Thurstane

“ Two hours passed, during which, from the nature of the ground, the travellers could neither see nor be seen by their pursuers. Then came a breathless ascent up another of the monstrous sandstone terraces. Thurstane ordered every man to dismount, so as to spare the beasts as much as possible. He walked by the side of Clara, patting, coaxing, and cheering her suffering horse, and occasionally giving a heave of his solid shoulder against the trembling haunches. ”

“ Lieutenant Ralph Thurstane was a tall, full-chested, finely-limbed gladiator of perhaps four and twenty. Broad forehead; nose straight and high enough; lower part of the face oval; on the whole a good physiognomy. Cheek bones rather strongly marked; a hint of Scandinavian ancestry supported by his name. Thurstane is evidently Thor's stone or altar; forefathers priests of the god of thunder. His complexion was so reddened and darkened by sunburn that his untanned forehead looked unnaturally white and delicate. ”

“ It was one of the questions which arise out of great abysses from men who in their hopelessness still long for heaven. No prisoner at the bar, faintly trusting that in the eyes of his judge he might find mercy, could be more anxious than was Thurstane at that moment. The lover who does not yet know that he will be loved is a figure of tragedy.
CHAPTER XXII.
Although Thurstane did not perceive it, his question was answered the instant it was asked. The answer started like lightning from Clara's heart, trembled through all her veins, flamed in her cheeks, and sparkled in her eyes. ”

“ Oh, this desert! These perpetual rocks! Not a green thing to cool one's eyes. Not a drop of water. I seem to be drying up, like a worm in the sunshine."
"Is there no water in the flasks?" asked Thurstane.
"Yes," said Clara. "But my aunt is feverish with fatigue."
"What I want is the sight of it—and rest," almost whimpered the elder lady.
"Will our horses last?" asked Clara. "Mine seems to suffer a great deal."
"They must last," replied Thurstane, grinding his teeth quite privately. "Oh, yes, they will last," he immediately added. "Even if they don't, we have mules enough." ”

“ But I must leave Santa Fé. And I have found Santa Fé very pleasant."
There was so much meaning obvious in these last words that Clara's face colored like a sunset.
"I thought soldiers never indulged in such feelings," continued the unmollified Aunt Maria.
"Soldiers are but men," observed Thurstane, flushing through his sunburn.
"And men are weak creatures."
Thurstane grew still redder. This old lady (old in his young eyes) was always at him about his manship, as if it were a crime and disgrace. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But Coronado did not mean that Thurstane should set out immediately. He dropped various obstacles in the way: for instance, the animals and men must be thoroughly refreshed; in short, it was dusk before all was ready.
Meantime Clara had found an opportunity of whispering to Thurstane. "Must you?" And he had answered, looking at her as the Huguenot looks at his wife in Millais's picture, "My dear love, you know that I must."
"You will be careful of yourself?" she begged. "For your sake."
"But remember that man," she whispered, looking about for Texas Smith. ”

“ She could have stopped her breathing ten times easier than she could have quelled her terror and her joy. She was no more master of the power and direction of her feelings, than the river below was master of its speed and course. One of the mightiest of the instincts which rule the human race had made her entirely its own. She was not herself; she was Thurstane; she was love. The love incarnate is itself, and not the person in whom it is embodied.
There was but one answer possible to Clara. Somehow, either by look or word, she must say to Thurstane, "Yes." ”

“ 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. ”

“ When Thurstane came out of the Casa Grande he would have given some years of his life to know that there was water in the enclosure.
Yet so well disciplined was the soul of this veteran of twenty-three, and so thoroughly had he acquired the wise soldierly habit of wearing a mask of cheer over trouble, that he met Clara and Mrs. Stanley with a smile and a bit of small talk.
"Ladies, can you keep house?" he said. "There are sixteen rooms ready for you. The people who moved out haven't left any trumpery. ”

“ Coronado now came up, ignorant of Texas Smith's misadventure, and puzzled at the escape of Thurstane, but as fluent and complimentary as usual.
"My dear Lieutenant! Language is below my feelings. I want to kneel down and worship you. You ought to have a statue—yes, and an altar. If your humanity has not been successful, it has been all the same glorious."
"Nonsense," answered Thurstane. "Every one of us has done well in his turn! ”

“ Thurstane sometimes listened to them, sometimes lost himself in reveries about Clara, sometimes surveyed the scenery of the cañon.
The abyss was always the same, yet with colossal variety: here and there yawnings of veined precipices, followed by cavernous closings of the awful sides; breakings in of subsidiary cañons, some narrow clefts, and others gaping shattered mouths; the walls now presenting long lines of rampart, and now a succession of peaks. But still, although they had now traversed the chasm for seventy or eighty miles, they found no close and no declension to its solemn grandeur. ”

“ Next the cockle-shell of a boat was spinning on its keel-less bottom, and whirling broadside on, bow foremost, stern foremost, any way, down the San Juan.
"Paddle away!" shouted Thurstane to Glover. "Drive her in shore! Pitch her in!"
The old coaster sent a quick, anxious look down the river, and saw at once that there was no chance of reaching the bank. Below them, not three hundred yards distant, was an archipelago of rocks, the débris of fallen precipices and pinnacles, through which, for half a mile or more, the water flew in whirlpools and foam. ”

