“Ho, friend! I am going to your city. Save your cocoa, and go with me.”
Io’ was confused.
“Come on!” the stranger persisted, with a pleasant smile. “Come on! I want company. You were never so welcome.”
The smile decided the boy. He set one foot in the vessel, but instantly retreated—an ocelot, crouched in the bottom, raised its round head, and stared fixedly at him. The stranger laughed, and reassured him, after which he walked boldly forward. Then the canoe swung from its mooring, and in a few minutes, under the impulsion of three strong slaves, went flying down the canal. Under bridges, through incoming flotillas, and past the great houses on either hand they darted, until the city was left behind, and the lake, colored with the borrowed blue of the sky, spread out rich and billowy before them. The eyes of the stranger brightened at the prospect.
“I like this. By Our Mother, I like it!” he said, earnestly. “We have lakes in Tihuanco on which I have spent days riding waves and spearing fish; but they were dull to this. See the stretch of the water! Look yonder at the villages, and here at the city and Chapultepec! Ah, that you were born in Tenochtitlan be proud. There is no grander birthplace this side of the Sun!”
“I am an Aztec,” said Io’, moved by the words.
The other smiled, and added, “Why not go further, and say, ‘and son of the king?’”
Io’ was startled.
“Surprised! Good prince, I am a hunter. From habit, I observe everything; a track, a tree, a place, once seen is never forgotten; and since I came to the city, the night before the combat of Quetzal’, the habit has not left me. That day you were seated under the red canopy, with the princesses Tula and Nenetzin. So I came to know the king’s son.”
“Then you saw the combat?”