“There is one right good blanket at your disposal,” said the lad looking straight out across the river, yet feeling the color mount to his hair as Don Ruy regarded him keenly and then clapped him on the shoulder.
“I’ll claim half of the blanket when the day comes!” he declared––“and in truth I’d not be so sorry to see the maid of your discourse whether mad or of sanity. That ever restless Cacique who strives to bar us out, shows me that more than one Indian may have gone mad in the same struggle. Think you he must know the keepers of the secret of gold?”
“It would not be strange, since he is the head of the magicians and the worker of spirit things.”
“God send that Juan Gonzalvo gets not that idea strongly in his mind––it would be the cap sheaf to the stack of his grievances.”
“And it would be the one to weigh most heavily with his reverence the padre”––added Chico. “His soul is set on treasure for the Holy Brotherhood––and to win in secret where Coronado and the church failed with all the blare of trumpets, means that no man in the Indies would have a name written above that of the patient and devout Padre Vicente.”
“You say things, lad, with a serious face;––but with a mocking voice,” commented Don Ruy. “Tell me truly if the life of a page in the palace of the Viceroy teaches you so much of politics and holy orders that you combine the two and grow skeptic to each?”
“A page sees more than he understands––” returned the lad, “it was the teaching of your mad Doña of the silken scarf who saw things as the priests told her they were not to be seen,––she it was who taught me to laugh instead of doing penance.”
“And she it was also no doubt who taught you of magic Mexic things in keeping with the fairy Melissa of Charlemagne’s day, and Merlin the magian of Britain?”
“Heigh-ho! It is precious magic those old romancers did tell of!” agreed the lad. “Think how fine it would be if we had those enchanted steeds and lances,––and the fair daughter of the Khan of Kathay for company through the wilderness!”