Chiquita had noticed the furtive, stolen glances he had cast at her from time to time during the journey, a thing strange in an Indian, and it caused her some uneasiness, but now she understood. He had just acknowledged her by his attitude of submission and the salute common to his people, as their tribal head.
"You and I, Princess, were the sole survivors of that last battle in which your father's band was annihilated," continued José in Spanish, seating himself once more on the ground on the other side of the fire opposite Chiquita who again had taken her place beside the Captain.
"I do not wonder that you did not recognize me," he went on after a pause, during which he rolled and lit a fresh cigarillo. "I was a mere boy at the time. The battle, you will remember, took place just before sunset, and when the enemy charged our camp, I was struck on the head, as you see by the scar over my left eye. I fell over a ledge of rock into a gully below, alighting in a thick clump of bushes, breaking my fall and saving my life. Fortunately the bushes concealed me from view, causing the enemy to overlook me, else they certainly had finished me before departing. I lay unconscious all that night until noon of the following day, when I awoke. For a long time after awakening I was too weak to rise, but finally I managed to crawl to the little stream that ran at the bottom of the gully just below me. There I slaked my thirst and washed my face and wound and bound it up as best I could. All that afternoon I lay by the stream, drinking and dipping my head in the water until evening, when I regained sufficient strength to crawl back to the top of the great rock where we made our last stand.
"There, a ghastly sight met my eyes. With his back against a large bowlder where the enemy had placed him, sat your father, the Whirlwind, still dressed in his war regalia and around him, just as they had fallen, lay our dead comrades. I counted them. There were forty-eight in all, and as you were not among the dead, I rightly conjectured, as it soon afterward proved, that you had been taken prisoner. Three weeks later I succeeded in reaching our people and told the news. A war party was organized immediately, and I guided it back to the land of the Ispali where after a battle, we learned of your capture and escape from several of the Ispali whom we succeeded in capturing.
"That was ten years ago, and ever since then, we have sent out runners each year to visit the towns and villages throughout the land in the hope of finding you and bringing you back again to rule over us; for as you know, Princess, you are the last of the royal blood. But in vain. In spite of the fact that the White Cloud, our great Sachem, said you were still alive, that he repeatedly saw you among the living in his visions and predicted your return, we found no trace of you. That was because we had overlooked Santa Fé. It lies so far east of our country that it escaped our notice. We never imagined that you had crossed the Sierra Madres in your flight, and had I not chanced to enter the Captain's service, we probably never would have heard of you again.
"But now I understand that it was so intended—that the time was not yet ripe. That the Great Spirit had ordained you should not return to your people until you had become worthy of the charge which is about to be conferred upon you, and which, as you shall presently learn, goes to prove the truth of the subsequent prophecies the White Cloud made concerning you." He paused and for some minutes gazed silently into the fire. He had accompanied his narrative with intense, dramatic gestures and expressions illustrative of its incidents; a characteristic common to his race. Presently a smile lit up his face and looking up once more, he resumed.
"You remember, Princess, how the White Cloud counseled us to accept the terms of the Government, bad though they were, and make peace, and prophesied that disaster would befall us if we refused. Well, then as now, events have proved the truth of his words. As the years went by and no further trace of you could be found, the people lost hope of ever seeing you again and said you were dead. But the White Cloud maintained that you were still alive; that the day of your return was drawing ever nearer; that he heard the song of birds and the sound of laughing waters and beheld the desert carpeted with flowers in his vision and you in their midst coming towards them, which typified the renewal of life and rebirth of the nation. But when he announced that he always saw you in the company of a white man who later should rule over us, they laughed at his prophecies.
"'A white man rule over the Tewana? How absurd—impossible!' They shook their heads and said: 'The White Cloud is old—his vision has become dim, impaired through age!'"
The Captain and Chiquita were too amazed by José's words to venture a reply, and sat gazing alternately at one another and then at the speaker.
"When I first met the Captain," continued José, "I wondered greatly why I was so drawn toward him. True, he was a man to my liking and I was doubly grateful to him for saving my life, but that did not wholly account for my attachment. I was drawn to him irresistibly as by an invisible power. I could not leave him; and when I again saw you, Princess, on the day that you and the beautiful Señorita met for the first time and heard from your own lips who you were as well as your avowal of love for my Master, I knew then that the White Cloud had read rightly the future; that my Master, the Grand Señor, had been chosen by the Great Spirit to rule with you over our people.