Cloud counseled us to accept the
terms of the Government, bad though they were, and make peace, and
prophesied that disaster would befall us if we refused. Well, then as
now, events have proved the truth of his words. As the years went by and
no further trace of you could be found, the people lost hope of ever
seeing you again and said you were dead. But the White Cloud maintained
that you were still alive; that the day of your return was drawing ever
nearer; that he heard the song of birds and the sound of laughing waters
and beheld the desert carpeted with flowers in his vision and you in
their midst coming towards them, which typified the renewal of life and
rebirth of the nation. But when he announced that he always saw you in
the company of a white man who later should rule over us, they laughed
at his prophecies.

"'A white man rule over the Tewana? How absurd--impossible!' They shook
their heads and said: 'The White Cloud is old--his vision has become
dim, impaired through age!'"

The Captain and Chiquita were too amazed by Jose's words to venture a
reply, and sat gazing alternately at one another and then at the
speaker.

"When I first met the Captain," continued Jose, "I wondered greatly why
I was so drawn toward him. True, he was a man to my liking and I was
doubly grateful to him for saving my life, but that did not wholly
account for my attachment. I was drawn to him irresistibly as by an
invisible power. I could not leave him; and when I again saw you,
Princess, on the day that you and the beautiful Senorita met for the
first time and heard from your own lips who you were as well as your
avowal of love for my Master, I knew then that the White Cloud had read
rightly the future; that my Master, the Grand Senor, had been chosen by
the Great Spirit to rule with you over our people.

"It was then that I learned how you had come to Padre Antonio, after
which I returned to our people and told them what I knew; that I had
found not only you, but also the White Chief whom the White Cloud had
seen in his vision, and that, if you returned to them at all, it would
surely be as his bride. At first they would not believe me, but when I
persisted and reminded them of the disasters that had befallen us in the
past for our failure to heed the White Cloud's councils, they at last
yielded and called a grand council and decided to send a deputation
composed of the leading men of the nation to verify my statements.

"It