"I have read it in the stars, I have seen it in the smoke of waters and of blessed herbs, and I have heard it from the lips of dead men and the tongues of dreams," cried the professor of the occult sciences, with much emphasis. "But what is the fate of Botello, the swordsman, to that of the leaders of men, the conquerors of kings and great nations? I have read my own destinies; but why shouldst thou trifle the time to know them, when I can show thee the higher mysteries of thine own?" "Canst thou do so? By my faith then, I will have thee speak them very soon," said Narvaez. "But first, let me know what wert thou doing when thou wert found prowling this morning so near to my camp?" "Gathering the herbs for the suffumigation which shall tell me in what part of the world thou shalt lay thy bones!" said the magician, solemnly. "The moon, in the house Alchil, showed me many things, but not all; a thick smoke came over the crystal, and I saw not what I wanted; I slept under the cross, with a skull on my bosom, but it breathed nothing but clouds. Wherefore I knew, it should be only when the wolf spoke to the vulture, and the vulture to the red star, that Camael the angel should unlock the lips of destiny, and lead me whither I longed to follow." "I am ever bound to thee," said the general, with a manner in which an attempt at mockery was mingled with a natural touch of superstition, "for the extreme interest thou seemest to cherish in my fate and again I say to thee, I will immediately converse with thee on that subject. But at present, senor nigromante, I warn thee, it will be but wisdom, to confine thy rhapsodies within the limits of answers to such interrogatories as I shall propose thee.--Where lies thy master, the outcast and arch-rebel, my enemy?" "My _master_ is in heaven!" said Botello, with a devout and lofty earnestness, "and there is no outcast and rebel but he that dwelleth in the pit, under the foot of Michael; and _he_ is the enemy!" "Sirrah! I speak to thee of the knave Cortes," cried the general, angrily. "When wert thou last at his side? and where?" "At midnight,--on the river of Canoes, where he has rested, as thou knowest, for a night and a day." "Ay!" said the Biscayan fiercely; "within a league of my head-quarters, whither my clemency has suffered him to come." "Whither God and his good star have drawn him," said the magician. "And whence I will drive him to the rocks of the mountains, or the mangroves of the beach, ere thou art cured of thy wounds!" "Lo! my wounds are healed!" said Botello; "the hand that inflicted them is stiff and cold, and Hernan Cortes yet lies by the river! Ay, the holy unguent, blessed of the fat of a pagan's heart, hath dried the blood and glued the skin; and yet my captain, whose fate I have seen and spoken, even from the glory of noon to the long and sorrowful shadows of the evening, marshals his band within the sound of thy matin bell; and wo be to his foeman when he is nearer or further!"