University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.

We now return to the Sage and young chief standing
on the spot where we left them watching the approach of
Centeola and her train seen slowly advancing from the
distant point in the prairie, where they first became discernible.
At length they came within the distance of
half a mile, where the sex and varied characters of those
composing the unusual cortegè became distinguishable to
the keen eye of the young chief who, while the Sage had
fallen back into his seat, never once withdrew his excited
gaze from them after he had learned who was the principal
personage among them.

“They have at last come so near that I can distinctly
make out their number and general appearance, good
Alcoan,” said the young chief in tones almost tremulous
with the lively interest he felt in the advancing party.
“There are as I judge them to be by their costume, seven
maidens; and these seem to be attended by double that number
of men, and one half of them equipped as young warriors,
preceding the maidens; and the other half, older and
unarmed men, following closely in their rear.”

“Thou hast noted them well, and judged of them
correctly,” responded the Sage complacently. “Centeola
does not come unhonored, nor unsanctioned. The seven
maidens, including herself, are the representatives of
the seven tribes, as are also the young warriors and the
elderly men without arms. The train is now full, as I am
gratified to perceive by thy count. Two of them, according
to their promise made me last night at their village of
the Panthers over the river to the east, whither I went
to enlist them, and whence by the nearer route I came here
this morning, have somewhere joined the company on the
way.”

“But there is a strange appearance about one of the
maidens,” resumed the other with a deeply puzzled air.
“She appears to be mounted on some tall white animal.
Who can she be, Alcoan; and what is the animal that
seems to carry her so gracefully?”

“That is Centeola,” replied the Sage proudly; “and
the beautiful animal she rides is the horse.”[1]

“The horse? Ay, that is the name — the horse,” rejoined
the wondering young warrior,” I now mind me I
have heard the old men say, that in the days of their fathers,
there were in their country many of those animals,
which roamed the prairies at will, but which were often
caught, tamed, and made to bear on their backs hunters
and warriors, with the swifteness of the wind in the chase,
or on the war-path. But I thought they had all passed
away, and were no longer known in the land.”

“They have,” responded the Sage sadly, “they have
indeed, all passed away, melancholy types, it may be, of
the fate which awaits our once prosperous and powerful
people, — ay, all passed away, leaving as far as I know,
but one specimen remaining in the whole land. In my
early boyhood there were a few still left; in the boyhood
of my father, they were as plentiful as the deer and buffalo
that now inhabit our forests and prairies. But they
were mysteriously smitten by some fatal disease, which,
spreading far and wide among them, swept them, in a few

years all away but one, which was, at first saved from perishing
by me, and then, as I have always thought, preserved
by the special care and favor of the Great Spirit.”

“How was that, Sage?” asked the other, with the air
of awakened curiosity.”

“I will tell thee, young chief,” answered the Sage.
“When Centeola was a small girl, I made a journey to a
distant forest, where one day I suddenly came upon a very
young foal, standing over its prostrate and evidently dying
dam; I could not but be touched by the distress of the
bereaved little creature as its parent gave the last gasp;
straightened out and died. I therefore gently approached,
laid my hand on its back, and soon brought it to submit
willingly to my caresses. I then put a thong around
its neck, and after many trials, so reduced it to subjection
that I led it home with me, nourishing it on the way with
the milk of the bruised ears of the green maize, which it
quickly learned to suck as eagerly as it would have done
the teats of the mother. When I reached my lodge I
gave it to my little darling, Centeola, who, with eager delight,
took it at once in hand, made it her pet and companion,
trained it at last to bear her proudly on its back;
and thus she reared it to maturity, and all without showing
the least sign of the fatal disease by which the rest of
its kind had perished; for what Centeola loves the Great
Spirit seems also always to love and preserve.”

