“Ma foi, your Majesty!” exclaimed de Sancerre, in French, as he arose to his feet, “the encore warms my blood like wine! I like your people! They see at once the difference ’twixt a curmudgeon and a cavalier.”
His eyes rested triumphantly upon the countenance of the disconcerted de Tonti for a moment, and then looked forth upon the sea of dusky, smiling faces upturned to his. Almost within reach of his hand stood the old woman who had borne to his bedside a welcome from the children of the sun.
“Well met, señora!” cried de Sancerre, in Spanish, to the grinning hag. “Come to me here! Your tongue shall bind the ties of love between your king and mine!”
With the quickness of perception which his bright eyes indicated, the Brother of the Sun seemed to grasp the significance of de Sancerre’s last words, for he beckoned to the aged crone to approach the royal presence. With a rapidity of motion strangely out of keeping with her time-worn appearance, the old woman reached de Sancerre’s side on the instant, and, having made her obeisance to the throne, stood looking up at the Frenchman expectantly. To the latter’s astonishment he saw in her small, black, beady eyes a gleam of saturnine humor which assured him that between his soul and hers stretched at least one sympathetic bond.
“Say to his Majesty for my king, my people, and myself,” went on de Sancerre, in Spanish, holding the gaze of the interpreter to his, “that our hearts beat with joy at the welcome you extend to us. Say to him that the king of kings, far beyond the great water of the sea, sends greeting to his Brother of the Sun, and craves his friendship for all time to come. This much at once; but, later on, assure his Majesty I hope to lay before him plans and projects worthy of his warlike fame, that he, your monarch, and my king of kings may know no equals ’neath the sun and moon.” De Sancerre paused to give the interpreter a chance to turn his words into her native tongue. (“In sooth,” he muttered to himself, as he turned to smile again upon the now silent throng surrounding the low hillock upon which the King’s litter stood, “had I but shown myself so great a diplomat in France, I might have changed the map of Europe with my tongue and pen.”) “And what, señora, saith the Son of Suns?”
“He answers you with words of deepest love,” answered the old woman, turning toward the Frenchman from the royal sun-worshipper, whose dark-hued face glowed with the delight de Sancerre’s adroitly-framed sentences had begotten. “He offers the hand of friendship to your king, the Brother of the Moon, and will divide with him the waters and the lands in perfect amity. He bids me say to you that in this day the children of the sun find glorious fulfilment of ancient prophecies. Before the East had parted from the West, and North and South were wrapped in close embrace, ’twas told by wise, inspired tongues that some day by the waters of a boundless sea a goddess in deep sleep, sent to our people by the sun itself, would meet the eyes of roving huntsmen, wandering far afield. Our seers have told us that when she had come—Coyocop, the very spirit of the sun, our god—our race would meet our brothers of the moon, and all the world would bow beneath our yoke.”
De Sancerre, impatient by temperament, and finding difficulty in fully understanding the disjointed Spanish patois used by the old woman, had paid but little real attention to this long speech, in spite of the attitude of absorbed interest which he had assumed, knowing that the piercing eyes of the sun’s brother were scanning his face attentively.
“Your name is, señora—is—” he asked, as the wrinkled hag paused an instant to regain her breath.
“Noco,” she answered, simply.
“Doña Noco, say to his Majesty that others of our suite are approaching the throne to lay their homage at his feet, and that I, his servant, crave further speech with him anon. Then, señora, if you love me, draw aside a pace or two, that I may have a word with you alone.”