Читать книгу The Plumed Serpent. Historical Novel - Life and Love after the Mexico Revolution онлайн

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‘What does he mean,’ said Kate, ‘by “We will wait till the Morning Star rises”?’

The man smiled slowly.

‘It is a name,’ he said.

And he seemed to know no more. But the symbolism had evidently the power to soothe and sustain him.

‘Why did he come and speak to us?’ asked Kate.

‘He is one of those of the god Quetzalcoatl, Señorita.’

‘And you? are you one too?’

‘Who knows!’ said the man, putting his head on one side. Then he added: ‘I think so. We are many.’

He watched Kate’s face with that gleaming, intense semi-abstraction, a gleam that hung unwavering in his black eyes, and which suddenly reminded Kate of the morning star, or the evening star, hanging perfect between night and the sun.

‘You have the morning star in your eyes,’ she said to the man.

He flashed her a smile of extraordinary beauty.

‘The Señorita understands,’ he said.

His face changed again to a dark-brown mask, like semi-transparent stone, and he rowed with all his might. Ahead, the river was widening, the banks were growing lower, down to the water’s level, like shoals planted with willow-trees and with reeds. Above the willow-trees a square white sail was standing, as if erected on the land.