But Hualpa, impatient, leaned over the side, and looked for himself. At the time they were up in the northern part of the lake, at least a league from the capital. Long, regular he could see the voyageurs reclining in the shade of the blue canopy, wrapped in escaupils such as none but lords or distinguished merchants were permitted to wear.
The leisurely voyageurs, on their part, appeared to have a perfect understanding of the light in which they were viewed from the chinampa.
“There he is again! See!” said one of them.
The other lifted the curtain, and looked, and laughed.
“Ah! if we could send an arrow there, just near enough to whistle through the orange-trees. Tula would never hear the end of the story. He would tell her how two thieves came to plunder him; how they shot at him; how narrowly he escaped—”
“And how valiantly he defended the garden. By Our Mother, Io’, I have a mind to try him!”
Hualpa half rose to measure the distance, but fell back at once. “No. Better that we get into no difficulty. We are messengers, and have these flowers to deliver. Besides, the judge is not to my liking.”
“Tula is merciful, and would forgive you for the ’tzin’s sake.”
“I meant the judge of the court,” Hualpa said, soberly. “You never saw him lift the golden arrow, as if to draw it across your portrait. It is pleasanter sitting here, in the shade, rocked by the water.”
“I have heard how love makes women of warriors; now I will see,—I will see how brave you are.”