utenant! You are heaven's
own messenger. You have saved us from a horrible night. But it is
prodigious; it is incredible. You must have come here by enchantment. How
in God's name could you find your way up this fearful canon?"

"The canon is perfectly passable on foot," replied the young officer,
stiffly and angrily. "By Jove, sir! I don't see why you didn't make a
start to get out. This is a pretty place to lodge Miss Van Diemen."

Coronado took off his hat and made a bow of submission and regret, which
was lost in the darkness.

"I must say," Thurstane went on grumbling, "that, for a man who claims to
know this country, your management has been very singular."

Clara, fearful of a quarrel, slightly pressed his arm and checked this
volcano with the weight of a feather.

"We are not all like you, my dear Lieutenant," said Coronado, in a tone
which might have been either apologetical or ironical. "You must make
allowance for ordinary human nature."

"I beg pardon," returned Thurstane, who was thinking now chiefly of that
pressure on his arm. "The truth is, I was alarmed for your safety. I can't
help feeling responsibility on this expedition, although it is your train.
My military education runs me into it, I suppose. Well, excuse my
excitement. Miss Van Diemen, may I help you back through the gully?"

In leaning on him, being guided by him, being saved by him, trusting in
him, the girl found a pleasure which was irresistible, although it seemed
audacious and almost sinful. Before the canon was half traversed she felt
as if she could go on with him through the great dark valley of life,
confiding in his strength and wisdom to lead her aright and make her
happy. It was a temporary wave of emotion, but she remembered it long
after it had passed.

Around the fires, after a cup of hot coffee, amid the odors of a plentiful
supper, recounting the evening's adventure to Mrs. Stanley, Coronado was
at his best. How he rolled out the English language! Our mother tongue
hardly knew itself, it ran so fluently and sounded so magniloquently and
lied so naturally. He praised everybody but himself; he praised Clara,
Thurstane, and the two soldiers and the horses; he even said a flattering
word or two for Divine Providence. Clara especially, and the whole of her
heroic, more than human sex, demanded his enthusiastic admiration. How she
had borne the terrors of the night and the desert! "Ah, Mrs. Stanley! only
you women are capabl