The Florida agriculturist. [volume] (DeLand, Fla.) 1878-1911, 1895-02-06


to deceive myself. l was beautiful in
those days, and this is something with a
man. I was faithful and that is more
and once or twice you thought that you
loved me. Now wish that those Teules
had come an hour later and we had died
together there upon the stone-that u.s.
wish it for my own sake, not for yours.
Then we escaped and the great struggle
came. I told you then that l understood
1t all. You had kissed me on the stone of
sacrifice, but in that moment you were as
one dead. When you came back to life,
it was otherwise. But fortune took the
game out of your hands, and you married
me and swore an oath to me, and this
oath you have kept faithfully. You mar
ried me, but you did not know whom you
married You thought me beautiful and
sweet and true and all these things was,
but you did not understand that I was far
apart from you-that was still a savage
as my forefathers had been. You thought
that I had learned your ways perchance
even you thought that reverenced your
God, as for your sake have striven to do,
but all the while have followed the ways
Of my own people, and I could not quite
forget my own gods, Or at least they would
them. For years and years 1 put them
from me, but at last they were avenged,
and my heart mastered me, or rather they
mastered me, for knew nothing of what
I did some few nights since, when I ccle-
brated the sacrifice of Huitzel and you saw
me at the ancient rites.
''Al these years you had been true to
me- and had borne you children, whom
you loved, but you loved them for their
own sake, not for mine. Indeed at heart
you hated the Indian blood that was mix
ed in their veins with yours. Me also you
loved in a certain fashion, and this half
love of yours drove me well nigh mad
Such as it was, it died when you saw me
distraught and celebrating the rites of my
forefathers on the teocali yonder, and you
knew me for what ANA savage. And
now the children who linked us together
are dead. One by one they died in this
way and in that, for the curse which follows
my blood descended upon them, and your
love for me is dead with them. alone
remain alive, a monument of past days,
and die also
''Nay, be silent. Listen to me, for my
time is short. When you babe me call you
husband no longer, then knew that it
L
me. You are no more my husband, and
soon I shall cease to be your wife. Still,
Teule, I pray you listen to me. Now, it
seems to you in your sorrow that your
days are done, and that there is no happi-
ness left for you. This is not So You are
still but man in the beginning of middle
age, and you are yet strong. You will es-
cape from this ruined land, and when you
shake the dust of it off your feet it's curse
shall fall from you. You will return to
your own place, and there you will find
one who has awaited your coming for
many years. There the savage woman
whom you mated with, the princess of
fallen house, will become but fantastic
memory to you, and all these strange,
eventful years will be as midnight dream
Only your love for the dead children will
always remain. These you must always
love by day and by night, and the desire
OF them-that desire for the dead than
which there is nothing more terrible-sha1l
follow you to your grave And | am glad
that it should be so, for I was their moth
er, and some thought of me must go with
them. This alone the lily maid has left
to me, and there only l shall prevail against
her, for, Teule, no child of hers shall live
to rob your heart of the memory of those /
gave you. You swore that death alone
should sever us, and you kept your oath
in the letter and in the thought But now
I go to the houses of the sun to seek nv
own people, and to you, Teule, with whom
I have lived many years and seen much
sorrow, but whom I will no longer call
husband since you forbade me so to do,
(ooI-0 a..