, but before you visit him, we
will again take counsel together."

"I will, to the best of my power, carry out your Majesty's orders,"
Roger said. "I fully recognize their wisdom. Indeed, neither at
Tabasco nor upon the journey, either to the merchants or to your
envoys, have I said a word respecting the Spaniards; but I thought
that it was but right that you should know the truth of the matter,
especially when you told me of the prediction of your royal father.
In future, when I am asked questions, I can always fall back upon
silence and reply, truly, 'I am forbidden to tell this.'"

"That will do excellently," the king said. "There is but one point
connected with you now that puzzles us--a point which, before you
came, confirmed us in the belief that there was something
supernatural in your character: How is it that you have come to
understand and speak our tongue?"

Roger smiled.

"To anyone else, your Majesty, I should have replied, 'I am
forbidden to answer that question;' but I wish not to have any
mystery with you. During the time I was at Tabasco I was waited
upon by a Mexican slave girl, who taught me her tongue."

The king burst into a hearty laugh, in which even the grave
counselors joined, at this simple solution at what had appeared to
them so strange a mystery.

"Cuitcatl," the king said to one of the young nobles, "I hand over
Roger Hawkshaw to your charge. You see you need not be afraid of
him, and he will throw no spells over you. Show him all there is to
see in the city; but go not far away, for we shall have frequent
occasions to speak to him. He will have a seat in the council, and
at our own table. See that all know that we most highly esteem and
desire to honor him."

Bowing deeply to the king, queen, and princess, Roger followed the
young noble into whose charge he had been given. For a long time
they continued their way down passages and corridors, until it
seemed to Roger that it was a town, rather than a building, that he
was traversing. At last his conductor pushed aside a hanging, and
entered an apartment.

"These are my rooms," he said. "You are now master here. All the
nobles of the council, and those whom the king wishes to have about
his person, have suites of apartments in the palace. I hope some
day to have the pleasure of entertaining you on my own estate,
which lies a day's journey away to the northeast of the lake. Now,
you will doubtless be glad to retire to rest at once