The Great Sun came in state to visit her at times, and, more often, Manatte, his nephew and heir-apparent, presuming upon his royal prerogatives, would enter her cabin to feast his black eyes upon the beauty of a countenance which he was bound to look upon as sacred from the touch of human lips. The tall, dusky youth, whose handsome, wilful face Doña Julia had grown to loathe, had never dared to rebel against the restraints which Coyocop’s divine origin forced upon him, but his restless eyes told the girl what was in his protesting heart, and she would watch his reluctant steps, as he stole from her hut, with mingled relief and dread. Well she knew that fear of the Brother of the Sun and of the chief priest alone prevented Manatte from defying the Great Spirit and making her his own.
The afternoon was growing old, and Doña Julia, with a bunch of white flowers upon her bosom, relieving the black monotony of her sombre garb, still awaited in loneliness the coming of Louis de Sancerre, whose presence in that remote corner of the globe only the saints in heaven could explain. That Coheyogo and Noco, who came to her daily to play a solemn farce in which she had long ago lost all interest, had not made their accustomed advent to her cabin filled her with increasing alarm. The uproar in the city at noonday, the mournful outcries of an agitated people, had aroused in Doña Julia’s soul a dread foreboding which the subsequent silence which had fallen upon the hysterical town had done nothing to relieve.
Presently the overwrought girl, from whose lips the cup of hope seemed to have been snatched just as she was about to drink deep of its grateful draught, fell upon her knees beside her bed and breathed a fervent prayer to the Mother of Christ for strength in this hour of doubt and discouragement. Soothed by her devotions, she arose and, standing erect, listened for the sound of a footstep which should precede an answer to her supplication; but an ominous silence reigned outside her hut. Readjusting the flowers upon her breast, and smoothing her rebellious, raven hair with a trembling hand, Doña Julia, cold with a sense of loneliness which had fallen upon her heart, moved hesitatingly toward the hole which served as a clumsy entrance to the room. Bending down, her hungry eyes eagerly scanned the deserted square, upon which the sun was shining as if in search of its secreted worshippers. To the overpowering sweetness of the spring blossoms, lying in heaps outside the doorway, she gave no heed, as she sought in vain for signs of life in a city upon which the blight of a great fear had recently descended. Suddenly, as Doña Julia gazed in consternation at this lonely centre of a populous town, a tall form issued from the cabin of the Great Sun. Drawing himself up to his full height, the man, glancing in all directions, as if to assure himself that he was unobserved, made straight toward the hole in the sun-baked wall through which the girl was peering. The white feathers in his hair bore witness to his royal rank, and as he came into the full glare of the sunlight just beyond her cabin Doña Julia saw that her approaching visitor was Manatte. To rush forth into the square and arouse the city by her cries was her first impulse, but before she could give way to it the youth had cut off her escape.
“Coyocop!” he exclaimed, as he stood erect, after he had crawled through the entrance, driving her back in affright toward the centre of the flower-bedecked room. “Coyocop!”
There were in his voice passion, triumph, desperation; an appeal to the woman and a defiance to the gods. The Great Sun lay dying. Even the chief priest would hesitate to offend him—Manatte, who would soon be king!
“Coyocop!” he repeated more gently, holding forth to her a hand, like a beggar asking alms, while his eyes rested upon the white flowers which rose and fell upon her throbbing bosom.
But, though her body trembled, there was no flinching in Doña Julia’s glance. Hopeless, as she was, for she realized that sacrilege such as this could spring only from an opportunity in which Manatte could find no peril, her eyes gazed into his with a proud scorn which left no need for words. With head thrown back, she strove to conquer the brute nature of the youth by the mere force of her strong will and the purity of her virgin soul. But she knew full well that the silent prayers which she offered up to God would reach His throne too late.
For a moment they stood thus confronting one another; Purity attired in black, and License enrobed in spotless white. Never afterward could Julia de Aquilar sense the sweet, haunting odor of magnolia blossoms without a sinking of the heart which made her breath protest. No sound broke the intense stillness save the twittering of birds which wooed the flowers outside the hut and the stifled words which Manatte strove to speak. Suddenly he sprang toward her and seized her wrists, while his bronze face burned her cold, white cheeks.
“Coyocop,” he muttered, in a tongue which she could not understand, “you shall be mine, ’though every star the midnight sky reveals should send a god to save you from my love!”
A maiden’s despairing cry startled the silent town.