By dint of questioning and guessing he made out the story of the old man’s adventures since leaving the hacienda.  Garcia, in extreme terror of hanging, had gone straight to San Francisco and taken passage for San Diego, with the intention of not stopping until he should be at least as far away as Santa Fe.  But after a few hours at sea, he had recovered his wits and his courage, and asked himself, why should he fly?  If Clara died, the property would be his, and if she survived, he ought to be near her; while as for Carlos, he would surely never expose and hang a man who could cut him off with a shilling.  So he landed at Monterey, took the first coaster back to San Francisco, lurked about the city until he learned that the girl was still living, and was just about to put a bold front on the matter by going to see her at the hacienda, when he learned accidentally that she was on the point of voyaging southward.  Puzzled and alarmed by this, he resolved to accompany her in her wanderings, and succeeded in getting himself quietly on board the Lolotte.

“Well, let us go on deck,” said Coronado, when the old man had regained his tranquillity.  “But let us be gentle, my uncle.  We know how to govern ourselves, I hope.  You will of course behave like a mother to our little cousin.  Congratulate her on her recovery; apologize for your awkward mistake.  It was caused by the coming on of the fit, you remember.  A man who is about to have an attack of epilepsy can’t of course tell one pocket from another.  But such a man is all the more bound to be unctuous.”

Clara received the old man cordially, although she would have preferred not to see him there, fearing lest he should oppose her nursing project.  But as nothing was said on this matter, and as Garcia put his least cloven foot foremost, the trio not only got on amicably together, but seemed to enjoy one another’s society.  This was no common feat by the way; each of the three had a great load of anxiety; it was wonderful that they should not show it.  Coronado, for instance, while talking like a bird song, was planning how he could get rid of Garcia, and carry Clara back to San Francisco.  The idea of pushing the old man overboard was inadmissible; but could he not scare him ashore at the next port by stories of a leak?  As for Clara, he could not imagine how to manage her, she was so potent with her wealth and with her beauty.  He was still thinking of these things, and prattling mellifluously of quite other things, when the Lolotte luffed up under the lee of the little island of Alcatraz.

“What does this mean?” he asked, looking suspiciously at the fortifications, with the American flag waving over them.

“Stop here to take in commissary stores for Fort Yuma,” explained the thin, sallow, grave, meek-looking, and yet resolute Yankee mate.