The Flute of the Gods Part 23

Don Diego started his prayers at once, while Juan Gonzalvo leaned forward and stared at the pagan sorcerer like a hound held in leash.

The Te-hua men had heard only gentle tones from Tahn-te and thought little of the strange change in the faces of the Castilians.--Tahn-te many times said surprising things--that was all!

But Tahn-te, listening closely to the priestly admonition as Padre Vicente grasped all the meaning of it. He was being branded as a worker of evil magic--a _sorcerer_--the most difficult accusation of all to fight down in an Indian mind!

He looked from face to face of the strangers--halted at the secretary, but seeing there either fear or sympathy--his eyes sought further, and rested on Don Ruy.

Then he drew from his medicine pouch a second rosary, a beautifully wrought thing of ebony and gold.

"Senor" he said,--"if I mistake not, it was your animal I helped but yesterday. Is it not so?"

"It was in truth--and much am I in your debt for that help!" said Ruy Sandoval with heartiness--"it is no fault of mine that I am late in rendering thanks. You deny that you are king--yet I have known majesty easier to approach!"

"And the animal is now well, and shows no marks of the Christian's Satan?"

"Sound:--every inch of him!"

"Thanks that you say so, and that you do not fear to say so," said Tahn-te. "Since it is so, it makes clear that the printed word, or the graven image is no weight to True Magic, even when taught us by pagan G.o.ds! For ten years I have read, day time and night time, all there is to read in the books of your church left by Padre Luis--also all the other books left by the men of Senor Coronado's company, and by Padre Juan Padilla who died at Ci-bo-la. Side by side I have studied the wisdom of these books, and the wisdom of our ancient people of the Te-hua, as told to me by the old men. One has never held me from seeing clear that which I read in the other, and the graven image has only the Meaning and the Power which each man gives to it! It was with me when I took away the sting of the Brother Snake. Padre Luis was a man who would have been a good man in any religion--that is why I kept this symbol of him--not for the crucified G.o.d on it! But for the sake of the G.o.d, is it sacred to you because your heart tells you to think that way. It is right to be what a man's heart tells him to be. I give you the prayer beads. I give it to you because your horse helped me to show your people that the pagan G.o.ds are strong, if the heart of the man is strong!"

In the "Relaciones" Don Diego wrote that--"The horrification of that moment was a time men might live through but could not write of.--For myself I know well that only the invisible army of the angels kept the beams of the roof from crushing us, as well as the poor pagans, who sat themselves still in a circle with pleasant countenances!"

Ruy Sandoval knew courage of any kind when he saw it, and he met Tahn-te midway of the council and accepted the rosary of beauty from his hand.

"My thanks to you, Senor Cacique," he said--"the more so for the care given this relic. The Fray Luis de Escalona was known of my mother--also was known the lady from whom this went to his hand.

A goldsmith of note fashioned it, and its history began in a palace;--strange that its end should be found here in the desert of the Indies."

"The end has perhaps not yet been found, Senor,"--said the Indian,--"thanks that you accept it."

Then he spoke in Te-hua to the people as if every personal incident with the Castilians was forever closed.

"You have listened to fair words from these men--and to sweet words of brother and brother. I have waited until all of you spoke that I might know your hearts. You are proud that they come over all the deserts and seek you for friends. Have you asked them why it is so?"

No one had asked why all the other tribes were left behind, and why the strangers had come to camp at the Rio Grande del Norte.

"We are good people," stated one man, and the others thought that was so, and a fair enough reason.

Tahn-te listened, and then spoke to the Castilians.

"You have come far, Senores, and my people have not yet heard the true reason of the honor you pay them. The priest always goes--and the tale told is that it is for souls--(Father Luis truly did believe it was for souls!) But your books tell plainly one thing, and the Christian men I knew taught by their lives the same thing, and it was this:--For gold, for precious stones,--or for women--are the real things which your kings send out companies of men in search of. Women you could find without crossing the desert. This Te-hua man who was first captive, and then slave, would have come in gladness to his people if let go free, yet for five summers and winters did the Castilian priest hold him servant and at last comes with him to his home. Is this because of love? His reverence, the padre, is wise in much with men,--but great love is not his; I cannot see him starving in a cave, and blessing his tormentors as did Fray Luis. So, Senores, the reason must be made more clear. Senor Coronado sought gold--and full freedom was given him to find gold--if he could! Why is your desire to fight for us against the Apache and the Yutah--and what is the thing you ask in exchange? Not yet have we had any plain word as from your king."

Don Ruy smiled at his logic. Here was no untutored savage such as they had hoped to buy with gla.s.s beads--or perhaps a mule the worse for the journey! However it ended, he was getting more of adventure than if he had built a ship to sail the coasts!

"Games have been won by Truth ere now even though Truth be not popular," he said to the padre.

"It is not fitting that his Reverence should make reply,"--put in Don Diego with much anger. "Holy Church is insulted in his person. If this were but Madrid--"

"To wish for Paradise takes no more of breath,"--suggested Don Ruy, "and if it is beneath the dignity of any else, perhaps I could speak--or Chico here."

But the latter silently disclaimed gift of logic or oratory,--in fact the turn of things was not toward gaity. Don Diego was shocked at everything said. Gonzalvo and the padre were plainly furious, yet bound to silence. Only Don Ruy could still smile. To him it was a game good as a bull fight--and much more novel.

