[CHAPTER X.]
THE SACHEM OF THE CORAS.
A few days after the events we have described in the previous chapter there was one of those lovely mornings which are not accorded to our cold climates to know. The sun poured down in profusion its warm beams, which caused the pebbles and sand to glisten in the walks of the garden of the Hacienda de la Noria. In a clump of flowering orange and lemon trees, whose sweet exhalations perfumed the air, and beneath a copse of cactus, nopals, and aloes, a maiden was asleep, carelessly reclining in a hammock made of the thread of the Phormium tenax, which hung between two orange trees.
With her head thrown back, her long black hair unfastened, and falling in disorder on her neck and bosom; with her coral lips parted, and displaying the dazzling pearl of her teeth, Doña Clara (for it was she who slept thus with an infantile slumber) was really charming. Her features breathed happiness, for not a cloud had yet arisen to perturb the azure horizon of her calm and tranquil life.
It was nearly midday: there was not a breath in the air. The sunbeams, pouring down vertically, rendered the heat so stifling and unsupportable, that everyone in the hacienda had yielded to sleep, and was enjoying what is generally called in hot countries the siesta. Still, at a short distance from the spot where Doña Clara reposed, calm and smiling, a sound of footsteps, at first almost imperceptible, but gradually heightening, was heard, and a man made his appearance. It was Shaw, the youngest of the squatter's sons. How was he at this spot?
The young man was panting, and the perspiration poured down his cheeks. On reaching the entrance of the clump he bent an anxious glance on the hammock.
"She is there," he murmured with a passionate accent. "She sleeps."
Then he fell on his knees upon the sand, and began admiring the maiden, dumb and trembling. He remained thus a long time, with his glance fixed on the slumberer with a strange expression. At length he uttered a sigh and tearing himself with an effort from this delicious contemplation, he rose sadly, muttering in a whisper,—
"I must go—if she were to wake—oh, she will never know how much I love her!"
He plucked an orange flower, and softly laid it on the maiden; then he walked a few steps from her, but almost immediately returning, he seized, with a nervous hand, Doña Clara's rebozo, which hung down from the hammock, and pressed it to his lips several times, saying, in a voice broken by the emotion he felt,—