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NEXT day, after the removal of the noon comfitures,
and when the princess Tula had gone to the hammock
for the usual siesta, Nenetzin rushed into her apartment unusually
excited.

“O, I have something so strange to tell you, — something
so strange!” she cried, throwing herself upon the hammock.

Her face was bright and very beautiful. Tula looked at
her a moment, then put her lips lovingly to the smooth forehead.

“By the Sun! as our royal father sometimes swears, my
sister seems in earnest.”

“Indeed I am; and you will go with me, will you not?”

“Ah! you want to take me to the garden to see the dead
tiger, or, perhaps, the warrior who slew it, or — now I have
it — you have seen another minstrel.”

Tula expected the girl to laugh, but was surprised to see
her eyes fill with tears. She changed her manner instantly,
and bade the slave who had been sitting by the hammock
fanning her, to retire. Then she said, —

“You jest so much, Nenetzin, that I do not know when
you are serious. I love you: now tell me what has happened.”

The answer was given in a low voice.

“You will think me foolish, and so I am, but I cannot
help it. Do you recollect the dream I told you the night on
the chinampa?”

“The night Yeteve came to us? I recollect.”

“You know I saw a man come and sit down in our father's

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palace, — a stranger with blue eyes and fair face, and hair and
beard like the silk of the ripening maize. I told you I loved
him, and would have none but him; and you laughed at me,
and said he was the god Quetzal'. O Tula, the dream has
come back to me many times since; so often that it seems,
when I am awake, to have been a reality. I am childish,
you think, and very weak; you may even pity me; but I
have grown to look upon the blue-eyed as something lovable
and great, and thought of him is a part of my mind; so
much so that it is useless for me to say he is not, or that I
am loving a shadow. And now, O dear Tula, now comes the
strange part of my story. Yesterday, you know, a courier
from Cempoalla brought our father some pictures of the
strangers lately landed from the sea. This morning I heard
there were portraits among them, and could not resist a
curiosity to see them; so I went, and almost the first one I
came to, — do not laugh, — almost the first one I came to
was the picture of him who comes to me so often in my
dreams. I looked and trembled. There indeed he was; there
were the blue eyes, the yellow hair, the white face, even the
dress, shining as silver, and the plumed crest. I did not stay
to look at anything else, but hurried here, scarcely knowing
whether to be glad or afraid. I thought if you went with
me I would not be afraid. Go you must; we will look at the
portrait together.” And she hid her face, sobbing like a child.

“It is too wonderful for belief. I will go,” said Tula.

She arose, and the slave brought and threw over her
shoulders the long white scarf so invariably a part of an
Aztec woman's costume. Then the sisters took their way to
the chamber where the pictures were kept, — the same into
which Hualpa had been led the night before. The king was
elsewhere giving audience, and his clerks and attendants
were with him. So the two were allowed to indulge their
curiosity undisturbed.

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Nenetzin went to a pile of manuscripts lying on the floor.
The elder sister was startled by the first picture exposed; for
she recognized the handiwork, long since familiar to her, of
the 'tzin. Nor was she less surprised by the subject, which
was a horse, apparently a nobler instrument for a god's revenge
than man himself.

Next she saw pictured a horse, its rider mounted, and in
Christian armor, and bearing shield, lance, and sword. Then
came a cannon, the gunner by the carriage, his match lighted,
while a volume of flame and smoke was bursting from the
throat of the piece. A portrait followed; she lifted it up,
and trembled to see the hero of Nenetzin's dream!

“Did I not tell you so, O Tula?” said the girl, in a
whisper.

“The face is pleasant and noble,” the other answered,
thoughtfully; “but I am afraid. There is evil in the smile,
evil in the blue eyes.”

The rest of the manuscripts they left untouched. The one
absorbed them; but with what different feelings! Nenetzin
was a-flutter with pleasure, restrained by awe. Impressed
by the singularity of the vision, as thus realized, a passionate
wish to see the man or god, whichever he was, and hear his
voice, may be called her nearest semblance to reflection.
Like a lover in the presence of the beloved, she was glad and
contented, and asked nothing of the future. But with Tula,
older and wiser, it was different. She was conscious of the
novelty of the incident; at the same time a presentiment, a
gloomy foreboding, filled her soul. In slumber we sometimes
see spectres, and they sit by us and smile; yet we shrink,
and cannot keep down anticipations of ill. So Tula was affected
by what she beheld.

She laid the portrait softly down, and turned to Nenetzin,
who had now no need to deprecate her laugh.

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“The ways of the gods are most strange. Something tells
me this is their work. I am afraid; let us go.”

And they retired, and the rest of the day, swinging in the
hammock, they talked of the dream and the portrait, and
wondered what would come of them.