Adventure Magazine Cover, December 18, 1919 — page 85: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Seven Cities of Cibola to her room and encouraged her to talk. At first the words came with difficulty, but later in a storm of anger and break- ing passion. “Marry me to that—that—drunken swine! Maria, you have taken care of me since my mother died. You know what I am and what he—Fonseca—is ? I tell you I will die before I marry him— and then to have been struck by him— and before the stranger—the ” “T know. The brown-haired stranger who goes as scoutmaster—when the saints made him they made a man.’ “What do you know of him, Maria?’ “Only what the men say who came from the south. They say that he is the surest sword in all the south country, and that he is not really dangerous till the smile leaves his eyes and settles about his lips.” For an hour Maria sat and talked to her foster-daughter about any and every thing that came into her mind and first and foremost in all these was Andres. She tried to soothe and quiet the girl but to no purpose. Talk Mercedes must and would, and gradually as she talked she infused into her old nurse a little of the flame of resentment that she herself had felt. Already by that miraculous under- ground system that the Indians have, Maria had heard four different versions of the affair, and now she had it fully from the lips of the person she loved most on earth. She listened attentively. Presently : “Thou must sleep! Sleep, my bird. ‘Maria will make chocolatl for thee.” “No. I want no chocolatl. Talk to me. Your voice soothes me like falling waters.” “So thy mother said before thee. -When I have made the chocolat! I will talk again.” She hastened from the room and Mer- cedes lay back upon her bed, her hands pressed to her aching temples. “Marry her to that pig!’ Maria fairly hissed the words. “Truly these white masters of ours force things to an issue. It had been bad enough under the old gods to trample upon those who were vanquished, but even the rulérs of old- time Anahuac had spared themselves. To give away my little girl as a native hunter in the old days would give away 71 an ocelot— Thou, It shall not be! Xoton.” é; “A. boy sprang. from his serape by the . fire in the patio. “Fetch me fresh chocolatl and eggs.” ““Now—” when he had brought them —‘“‘run to the Indian camp where the men are who paid tribute this day. Fetch Hemalco and tell him I would see him and then forget that I sent thee.” When the boy had gone, Maria went slowly to the far side of the patio to a little patch of earth that had once been a house garden. She carefully examined the stunted remains of a few plants and finally, kneeling before a small cactus, she stripped from it a. few leaves, thrust them up her sleeve and slowly moved away and went into the kitchen. Once inside the room, she threw the leaves into an earthen pan, added a handful of salt, some water and a pinch of copal, put it on the fire and then, chin in hand, sat by and watched it simmer, Presently a sharp, acrid smell diffused itself through the room, a smell that gripped the throat and almost choked Maria as she sat with her serape close drawn about her face. When the brew had boiled down to the consistency of thick paste she added a small quantity of it to the chocolatl. It immediately turned a rich blood color and a moment later had changed again to its own deep brown tint. Carefully throwing the remains of the cactus leaves into the fire, she took the earthen cup and went to the room where Mercedes lay. The strain under which the girl was laboring had not lessened. Maria looked at her and, as she watched, her eyes darkened with wrath toward those who had brought, this grief and pain to the one she loved most on earth. If there were a man in Culiacan this night—Holy Virgin!—how quick he would have been to resent this wrong to her mistress! Was there any to whom she could appeal? - “Drink this.” She held the cup to Mercedes’ lips. “None can say that Maria can not brew a-cup that brings sleep. Drink, -I say, and, when you wake, all grief will have fallen from you.” Mercedes took it, tasted, murmured JOO (C@) ANU <S (E@) in