IN WHICH THE BROTHER OF THE SUN WELCOMES THE CHILDREN OF THE MOON
The Brother of the Sun, overjoyed at the opportunity now before
him to offer hospitality to guests upon whose white faces he gazed
with mingled admiration and astonishment, had come in state to the
confines of the forest to testify to the cordiality of a greeting that
illuminated his well-cut, strong, and mobile countenance. The Great
Sun, as he was called--his exact relationship to the orb of day being,
to a large extent, a matter of conjecture--was an elderly man, fully
six feet six inches in height, with a light-mahogany complexion, hair
still jet-black, and brilliant, dark eyes gazing proudly forth upon a
world which, from the hour of his birth, had paid abject homage to his
exalted rank.
He was enthroned in a litter resembling a huge sedan-chair, which was
carried upon the shoulders of eight stalwart men in white attire but
bare-footed. The four long arms of the litter were painted red, and
its body was decorated with embroidered deer-skins, leaves of the
magnolia-tree, and garlands of red and white flowers. His head was
ornamented by a diadem of white feathers. Inserted in the lobes of his
shapely ears were rings of decorated bone. He wore a necklace made of
the teeth of alligators, and against the background of his raven-black
hair gayly colored beads shone in the sunlight.
Behind his litter marched a mighty army of three thousand stalwart
men, bare-armed, bare-legged, in a uniform of flowing, white, plaited
mulberry bark, relieved by dyed skins, striped with yellow, black, and
red, thrown across their broad shoulders. They carried bows made of the
acacia-wood, and arrows of reed tipped with bird-feathers. Gigantic,
muscular, stern-faced warriors, the army of the sun-worshippers broke
upon the gaze of the astonished Europeans with startling effect.
It has been asserted that the immediate ancestors of these children
of the sun, angered at Montezuma, had joined Cortez in his victorious
campaign against that unfortunate monarch. Later on, crushed and
rebellious under Spanish tyranny, they had migrated toward the north
and had found peaceful lands to their liking near the banks of the
lower Mississippi. Whatever may be the truth of this, the fact remains
that upon the afternoon which found Sieur de la Salle’s envoys the
honored guests of the Brother of the Sun, the latter’s army defiled
to the eastward of the city with ranks which begot in the eyes of
the Count de Sancerre and the veteran de Tonti a gleam of mingled
amazement and admiration. Not only were the warriors of the sun,
individually, men suggesting prowess and endurance, but they, as a
body, gave evidence of having learned, from sources beyond the reach
of native Americans further to the northward, tactics indicating a
European origin. If the sun-worshippers had, in fact, suffered from
Spanish cruelty, they had also derived from their tyrannical allies
valuable hints pertaining to the art of war. As he gazed at this army
of athletes, Henri de Tonti, for the first time since he had left
de la Salle’s camp, felt regret for the protest he had made against
the expedition which his leader had decreed. Here before him stood a
splendid band of soldiers who might be made, with some diplomacy, loyal
friends to the on-pushing French.
To the mind of Zenobe Membré the martial array before him presented a
magnificent collection of lost souls, well worthy, in outward seeming,
of the saving grace of the cross. To snatch from the grasp of Satan
so many glorious exponents of manly vigor would be, indeed, a triumph
for Mother Church. Something of this he breathed into the ear of the
motionless and silent Chatémuc, who stood with the friar upon a low
hillock, overlooking the plain, viewing with amazement this imposing
regiment, each member of which seemed to be taller by several inches
than the stately Mohican.
“Look, Katonah!” cried de Sancerre, seizing the Indian maiden by the
arm. “See, there, at the side of his dark-brown Majesty’s peripatetic
flower-garden, stands my aged midnight prowler! Her old face is turned
up to his. Can you see her, _ma petite_?”
Katonah stretched her shapely limbs to their utmost to look above
the press in front of her, and presently her eyes lighted upon the
shrivelled crone with whose discovery she had been intrusted by de la
Salle.
“Go to your brother and keep the friar by his side until I return,
Katonah,” whispered the Frenchman, excitedly. “I must have speech at
once with this old hag.”
The sun-worshippers, pouring in throngs from their abandoned city--men,
women, and children following and preceding the army in the fervor
of their welcome to the white-faced children of the moon, who had
come to them so mysteriously from the bosom of a wonder-working
stream--impeded, by their respectful but exacting curiosity, the
progress of de Sancerre toward the royal group. Women, scantily clad
but gay with flowers and feathers, would put forth their brown hands to
touch the tattered velvets of the Frenchman’s travel-stained but once
gorgeous costume. Naked boys and girls squirmed toward him unabashed,
marvelling at the pallor of his face and the splendor of the buckles
upon his shoes.
“_Peste!_” muttered the annoyed courtier under his breath. “If they but
knew how hard I have to strive to hold these outworn garments to my
back, they’d keep their hands away. I’ll reach the royal presence as
naked as a baby unless they grow more gentle with my garb.” And all the
time he smiled and bowed, while men and women, boys and girls, cried
out in wild approval of his courtly grace.
Henri de Tonti, who had lost much of his European polish through the
long friction of camps and the wilderness, had reached the Great Sun’s
flowery throne without winning the enthusiastic good-will of these
impressionable adult children, who seemed to feel instinctively that
the unbending, sallow, grim-faced Italian was less worthy, somehow, of
their friendship than the fascinating, smiling Frenchman who followed
gayly in the footsteps of the unmagnetic captain toward their king.
In the presence of royalty the advantage in address possessed by de
Sancerre over de Tonti was emphasized at once. With curt ceremony the
Italian had saluted the smiling, black-eyed monarch, and had then stood
silent, gazing helplessly upon the expectant throng pressing toward the
litter, in the vain hope of finding some way to communicate with the
royal sun-worshipper.
