alinche," he said, after a long silence, "it cannot be. There is
no saying what my fate may be, among your people. I may be offered
up to those terrible gods you told me of. I may be treated as a
slave. There is no saying what might happen. At any rate, I shall
be unable to afford you any protection. Were we separated, as it is
almost certain we should be, where could you go, or what would
become of you? Besides, how in any case could we keep together? I
could not have you as a slave, even if I wanted to do so, in your
own country; and how else could you go with me? If you like, I will
ask the cazique for your freedom, so that you might travel back to
your own country with the merchants."

The girl shook her head.

"I have no friends there, now," she said. "Where should I go?"

"That is just what I am saying, Malinche. There is nowhere for you
to go except with me; and I do not see how you could go with me. If
you do not like this, I will promise you that, if things turn out
well with me in your country, I will send by the next merchants who
come here, and buy you from the cazique, and find friends for you
there, and place you with them."

"You would have wives there," the girl said passionately; "and you
would never think any more of me."

Roger burst into a loud laugh.

"Why, Malinche, I am only a boy! I am not yet eighteen; and in my
country we do not think of taking wives, until we are eight or ten
years older than that. It is a serious thing with us, for each man
has only one wife; and it behooves him, therefore, to be very
careful in making his choice. I hope, long before it comes to my
time for thinking of marriage, to be back in my own country and
among my own people. If I were to marry here, how could I ever
think of going away? I could not go and leave a wife behind me. I
could not take her away with me, because she would never be happy
among a strange people, any more than I should be happy if I lived
here.

"No, no, Malinche, there is no fear of my marrying, any more than
there is of my forgetting you. You can trust me. If I live, and do
well in your country, I will send for you; and I will tell your
people that you have been as a sister to me, and will see that this
mother of yours does you justice, and that you shall come to your
own again, and you shall marry some cazique of your own choice. If
you do not hear from me, you will know that things have gone badly
with me, and that either I have bee