"My dear Lieutenant!" he cried, trying to seize the young fellow's hand. "Once more welcome to life! What a wonder! Another escape. You are a second Orlando--almost a Don Quixote. And where are your two Sancho Panzas?" "You here!" was Thurstane's grim response, and he did not take the proffered hand. "Come!" implored Coronado, stepping toward the waist of the vessel and away from the cabin. "This way, if you please," he urged, beckoning earnestly. "I have a word to say to you in private." Not a tone of this conversation had been heard below. Before the boat had touched the side the crew were laboring at the noisy windlass with their shouts of "Yo heave ho! heave and pawl! heave hearty ho!" while the mate was screaming from the knight-heads, "Heave hearty, men--heave hearty. Heave and raise the dead. Heave and away." Amid this uproar Coronado continued: "You won't shake hands with me, Lieutenant Thurstane. As a gentleman, speaking to another gentleman, I ask an explanation." Thurstane hesitated; he had ugly suspicions enough, but no proofs; and if he could not prove guilt, he must not charge it. "Is it because we abandoned you?" demanded Coronado. "We had reason. We heard that you were dead. The muleteers reported Apaches. I feared for the safety of the ladies. I pushed on. 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." "You will oblige me by saying not another word on that subject," broke in Thurstane savagely. "I got her letter dismissing me, and I accepted my fate without a word, and I mean never to see her again. I hope that satisfies you." "My dear Lieutenant," protested Coronado, "you seem to intimate that I influenced her decision. I beg you to believe, on my word of honor as a gentleman, that I never urged her in any way to write that letter." "Well--no matter--I don't care," replied the young fellow in a voice like one long sob. "I don't care whether you did or not. The moment she could write it, no matter how or why, that was enough. All I ask is to be left alone--to hear no more of her." "I am obliged to speak to you of her," said Coronado. "She is aboard." "Aboard!" exclaimed Thurstane, and he made a step as if to reach the shore or to plunge into the sea. "I am sorry for you," said Coronado, with a simplicity which seemed like sincerity. "I thought it my duty to warn you." "I cannot go back," groaned the young fellow. "I must go to San Diego. I am under orders."