The spot now occupied by the Sage and young chief

was, as may have been before inferred, on the margin of
one of the loveliest valleys in the world, lying in the form of
a basin of a length of over ten miles, and of an average
breadth of about five, entirely inclosed with continuous
ridges of lofty hills, and skirted, on the east, by a majestic
river. It was the garden ground of the tribe of the
Feathered Serpents, where, having become in a good degree
an agricultural people, they raised an abundance of
maize, pulse, and many other edible products which, with
the unstinted quantities of fish taken from the rivers, and
the game from the forests and prairies would have, at all
times, placed the inhabitants beyond the contingencies of
want, but for the ruinous tribute yearly wrung from them
by the despotic government of the Imperial City. Besides
this productive valley there was a succession of others
of short intervals, both on the east and the west, and
it was at the point of the convergence of the roads leading
from the last named places, with that in which the awaited
train was advancing, that the opening scene of our story
was located.

As Centeola and her party were nearing this central
point, they suddenly came to a halt, and faced about to
the east, as if attracted by some sight or sound in that direction.
And, at nearly the same moment, the Sage and
young chief were startled by the sounds of loud lamentation,
uttered evidently by some distressed female, who appeared
to be approaching them along the road leading

from the east, and presently they caught glimpses of two
men coming from that direction, closely guarding a
young female, whom they were urging forward at a
quickened pace, as if to hurry her as fast as possible
out of the view of the halted train, to whom she appeared
to be appealing with wild gestures and piteous outcries.

“What means that, young chief?” exclaimed the Sage
with a severely questioning look. “Who are those men?
and what would they do with that distressed woman?”

Tulozin, who instantly comprehended the true character
of the scene, stood mute and abashed before the searching
glance of the Sage; for the latter, he perceived, comprehended
it also.

“The young chief would be thought a man and a warrior,”
rebukingly resumed the Sage; “Will he go and
rescue her from the hands of her oppressors?”

“Tulozin may not interfere with the orders of his
king,” replied the other deprecatingly. “Those men are
his officers coming in with one of the virgins destined for
the coming sacrifice.”

“What!” responded the Sage, “That reply may be well
for those who have not been yet brought to comprehend
the higher commands of the Great One above, who is
King over all kings, and who would have all His creatures
ready to protect the innocent from wrong and oppression.”

While the attention of Alcoan and Tulozin was thus
engaged, there was a visible but silent commotion going

on among the halted train of Centeola. Soon a sort of
wake, formed by the agitation of the tall grass, and extending
out in a direct line from the train to a thicket bordering
on the road, through which the captive maiden and her
guard were approaching, became distinctly observable,
plainly indicating that some animal, or man, in a creeping
posture, was rapidly, though invisibly, passing out
through the screening grass in that direction. But this
movement had not been noticed by the Sage and young
chief; and they were therefore taken by surprise by what
then quickly followed. Just as the two men and their
struggling victim were passing by the above mentioned
thicket, a large animal, having the exact resemblance of
a wild panther, suddenly leaped from the bushes, and
striking down the two guards-men with the rapid blows
of one of his huge paws, seized the captive maiden, threw
her over his back, and galloped off with her into an opposite
thicket, leaving the amazed guard, first to stand
aghast, a moment, and then to flee in wild dismay along
the path whence they came.

The young chief witnessed the strange incident with
silent astonishment; and in that astonishment, the Sage,
at first, fully participated; but new light soon broke on
his mind; for knowing that Centeola's guard, of the
Panther tribe, possessed the full skin of a large animal
of that name, in which he sometimes disguised himself, he
suspected the truth. He, however, did not impart his

surmises to the still wondering young chief, but thinking
it wisdom to let the affair pass as it appeared, quietly remarked:

“Tulozin now sees that the rescue which he declined to
attempt, the Great Spirit has found means to accomplish.”

“But the maiden,” said Tulozin, “is rescued from one
death only to meet a speedier one under the rending jaws
of the furious brute that seized her.”

“Even at that,” returned the Sage, “it were far better;
for then her death goes not to swell the measure of
the nation's manifold iniquities nor to hasten the nation's
doom.”

The conversation was here cut short by the arrival of
Centeola and her train. As they came up they changed
front, the warriors stepping aside and falling into the rear,
and the maidens leading the way. At the head of the latter
gracefully rode the queenly Centeola; while by her
side walked her confidential friend, the staid and comely
Mitla. The slightly varying costumes of the maidens
were extremely neat and tasteful, consisting of light featherwork
head-dresses, jackets made of fawn skins, tanned
and softened to the flexibility and whiteness of the finest
modern flannel, and skirts of the neatly woven and well-bleached
fibres of the wild hemp; all falling over tightly
fitting embroidered buskins. Such, with their various ornaments
as variously distributed, were the costumes of all
the maidens; while that of Centeola, with a similar

ground-work was much richer, and more elaborately ornamented
with fine shell-work and feathered embroidery.

