“I told her the white-faced children of the moon had come to us upon the bosom of the flood, according to an ancient prophecy. The temple priests would strangle me with cords if they should learn how my old tongue has wagged. They watch me closely, for they worship her. But once she found a moment, when no priest was near, to scratch the mystic symbols on the bark. I crept away at night and, lo, your god, the moon, was guide to my old feet—and, so, I came to you from Coyocop.”
That Noco had told him all she had to tell, the Frenchman did not for a moment doubt. But, even then, she had thrown little light upon the mystery which confronted him. A mondain to his finger-tips, at heart a sceptic, de Sancerre fostered no belief in miracles. Surrounded, as he had been all the days of his life, by men and women steeped in superstition, his spirit had revolted at the impostures which had served to blind mankind through centuries of human history. Had de Sancerre been wrought of the stuff of which his age was made, he would have reached the conclusion at once that here in the wilderness the avenging spirit of the Spaniard whom he had slain in France was haunting him at night to play him tricks to drive him straight to madness. ’Twould be so easy to account thus for what his reason could not now explain. But de Sancerre was a man who, intellectually, had pressed on in advance of his times. By policy a conformist to the exterior demands of his avowed religion, he had long lost his faith in the active interference in earthly affairs of saints and devils. How the name of Julia de Aquilar had found its way to a piece of vagrom bark in a wilderness, thousands of miles across the sea from the land of her nativity, he could not explain, nor could he harbor, for an instant, the wild idea that Coyocop and his inamorata would prove to be identical. In spite of the malicious horns of his dilemma, nevertheless, he eliminated from his thoughts the possibility that he had become the plaything of supernatural agencies. But who was Coyocop? He must look upon her face without delay.
“Señora, listen!” exclaimed de Sancerre, seizing Noco by the arm. “I must see the spirit of the sun to-night! From the mountains of the moon, where reigns our god in silvery state, I bear a message to the goddess Coyocop. Peste, Doña Noco! Have you gone to sleep?” He shook her gently, striving hard to find her eyes.
“It cannot be,” muttered the old crone, trembling under his grasp as if the night wind chilled her time-worn frame—“it cannot be. ’Twould mean your life—and mine.”
“Hold, señora! Remember Cabanacte—and pin your faith to me! No matter what the odds may be, the brother of the moonbeams always wins! Bear that in mind, good Noco, or the future may grow black for thee. Be faithful to my fortunes—and I’ll make your grandson noble once again.”
How deep an impression his words had made upon the beldame, de Sancerre could not tell, for at that moment there arose behind him a weird chant, sung by a hundred tuneful voices, rising and falling upon the evening air with thrilling effect. Suddenly beyond them from the very heart of the City of the Sun arose a mightier chorus than the King’s suite could beget, and the night grew vibrant with a wild, menacing song which chilled de Sancerre’s heart and caused Katonah to press close to his side, in vain striving for the comfort she could not find.
Presently the litter of the King, passing between two outlying houses, turned into a broad avenue which led directly to the great square of the city, at one side of which stood the temple of the sun. The moon had not yet arisen, and what was twilight in the open had turned to night within the confines of the town. De Sancerre, who was a close observer, both by temperament and by habit, strove in vain to obtain a satisfactory view of the dwelling-houses between which the royal litter passed. But when the King and his followers had reached the outskirts of the great square, the Frenchman forgot at once his curiosity as a traveller; forgot, even for a moment, the problem to solve which he had dared to enter this pagan city, in defiance of all discipline and in direct disobedience to La Salle’s lieutenant. The scene which broke upon his staring eyes stilled, for an instant, the beating of his heart, which seemed to bound into his throat to choke him.
The square between the King’s litter and the entrance to the temple was thronged with men and women, in front of whom stood long lines of stalwart warriors, the flower of the army which had recently astonished the eyes of the wanderers from over-sea. Waving lights and shadows, the quarrelsome offspring of flaring torches, changed constantly the grim details of the scene, as if the night wind strove to hide the horrors of a dancing, evil dream.
Directly in front of the main entrance to the temple of the sun-worshippers stood a post to which Chatémuc had been tied by cords. On either side of him white-robed priests, wielding long wooden rods, the ends of which had been turned to red coals in the sacred fire, prodded his hissing flesh, while they sang a chant of devilish triumph, in which the populace, enraged at the sacrilege attempted by the Mohican, joined at intervals.
Facing the dying martyr, who gazed down at him with proud stoicism, knelt the gray-frocked Franciscan, Zenobe Membré, holding toward the victim of excessive zeal the crude crucifix, for love of which Chatémuc, the Mohican, was now freeing his soul from torment.