George Henty - By Right of Conquest; Or, With Cortez in Mexico

The girl uttered some words he did not understand; but as they ended with Roger, and with a nod of her head she stole silently away, he supposed that it was something equivalent to his own "Goodnight."

Greatly comforted by this little incident, he rolled up one of the rugs as a pillow, laid his head upon it, and was almost instantaneously asleep. He woke with a feeling of surprise. The events of the previous day seemed to him but a dream, and he looked round, expecting to see the bulkhead of the little cabin he had occupied, on board the Swan. But the first glance assured him of the reality of the dream, and that he was alone, among a strange people.

He sprang at once to his feet, pulled aside a cloth that hung before an opening that served as a window, and let the rays of the sun stream in.

"I want some water, old dame," he said, in a loud voice.

The old woman at once entered. Roger made signs, by rubbing his hands together, and passing them over his face and head, that he wanted water. This the old woman brought, in a basin formed of the half of an immense gourd, and a soft cotton cloth with which to dry himself. Then she brought in a small pot, filled with something which looked to him like fat, but which he afterwards found was extracted from a vegetable, and put it down by the side of the water.

"I suppose that this is some sort of soap," Roger said to himself, and found on trial, to his great satisfaction, that it made an excellent lather.

After a good wash he felt greatly refreshed, and now attired himself completely in Mexican costume, a pile of garments of all sorts having been placed in one corner of the room. When he had finished the two girls entered, with a tray containing cocoa, fruits, and bread. He was about to address Malinche by her name; but the girl kept her eyes fixed upon the ground, and it struck him that she did not wish her late visit to him to be known, as it might bring upon her a scolding from the old woman; whose voice he had more than once heard, on the previous afternoon, raised in shrill anger.

He therefore began afresh, first naming himself, and then touching Malinche's companion.

She did not at first understand, but Malinche said something in a low tone, and she then replied, "Nishka."

Roger repeated the name, and then touched Malinche, who at once gave her name.

He next pointed to the contents of the bowl, and the girls replied together, "Coca."

Roger repeated the word several times, and then, in the same manner, learned the native names of the cakes and fruit.

The old woman, hearing the voices, now came into the room. The girls spoke eagerly to her in their language, and when Roger touched her, she at once answered, "Quizmoa."

"That is pretty well, for a first lesson," Roger said. "Now I will eat my breakfast. I suppose that, if anyone in this place did not have a stare at me yesterday, they will be coming today."

Visitors, indeed, soon began to arrive; and it was more than a week before the curiosity of the crowd was at all satisfied. But even this did not bring what Roger considered a terrible annoyance to an end; for the news had spread rapidly, through all the country round, of the strange white being who had come to Tabasco, and parties of visitors kept on arriving, some of them from a great distance.

Roger, however, had made a good use of his tongue. He kept one or other of the girls always near him, and by touching the articles brought to him as presents, the garments and arms of his visitors, and the various objects in his room, he soon learned their names.

Almost every day the chief sent for him, for a talk; but as neither party could understand the other, these conversations generally ended by a sudden loss of temper, on the part of the cazique, at being unable to obtain the information he required as to the origin of his visitor, and the object with which he had come to his country.

Having acquired a large number of the names of objects, Roger, for a time, came to a standstill. Then it struck him that by listening to what the old woman said to the girls, and by watching what they did, he might make a step farther.

In this way he soon learned "bring me," "fetch me," and other verbs. When the old woman was present, the two girls were silent and shy; but as Quizmoa was fond of gossiping, and so was greatly in request among the neighbors, who desired to learn something of the habits of the white man, she was often out; and the girls were then ready to talk as much as Roger wished. For a time it seemed to him that he was making no progress whatever with the language and, at the end of the first month, began almost to despair of ever being able to converse in it; although by this time he had learned the name of almost every object. Then he found that, perhaps as much from their gestures as from their words, he began to understand the girls; and in another month was able to make himself understood, in turn. After this his progress was extremely rapid.

As soon as Malinche learned, from him, that he belonged to a great nation of white people, living far away across the sea, and that he had been wrecked in a ship upon the coast, she warned him against telling these things to the chief.

"They hold you in high honor," she said, "because they think that you have come down from the sky, and might do them grievous harm if they displeased you. But if they knew that you were a man like themselves, cast by chance upon their shores, they would perhaps make you a slave, or might put you to death in one of the temples. Therefore, on this subject be always silent. When the chief asks you questions, shake your head, and say that these things cannot be spoken of, and that it might bring down the anger of the gods, were their secret told."

The advice seemed good to Roger, and he followed it. Now that he was able to talk in his language, the chief soon plied him with questions as to whence he had come. But Roger always shook his head when the subject was approached, and said:

"It is not good to talk of these things. Evil might come to the land. I am here, and that is enough. I will tell you many things about other people, who live far over the sea, and who are very great and powerful. When they go out they sit upon great animals, which carry them easily, at a speed much exceeding that at which a man can run. They live in lofty dwellings and, when they go to war, are covered with an armor, made of a metal so strong that arrows would not pierce it nor swords cut it. They traverse the sea in floating castles; and when they want to convey their thought to others, many days' journey away, they make marks upon a thin white stuff they call paper, and send it by a messenger, and these marks tell him who receives it what the writer's thoughts are, just the same as if he had spoken in their ears."

The hearing of such wonders as these reconciled the chief to his disappointment at not learning more about his visitor. The knife Roger had given him was a never-ending source of wonder to the cazique, and those whom he permitted to inspect it. Gold and silver and copper they knew, and also tin, which they used for hardening the copper. But this new metal was altogether strange to them. It enormously exceeded copper in strength and hardness. Its edge did not, like that of their own weapons, blunt with usage, and they could well understand that, if armor could be formed of it, it would be altogether unpierceable.

For a time Roger was every day at the chief's house, and his narration afforded astonishment and wonder to the audiences that gathered round him. At the same time, Roger perceived that a difference of opinion existed, among the principal men, concerning him. Some believed, as at first, in his supernatural origin, and credited all that he told them; while others were of opinion that he was a man, like themselves, only of different color, and that these tales were simply inventions, designed to add to his importance.