CHAPTER XVIII
IN WHICH DE SANCERRE HEARS NEWS OF THE
GREAT SUN
THE Count de Sancerre’s desire to come to an immediate decision regarding a line of action that should lead him at once into the living presence of Coyocop was not to be gratified. Noco’s sensitive ear, acting as a thermometer to register the degree of excitement prevailing outside her cabin, had heard an ominous murmur that had lost none of its threatening significance because it had come from afar. She knew at once that a crowd of gossiping sun-worshippers, inspired by some new rumor, had gathered in the great square near the temple of the sun. Hurrying to her grandson’s side, she said:
“Go forth at once, Cabanacte, and mingle with the throng outside. There’s news abroad which makes the city talk. Return to us when you have learned the meaning of the uproar in the square.”
The dark-hued colossus reluctantly arose and stood, for a moment, listening to the increasing disturbance among his easily-excited neighbors. Hurrying feet, making toward the temple of the sun and the King’s cabin, echoed from the street just outside the hut. The pattering footsteps of chattering women and children mingled with the louder tread of stalwart men, aroused from their siesta by an epidemic of distrust. Cabanacte, dismayed at the grim possibilities suggested by this unwonted demonstration upon the part of a people little given to activity at noonday, bent down to Noco before obeying her behest.
“Secrete the maiden where no prying eye can see her,” he murmured, hoarsely, still gazing at Katonah. “I’ll join the rabble and return at once. I dread the cruel fervor of our priests. But still they cannot know that it was her brother whom they killed?”
“Stop not to make conjecture, Cabanacte,” scolded the old crone, pushing her grandson toward the hut’s ignoble exit. “I say to you, ’tis not Katonah who has made the city talk. ’Tis some calamity—I know not what.”
Without more ado, the tall sun-worshipper crawled from the twilight of the hut into the burning sunshine of the agitated street, and, drawing himself erect, joined the gossiping throng which poured noisily toward the great square. To Cabanacte’s great surprise and relief, his appearance in the open caused no added excitement among the bronze-faced, eager-eyed men and women who hurried by his side toward the centre of the town. It became evident to him at once that the news which awaited him beyond had nothing to do with the strangers whom he had left in the hut behind him.
Meanwhile de Sancerre, vexed at the delay to which a mercurial people had forced him to submit, gazed despondently now at Noco and now at Katonah. French expletives, colored by a Spanish oath at times, escaped from his erstwhile smiling mouth. Noco had stationed herself at the entrance to the cabin, endeavoring to catch the echo of some enlightening rumor as it flew back from the crowded square. Katonah, watching the Frenchman with eyes which seemed to implore his forgiveness, had withdrawn to a remote corner of the room and seated herself wearily upon a wooden bench. If she had heard a menace to herself in the uproar in the town, she gave no outward indication of the dread that her heart might feel. With the proud shyness of a sensitive girl, and the external stoicism of an Indian, she withdrew, as far as was possible, from the presence of her companions and made no further sign. Had Zenobe Membré known that at this ominous juncture Katonah had murmured no prayer, no invocation to the saints, the sanguine Franciscan would have marvelled, perhaps wept, at the mighty gulf which stretched between the martyred Chatémuc, secure in Paradise, and a melancholy maiden who had known the faith and lost it.
The chagrined Frenchman, fully realizing his own impotence at this mysterious crisis, presently arose and began to pace the room with impatient steps. He felt like a man to whom some unexpected and glowing promise had been given by destiny, to be withdrawn almost at the moment of its presentation. During the long, weary hour which followed Cabanacte’s departure from the hut, de Sancerre’s mind vibrated between hope and despair. Had he made the amazing discovery of Julia de Aquilar’s presence in the City of the Sun only that it might mock him for his lack of power? Could it be that fate had lured him in malice within sound of her sweet voice to hurl him into the lonely silence of the wilderness at last? And to himself he swore an oath that he would never leave the City of the Sun alive unless the Spanish maiden fled with him to the wilds. Death in the effort to save her from years of hopeless captivity was preferable, a thousand times, to life and freedom and a vain regret. How well he loved this woman de Sancerre had never known before. For the first time this mondain, who had fondly imagined that life had nothing new to give him, realized the might and majesty of a great passion, and his soul grew sick with the fear that its ecstasy might change to misery at last.
