“The toyon means courage, but taken with the laurel probably means a place where they grow together,” I answered, proud of knowing so much; “two things of the same kind mean time—two days—no, one day and three-quarters.”
“Say to-morrow at mid-afternoon.” Then he considered, and added a small feather. “And this?”
I was doubtful.
“Speed,” I hazarded.
He gave the two low, warning notes of the quail, and I clapped my hands, recognizing it as a quail’s feather.
“Be quick and cautious!”
He laughed encouragement, and then shyly, after some consideration, he bound them all together with a sprig of a vine that spells devotion, and stuck it in his girdle.
“See,” he declared, “you have sent me a message appointing a secret meeting, and I shall wear it openly to show that, old as I am, I am not too old to appreciate ladies’ favors.”
He roughed his streaked gray hair as he laughed again with a delicate whimsicality that took off the edge of offence.
“Sometimes, Ravenutzi, I think you are not so old as you look.”