“ In spite of these hardships and horrors, Clara kept up her courage and was almost cheerful; for in the first place Coronado had ceased his terrifying attentions, and in the second place they were nearing Cactus Pass, where she hoped to meet Thurstane. When love has not a foot of certainty to stand upon, it can take wing and soar through the incredible. ”

“ Clara turned: there was a scream of joy: she was on the ground, running: she was in Thurstane's arms. During that unearthly moment there was no thought in those two of Coronado, or of any being but each other. It is impossible fully to describe such a meeting; its exterior signs are beyond language; its emotion is a lifetime. If words are feeble in presence of the heights and depths of the Colorado, they are impotent in presence of the altitudes and abysses of great passion. ”

“ Stanley and Clara, a half-breed girl named Pepita, who served as lady's maid, and two Indian women from Garcia's hacienda, whose specialties were cooking and washing. In all thirty persons, a nomadic village.
At the first halt Sergeant Weber approached Thurstane with a timorous air, saluted, and asked, "Leftenant, can we leafe our knabsacks in the vagons? The gentleman has gifen us bermission."
"The men ought to learn to carry their knapsacks," said Thurstane. "They will have to do it in serious service." ”

“ 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." ”

“ Now came the question whether Thurstane or Glover should remain last on the ledge.
"Lightest last," said the lean skipper. "Stands to reason."
"It's my duty to take the hot end of the poker," replied the officer. "Loser goes first," said Glover, producing a copper. "Heads or tails?"
"Heads," guessed Thurstane.
"It's a tail. Catch hold, Capm. Slow 'n' easy till you get over."
The cord holding firm, Thurstane reached the bowlder, and was presently joined by Glover.
"Liftinant, I want me bagonet," cried Sweeny. "Will I go up afther it?" ”

“ There was no checking the frantic stampede which from this moment thundered with constantly increasing speed across the plain. No order; the stronger jostled the weaker; loads were flung to the ground and scattered; the riders could scarcely keep their seats. Spun out over a line of twenty rods, the cavalcade was the image of senseless rout.
Of course Thurstane was furious at this seemingly fatal dispersion ”

“ Thurstane took the lariat, inspected the breakage carefully, and scowled with helpless rage.
"That infernal Texan!" he muttered.
"Sho!" said Glover. "That feller? Anythin' agin ye? Wal, Capm, then all I've got to say is, you come off easy. That feller 'd cut a sleepin' man's throat. I sh'd say thank God for the riddance. Tell ye I've watched that cuss. Been blastedly afeard 'f him. Hev so, by George! The further I git from him the safer I feel."
"Not a nice man to leave there" muttered Thurstane, whose anxiety was precisely not for himself, but for Clara. ”

“ Glover was so weak with hunger and his ailments that he had to be supported most of the way by his two comrades. His temper, and Sweeny's also, gave out, and they snarled at each other in good earnest, as men are apt to do under protracted hardships. Thurstane stalked on in silence, sustained by his youth and health, and not less by his sense of responsibility. These men were here through his doing; he must support them and save them if possible; if not, he must show them how to die bravely ”

“ Human speech has never yet completely expressed human intellect, and it certainly never will completely express human sentiments. These lovers, who had been wandering in chasms impenetrable to hope, were all of a sudden on mountain summits dizzy with joy. What could they say for themselves, or what can another say for them?
Clara only uttered inarticulate murmurs, while her hands crawled up Thurstane's arms, pressing and clutching him to make sure that he was alive. ”

“ Then, stealing through the profound darkness, came the faintest rustle imaginable. It was not the noise of feet, but rather that of bodies slowly dragging through herbage, as if men were crawling or rolling toward the Casa. Thurstane, not quite sure of his hearing, and unwilling to disturb the garrison without cause, cocked his revolver and listened intently.
Suddenly the sentry in the plaza fired, and, rushing in upon him, fell motionless at his feet, while the air was filled in an instant with the whistling of arrows, the trampling of running men, and the horrible quavering of the war-whoop. ”

“ Although Thurstane trusted that danger from that quarter was over, he nevertheless called Meyer aside and muttered to him, "Sergeant, I have some confidential orders for you. If murder happens to me, or to any other person in this party, have that Texan shot immediately." ”

“ The great, healthy savages! If they had our troubles, they might have some of our virtues."
"I refuse to believe it," cried Coronado. "Man acquire woman's worth? Never! The nature of the beast is inferior. He is not fashioned to become an angel."
"How charmingly candid and humble!" thought Aunt Maria. "How different from that sulky, proud Thurstane, who never says anything of the sort, and never thinks it either, I'll be bound."
All this sort of talk passed over Clara as a desert wind passes over an oasis, bringing no pleasant songs of birds, and sowing no fruitful seed. ”

“ There was a brief panic, and another attempt to push the animals, which Thurstane checked with levelled pistol.
The train had already entered a gully. As this gully advanced it rapidly broadened and deepened into a cañon. It was the track of an extinct river which had once flowed into the San Juan on its way to the distant Pacific. Its windings hid the desired goal; the fugitives must plunge into it blindfold; whatever fate it brought them, they must accept it. They were like men who should enter the cavern of unknown goblins to escape from demons who were following visibly on their footsteps. ”