Suddenly the eyes of Montoro fell to her arms, and he uttered a low, pained cry. But he did no more. He seemed as though he could not move; for once his readiness forsook him. His friends looked at him, saw the direction of his eyes, and in their turn they also glanced down at the girl's arms, and in their turn they also uttered startled cries as they did so.
There upon the soft, tender young arms lay a glowing coal, eating its fiery way into the bare flesh. And there came the young and delicate owner of those agonized arms pacing along slowly, with a calm and noble bearing and a proudly-smiling face, the champion of her nation's dauntlessness.
Pedro de Alvarado sprang forward, an unwonted dimness in his eyes, and snatching away the burning fragment with his fingers, he flung it out into the courtyard, and then with hasty gentleness unbound the tortured, swelling wrists, whilst the girl looked up in his face with a pleased, half-smiling wonder at his pity.
The old Cacique turned to Cortes.
"Will the white-face chieftain or his brothers any longer doubt the courage of the warriors of Tlascala? They have seen the courage of our maidens."
"Ay, indeed!" ejaculated Cabrera. "And if the courage of the maidens of ancient times were anything of a match to it I, for my part, feel little wonder that in those days there was a race of Amazons. Little use would there be in trying to keep a wife, after that pattern, in order with a threat of fisticuffs."
Montoro turned a laughing face round from the young Indian girl, whose wounds he was examining.
"Is that the way you try to rule your Cempoallan bride, my Juan? I had scarcely thought it from her looks."
"Ah," was the calm reply, "thou seest, friend Montoro, thou knowest nought of women and their natures. Sour looks and savage ways always put the merry light in their eyes, and the laughter on their lips. I have taught thee a useful lesson, see that it proves profitable."
"When the opportunity shall come," came the answer, but more in earnest now than in jest, "I will surely try to profit by thy teaching, but the teaching of thy ways and not thy words."