CHAPTER XXII
THE INTERFERENCE OF THE JESUIT
ILLUSTRATIONS
I could merely clasp the hands she gave so unreservedly into my keeping, gaze into the depths of her dark eyes, and murmur a few broken words of confidence and farewell. … … Frontispiece
Had I ventured upon a smile at his predicament he would have popped instantly forth again.
"I am the Daughter of the Sun. These are my children, given unto me by the great Sun-god. … None of white blood may set foot in this valley and live."
The woman stood gazing intently down, her red robe sweeping to her feet; below the flaring torches in the hands of her barbaric followers cast their light full upon her.
FOREWORD
The manuscript of this tale has been in my possession several years. It reached me through natural lines of inheritance, but remained nearly forgotten, until a chance reading revealed a certain historic basis; then, making note of correspondences in minor details, I realized that what I had cast aside as mere fiction might possess a substantial foundation of fact. Impelled by this conviction, I now submit the narrative to public inspection, that others, better fitted than I, may judge as to the worth of this Geoffrey Benteen.
According to the earlier records of Louisiana Province, Geoffrey Benteen was, during his later years, a resident of La Petite Rocher, a man of note and character among his fellows. There he died in old age, leaving no indication of the extent of his knowledge, other than what is to be found in the yellowed pages of his manuscript; and these afford no evidence that this "Gentleman Adventurer" possessed any information derived from books regarding those relics of a prehistoric people, which are widely scattered throughout the Middle and Southern States of the Union and constitute the grounds on which our century has applied to the race the term "Mound Builders."
Apparently in all simplicity and faithfulness he recorded merely what he saw and heard. Later research, antedating his death, has seemingly proven that in the extinct Natchez tribe was to be found the last remnant of that mysterious and unfortunate race.
Who were the Mound Builders? No living man may answer. Their history—strange, weird, mysterious—stretches backward into the dim twilight before tradition, its sole remaining record graven upon the surface of the earth, vaguely guessed at by those who study graves; their pathetic ending
