Wait! wait, my lord!” cried Azai, and she knelt beside me. ”

“ The air was so dry and clear that even far out in the Basin, many miles away, Lennon could distinguish patches of green. Nearer at hand appeared blurs of a grayish vegetation. But at his pleased exclamation Carmena told him that he was looking at no oasis. What he saw was only the green of mesquite and palo verde, the fluted columns of the giant sahuaro, and the gray of sagebrush. In all that wide waste of desolation no trickling rill or even the smallest of pools glinted under the fierce rays of the mid-day sun. ”

“ Those weeks, those wonderful weeks that we lived, so close to primitive, savage Nature—bloody fanged Nature!—those weeks that I stood by your side and saw her paint for us her beautiful, terrible pictures of Life, pictures whose blue was the storm-wave and the sky veiled with fever-haze, whose white was the roaring surf and the glare of thunderbolts, whose red was fire and blood! And you saved me from all—all! I had never even dreamt that a man could be so courageous, so enduring, so strong! ”

“ The hunter’s gaze roamed carelessly over the hilly pine-clad plateau of the upper mesa, while he took a nip of brandy from a silver-cased flask and washed it down with a drink of the tepid water in his canteen.
Having refreshed himself, he touched a patent lighter to another cigarette, chose a direction at random, and spurred his pony into a canter. The beast held to the pace until the ascent of a low but steep ridge brought him down to a walk. With the change of gait the hunter paused in the act of lighting a fresh cigarette, to gaze up at the sapphire sky. ”

“ It was no pleasant sight that met Miss Leslie’s gaze upon her return. The neatest of butchering can hardly be termed aesthetic; and Blake and Winthrope lacked both skill and tools. Between the penknife and an improvised blade of bamboo, they had flayed the two cubs and haggled off the flesh. The ragged strips, spitted on bamboo rods, were already searing in the fierce sun-rays.
Miss Leslie would have slipped into the hollow of the baobab with her armful of fagots and brush; but Blake waved a bloody knife above the body of the mother leopard, and beckoned the girl to come nearer. ”

“ I could hear Don Pedro cursing furiously in the courtyard. Fearful that if matters came to blows, I might do an injury to the kinsman of my lady, I dragged myself away, heavy with despair. Not until I was half across the plaza did I notice that I still held her rosary in my hand. I stared at the little gold cross with bitter hatred. It seemed so harsh a mockery that she should have given me as parting gift that symbol of the gulf that now yawned between us, wider and deeper than ever. ”

“ No man of samurai blood might endure such an insult even from the Sei-i-tai Shogun. The poisoner flared out in mad fury. With amazing swiftness he drew a dirk and bounded upon Iyeyoshi. The Shogun flung himself to one side. But Gengo struck with deadly aim. His dirk plunged down through the base of the Shogun’s neck the full twelve inches of the blade.
With a roar of fury, Satsuma leaped up to catch the dying man and interpose his own body for the second stroke. But Gengo was already springing back, well aware that the one blow had done the awful deed. ”

“ I'm not asking anything now. I wanted to wait. It's only that I want you to know how I love you. I wouldn't dream of asking you to—to marry me now—no, not till I've won out, made good. Understand? All I want is for you to wait for me till I've made my name as an A-1 engineer and until I've downed that cursed craving for drink."
"You will, Tom—you must!"
"With you to back me, little woman! Yes, I guess I can make it this time, with you waiting for me!"
Genevieve met his smile and enthused gaze with a look of firm decision.
Her doubt and hesitancy had at last crystallized into a set purpose. ”

“ Death alone can bend the course of a good and strong man turned fanatic. Without a word I left the room, half crazed with rage and black despair. He followed, murmuring words of sorrowful regret; but to me his heart-felt condolences seemed only the bitterest of mockeries.
As I descended the stairway, I looked back, not to return his grave bows, but in search of my lady. It was in vain. Doña Marguerite had taken care to spirit her away. ”

“ Cochise looked up the cliff, with a sudden ferocious scowl. Lennon was gasping for breath against the frightfulness of what he had heard. To save herself, Carmena was betraying her foster-sister to the fiendish savage. Elsie's fate in the hands of Slade was fearful enough without the added horror of what she would suffer in the hands of Cochise.
"Carmena!" he cried. "Carmena, are you mad? Think of Blossom! What does it matter if we are tortured? ”

“ The samurai girl sprang up as the willing bearers swung around over the bodies of the dead and wounded. The two hatamotos who alone had lived to witness the flight of the ronins came staggering to meet the litter, the blood of their many wounds dripping with the rain from their tattered coats. One of them I recognized as Yuki the captain. Past the wounded men darted the aged samurai woman of the foremost norimon, whose bearers had fled at the beginning of the attack, and who had only just contrived to squeeze from her narrow box. ”

“ Isobel had well expressed it when she said that he was climbing swiftly and bravely. Running along shelves, clambering ledges, following up the crevices that offered the best foothold, the tattered climber fought his dizzy way upwards, upwards, ever upwards!
Rarely, after some particularly hard scramble, he flung himself down on a shelf or on one of the steps of the Titanic ladder, to rest and summon energy for another upward rush. His good fortune seemed as marvelous as his endurance and daring. He never once slipped and never once had to turn back from an ascent. ”

“ Not only did the gigantic structure on the far side of the gap seem continually on the verge of toppling forward into the abyss, but the end of the south cantilever likewise quivered and swayed, and the mad flow of the roaring, ice-covered waters beneath added to the giddiness of height the terrifying illusion that the immense steel skeleton had torn loose from its anchorage to earth and was hurtling up the strait through mid-air, ready to crash down to destruction the instant its winged driving-force failed. ”

“ We staggered to our feet and gazed after the fleeing herd in utter despair.
"It is the end!" I groaned—"the end! We have lost our last chance!"
"We are outspent!" murmured my companion. "We can do no more! My poor lads! faithful ever to their rash leader! To think that I have led them into this death-trap!"
"They are men!" I cried in bitter anger. "What is death to men?—even this hideous agony of hunger? We can bear that. But to die now—my God!—that I should die before seeing her!—my Alisanda!" ”

“ When he recovered consciousness he was first aware of the face of Carmena. In his first daze, he fancied that he was out on the far side of the Basin, lying upon the sand under the cliff where the Gila monster had bitten his hand. The girl's eyes were clouded with the same look of profound concern that he had then seen in their shadowy depths.
But as his own gaze cleared he noticed two marked differences in her appearance. One of her pale cheeks was streaked with crimson, and the dark eyes were wide not with dread alone. ”

“ A mob of yelling, slashing warriors surged about us. Azai flung herself upon me to shield me with her tender body. A Mito man fell heavily across us, the blood gushing from a great wound in his breast. I heard the triumphant shout of Yuki. The wave of fighting men surged back.
My bonds parted under Azai’s dirk edge. She sprang up and tugged with her girlish strength to help me to my feet. From the bosom of her robe she plucked out my revolvers, first one and then the other. ”

“ He, the leader of the expedition, should be—must be—the first to set foot upon the summit of the Grand Peak!
With a final rally of his wiry strength, he uttered a shout and dashed up over the thin, hard-crusted snow of the summit to the crest,—only to stop short and stand staring off beyond, in bitter disappointment.
"Look!" he cried. "The Grand Peak!"
"The Grand Peak!" I shouted back, too excited to perceive the import of his tone and bearing. "The Grand Peak! We'll name it for you,—for the first American to sight it; the first to mount its crest; the first—"
"'The Grand Peak!' I shouted. ”