Page:Don Coronado through Kansas.djvu/113

102 102, _ LIEUTENANT PERBa PRAISED, The commanding officer was early on the scene and saw the terrific work of Lieutenant Perez, as well as the aid extended to his two brave soldiers, and although he did not commend him on the spot, neither in public, yet in private he took tbe young man's hand and with a pressure and look which conveyed more than words, said; "I am proud of my f eUow townsman, and shall report to your kinsmen at home." That word, home, brought Her to his mind more vividly than anyone else. It was she whom he desired to please. Many precepts flashed through his ifiind of which she had told him, as tan^t in her Koran; and had she not informed him that one of the principles was to practice humility, when most successful? And if ever he should receive the adulations of princes or fawning followers, he was^to remember this precept of her ' religion, it was she who had informed our hero of the Christ- like demeanor of him who came 537 years after the Christian Son of God. Her prophet would not wear fine or costly raiment; he knew the necessity of frail humans avoiding the last upper round of the ladder of fame; he fully realized the scientific theory of balance and avoided the extreme ends, for a small thing put on the apex of Jacob's Stairway will cause it to lose its perpendicular — and so he stUl wore his camel- hair shirt, still lived in his unpretentious and humble dwelling, even at the time when the wealth of Asia was pouring iiito Medina. So Alonso schooled himself to that modesty of mien which denotes a man whose equilibrium is weU cultivated. Hence he avoided at this time becoming