“No; but we can leave her here gagged and bound till they chance to find her,” answered the señor. “Hearken, Nahua, we spare you, and to do it go forth to our own deaths. May your fierce heart learn a lesson of mercy from the deed. Farewell.”
Two hours had gone by, and three figures, wrapped in rough serapes, such as the common people wore, one of whom, a woman, carried an infant in her arms, might have been seen cautiously descending the city wall by means of a wooden ladder that ran from its summit to a jetty built upon piers at the foot of it, which was used as a mooring-place for boats during the months of inundation. As was common at this season of the year, the lake was already rising, and floating in the shallow water at the end of the jetty lay a pleasure-skiff which the señor and I were accustomed to use for the purpose of fishing whenever we could escape for a few hours from our wearisome life in the city.
Into this skiff we entered, and, having hoisted the sail, set our course by the stars, steering for that village whence, a year before, we had embarked for the City of the Heart. The wind being favourable to us, our progress was rapid, and by the first grey light of dawn we caught sight of the village not a mile away. Here, however, we did not dare to land, for we should be seen and recognised; therefore we beached our boat behind the shelter of some dwarf water-palms three furlongs or more below the village, and, having hidden it as well as we were able, set out at once towards the mountains.
Passing round the back of the village without being seen, for as yet folk were scarcely astir, we began our dreadful journey. For a while Maya bore up well, but as the heat of the day increased she showed signs of tiring, which was little to be wondered at, seeing that she carried in her arms a child not three weeks old. At mid-day we halted that she might rest, hiding ourselves beneath a tree by the banks of a brook, and eating of such food as we had brought with us. In the early afternoon we started on again, and for the rest of that dreary day struggled forward as best we could, the señor and I carrying the infant alternately in addition to our other burdens.
At length the evening fell, and we camped for the night, if camping it can be called, to sleep beneath the shadow of a cedar-tree without fire and with little food, having no covering except our serapes. Towards morning the air grew cold, for already we were at some height above the lake, and the tender infant began to wail piteously,—a wail that wrung our hearts. Still we rose with the sun and went on our way, for it seemed that there was nothing else to do. Throughout that day, with ever-wearying footsteps, we journeyed, till at sunset we reached the snow-line, and saw before us the hunter’s rest-house where we had slept when first we entered the Country of the Heart.
“Let us go in,” said Maya, “and find food and shelter for the night.”
Now, our plan had been to avoid this house and gain the pass, where we proposed to stay till daybreak, and then to travel down the mountain slopes into the wilderness.
“If we enter there, Maya, we shall be trapped,” said the señor; “our only safety lies in travelling through the pass before we are overtaken, for it is against the law that any of your people should follow us into the wilderness.”
“If we do not enter, my child will die in the cold,” she answered. “You were too tender to secure our safety by putting that would-be murderess to death; have you, then, the heart, husband, to kill your own child?”
Now at these words I saw the señor’s eyes fill with tears, but he said only: