She half arose, and, smiling through her tears, clasped her hands, and cried, "_Tonatiah! Tonatiah!_"
There are times when a look, a gesture, a tone of the voice, do all a herald's part. What need of speech to tell the Spaniard why the truant was there? The poor disguise, the basket, told of flight; her presence at that hour said, "I have come to thee"; the cross returned, the tears, the joy at sight of him, certified her love; and so, when she put her arm around his neck, and the arrow, not yet taken away, rattled against his corselet, to his heart there shot a pain so sharp and quick it seemed as if the very soul of him was going out.
He raised her gently, and carried her through the entrance. The rough men looking on saw upon his cheek what, if the cheek had been a woman's, they would have sworn was a tear.
"Ho, Marina!" he cried to the wondering interpreter. "I bring thee a bird dropped too soon from the nest. The hunter hath chased the poor thing, and here is a bolt in its wing. Give place in thy cot, while I go for a doctor, and room with thee, that malice hurt not a good name."
And at the sight the Indian woman was touched; she ran to the cot, smoothed the pillow of feathers, and said, "Here, rest her here, and run quickly. I will care for her."
He laid her down tenderly, but she clung to his hand, and said to Marina, "He must not go. Let him first hear what I have to say."
So earnestly did she speak, that the captain changed his mind. "Very well. What is spoken in pain should be spoken quickly. I will stay."
Nenetzin caught the assent, and went on rapidly. "Let him know that to-morrow at noon the drum in the great temple will be beaten, and the bridges taken up, and then there will be war."
"By the saints! she bringeth doughty news," said Alvarado, in his voice of soldier. "Ask her where she got it; ask her, as you love us, Marina."
"From my father,--from the king himself."
"And this is child of Montezuma!" cried Marina.
"The princess Nenetzin," said the cavalier. "But stay not so. Ask her when and where she heard the news."
"What of the particulars? How is the war to be made? What are the preparations?"
"The lord Cuitlahua is to take up the bridges. Maize and meat will be furnished to-morrow only. About the great temple now there are ten thousand warriors for an attack, and elsewhere in the city there are seventy thousand more."