Chapter Thirty Five.
A Dangerous Eavesdropper.
However successful in his suit with Conchita, Walt Wilder is not without a rival. Hamersley has reason to suspect this soon after separating from the lovers, which he does, leaving them to themselves. It has occurred to him, that the presence of more than two on that spot can be no longer desirable. His part has been performed, and he withdraws without saying a word.
There is a third man, notwithstanding—a spectator—whose breast is stirred with terrible emotion.
As the Kentuckian passes out through the copse, he catches sight of a figure crouching behind the trunk of a tree—apparently that of a man. Twilight is now on, and beneath the leafy branches reigns an obscurity almost equalling night. What he sees may be some straying animal, or perhaps it is only fancy. His thoughts are engrossed with that which carries him on towards the house. There one will be awaiting him, in whose refined presence he will soon forget the uncouth spectacle of courtship at which he has been assisting.
But the form he has observed cowering under the shadow of the cotton-woods was no fancy, nor four-footed creature, but a human being, a man—in short, Manuel the Indian.
Manuel is mad in love with the little mestiza, who, with Spanish blood in her veins, is, nevertheless, maternally of his own race—that of the Indios mansos, or “tame Indians,” of New Mexico—so called in contradistinction to the Indios bravos, the savages who, from the conquest till this day, have never submitted themselves to Spanish rule. Though Christianised, after a fashion, by the Franciscans, with others of the missionary fathers—living in walled towns, each with its capilla or church, and cultivating the lands around, many of these so-called Christian Indians still continue to practice Pagan rites, more or less openly. In some of their villages, it is said, the estafa, or sacred fire, is kept burning, and has never been permitted to go out since the time of Montezuma, from whom and his people they believe themselves descended. They are undoubtedly of Aztec race, and sun-worshippers, as were the subjects of the unfortunate Emperor of Tenochtitlas.
Travellers who have visited their more remote “pueblos” have witnessed something of this sun-worship, seeing them ascend to the flat roofs of their singularly constructed houses, and there stand in fixed attitude, devoutly gazing at the sun as it ascends over the eastern horizon.