But while de Sancerre’s mind dwelt fondly upon the joy of an all-absorbing love, it endeavored, at the same time, to make an inventory of the actual and the possible dangers which he would be compelled to confront before he could indulge the hope that the love he welcomed would ever fulfil the promise which it held within itself.
Weeks must pass before de la Salle could return from his voyage to the gulf. Even then the explorer had at his command no force with which to overcome these martial and stalwart sun-worshippers. De Sancerre’s only hope lay in diplomacy and craft. It was essential to the success of his scheme, whose general outlines were already forming in his mind, that the superstitious tendencies of the people surrounding him be used as a tool for forging his escape. But their fanaticism was a double-edged instrument which must be handled with the nicest care or it would turn within his hands and destroy him at a blow.
Coyocop? How far could he trust her quickness and discretion? That she possessed both of these qualities he was inclined to believe. One of her greatest charms in the blithesome days at Versailles had consisted in her ready responsiveness to his changing moods, in the keenness of a mind which shone to advantage even in that centre of the great world’s sharpest wit. As for her discretion, had it not been proved by the fact that she had maintained for many months her alien authority over these fickle, jealous, sharp-eyed people? Furthermore—and de Sancerre lingered over the mystery with much concern—she had, during that same period, managed to conceal from the keen-witted and revengeful Noco the fact that her origin was Spanish, not divine. How well the girl must have played a most exacting part to deceive the eccentric old hag, de Sancerre fully realized. That in Julia de Aquilar he would find an ally well-fitted to play the rôle which he had in mind for her, her skill in blinding Noco gave good proof. But, at the best, de Sancerre’s growing project must win the full fruition of success much more by chance than by design. Even before he took initial steps, he must learn what new excitement had aroused the lazy town at noon.
“Peste!” he exclaimed, fretfully. “It was no victory to outrun Cabanacte. His heavy limbs are slower than a Prussian’s wits.”
At that very instant the hole beside which Noco lurked was darkened by her grandson’s stooping form. Drawing himself erect, after he had pulled his long limbs into the hut, Cabanacte glanced searchingly around the room until his black eyes lighted upon the self-absorbed Katonah. Then, followed by Noco, he strode toward de Sancerre.
“There is no danger to the girl,” muttered the giant, as he seated himself upon a bench, which groaned in protest beneath his weight. “But I bring to you bad news.”
“Ma foi, you look it!” exclaimed de Sancerre to himself, scanning the troubled countenance of the dusky youth.
Turning to Noco, Cabanacte poured forth rapidly in his native tongue the sombre story which he had heard abroad, and then stood erect, gazing at Katonah.
“The Great Sun lies dying!” exclaimed the old woman, excitedly, turning from her grandson to her guest. “In perfect health at sunrise, he fell near noonday, and none can make him speak.”
De Sancerre had sprung to his feet and was glancing alternately down at Noco and up at Cabanacte. The menacing significance of the misfortune which had fallen upon the King appeared to him at once. Had evil come to the Great Sun in some way not readily explainable, the crafty sun-priests would lay his sickness to the blighting influence of the stranger’s magic, the fatal witchery brought with him from the moon.
“He’s dying, do you say? There is no hope?” gasped the Frenchman, looking into Noco’s eyes for a ray of encouragement.
“He’s dying as his mother died,” muttered the old crone, musingly, seemingly forgetful of de Sancerre’s presence. “But, even then, he had long years to live. And yesterday he looked no older than my Cabanacte there.”
