"The White Cloud? Your people?" she repeated excitedly. "Then you are a Tewana?" Jose 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!" Jose's att.i.tude and manner of speech formed a most striking picture. He had not even revealed his true ident.i.ty 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 att.i.tude 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 Jose 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 Fe. 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 ill.u.s.trative 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 Jose'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 Jose, "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 Senorita 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 Senor, 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 Fe 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 ident.i.ty 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." Jose 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, Jose, 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, Jose," 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."

x.x.xIX

Jose brought in the horses and he and the Captain saddled and packed them; after which they silently broke camp in the light of the stars and the waning moon. Jose took his place at the head of the little cavalcade, Chiquita following him and the Captain bringing up the rear; he and Chiquita casting a last look at their first camp as they rode away.

No one spoke. Save for the measured tread of the horses and noise of the rushing stream along which the trail led upwards, no sounds disturbed the silence of the night. Now and then an occasional spark, struck from the horses' iron-rimmed hoofs, flashed for an instant in the darkness along the trail.

The Captain's gaze was riveted upon Chiquita's tall, erect figure in front of him who ever and anon turned in the saddle and smiled, her beautiful, l.u.s.trous eyes flashing like stars in the moon-fire.

Higher and higher they mounted, pausing occasionally to allow the horses time to draw breath, until they at length drew rein on the summit of the Sierra Madres. Here a wonderful sight met their eyes, poised as they were upon the rim of the earth and gazing off into star-strewn s.p.a.ce.

Dawn was just breaking, suffusing the long line of the eastern horizon with a soft, rosy glow which crept swiftly towards them over the gray-green, purple plains that swept away from the mountains' base like vast undulating stretches of ocean; the golden shafts of the on-coming dawn driving the paling stars before them like a shepherd his flocks to the hills. North and south, as far as the eye could reach, stretched the broken and many crested length of the great Sierra Madre range; its sides clothed with dark forests of cedar and pine and chaparral, its secluded recesses obscured in the gloom; its highest peaks glowing with golden, pink and violet tints. In the west, surrounded by a host of golden stars that still glittered in the purple black depths of vanishing night, the silver moon hung half-way dipped as it slowly sank behind the towering crest of the Sahuaripa range, an isolated spur of the Sierra Madres. A vast plain intervened between them and the distant Sierras at whose foot dwelt the Tewana.

Far below them, from out the shadowy depths on either side of the range, arose faint sounds of awakening life. The breeze began to sigh among the tree tops, while high above them they heard the wild scream of eagles that soared in great circles with widespread pinions in their morning flight to greet the sun. Great waves of indefinable melody, more subtle and exquisite than music, swept over them, causing their souls to quicken and tingle in the freshening dawn as the Day Star rose to hold again his sway over earth. His mighty splendor and effulgence swept through and over them, their souls vibrating with renewed life and vigor as they felt and recognized G.o.d's sign and immanence as in the days when man first walked with Him in the cool of the morning.

They realized that they had entered upon the new life. The promise was fulfilled--the veil was lifted. The scroll of human destiny seemed to unroll itself from out the dim traditions of the past, and they beheld as in a dream the life that was when first the children of men roamed the earth and established the Kingdom of G.o.d which was intended from the beginning. In the picture of the golden childhood of the race, they beheld reflected in the new light of the future, the vision of the emanc.i.p.ated, delivered man, guided by the lessons still to be learned from the great Book of Nature lying open before him, and the acc.u.mulated wisdom of past ages, handed down to him by his forefathers through travail and suffering and in legend and song from those ancient days of suns and nights of stars when the earth and man were young. A freeborn race of men who are joint tenants of the soil, sharing all things in common with which their bountiful Mother, the Earth, has provided them.

A race of men, athletic in body as they are able in mind, and spiritual and courageous, recognizing no laws but those of Nature's or G.o.d's.

In silence and with bared heads they gazed upon the grandeur of the scene that lay spread out before them. It was as though they looked back upon the old life from another world. It lay so far behind them that it seemed but a memory; not a vestige of it clung to them, so filled were they with new hopes and aspirations.

