His voice ceased, and his chin sank wearily upon his breast. My ear caught the heavy breathing of Cairnes, and I turned to mark him lying at full length upon the stone floor sound asleep. Admiring his indifference to surroundings, I was yet so deeply engrossed in this tale of the old priest as to be myself insensible of fatigue.
"You are indeed of an old race," I said, hoping to make him talk further, "if the traditions of your people extend to those first Frenchmen who came floating south along the great river."
The old eyes, now scanning my face, gleamed with awakened pride.
"'T is no more than a page out of our history I have related," he exclaimed hastily, evidently aroused by my interest. "We are the oldest and greatest people of the earth. Ay, more; we are children of the Sun, and, ages ago, when our fathers were true to their faith and their God, there were none who could contend against us. We had our great altars on every hilltop, and our villages were in every valley. Our kings ruled from far above the great fresh water down to where the salt sea kisses the white sand; our slaves toiled in the fields to produce us food, and in the rocks to give us store of metal for the chase and war. It was then the Sun shone warm upon his children, and there were none among men who dared to face our warriors in battle. We were masters of all the land we trod; we feared no people, for we were blessed of the Sun."
"How came the end?"
"It was a curse upon us--curse because we made mock of the Sun. The sacred fire died out on our altars, while recreant priests slept, and so there came upon the nation a breath of pestilence from the sky which swept away the people as if by fire. It has been told to me that our dead lay everywhere; that whole villages were destroyed in a single night; that those who survived wandered in the woods foodless, until only a pitiful remnant of those who were once so powerful lived in that tainted air, poisoned by decaying bodies. Then the surviving slaves banded themselves together, fell upon their wandering masters, driving and killing, until the few who were left drew together on the banks of the great river. Here, by lighting the sacred fire again, they made peace and were saved. It was there I was born."
I fail utterly to picture the true solemnity of the scene, as the aged priest, white-haired and evil-eyed, slowly mumbled it forth in his broken, halting French, leaning with his back against the rough stones of the great altar, on the summit of which flamed the sacred fire he had passed his life in guarding. 'T was like a voice speaking from a forgotten past, which looked forth from sunken eyes, and became visible in snow-white hair. A grave yawned to give me a glimpse of all which that grave contained--the hopes, the struggles, the death of a once powerful tribe. Yet it all stands forth perfectly clear to my memory as I write--the vast black chamber lying in shadow and flame; the dark figure of the bulky Puritan outstretched upon the stones at our feet; the ghastly, corpse-like face of the savage old priest, whose eyes gleamed so fiercely, as he dreamed once again of the vanished glories of his race.