The Flute of the Gods Part 29

"If I were indeed a worthy page I would make a song of your enchanted--or demented Dona, and pipe it to you to the tombe of the medicine workers on the roofs," declared the lad in high glee that Don Ruy again spoke with frankness to him.

But his excellency put aside the offer, content to make his own songs when there was a maid to listen.

"Dame Yahn Tsyn-deh might listen--and even make herself beautiful for you."

"The Dame Yahn is like enough to make trouble without the singing of songs! Whether it is the Indian war capitan, or our own, I know not as to the favorite. But some game she is playing, and I doubt if it is for Juan Gonzalvo, despite his gifts."

Padre Vicente and Jose were walking apart under a group of the white limbed cottonwoods, as the two riders drew near the village. Their discourse was earnest, and the voice of the padre was heard in decision.

"That is how it must be, Jose--" he said. "You have found the way,--the gold is as good as ours!"

"By the faith!"--said Don Ruy swinging from the saddle to join them; "if this be true let us fill wallets and break camp for Mexico!--there is a gentle maniac over there with whom I would fain hold hands once more--this womanless paradise pleases me little!"

The padre regarded him with tolerance, and never a blink of the eye to denote remembrance of any gentle maniac in particular. Since the dame had served a worthy purpose, forgotten was all the episode!

"It is well you know the good tidings of Jose," he said--"though there is no hint that the gold is piled in bars waiting for the lading.

Speak, Jose."

"It is a man of Ni-am-be," said Jose. "He has been outcast for a reason. He lives alone, and the fear of the alone is growing in him, for he is old! He was one of the men who made medicine to forget where the sign of the Sun Father hides in the earth. But the medicine was not good medicine."

"He does not forget?"

"He made a vow to the sky to forget, but the sky did not listen and take the vow. He does not forget."

"And he will show the place?"

"It may be he will show the place. He asks me if it is a good life to live with your people, also if you would take him away when you go."

"Oh--ho!--he fears what would happen if he was left behind after telling--he fears they would kill him?"

"Not so much of the to kill is he afraid. He was a medicine man. He knows what the other medicine men could do. He would wish for the to die many times and they would not let death come near to his cave in the rock."

"By their magic?" asked Don Ruy.

"By their magic, Excellency. Of all the head men is he afraid, but of Tahn-te the Po-Ahtun-ho who has the sight of the dark is he much afraid."

"The sight of the dark?"

"It is so, some men are born into the world with it. They know the thought of the other man,--they see the hidden things. Tahn-te has the strong medicine and the eyes to see. He is much afraid of Tahn-te the Ruler."

"You see the power of these necromancers with their satanic arts?"

said Padre Vicente. "We must make it plain to these people that such fear is to be driven out only by the true church and the power of its saints."

"If we wait for the gold until we teach them all that, the profit of this journey will be to our heirs and not to ourselves," decided Don Ruy. "Pay the renegade for the secret he should have forgotten, take him along with us, and convert him at your leisure. In all good time, and with a larger guard of men, you can come for the further conversion of the tribe."

"There is wisdom in what you say," replied the padre, "for converts here will mean a waiting game. But once let us take to Mexico the golden proof of the wealth in this province and there will be eager troops and churchmen in plenty to cross the deserts and defend the faith. But for that devil-possessed Po-Ahtun-ho the road to success would be shorter."

"It is not good luck to say things against the man of strong magic,"

stated Jose. "Ka-yemo, the war capitan would like if Tahn-te had never come from the land of the Hopitu--but Ka-yemo says no evil words of Tahn-te--he knows that Tahn-te has ears to hear far off, and eyes to see in the dark."

"Do you forget you are a Christian soul?" demanded the padre. "The holy saints can kill the evil powers even in the sons of Satan! Let me hear no more of the 'eyes of the dark;'--pagan trickery!"