"Behold!" cried Jose excitedly, pointing toward the west. And looking in the direction indicated by his outstretched arm, they beheld in the dim distance numerous columns of smoke rising heavenward in the clear morning air from the tops of the _mesas_ that dotted the plain.

"'Tis the sign of your coming, Princess!" he continued. "The people have bowed to the will of the White Cloud--acknowledged the authority of the White Chief."

Parrakeets began to twitter among the branches of the trees on every hand during their descent of the western slope. Ravens croaked and called from the heart of the forest, and the owl flitted by on silent wing. Black birds with orange heads and throats and splashed with scarlet on their wings, greeted them at the foot of the mountain among the reeds which grew along the stream they were following. Deer broke from the willow copse and bounded away, while grouse rose on whirring wings from under the horses' hoofs as they emerged upon the plain where the wild cry of the curlew rang clear and sharp on the morning. They were free and breathed deep of the spirit of freedom; listened to the old primeval song of nature's myriad voices; gazed long upon the pristine loveliness of earth.

All that day and the three following, the columns of smoke continued to rise heavenward as they pursued their journey. At night, pillars of fire took the place of the smoke, and all the while, save for an occasional glimpse in the distance of a solitary horseman who faded specterlike from view on their approach, they saw not a soul.

The Spirit of the Great Mystery brooded over the land, and they rode as in a dream. The fragrant cedar and pinon-scented smoke mingled with the soft, thin haze of the Indian summer which veiled the land in its golden glow of mystery; the sacred incense, the Red men say, of the G.o.ds, burned on their altars in ancient days; a sign to the people to gather each year on the hilltops and _mesas_, and in the forests and plains during the moon of falling leaves, and celebrate in prayer and sacred dance and song, the advent of the G.o.ds.

The wind was hushed and all things seemed to sleep and dream, and they seemed to draw nearer to the heart of things. The great change that had come into their lives was, after all, no more wonderful than the changes which they saw had taken place in nature about them. A luxuriant growth of tropical vegetation, succeeded by vast forests of conifers, a remnant of which still survived upon the mountains, once flourished in the semi-desert through which they traveled. An occasional broken, half-buried pillar, or the remains of a crumbling wall that had witnessed the pa.s.sing of the ages and listened to the tales borne on the winds, marked the existence of vanished civilizations of which men to-day know naught. All things appeared to change and fade, nothing seemed permanent, not even the ideal; the morrow was but a forgetting.

Beneath them they felt the Earth, ponderous and weighty and crushing in its immensity to the imagination, and whose existence seemed of little moment in comparison to the countless worlds that filled the universe about them. Yet, insignificant though it appeared, was it not a link in the great universal scheme of matter, and did it not stand in the same relation to the universe as their individual lives to the human race?

Like two stars their souls had rushed together from the uttermost confines of s.p.a.ce. She had been led into his world, and he compelled to retrace his steps to almost primitive conditions in order that they might find one another and together take up the thread of their common destiny. Clearly, they were children of destiny upon whose brows G.o.d had set His seal. They realized that the path which lay before them was not one entirely strewn with flowers. That between the chosen ones, life meant something more than the love of a man for a woman, or a woman's for a man. That they still stood with their feet in the flame; that earth's cup of joy for them must still remain one of bitter-sweet; that they must go on to the end in order that men might see and hear; that the new order of things must spring from them.

Gay was the Princess. She laughed and talked and related incidents of her life and her people; the silvery tinkle of the bells on her spurs, accompanying every movement of her horse, chimed sweetly with her mood.

In the raven folds of her blue-black hair, she wore again the red berries as on the day when first he beheld her. She seemed a part of that tawny landscape, splashed with great patches of crimson and gold and gray and purple--the spirit and incarnation of the Indian summer.

