Arrived at the alamo grove, all the Indians of the village and household massed themselves a little way apart from freshly turned sod, their glistening black heads dappled by the silhouettes of the leaves, their eyes restless and awestruck. Benicia, garbed in dull black which made the whiteness of her face and uncovered glory of her hair the more striking, stood at the head of the rude housing fashioned by the Papagoes for her beloved clay; her calm was absolute as that of the iron peaks beyond the oasis green. In her hand was a wreath the Indian women had woven—scarlet flowers of the cactus with feathery acacia intertwined.
In a steady voice the girl read a Latin prayer while the Indians knelt. Then with a lingering touch she laid the scarlet and olive-green wreath upon the pall and watched the glowing spot of colour slowly sink from sight.
Suddenly the recessional: the sand storm with its clamour of incoherent desert tongues crying hidden tragedies, its blinding sheets of sand. When the first blast struck the group turning away from the grave Grant stepped quickly to Benicia’s side, drew her arm protectingly through his and bent his body to shield her from the myriad chisels of the driven sand. He fought for footing for them both.
At his touch Benicia turned dry eyes to his. Swiftly she read the love there—love triumphing over the hurt she had so lately given him. On the instant tears filmed the hard brightness of the orbs Grant looked down upon. Her lips moved in some halting speech of contrition, but the savage blast snatched away the sound of her words. In the softening of those eyes and the weight of her body clinging nervelessly to him the man was told the whole story of a girl’s amends for hasty and unconsidered action. All her iron will which had carried her head high through hours of grief suddenly had sped from her, leaving her groping and dependent.
An exalted sense of guardianship came to Grant—swept over him like a cool breeze to a fever patient. Almost it was a feeling of holy trust bestowed. At last—at last the woman he loved had battled against bitter fate beyond the limit of her endurance and was turning to him to fend for her. Unheeding the twinges his wound gave him, he bent to the blast with his precious burden. Oh, if only he could be given liberty to sweep her into his arms, to call her name in the piety of supreme love, snatch her away from the incubus of dread which had settled upon her so relentlessly.
He would not wait for such opportunity—so the thought came lancing at him in a lightning flash of resolution; he would create it! No longer stand idly by with footless compassion while the girl of his heart remained in chains of a fixed idea too strong for her to break. He himself would free her of those shackles even if he had to fight her fiery will to do it!
While the storm furiously grappled with the palms outside, Bim and Grant sat in the dark music room of the great-house. With hushed voices the two friends conned over the situation facing them and the girl now left alone in the immensity of Altar. Not a simple exigency. On the one hand promptings of delicacy and the dictates of custom ruled against their remaining longer in the Casa O’Donoju. Opposed to this was the alternative of leaving Benicia to become a prey to the schemes of Colonel Urgo—a girl fighting single-handed the craft of an implacable enemy. Without a protector other than the Indians of the oasis—and they had the minds of children—the girl could not combat this unscrupulous wooer for long. What then?
Bim finally summed the situation: “It comes down to this, old side-pardner; either you’ve got to persuade her to come back to Arizona with us mighty pronto or to marry you, putting it bald-headed like.”
Grant’s mind leaped to grapple with the flash of an idea—the one that had come to him when he and the girl breasted the sandstorm. Resolution crystallized on the instant. He silently quizzed his friend with an appraising eye.
“And if I can’t persuade her?” he queried softly.