Heart of the World

by H. Rider Haggard

“Hush!” she said, laughing, yet with a note of earnestness in her voice. “You must not speak thus freely to me. Yonder in the pass, friend, I was the Indian girl your fellow-traveller; here I am the Lady of the Heart.”

“Then I wish that you had remained the Indian girl in the pass,” he answered, after a pause, “but perhaps you jest.”

“I was not altogether jesting,” she answered, with a sigh, “you must be careful now, or it might be ill for you or me, or both of us, since by rank I am the greatest lady in this land, and doubtless my cousin, Tikal, will watch me closely. See! here comes my father.”

As she spoke Zibalbay entered, followed by the two Indians bearing food. He was simply dressed in a white toga-like robe similar to that which had been given to the señor and myself. A cloak of black feathers covered his shoulders, and round his neck was hung a massive gold chain to which was attached the emblem of the Heart, also fashioned in plain gold.

We noticed that, as he came, his daughter, Maya, made a courtesy to him, which he acknowledged with a nod, and that whenever they passed him the two Indians crouched almost to the ground.

Evidently the friendship of our desert journeying was done with, and the person of whom we had hitherto thought and spoken as an equal must henceforth be treated with respect. Indeed the proud-faced, white-bearded chief seemed so royal in his changed surroundings that we were almost moved to follow the example of the others, and bow whenever he looked at us.

“The food is ready,” said Zibalbay, “such as it is. Be seated, I beg of you. Nay, daughter, you need not stand before me. We are still fellow-wanderers, all of us, and ceremony can stay till we are come to the City of the Heart.”

Then we sat down and the Indians waited on us. What the dishes consisted of we did not know, but after our long privations it seemed to us that we had never eaten so excellent a meal, or drunk anything so good as the native wine which was served with it. Still, notwithstanding our present comfort, I think the señor’s heart misgave him, and that he had presentiments of evil. Maya and he still loved one another, but he felt that things were utterly changed, as she herself had shown him. While they wandered, in some sense he had been the head of the party, as, to speak truth, among companions of a coloured race a white man of gentle birth is always acknowledged to be by right of blood. Now things were changed, and he must take his place as an alien wanderer, admitted to the country upon sufferance, and already this difference could be seen in Zibalbay’s manner and mode of address. Formerly he had called him “señor,” or even “friend;” to-night, when speaking to him, he used a word which meant “foreigner,” or “unknown one,” and even myself he addressed by name without adding any title of respect.

One good thing, however, we found in this place, who had lacked tobacco for six weeks and more, for presently the Indian entered bearing cigarettes made by rolling the herb in the thin sheath that grows about the cobs of Indian corn.

“Come hither, you,” said Zibalbay to the Indian, when he had handed us the cigarettes. “Start now to the borders of the lake and advise the captain of the village of the corn-growers that his lord is returned again, commanding him in my name to furnish four travelling litters to be here within five hours after sunrise. Warn him also to have canoes in readiness to bear us across the lake, but, as he values his life, to send no word of our coming to the city. Go now and swiftly.”