Centeola now motioned her party to halt; when riding
forward to the spot where stood the Sage, she bowed her
beautiful head to him in respectful salutation, and said,

“Centeola keeps her appointment. She is here to greet
Alcoan; but she perceives that he is not alone at the place
of the appointed meeting.”

“Nay, my daughter, I am not. Since I reached here
I have been unexpectedly joined by another, but not offensively,
for he evidently entertains much respect and
friendship for us. He is the young chief of the Buffaloes.
He thinks he once met thee with thy companions
near the borders of our village.”

As the last words of the sage fell on the unexpectant
ears of the maiden, she started almost wildly; the blood
mounted to her cheeks, and she cast a furtive but eager
glance at the young chief, who had modestly retired a few
steps, standing aloof with averted face and eyes bent on
the ground, but who now, at this implied introduction,
raised his head and, with a free and manly step, advanced
to the greeting. He bowed low and reverently to her, and
with the look of adoration which he might be supposed to
have bestowed on some celestial visitant alighting before
him from the skies; while she, with quick heaving bosom,
and a countenance made eloquent by the old and long suppressed
emotions now evidently returning on her like a resistless

flood, bowed graciously in response to the salutation.
The recognition was complete and mutual, but far
too embarrassing on the part of both to admit any interchange
of words. The pause was first broken by
Alcoan, who soon turned to his daughter and remarked
—

“Tulozin, the young chief, if agreeable to my daughter,
would be pleased to join our company on our way to
the Imperial City, of which he has recently become a
resident.”

“We have but one mind in our company,” hesitatingly
responded Centeola, subduing her emotion and summoning
back the dignity and calmness which had so nearly
forsaken her on thus unexpected meeting the unknown
person, who had once been the burden of so many of her
thoughts and dreams — “one mind, one religion, and one
opinion respecting the demands of this alarming crisis in
our public affairs. Is he of that mind, that religion, that
opinion?”

“He seems willing to receive the true light, but is not
yet fully in that light,” said the Sage. “But of his wish
to attend us, he can speak for himself.”

“The Sage has spoken truly of my humble desire to
become one of thy attendants, fair Centeola,” said Tulozin
in tones of profound respect, “and I would esteem
myself greatly favored in being allowed to hold myself
subject to thy wishes, — certainly so in all that shall not

require me to disobey the orders of those who have claims
to my obedience. Before thy arrival, the Sage spoke of
thee as of one charged with some special mission to the
Imperial City. If I better knew the character of that
mission, I might be enabled to speak with less qualification.”

“My mission,” said the maiden with some hesitation,
“is not to be disclosed until it can be declared to those
for whom it was intended. But as I would not willingly
suffer the chief to be deceived respecting its general character,
I am compelled to tell him, that I go not to the
great city to speak smooth and flattering words to those
in authority there, but to declare to them those truths to
which they appear to be wholly blind, — to tell them plainly,
that the Great Spirit is offended at their pride and their
practices — that their priests are corrupt, their seers false
prophets, and that they, both the better to exalt themselves
and secure place and power in the government,
have combined in devising for the saving of the city and
nation the very measures, which, if not stayed in the execution,
will surely bring down the judgments of Heaven.
Now is Tulozin prepared to aid a mission like that?”

The young chief made no reply, but stood mute and
sorrowful. And the Sage perceiving that an answer was
not to be expected from the former, turned to Centeola
and said,

“Those who grope in darkness cannot with safety or

benefit be brought suddenly into the rays of the sun.
Thou hast thrown more on the mind of the young chief
than he can at once receive and comprehend. It only
blinds and bewilders him.”

