De Sancerre smiled gayly. Cabanacte’s answer had delighted him.
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.