“I believe it is seven o’clock, Miss Annie,” he said, when she answered his call.
“Yes, and I am ready,” was the cheerful answer.
XXII.
A VOICE FROM CENTURIES PAST.
Buchan was ready to throw the lever of his engine and roll out of Tucson, when a messenger handed him a packet bearing the postmark of Peru. The missive showed signs of age, and, having traveled much, had reached its destination at last. He tossed it into his tool box and an hour later when speeding over the scorched deserts of Arizona, he opened the packet. The letter was dated at Truxillo and read:
“Dear Don Juan––I have been ill for many months, and I feel that my end is drawing nigh, but before I go I want to do something for you. I have heard how Don Rodrigo so justly met his end, and with this knowledge I die easier. You are young and strong, with a long life of usefulness ahead, and I feel that in entrusting to you a family secret, I am only doing that which 195 I would have done had Felicita lived. She was the last of our house and the heritage of our family belonged to her. As it is, I make you my heir to the valuable papers handed down to me from my ancestors. May they prove to you a blessing. Would that I had more to give you. May the blessings of the Virgin ever rest upon you.
“Julian.”
Accompanying the letter was a parchment scroll, dated Lima, 1752. It read:
“I, Jean Maldonado, do write of my extraordinary adventures in Nueva Espanola, wherein I was duly appointed the Commander of an expedition to the land of Quivera, in search of the Seven Cities of Cibola, in the service of his excellency, the viceroy of Santa Fe. A barbarian told us he would lead us unto a land to the far north, where shops blazed with jewels and common cooking vessels were made of gold; that the metal was so common as to be of no value. The king of this city took his noonday meals beneath a golden canopy, 196 hung with tinkling silver bells. There was a sea upon which this king rode in a canoe, which would carry twenty horses. Upon its prow was an idol of beaten gold. The canoe was fitted with sumptuous cushions, upon which the monarch took his siestas, to the music made by dancing maidens with bells and castanets. Fish as large as horses abounded, and sweet fruit bigger than a soldier’s helmet grew upon the trees. The monarch who ruled over this land was long-bearded, white-haired, and wore robes of bright-hued, rich stuffs, and slept in a garden where trees were hung with a thousand bells, which made exquisite music when shaken by the wind. And this king worshipped the golden image of a woman, the Queen of Heaven, and ate from gold and silver bowls, of which the dais he sat upon was made. He spoke with vast assurance and said he would conduct us thither whenever we should follow.