“He’s dying, do you say? There is no hope?” gasped the Frenchman, looking into Noco’s eyes for a ray of encouragement.
“He’s dying as his mother died,” muttered the old crone, musingly, seemingly forgetful of de Sancerre’s presence. “But, even then, he had long years to live. And yesterday he looked no older than my Cabanacte there.”
“He’s dying, do you say?” repeated the Frenchman, mechanically.
“Aye, dying, señor,” hissed the beldame, spitefully. “And now the temple priests prepare the cords with which they’ll choke his servants and his wives to death. No Great Sun goes alone into the land beyond! What sights my eyes have seen! King follows king into the spirit-world, and with them go the best and noblest of our weeping race. Aye, señor, the Great Sun’s dying and the city mourns. When he has passed, his household follows him. The sight you saw but yesternight was child’s-play for the priests. ’Tis when a Great Sun dies they have man’s sport with death.”
The mocking, angry tones in Noco’s guttural voice made the broken Spanish in which she spoke impress the Frenchman’s ears as a most repellent tongue. De Sancerre was striving feverishly to grasp the full significance of her grim words, to weigh in all its bearings the new exigency which had increased a hundredfold the peril in which he stood. But the thought beset him, with tyrannical persistence, that he had no time to lose. Should the Great Sun die at once, de Sancerre would be powerless against any revenge which the sun-priests might, in their crafty cruelty, seek to take. How far the homage which they paid to Coyocop could be trusted to save him in the crisis which would follow the King’s death he could not determine, but he had begun to fear that not only the priests but the people at large would hold him responsible for the sudden and mysterious blow which had fallen upon the throne. With little time at his disposal in which to examine the crisis from many points of view, de Sancerre came quickly to the conclusion that his doom was sealed unless he acted with boldness, decision, and rapidity. Satisfied of the loyalty of Noco and Cabanacte, although he marvelled somewhat at their good-will, he drew himself up to his full height, and, putting up his hand to command silence, said:
“Go forth at once, Cabanacte, and tell the people of this afflicted town that it was the insult cast upon me by the temple priests which brought down the wrath of Heaven upon the Great Sun’s head. Tell this to the rabble. Then go to the chief priest and say to him that he, too, shall fall with suddenness before his fire unless he heeds the words that I shall speak. Bid him be silent ’til I come to him, and to keep his priests at prayer. Nom de Dieu, my Cabanacte, have you lost your ears? Stop staring at me and go forth at once, or, with the ease with which my legs outran you, I’ll strike you dead with this!”
Waving his rapier threateningly at the giant’s panting breast, de Sancerre drove the startled athlete through the entrance to the street, and then turned back to seize the trembling Noco by the arm.
“I have a message which you must take to Coyocop! If you should fail to gain her ear, the City of the Sun is doomed. Say this to her, that when I send a priest to summon her she must be quick to join me at the Great Sun’s lodge. Repeat my words, señora.”
Shaking the old crone roughly by the arm, de Sancerre bent down to catch her gasping voice.
“Bien!” he cried, “you’ve conned your lesson well! Go, now, señora, and make no mistake! If you would save your dying king, see Coyocop and tell her what I say.”