“He’s dying, do you say?” repeated the Frenchman, mechanically.
“Aye, dying, señor,” hissed the beldame, spitefully. “And now the temple priests prepare the cords with which they’ll choke his servants and his wives to death. No Great Sun goes alone into the land beyond! What sights my eyes have seen! King follows king into the spirit-world, and with them go the best and noblest of our weeping race. Aye, señor, the Great Sun’s dying and the city mourns. When he has passed, his household follows him. The sight you saw but yesternight was child’s-play for the priests. ’Tis when a Great Sun dies they have man’s sport with death.”
The mocking, angry tones in Noco’s guttural voice made the broken Spanish in which she spoke impress the Frenchman’s ears as a most repellent tongue. De Sancerre was striving feverishly to grasp the full significance of her grim words, to weigh in all its bearings the new exigency which had increased a hundredfold the peril in which he stood. But the thought beset him, with tyrannical persistence, that he had no time to lose. Should the Great Sun die at once, de Sancerre would be powerless against any revenge which the sun-priests might, in their crafty cruelty, seek to take. How far the homage which they paid to Coyocop could be trusted to save him in the crisis which would follow the King’s death he could not determine, but he had begun to fear that not only the priests but the people at large would hold him responsible for the sudden and mysterious blow which had fallen upon the throne. With little time at his disposal in which to examine the crisis from many points of view, de Sancerre came quickly to the conclusion that his doom was sealed unless he acted with boldness, decision, and rapidity. Satisfied of the loyalty of Noco and Cabanacte, although he marvelled somewhat at their good-will, he drew himself up to his full height, and, putting up his hand to command silence, said:
“Go forth at once, Cabanacte, and tell the people of this afflicted town that it was the insult cast upon me by the temple priests which brought down the wrath of Heaven upon the Great Sun’s head. Tell this to the rabble. Then go to the chief priest and say to him that he, too, shall fall with suddenness before his fire unless he heeds the words that I shall speak. Bid him be silent ’til I come to him, and to keep his priests at prayer. Nom de Dieu, my Cabanacte, have you lost your ears? Stop staring at me and go forth at once, or, with the ease with which my legs outran you, I’ll strike you dead with this!”
Waving his rapier threateningly at the giant’s panting breast, de Sancerre drove the startled athlete through the entrance to the street, and then turned back to seize the trembling Noco by the arm.
“I have a message which you must take to Coyocop! If you should fail to gain her ear, the City of the Sun is doomed. Say this to her, that when I send a priest to summon her she must be quick to join me at the Great Sun’s lodge. Repeat my words, señora.”
Shaking the old crone roughly by the arm, de Sancerre bent down to catch her gasping voice.
“Bien!” he cried, “you’ve conned your lesson well! Go, now, señora, and make no mistake! If you would save your dying king, see Coyocop and tell her what I say.”
In another instant the panting Noco, grumbling but overawed, had left the hut upon a mission for which she had no hungry heart.
De Sancerre drew back from the entrance, and dropped limply upon a bench. He had put into operation a hastily-formed plan with an impetuosity which, in its rebound, left him faint and dazed. Suddenly a warm pressure upon his cold hands aroused him from his momentary submission to this enervating reaction. Looking down, he saw that Katonah was gazing up at him with sympathetic apprehension.
“I have placed you in great danger by my return!” she exclaimed. “I am going now. I will not come back.”
She had arisen and was about to leave the hut. Seizing her hand, de Sancerre drew her to his side.
“No, ma petite! You are not at fault! Don’t leave me—but do not speak! I must think—I must think! But my mind’s in a whirl. Courage, Katonah! There, do not tremble so! Ma foi, little one, ’tis a hard nut we have to crack! There, do not move! Let me take your hand. Bien! Now, let me think!”
Silence, intense, unbroken, reigned within the hut; while, outside, the hot sun beat down upon a city in which rumor itself had become voiceless in growing dread of a fatal word.