He turned from the door, and was conducted to the shade of the turret of Tezca’.
“I was loitering after the tall priest, the one with the bloody face and hands,—what a monster he is!” said the page, crossing himself,—“when a slave came in my way, offering some flowers, and making signs. I spoke to him. ‘What do you want?’ ‘Here is a message from the princess Nenetzin.’ ‘Who is she?’ ‘Daughter of the great king.’ ‘Well, what did she say?’ ‘She bade me’—and, señor capitan, these are almost his words,—‘she bade me give these flowers to one of the teules, that he might give them to Tonatiah, him with the red beard.’ I took the present, and asked, ‘What does the princess say to the Tonatiah?’ ‘Let him read the flowers,’ the fellow answered. I remembered then that it is a custom of this people to send messages in that form. I asked him where his mistress was; he told me, and I went to see her.”
“What of her? Is she handsome?”
“Here she is; judge thou.”
“Holy Mother! ’Tis the girl I so frightened on the street. She is the pearl of the valley, the light of the world!” exclaimed Alvarado. “Stay thou, sir page. Interpret for me. I will speak to her.”
“Simply, then. Thou knowest I am not so good an Aztec as Marina.”
Nenetzin was sitting in the shade of the turret. Apart several paces stood her carriage-bearers. Her garments of finest cotton, white as snow, were held close to her waist by a green sash. Her ornaments—necklace, bracelets, and anklets—were of gold, enriched by chalchuites. Softest sandals protected her feet; and the long scarf, heavy with embroidery, and half covering her face, fell from her head to the mat of scarlet feathers upon which she was sitting.
When the tall Spaniard, in full armor, except the helmet, stopped thus suddenly before her, the large eyes dilated, the blood left her cheeks, and she shrank almost to the roof. Was it not as if the dream, so strange in the coming, had vitalized its subject, and sent it to her, a Fate the more irresistible because of its peculiarities,—the blue eyes, the forehead womanly white, the hair long and waving, the beard dyed, apparently, in the extremest brightness of the sun,—all so unheard of among the brown and olive children of Anahuac? And what if the Fate had come demandingly? Refuse! Can the chrysalis, joyous in the beauty of wings just perfected, refuse the sun?
The cavalier could not mistake the look with which she regarded him. In pity for her fear, in admiration of her beauty, in the native gallantry of his soul, he knelt, and took her hand, and kissed it; then, giving it back, and looking into her face with an expression as unmistakable as her own, he said,—
“My beautiful princess must not be afraid. I would die sooner than harm her.”