“It is not that which now troubles me,” responded
the young chief with saddened and anxious look. “It is
the thought of the certain reproaches and, I fear, great
perils, to which the fair Centeola will expose herself if
she goes into the Imperial City and proclaims what she so
boldly proposes. Will the rulers brook such condemnation
of their practices and their policy? And will the
seers and priests, who are the advisers of those rulers,
submit to be called false prophets and to hear their rites
denounced? Rather than incur these hazards, would
not Centeola do well to forego her intention?”

“Nay, chief,” replied the maiden kindly but firmly.
“Centeola can never consent to forego the execution of a
mission, which she feels to have been prompted by the
Great Spirit, and on the success of which, as she thinks
she has been enabled to foresee, hangs the destiny of the
country.”

“Centeola has answered wisely,” observed the Sage,
“The voice of the Great Spirit in the heart is not to be
disobeyed; though kings frown, and the priestly workers
of iniquity denounce and threaten. He who prompted
this mission can protect her who is sent to execute it, and
should she be so protected then will the young chief take that

as a token that she is in the right; that her God is the
true God, and be ready to declare his belief accordingly?”

“Tulozin,” replied the young chief, “would gladly be
spared to witness such a test; but he will accept it as
such and abide by it in the manner proposed by the Sage.”

“It is well — I am content,” rejoined the other.
“But does the young chief still entertain apprehensions
for our safety?”

“I wish I could say I do not,” returned Tulozin with
an air of concern. “But I know how some have been
dealt with, who opposed our rulers, and especially those
who offended the Seers and chief priests. There are
deep dungeons under the temple of Mixitli.”

“It may all be as thou sayest,” responded the former;
“but Centeola and Alcoan are not to be deterred from
their duties by any such unworthy fears, even were they
well grounded. But in our case, at least, they are not;
for I, too, may have a mission to execute; and in the execution
I shall be aided by a talisman too potent to be disregarded
by any of those who may have the will and the
power to injure or molest us.”

“The Sage speaks words of mystery, to which I can
say nothing” said Tulozin wonderingly. “But I will
trust that thy faith is not misplaced. I will trust that
both Centeola and Alcoan will be blessed and protected
by her God, and his God.”

“And why not also say Tulozin's God?” asked the

maiden with a sweet and winning smile, which sent such
a thrill of emotion through the heart of the other as prevented
him, for the moment, from attempting any reply.

Regaining command of his feelings, however, he slowly
and thoughtfully responded:

“Every word which has fallen from thy lips, beauteous
maiden, has sunk deep in my heart. From the discourse
I held with the wise and worthy Alcoan here, before
thou and thy train arrived, with what thou hast thyself
since expressed, I think I now comprehend thy views
and his, respecting all thou wouldst impress on my mind.
Most of those views are new to me, and different from
what I have believed; but I will ponder them well, with
the honest desire to become convinced of the truth, to become
right and to do right. But true and lasting conviction
is not the growth of an hour. Thou hast opened a
new and bright path before me, leading wide away from
the shadowy one which I was treading. Let me pause
and reflect before I fully enter it.”

“The young chief has spoken like a Sage,” said Alcoan.
“There is much wisdom in his words. Then let us
press him no more on these subjects at present, my daughter;
but, if he still desires it, let us bid him welcome to a
place in our train.”

Centeola graciously nodded her approbation of this proposition;
and the young chief repaid her and the Sage
with a look of the liveliest gratification: for with his intense

feelings of devotion towards the maiden, and his
corresponding anxiety to gain her good will, of which,
from the first part of her discourse, he had begun to despair,
he was but too thankful for even this uncertain indication
of her favor.

Centeola's maiden attendants had, in the meanwhile,
prepared and spread on the green grass on the well shaded
bank of a sparkling rivulet, a collation of food, consisting
mainly of cooked venison, cakes baked from the
finely pounded maize; and delicious native wines, contained
in gourd shell bottles, which, with the articles of food, had
been brought along with the train by the appointed provider
for the occasion. And they all now, including the
gratified Tulozin, sat down to their sylvan repast. After
this was partaken, the young chief proposed to go forward
in advance to the city to prepare quarters for the train;
which he thought he could obtain in a house adjoining
that of his father. And the proposal being accepted, he
immediately departed for that purpose, proposing to return
and meet them on the way, or at the gate of the city,
while the train, as soon as the heat of the noon-day sun
was abated, should follow at their leisure.