Edward S. Van Zile

“ Surely, Katonah is safer in the forest than is the spirit of the sun in a city which pretends to worship her. I shall chide your grandson, Doña Noco, if I ever look upon his giant form again. But stay you here, señora. When this great Son of Suns awakens from his sleep give him a drink of balsam—and he’ll sleep again. I go to Coyocop, and will return anon.”
The moon had not yet arisen, and darkness and silence combined to cast a menacing spell upon the impressionable City of the Sun. De Sancerre’s spirits were at a low ebb as he groped his way toward Doña Julia’s unguarded cabin. ”

“ At that very instant Doña Julia could hear the murmurs of a group of devout sun-worshippers, who had come from the budding forest to pile before her door great heaps of magnolia blossoms to bear witness to their reverence for the beneficent spirit of the sun, and to their hope that she would save them from [183] their threatening doom. The skull-bedecked temple of the sun stood for all that was most savage in a cult demanding human blood. The hut of Coyocop, wellnigh hidden from the noonday by sacrificial flowers, gave forth a fragrant incense which arose from an altar built of loving hearts. ”

“ A youth and maiden, young and beautiful, so runs the chatter of the woods and streams, wander in sadness along a zigzag trail, and, while he sighs, the maiden weeps and moans. There is no precedent, in all the forest lore, for this strange, futile quest of misery, this daily search for some new cause for tears where all the world is singing hymns of joy and praise.
And all the questions which the forest asked had found an echo in Cabanacte’s soul. Why should Katonah gaze into his loving eyes with a glance which spoke of sorrow at her heart? ”

“ Doña Julia and Noco stood behind the Frenchman watching his movements with eyes in which curiosity had conquered the heaviness of dire fatigue.
“This, Mademoiselle de Aquilar,” explained de Sancerre, balancing the heavy musket in his hand, “is the fusil ordinaire, or snaphance gun. I have heard young hotspurs in the low countries—who knew little of the rapier’s niceties—assert that, at close quarters, its butt-end is more deadly than a sword. Of its merits in a mêlée I am not ripe to speak, but I learned, while yet I lingered with Count Frontenac, to drive a bullet through a distant tree. ”

“ IDOLATERS
“I have learned something of these proud pagans, Chatémuc. They are worshippers of fire; fruit ripe to pluck, to the greater glory of Mother Church.”
The Mohican grunted in acquiescence as he strode forward, a copper-colored giant by the side of the gray-garbed, undersized Franciscan.
Beneath budding trees and along a flower-haunted trail went de la Salle’s envoys to the children of the sun. It was high noon, and the god of the idolaters shone down upon those who would dethrone him as a deity with a kindly radiance behind which no malice lurked. ”

“ Before de Sancerre and Noco had reached the cabin in which the Brother of the Sun lay tossing upon a feverish couch, the Frenchman, whose mind was filled with the vision of a pale, dark-eyed woman, garbed in black, with spring flowers upon her breast, recalled, for an instant, another face which seemed to accuse him in the twilight there of strange forgetfulness.
“Wait, señora,” exclaimed de Sancerre, seizing Noco by the arm at the very entrance to the royal hut. “Katonah! It is not well to leave her all alone. Go to your home and bring her here at once. ”

“ Suddenly the youth, an expression of mingled astonishment, horror, and fear upon his changing face, fell upon his knees and crossed himself with [70] a fervor begotten of the miracle upon which his straining eyes now gazed.
Beside the out-stretched figure of Doña Julia stood two angelic beings, taller than the run of men, who faced the sun and raised their arms straight upward toward the evening sky. They wore white robes, and from the distant dune to which the startled Juan crawled it seemed as if golden halos glorified the heads of these marvellous messengers from Paradise. ”

“ Surely, the sleeping stripling at her feet is worthy of her maiden heart! Not often does the spring-time lure into the forest, to meet the searching, knowing eyes of a thousand living creatures, a nobler youth than he who, for days and nights, has been her worshipper and slave. The forest is young to-day with vernal ecstasy, but, oh, how old it is with the worldly wisdom of long centuries! What means this futile wooing of a sun-burnt demigod and the cold indifference of a stubborn maiden, who sighs and weeps when all the joys of this glad earth are hers? ”

“ Not that the Count was better than his age, more scrupulous than the pleasure-loving court in which his youth had been passed, but in the freer, nobler atmosphere of this brave New World, and in the companionship of men striving in the midst of peril to do great deeds, all that was most admirable in de Sancerre’s character had been born anew, and, to his own amazement, he had learned that his views of life had undergone a change, that there had grown up something in his soul which gave the lie to his scoffing tongue, still from habit the tongue of a mondain fashioned in an evil school. ”

“ But look how the moon breaks through above those clouds! The storm is over, and the night grows clear. Shall we launch our raft again? I fear the forest, señor, more than yonder stream.”
“Nay, I dare not float at night, ma chère” answered de Sancerre, smoothing the raven hair from her white forehead as her head rested upon his shoulder, and they watched the fickle night change its garb of black, fringed with fire, for the silvery costume vouchsafed by the full moon. “I fear I might steal past my captain in the dark.” ”