De Sancerre’s triumphal progress toward the throne had attracted the
attention of the Brother of the Sun, and the plaudits of his subjects
had led the latter to believe that the leading personage among his
pale-faced guests was now before him. Falling gracefully upon one knee,
the Frenchman kissed the out-stretched hand of the beaming King with a
flourish and a fervor which aroused the admiring multitude to a fresh
outburst of delighted shouts.
“_Ma foi_, your Majesty!” exclaimed de Sancerre, in French, as he arose
to his feet, “the encore warms my blood like wine! I like your people!
They see at once the difference ’twixt a curmudgeon and a cavalier.”
His eyes rested triumphantly upon the countenance of the disconcerted
de Tonti for a moment, and then looked forth upon the sea of dusky,
smiling faces upturned to his. Almost within reach of his hand stood
the old woman who had borne to his bedside a welcome from the children
of the sun.
“Well met, señora!” cried de Sancerre, in Spanish, to the grinning
hag. “Come to me here! Your tongue shall bind the ties of love between
your king and mine!”
With the quickness of perception which his bright eyes indicated, the
Brother of the Sun seemed to grasp the significance of de Sancerre’s
last words, for he beckoned to the aged crone to approach the royal
presence. With a rapidity of motion strangely out of keeping with her
time-worn appearance, the old woman reached de Sancerre’s side on the
instant, and, having made her obeisance to the throne, stood looking up
at the Frenchman expectantly. To the latter’s astonishment he saw in
her small, black, beady eyes a gleam of saturnine humor which assured
him that between his soul and hers stretched at least one sympathetic
bond.
“Say to his Majesty for my king, my people, and myself,” went on de
Sancerre, in Spanish, holding the gaze of the interpreter to his, “that
our hearts beat with joy at the welcome you extend to us. Say to him
that the king of kings, far beyond the great water of the sea, sends
greeting to his Brother of the Sun, and craves his friendship for all
time to come. This much at once; but, later on, assure his Majesty I
hope to lay before him plans and projects worthy of his warlike fame,
that he, your monarch, and my king of kings may know no equals ’neath
the sun and moon.” De Sancerre paused to give the interpreter a chance
to turn his words into her native tongue. (“In sooth,” he muttered
to himself, as he turned to smile again upon the now silent throng
surrounding the low hillock upon which the King’s litter stood, “had I
but shown myself so great a diplomat in France, I might have changed
the map of Europe with my tongue and pen.”) “And what, señora, saith
the Son of Suns?”
“He answers you with words of deepest love,” answered the old woman,
turning toward the Frenchman from the royal sun-worshipper, whose
dark-hued face glowed with the delight de Sancerre’s adroitly-framed
sentences had begotten. “He offers the hand of friendship to your king,
the Brother of the Moon, and will divide with him the waters and the
lands in perfect amity. He bids me say to you that in this day the
children of the sun find glorious fulfilment of ancient prophecies.
Before the East had parted from the West, and North and South were
wrapped in close embrace, ’twas told by wise, inspired tongues that
some day by the waters of a boundless sea a goddess in deep sleep,
sent to our people by the sun itself, would meet the eyes of roving
huntsmen, wandering far afield. Our seers have told us that when she
had come--Coyocop, the very spirit of the sun, our god--our race would
meet our brothers of the moon, and all the world would bow beneath our
yoke.”
De Sancerre, impatient by temperament, and finding difficulty in fully
understanding the disjointed Spanish _patois_ used by the old woman,
had paid but little real attention to this long speech, in spite of the
attitude of absorbed interest which he had assumed, knowing that the
piercing eyes of the sun’s brother were scanning his face attentively.
“Your name is, señora--is--” he asked, as the wrinkled hag paused an
instant to regain her breath.
“Noco,” she answered, simply.
“Doña Noco, say to his Majesty that others of our suite are approaching
the throne to lay their homage at his feet, and that I, his servant,
crave further speech with him anon. Then, señora, if you love me, draw
aside a pace or two, that I may have a word with you alone.”
Hardly had de Sancerre ceased to speak when through an opening in the
throng made by the courteous sun-worshippers came toward the throne the
gray-frocked friar, Zenobe Membré, followed by Katonah and Chatémuc,
side by side. The Franciscan, chanting in a light but well-rounded
voice a Latin hymn, bore aloft before him a rudely-carved wooden
crucifix. With his large gray eyes raised to heaven, and his face
radiant with the religious ecstasy which filled his soul, he looked,
at that moment, to the eyes of the overwrought sun-worshippers, like a
man created of shadows and moonbeams, bearing toward their sovereign a
mystic symbol potent for good or ill.
The effect of the friar’s dramatic approach upon the impressionable
Brother of the Sun served de Sancerre’s purpose well. Unobserved by the
King, whose eyes were fixed upon the chanting priest, the Frenchman
seized this opportunity to draw Noco aside. Removing from his breast
the piece of mulberry bark upon which was scrawled the name of Julia de
Aquilar, he asked, in a whisper which did not disguise his excitement:
“Who wrote this name? Tell me, Doña Noco, for the love of God!”
“Coyocop,” muttered the hag, in a voice indicating the fear that she
felt of the Frenchman’s impetuosity. Her answer conveyed no meaning to
the straining ear of de Sancerre.
“Tell me more, good Noco,” he implored, glancing furtively at the
Brother of the Sun, who had arisen to greet the oncoming Franciscan.
“I dare not--now,” whispered Noco, nervously. “Anon, perhaps, if the
chance should come.”
With this unsatisfactory promise the interpreter returned to resume
her duties at her sovereign’s side, and de Sancerre, mystified and
morose, turned to watch the efforts of Zenobe Membré to dethrone the
deified sun in favor of the true God.