By Right of Conquest; Or, With Cortez in Mexico

by G. A. Henty

Roger repeated the name, and then touched Malinche, who at once gave her name.

He next pointed to the contents of the bowl, and the girls replied together, "Coca."

Roger repeated the word several times, and then, in the same manner, learned the native names of the cakes and fruit.

The old woman, hearing the voices, now came into the room. The girls spoke eagerly to her in their language, and when Roger touched her, she at once answered, "Quizmoa."

"That is pretty well, for a first lesson," Roger said. "Now I will eat my breakfast. I suppose that, if anyone in this place did not have a stare at me yesterday, they will be coming today."

Visitors, indeed, soon began to arrive; and it was more than a week before the curiosity of the crowd was at all satisfied. But even this did not bring what Roger considered a terrible annoyance to an end; for the news had spread rapidly, through all the country round, of the strange white being who had come to Tabasco, and parties of visitors kept on arriving, some of them from a great distance.

Roger, however, had made a good use of his tongue. He kept one or other of the girls always near him, and by touching the articles brought to him as presents, the garments and arms of his visitors, and the various objects in his room, he soon learned their names.

Almost every day the chief sent for him, for a talk; but as neither party could understand the other, these conversations generally ended by a sudden loss of temper, on the part of the cazique, at being unable to obtain the information he required as to the origin of his visitor, and the object with which he had come to his country.

Having acquired a large number of the names of objects, Roger, for a time, came to a standstill. Then it struck him that by listening to what the old woman said to the girls, and by watching what they did, he might make a step farther.

In this way he soon learned "bring me," "fetch me," and other verbs. When the old woman was present, the two girls were silent and shy; but as Quizmoa was fond of gossiping, and so was greatly in request among the neighbors, who desired to learn something of the habits of the white man, she was often out; and the girls were then ready to talk as much as Roger wished. For a time it seemed to him that he was making no progress whatever with the language and, at the end of the first month, began almost to despair of ever being able to converse in it; although by this time he had learned the name of almost every object. Then he found that, perhaps as much from their gestures as from their words, he began to understand the girls; and in another month was able to make himself understood, in turn. After this his progress was extremely rapid.