Montezuma's DaughterHaggard, H. Rider (Henry Rider)
History
Montezuma's Daughter
Haggard, H. Rider (Henry Rider)
Mexico -- History -- Conquest, 1519-1540 -- Fiction
Thus I prayed for some while, trembling like a leaf, and when I looked
up again, ere I turned to seek tidings from those that dwelt in the
house, whoever they might be, the twilight had fallen completely, and
lo! nightingales sang both far and near. I listened to their song, and
as I listened, some troubled memory came back to me that at first I
could not grasp. Then suddenly there rose up in my mind a vision of the
splendid chamber in Montezuma’s palace in Tenoctitlan, and of myself
sleeping on a golden bed, and dreaming on that bed. I knew it now, I
was the god Tezcat, and on the morrow I must be sacrificed, and I slept
in misery, and as I slept I dreamed. I dreamed that I stood where I
stood this night, that the scent of the English flowers was in my
nostrils as it was this night, and that the sweet song of the
nightingales rang in my ears as at this present hour. I dreamed that as
I mused and listened the moon came up over the green ash and oaks, and
lo! there she shone. I dreamed that I heard a sound of singing on the
hill—
But now I awoke from this vision of the past and of a long lost dream,
for as I stood the sweet voice of a woman began to sing yonder on the
brow of the slope; I was not mad, I heard it clearly, and the sound
grew ever nearer as the singer drew down the steep hillside. It was so
near now that I could catch the very words of that sad song which to
this day I remember.
Now I could see the woman’s shape in the moonlight; it was tall and
stately and clad in a white robe. Presently she lifted her head to
watch the flitter of a bat and the moonlight lit upon her face. It was
the face of Lily Bozard, my lost love, beautiful as of yore, though
grown older and stamped with the seal of some great sorrow. I saw, and
so deeply was I stirred at the sight, that had it not been for the low
paling to which I clung, I must have fallen to the earth, and a deep
groan broke from my lips.
She heard the groan and ceased her song, then catching sight of the
figure of a man, she stopped and turned as though to fly. I stood quite
still, and wonder overcoming her fear, she drew nearer and spoke in the
sweet low voice that I remembered well, saying, “Who wanders here so
late? Is it you, John?”
Now when I heard her speak thus a new fear took me. Doubtless she was
married and “John” was her husband. I had found her but to lose her
more completely. Of a sudden it came into my mind that I would not
discover myself till I knew the truth. I advanced a pace, but not so
far as to pass from the shadow of the shrubs which grow here, and
taking my stand in such a fashion that the moonlight did not strike
upon my face, I bowed low in the courtly Spanish fashion, and
disguising my voice spoke as a Spaniard might in broken English which I
will spare to write down.
“Madam,” I said, “have I the honour to speak to one who in bygone years
was named the Señora Lily Bozard?”
“That was my name,” she answered. “What is your errand with me, sir?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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