“ With a rapidity and deftness worthy of a prestidigitateur, do Sancerre transposed the fragments of fish-laden bark upon the bench, and, as Coheyogo resumed his former attitude, he was confronted, unknowingly, with a dish with which a fanatical but disobedient priest, hating moon-magic, had tampered.
There is but short shrift given to the day when the sun deserts it in southern climes. Twilight had already begun to cast a gloom upon the feast, against which the forced gayety begotten of cinnamon-flavored wine could not prevail, when de Sancerre again felt old Noco’s touch upon his arm. ”

“ What is love, monsieur?” exclaimed de Sancerre, lightly, throwing himself down beside his leader.
It was as if a butterfly, born of the moonbeams, had come to ask a foolish riddle of the grim forest glades. The incarnation of all that was most polished, insincere, diabolical, fascinating at Versailles had taken the form of a handsome man, not quite forty years of age, who reclined at midnight upon the banks of an unexplored river, and pestered the living embodiment of high adventure and mighty purposes with the light and airy nothings of a courtier’s tongue. ”

“ In the white light of a cloudless night the City of the Sun lay disguised in a beauty which the bright glare of its own deity destroyed by day. Grouped around the temple, the houses of the sun-worshippers, rising gracefully from artificial mounds, were softened in their outlines by the moonbeams until they formed a city upon which de Sancerre, accustomed, as he was, to the architectural splendors of the old world, gazed with surprise and pleasure. ”

“ Squatting upon the ground beside a bench, upon which rested de Sancerre’s nether garments, sat old Noco, busily plying her fish-bone needle, while she repaired the many rents in his doublet and crooned a monotonous chant in a harsh, guttural voice. At the further end of the hut a crackling fire sent forth an odor which increased the satisfaction of the Frenchman with his surroundings. With corn-meal and fish, de Sancerre’s hostess had prepared a repast which the most fastidious palate at Versailles would have found seductive. ”

“ While the Great Sun, by virtue of his divine origin, was technically the high-priest of the nation, it had come about, at the time of Count Louis de Sancerre’s sojourn among the sun-worshippers, that the chief of the holy men, upon whom devolved the duty of keeping alive the sacred fire, had, by the strength of his bigoted personality, usurped all religious authority and had made the temple independent of, and more potent than, the royal cabin. While the chief priest had never openly defied the Great Sun, he had, nevertheless, gradually become the most influential personage in the nation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A paddle and its dusky wielder fell into the black-and-white flood, and a moment later the two canoes had retreated to mid-stream.
“Gar, you shoot well, Monsieur le Comte!” exclaimed Jacques Barbier, creeping to de Sancerre’s side. “If our bullets could have children, we could hold this island for a year! There is no danger from the forest for a time; and, I think, those boats will not come near us for an hour at least. These be the demons from your City of the Sun?”
“There is no doubt about it!” exclaimed de Sancerre. “It must amaze them to meet so much moon-magic, although the moon is full. ”

“ They roar and thunder, sob and laugh and hiss; they toss their new-found toys upon the sands, then snatch them back again and turn them ’round and ’round as if in envy of the grasping beach. But as the hours pass by, the shore keeps gaining what the billows lose. When the sun has pierced the western clouds, to cast a passing gleam across the panting sea, the glistening sands are dotted far and wide with worthless relics of the surf’s grim sport. ”

“ Was it possible that Noco had inherited a hatred for a race of oppressors from whom her forebears had fled in fear? On the chance that this might be, the Frenchman, hesitating only a moment, decided finally to tell the truth to his dusky inquisitor.
“Doña Noco,” said de Sancerre, impressively, placing a hand upon the old crone’s arm, “the Spanish are my dearest foes. Often have I led my men against them on the fields of war. I hold for them a hatred only less intense than the love I bear for Coyocop.” ”

“ Meanwhile the high spirits of Louis de Sancerre had cast their spell upon Katonah, a maiden whose ready smile seldom changed to laughter. But on this bright spring day, treading a flower-bedecked path by the side of a man whose delicately chiselled face was to her eyes a symbol of all the joy of life, it was not hard for the Mohican maiden to affect a gayety uncharacteristic of a race lacking in vivacity. ”

“ For a hundred yards the racers fought their fight by inches, each marvelling in his aching mind at the stern persistence of his antagonist. Then, when the strain grew greater than human muscles could endure, the bursting heart of de Sancerre seemed to ease its awful pressure upon his chest, his faltering steps regained their light and graceful motion, and, passing Cabanacte as the latter glanced up with eyes bloodshot with longing, the Frenchman, with a gay smile upon his pallid face, rushed past the line, a winner of the race by two full yards. ”

“ A tattered courtier, with drawn sword, he stood there motionless, silent, awaiting with foreboding the return of his most influential foe. If fancy, or a fever begotten of a long and exciting day, had played him a trick; if the song of Coyocop had been voiced by Julia de Aquilar only in his imagination, he knew that he was doomed. Presently he drew from his bosom the piece of bark upon which was written the Spanish maiden’s name. ”