“I knew you were asleep.”
“But you had only to think to waken me.”
He smiled at this acknowledgment of the power of his will. Just then a bell sounded faintly through the chamber; hastening away, he shortly returned with breakfast on a great shell waiter; there were maize bread and honey, quails and chocolate, figs and oranges. Placing them on a table, he rolled up an ottoman for the girl; and, though she talked much and lightly, the meal was soon over. Then he composed himself upon the couch, and in the quiet, unbroken save by Tecetl, forgot the night and its incidents.
His rest was calm; when he awoke, she was sitting by the basin of the fountain talking to her birds gleefully as a child. She had given them names, words more of sound pleasant to the ear than of signification; so she understood the birds, whose varied cries were to her a language. And they were fearless and tame, perching on her hand, and courting her caresses; while she was as artless, with a knowledge as innocent, and a nature as happy. If Quetzal’ was the paba’s idol in religion, she was his idol in affection.
He watched her awhile, then suddenly sat up; though he said not a word, she flung her birds off, and came to him smiling.
“You called me, father.”
He laid his hand upon her shoulder, all overflowed with the dark hair, and said in a low voice, “The time approaches when Quetzal’ is to come from the home of the gods; it may be he is near. I will send you over the sea and the land to find him; you shall have wings to carry you into the air; and you shall fly swifter than the birds you have been talking to.”
Her smile deepened.
“Have you not told me that Quetzal’ is good, and that his voice is like the fountain’s, and that when he speaks it is like singing? I am ready.”
He kissed her, and nearer the basin rolled the couch, upon which she sat reclined against a heap of cushions, her hands clasped over her breast.