Jose said no more, but it was easy to see that the veneer of foreign ritual had made little impression on the Indian mind. He feared all the devils of the Christian h.e.l.l, and most of the G.o.ds of the pagan pantheon. A policy of propitiation towards all the unseen powers is the wise and instinctive att.i.tude of the primitive mind. He slipped his prayer beads through his fingers as taught for prayer, but to be quite certain that evil be bribed to keep its distance, he stealthily scattered prayer meal as he walked behind the others, and Yahn who was coming behind them, saw him, and laughed. She was glad of heart to see that the Te-hua, after years of the white man's religion, was still at heart, a devotee of the Sun.

"He says that Tahn-te the Ruler has not the strong magic," he said lowly to Yahn--"but no one else says so in this land."

Yahn did not care to discuss the power of Tahn-te--it was a bitter thing in her days.

And as the little group went on through the fragrant sage and the yellow bloom, Tahn-te himself stood almost on their trail, but a little to one side where a knoll was.

Still as a thing of stone he stood there. His hand shaded his eyes while he gazed across the sage levels--across the water of the river and to the yellow and red sands beyond.

Even at their footsteps near, and their voices, he made no sign and wavered not in his gaze. Don Ruy glancing at him saw that his expression was keen, yet incredulous. So strange was it that Don Ruy instinctively turned in his saddle to see the thing at which Tahn-te looked and frowned.

At first he could see only the wavering lines of heat across the level--and then he saw the thing, and with a word halted the others and pointed.

Out of the red and yellow sand and soft green patches of the desert growth a group of men were outlined against the low hills. Indians with lances and with s.h.i.+elds.

"That is a curious thing," said Don Ruy. "They walk this way yet their steps bring them not closer! Is it a war party?"

Yahn gave one look, drew her breath sharply, and turned speechless to Tahn-te. Jose after a long look crossed himself many times and gripped the sleeve of the padre.

"Navahu!"--he muttered, the terror of his ancient first captors coming over him. "Navahu to battle!"

But Tahn-te made a little gesture to rea.s.sure the startled interpreter.

"You do not see men alive there," he said,--"these are not men, but the shadows of men who will come."

"Shadows?"--the tones of the padre were contemptuous.

"Spirit people of the shadows--these things do come to some eyes, some days, in our land," stated Tahn-te quietly. "This time you have also been given to see that these things are."

Even as he spoke the mirage of the armed men faded in a whirl of sand caught up by a wandering wind, and while the others still stared at the place where it had been, Tahn-te pa.s.sed them and ran with easy stride across the levels to Povi-whah.

The Spanish crossed themselves, and even Yahn Tsyn-deh trembled.

Tahn-te had chosen to show the men of iron that his medicine was strong to bring visions, and what was most wonderful--to bring them before the eyes of other men!

Jose was shaking with fear.

"All things he hears," he muttered--"all things! Under the trees we spoke words--far off they reached his ears! He waited to show us that his eyes were for the dark or the day--or--the _dead_! The spirit men were Navahu. Holy Father, he can bring all the men who ever died to tramp us into the sand! Holy Father, my heart is very sick!"

The others were silent. All were awed, and Padre Vicente was thinking what was most wise to say. There were enough in the group for strong witness that Tahn-te had shown them a thing which did not exist;--only a sorcerer could call up men out of the earth and send them away on the wind!

"In the sorcery we had no part, my children," he said at last. "The man who raised those demons fled, as you see, at the sign of the cross! To-morrow morning we have a ma.s.s. It is well to walk in prayer, when Satan works with his chosen helpers."

Don Ruy looked at him sharply--for the mirage could not be a thing of wonder for so travelled a man. But his was not the task to correct eminence as to natural or infernal agencies, and the effect on the minds of the two interpreters might prove a thing of grace!

Therefore he bent his head, and rode onward, and smiled at the secretary, who was careful to ride close, and showed none too much of courage at this glimpse of the magic of the barbarian who clasped hands with the G.o.ds--or the demons!