“He found her by the sea alone?” asked de Sancerre, wonderingly.
“The Brother of the Moon should know all things,” muttered Noco, with satire in her eyes and voice. Then she went on: “The white-faced children of the moon who bore her to our land lay sleeping on the beach, awaiting the coming of their god to waken them. But Cabanacte knew that she was Coyocop. And so, she came to us.”
From outside the hut de Sancerre could hear the noises of a town astir, the tread of bare-footed men upon the hardened earth, the cries of children at their play, and, now and then, the voices of women chattering of many wondrous things. He longed to make his way at once to Coyocop’s abode that with his eyes he might assure himself that last night’s strange adventures had not taken place in dreams. Even yet, he found it hard to believe that Julia de Aquilar was, in reality, a captive, like himself, in this weird town. But there lay her own handwriting on the bark! He read and reread the message which she had sent to him, and, turning toward Noco, asked, pensively:
“Coyocop, señora, seemed glad to learn that I was here?”
“I know not what the chief priest may have thought,” croaked the old crone, a gleam of malice in her black eyes as they met de Sancerre’s gaze, “but to me she seemed less like a goddess than a girl. She wept for joy to read your note.”
De Sancerre sprang to his feet and paced up and down the hut restlessly.
“Cabanacte!” he exclaimed, petulantly. “Nom de Dieu! When will the man return?”
“We care not much for women in this land of ours,” muttered Noco, using her broken Spanish to tease her impatient guest. “Out of clay the Great Spirit moulded the first man, and, pleased with what he’d made, blew into him the breath of life. And thus he fell to sneezing, the first man, ’til from his nose there dropped a doll-shaped thing which set to dancing upon the ground there at his feet. And as she danced, she grew in size, until a woman stood before his eyes. It is not strange that man should make us work!” A sarcastic grin rested upon the hag’s brown face as she gazed up at de Sancerre.
“But Coyocop is more than woman,” cried de Sancerre, earnestly. “Caramba! But you love to torture me, señora! I say to you, beware! I know not what may lie the deepest in your heart, but this I say to you, ’twill serve you well to do your best for me. The time is coming when I’ll pay you tenfold for your kindness now.”
Noco drew near to the Frenchman and stood before him, listening for a time to the familiar noises outside her hut. Then she asked, in a tone which had no mischief in it: