“The woman had a greater journey and a more troublous one,”––said Don Ruy. “These are clearly the fruits of Spanish gardens, but in some other way have they reached this land. It was made plain that the place of the palms where he left her was unknown leagues towards the western sea, and that the maid could only die in the desert.”
“He crossed this river in his travels before he saw the Indian maid of medicine charms,” reminded 163 the secretary. “Do you not recall the journeys with the war people? He may have bestowed upon others the seeds of other lands.”
Don Ruy drew a long breath, and then laughed.
“By our Lady!––You bring joy with that thought!” he said heartily.––“I made sure the Devil was alive and was working ahead on our trail when my eyes were startled by the offering of fruit and grain! You looked as if it might be your own hair was rising to stand alone! We are but children in the dark, Chico, and there come times when we have fear. But your thought is the right thought, lad. Of a certainty he crossed this country; that there is no record is not so strange a thing––he was only another brown savage among many!”
They spoke together of the strangeness of their findings in the village––and its exceeding good arrangement with ladders to draw above in case of attack, and only one house––that of the doves and the fruit––into which one could walk from the court. All the others were as in the other villages––terraces, and the first terrace had doors only in the roof so that a blank adobe wall faced the court and the curious. Each great house with rooms by the score, and its height from two to five stories, was the home of many, and a fort in case of need.
While they commented on these things, two men came running swiftly through the gate from the Castilian camp. One was José, and it was Po-tzah who ran beside him. They went straight to the house of the dove cote, and José waited without while, after a few eager hurried words, the other slipped behind the twinkling arras of river reeds and shells.
“What now?” asked Don Ruy coming up, and José showed fear at first and then spoke.
“It is your own horse to which it has happened, Excellency,” he said. “The padre say it is not the fault of any one, for the bush is high there, and who could see through them? But it is the snake––the one you say has the castanets in the tail, and it has put the poison in the foot of your horse!”
Don Ruy swore an oath that was half a prayer, and the pert secretary did the first thing that was familiar since he was seen with the company––he laid his hand on Don Ruy’s shoulder and felt that the horse lost was as a brother lost, and Chico had a fancy of his own to caress it, and even burnish the silver of his bridle.