"Isn't it strange how easily one can return to the natural life if one
has known it before?" said Chiquita later in the evening, as the three
lay stretched on their blankets around the small fire which José had
kindled in the center of the grove, and watched the flickering flames
and dancing shadows against the dark pine boughs surrounding them.
"The life of yesterday has fallen from me," she continued, gazing
pensively into the fire whose red glare illumined her beautiful bronze
features.
"Yes, you are an Indian once more, Chiquita _mia_," said the Captain.
"Ah! you are as much of an Indian as José or myself!" she retorted
gayly. "What a pity you didn't know the life before the land was
conquered and tamed by the White man! Verily, a glory has passed from
this earth!" A peculiar light shone in José's eyes as he listened to her
words. He seemed on the point of speaking, but did not. He smiled and
rolled a fresh _cigarillo_, lighting it with a pine twig which he took
from the fire.
"Tell me why you insisted on our coming this way, Chiquita?" asked the
Captain, disposing himself comfortably on his blanket.
"Because I want to see my people again. They are the strongest and most
advanced people in Mexico, and we will be safe with them until things
have quieted down. Because I wanted you to see where I came from and how
I lived before Padre Antonio introduced me to a new world and made of me
a woman that you could love. Besides, we can start from their country on
our camping trip as well as from any other place. My people are not
quite the savages you probably think them. But there is something else,"
she continued after a pause. "I was impelled, drawn this way. Why, I can
not say, but something always kept pointing me toward the northwest. I
feel as though the climax of our lives is yet to come; that we are on
the verge of something great; that our work in life may begin with
them."
"Perhaps it may be so!" interrupted José, no longer able to conceal the
agitation her words aroused in him. "That is, if the vision of the White
Cloud prove to be true. At any rate, my people await your coming," he
added. At the mention of the White Cloud, Chiquita sat bolt upright,
regarding José intently the while--then rose to her feet.
"The White Cloud? Your people?" she repeated excitedly. "Then you are a
Tewana?" José also had risen from his sitting posture, and dropping on
one knee with face downward and both arms extended straight out before
him with the palms of the hands turned downward, he exclaimed in the
Tewana tongue: "Princess, Flaming Star--I greet you! I am Onakipo, the
Pine Tree, son of Ixlao, the Swan!" José's attitude and manner of speech
formed a most striking picture. He had not even revealed his true
identity to the Captain.
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.
"It was then that I learned how you had come to Padre Antonio, after
which I returned to our people and told them what I knew; that I had
found not only you, but also the White Chief whom the White Cloud had
seen in his vision, and that, if you returned to them at all, it would
surely be as his bride. At first they would not believe me, but when I
persisted and reminded them of the disasters that had befallen us in the
past for our failure to heed the White Cloud's councils, they at last
yielded and called a grand council and decided to send a deputation
composed of the leading men of the nation to verify my statements.
"It was not so much the news that you were still alive that was so
difficult for them to believe, but that a white man should rule over
them--a thing impossible and past all belief; besides, they would not
have it. However, when I conducted the deputation, consisting of six of
our leading men, to Santa Fé and they secretly beheld you, Princess,
they one and all exclaimed as with one breath: ''Tis she, the
Princess--the Flaming Star! How like her father, the Whirlwind, she is!'
"They wanted to disclose their identity to you then and there and exhort
you to return with them to your people, but I persuaded them to wait,
reminding them that the White Cloud's prophecy was not yet entirely
fulfilled. I then showed you to them, Master," he went on, addressing
the Captain, "and although they acknowledged that you were a magnificent
specimen of a man and had the appearance of one born to command, they
shook their heads and said it was impossible--that a White Chief could
never rule over the Tewana.
"'Of a truth,' I answered, 'the black-robed Padres are right! You are a
stiff-necked people who persist in following in the footsteps of our
forefathers who, we all know, were unable to lead the people to the
light. Only the White Cloud was able to foresee the future; grasp the
significance of both the Padres' and our ancient Sachems' teachings.
That the old order of things had come to an end. That the time had come
when strife must cease among men; that the tidings were now to be
fulfilled which the White Child with a face like the sun had brought to
the world, and whose coming our ancient Sachems had predicted in the
ancient days. Know also, that the Princess has seen the great world
which you have not seen; that in many ways she is more like a white
woman than one of our race; that she is wiser than you are; that the
Great Spirit has shown her the things that are good for us, and if she
becomes the wife of the White Chief, you must accept him if you accept
her, for without him she will never return to you. Besides, the White
Chief is the wisest of us all. In his sight both we and most of the men
of his own race are as children.'
"They could not find a fitting answer to my words and returned to our
people. Ever since then runners have been coming and going constantly
between us. They have been apprised of our coming and await us." José
ceased speaking and sat gazing meditatively into the fire where he
watched the pink and violet flames leap upward and lose themselves in
the thin wreath of white smoke which slowly ascended and floated away
over the tree tops. For some time no one spoke, then Captain Forest
finally broke the silence.
"What you say, José, is truly wonderful; but know, that we have no more
desire to rule the Tewana than to rule other men. But should they, like
the rest of the world, fail to heed our example, they shall perish in
their ignorance." He leaned forward and tossed some fresh sticks of wood
on the fire.
"It is time for the first watch, José," he continued, rising to his
feet and glancing up at the stars visible above the tree tops. "Call me
when the Great Bear has half circled the Pole Star. I'll keep the second
watch."