"I shall speak, though it be a task I elsewhere evade," he said, and looked at the Cacique--a solitary nude bronze body amidst all the gay trappings of the a.s.sembly. "Senor, it is not women we seek--though a few of us might make room for a pretty one! It is true that the men in armor would help guard your fields, for they have heard that you are the Children of the Sun as were certain people of the south. In the south the sun sent a sign to his children--it was gold set in the ledges of the rock, or the gravel of the stream. If these people of the Rio Grande del Norte can show these signs that they be given as proof to our king--then men in armor of steel will come many as bees on the blossom and guard your land that your corn and your women be ever safe from the wild Indians who make devastation."

Tahn-te repeated this to the Te-hua men without comment of his own, and the dark faces were watched by the Castilians. They could see no eagerness--only a little wonder--and from some a shrug or smile,--but--not from any of them anger or fierce looks!

The padre drew a quiet breath of content and leaned back--the game was at least even. The Navahu had been bad for two years--very bad! The appeal of Don Ruy might prove the right thing, and the simple thing.

It would take time, for the Indian mind was slow;--the quickness of the naked sorcerer proved nothing otherwise, for every G.o.d-fearing man could see that he was more than mortal in satanic strength.

Against this one man alone must the battle for the Trinity be fought!

Together did the Te-hua men of council speak much--and to Ka-yemo they turned more than once and asked of the Tiguex days of the other Christian men. But between the devil of the padre and his symbols and the deep sea of the eyes of Tahn-te, not much was to be remembered by a man, and he could only say that his stay in the south was not long--that he was only a boy, and without the understanding of things done and seen.

"I have spoken,"--said Tahn-te when the older men turned to him for council as to the wisdom of throwing away so powerful a friend as the men of iron. Some were concerned lest they should turn away and offer help to their enemies!

In the land of the Yutah the yellow stones were found in the stream--also in the heart of the Navahu desert. No people used these stones because they were sacred to the sun, and strong for prayer, but--it was well to think what would happen if the men of iron were brothers to the Navahu!

"Never more could we sleep under our own roof--or plant corn in our own fields," said the man from Te-tzo-ge,--"our daughters would be wives to the Navahu and mothers of Navahu, and the gra.s.s would grow over the walls we have builded."

They smoked in silence over this thought, for it was a dark thought--and it could come true!

"We could kill these few, and then sleep sound for a long time with no trouble thoughts," suggested one, a patriarch from Ui-la-ua.

"That is true," said Tahn-te--"but if we do that way we would be no better than these men of iron. Their G.o.d talks two ways for killing, and their men live two ways. Our G.o.d when he taught our fathers, gave them but one law for killing, it was this:--'Go not to battle. A time will come for you to fight, and the stars in the sky will mark that time. When the star of the ice land moves--then the battle time will be here! Until then live as brothers and make houses--use the spear only when the enemy comes to break your walls.' That is the world of the Great Ruler. To kill these men only holds the matter for your sons to decide some other year."

"What then is to do?" demanded a man of Naim-be--"they do not break the walls, but they are beside the gates."

"When the Yutah and the Navahu traders come with skin robes, what is it you do?" asked Tahn-te.

"We trade them our corn and our melons and we get the robes."

"And,"--added Tahn-te--"the governor of each village gives them room outside the walls when the night comes, and the chief of war sees that the gate is closed, and that a guard never goes down from the roof! If these men are precious to you, make of them brothers, and send prayer thoughts on their trail, but never forget that they are traders, and never forget that the watchers must be on the roof so long as they stay in your land! They come for that which they can carry away, and once they have it you will be in their hearts only as the gra.s.s of last year on the hills--a forgotten thing over which they ride to new harvests!"

"You talk as one who has eaten always from the same bowl with the strangers," spoke one man from Oj-ke--"yet you are young, and some of these men are not young."

"Because--"--said Tahn-te catching the implied criticism of his youth and his prominence--"because in the talking paper which their G.o.d made, there is records of all their men since ancient days. They have never changed. Their G.o.ds tell them to go out and kill and take all that which the enemy will not give,--to take also the maids for slaves,--that is their book of laws from the Beginning. Since I was a boy I have studied all these laws. It was my work. By the G.o.d a man has in his heart we can know the man! Their G.o.d is a good G.o.d for traders, and a strong G.o.d for war. But the watchers of the night must never leave the gate unguarded when they camp under the walls."

All this Padre Vicente heard, all this and much of it was comprehended by him. Plainly it was not well to seek converts when the pernicious tongue of the Cacique could speak in their ears.

"It may be that we abide many days beside you," he said gently and with manner politic--"also it may be that we visit the wise men of the other villages, and take to them the good will of our king. The things said to-day we will think of kindly until that time. And in the end you will all learn of the true G.o.d, and will know that we have come to be your brothers if you are the children of the true G.o.d."

Upon which he held up the cross, and bent his head as in prayer, and went first up the ladder into the light. He was pale and the sweat stood on his face. It had been a hard hour.

The others followed in due order, but Don Diego eyed the wizard Cacique with a curiosity great as was his horror.

"Alone he has studied books without a tutor--sacred books--since his boyhood!" he said to Don Ruy--"think of that, and of the grief we had to persuade you to the reading of even the saintly lives!

There is devilish art in this--the angels guard us from further sorcery--without a tutor! A savage magician to study strange tongues without a tutor! It is nothing short of infernal!"

But despite all opinion, Don Ruy waited and approached the man of the white robe and the cruel logic.

"You have been my friend,"--he said--"will you not eat with me and talk in quiet of these matters?"