As he gazed upon her and listened to her words, the wild refrain of those familiar lines recurred to him:

"I will wed some savage woman; she shall rear my dusky race: Iron-jointed, supple-sinewed, they shall dive and they shall run, Catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their lances in the sun, Whistle back the parrot's call,--leap the rainbows of the brooks,--"

The woman of the ages had come back again. Lilith and Eve and Isis and Venus, the foam-kissed, and Erda, the dreaming one. The vision of the ancient world rose before him; virgin forests and plains and mighty rivers and mountains; the ancient temples of the Nile and the Ganges, h.e.l.las' fanes and Druidic monoliths and sacred groves, and voices of strange peoples mingled with the soft notes of reed and lute.

Within the unending circle of life and death, of love and hatred, of joy and sorrow and remorse which mark the rise and pa.s.sing of the civilizations, he beheld the sacred ash and pine, and starry lotus afloat upon the face of moonlit waters in which were mirrored the palm and papyrus and acanthus, and stood face to face with the serpent and wolf, the winged horse and sphinx, and the dragon and the griffin when their secret origins and significance were known unto men. The sounds of harps and cymbals and lyres and timbrels blended with those of conch-sh.e.l.ls and antelope horns. Sighs and laughter and curses and weeping mingled with the wild strains of Homeric song and mystic rites of Chaldea and Babylon, and the sacred chant of Isis. The Voodoo danced to the rattle of sh.e.l.ls and antelope hoofs before the shrines of Ethiopia's dark woman, crowned with the sickle moon, and vast mult.i.tudes knelt and lay prostrate before the car of Juggernaut and the pa.s.sing image of Pracriti of Asia, the many-breasted, the G.o.ddess of Abundance.

Sun and Fire worshipers tore the hearts and scalps from living victims and held them aloft to the rising sun, and men and wild beasts fought in arenas amid the acclamations of the people.

He beheld the milk-white bullocks of the Druid, garlanded with flowers, heading the procession that entered the dark groves in search of the sacred mistletoe-bearing oak; the processions of Pan and Odin, and Siva and Vishnu and Baal, and Venus and Bacchus. Nymphs and fauns and dryads and hamadryads called from the depths of the forest, and youths and maidens and shepherds with vine-wreathed brows danced in the sunlit glades and on the hills where the white flocks roamed, to the plaintive notes of the mystic pipes of Pan. He beheld the flaunting banners and flashing steel of victorious hosts and heard the wild, weird chants of wandering, barbaric hordes that conquered and destroyed. The flash and roar of artillery of recent times but intensified the gloom that brooded over the world. The struggle was unending. Men still remained the victims and slaves of pa.s.sion and desire. Their sighs and curses and groans and cries of hatred and despair increased with the years; the smoke of their torment blackened the face of the sun.

The waves of human harmony and discord swept over him like the sounds of mighty rushing winds and waters, and he beheld the race to-day, as in the past, in the plains and on the high tops, prostrate and erect with hands outstretched toward the heavens, crying for release. And yet through it and beneath it and above it all, he heard a ringing note of triumph that swelled onward and upward until the vision shone clear, and the true import of their lives stood revealed. They had overcome the world; broken the fiery chains of desire.

The heavens of the old world rolled together like a scroll, and the sun and the moon and the stars and the earth fell into the burning sea of man's worldliness, but out of the chaos that followed, the earth emerged once more, green and beautiful, and grain waved upon its face, and the voice of the Angel rang clear, crying aloud and mightily:

"Babylon the Great is fallen, is fallen! Babylon, the woman mounted upon the scarlet beast and arrayed in purple and scarlet color and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, and having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations.... Babylon upon whose forehead is written, 'Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth.' Babylon drunk with wine and the blood of those who stood for the truth. Babylon, of whose wine and delights all men have drunk and with whom all the nations of the Earth have committed fornication.

Babylon whose sins have reached unto heaven; who hath glorified herself and lived deliciously and who said in her heart: 'I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall know no sorrow; my joy shall continue forever!'

"Her plagues shall come in one day, death and mourning and famine, and she shall be utterly burned with fire. And the kings and the rulers of earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the mighty men, and the chief Captains, and the bondsmen, and the free-men who have lived deliciously with her and who bear the mark of the beast in their hands and upon their foreheads shall bewail her and lament for her, crying: