Semitzin, meanwhile, brought him to the mule, and half mechanically he scrambled into the saddle, the chest being made fast to the crupper. Semitzin seized the bridle, and started up the gorge, Kamaiakan bringing up the rear. The lower levels were already filling with water, which came pouring out through the archway in a full flood, seemingly inexhaustible.
“I see how it is,” mumbled Freeman, half to himself. “The earthquake—I remember! I got hit somehow. They came from the ranch to hunt me up. But where are the general and Professor Meschines? How long ago was it? And how came Miriam... Could the mirage have had anything to do with it?—Here, let me walk,” he called out to her, “and you get up and ride.”
She turned her head, smiling again, but hurried on without speaking. The roar of the torrent followed them. Once or twice the mule came near losing his footing. Freeman, whose head was swimming, and his brains buzzing like a hive of bees, had all he could do to maintain his equilibrium in the saddle. He was excruciatingly thirsty, and the gurgling of waters round about made him wish he might dismount and plunge into them. But he lacked power to form a decided purpose, and permitted the more energetic will to control him. It might have been minutes, or it might have been hours, for all he knew: at last they halted, near the base of the white pyramid.
“Here we are safe,” said Semitzin, coming to his side. “Lean on me, my love, and I will lift you down.”
“Oh, I’m not quite so bad as that, you know,” said Freeman, with a feeble laugh; and, to prove it, he blundered off the saddle, and came down on the ground with a thwack. He picked himself up, however, and recollecting that he had a flask with brandy in it, he felt for it, found it intact, and, with an inarticulate murmur of apology, raised it to his lips. It was like the veritable elixir of life: never in his life before had Freeman quaffed so deep a draught of the fiery spirit. It was just what he wanted.
But he felt oddly embarrassed. He did not know what to make of Miriam. It was not her strange costume merely, but she seemed to have put on—or put off—something with it that made a difference in her. She was assertive, imperious; as loving, certainly, as lover could wish, but not in the manner of the Miriam he knew. He might have liked the new Miriam better, had he not previously fallen in love with the former one. He could not make advances to her: he had no opportunity to do so: she was making advances to him!
“My love,” she said, standing before him, “I have come back to the world for your sake. Before Semitzin first saw you, her heart was yours. And I come to you, not poor, but with the riches and power of the princes of Tenochtitlan. You shall see them: they are yours!—Kamaiakan, take down the chest.”
“What’s that about Semitzin?” inquired Freeman. “I’m not aware that I knew any such person.”
“Kamaiakan!” repeated the other, raising her voice, and not hearing Freeman’s last words. Kamaiakan was nowhere to be seen. Both Freeman and she had supposed that he was following on behind the mule; but he had either dropped behind, or had withdrawn somewhere. “O Kamaiakan!” shouted Freeman, as loud as he could.
A distant hail, from the direction of the desert, seemed to reply.