The Flute of the Gods Part 25

"The strongest possible charge, Excellency. The mother of the girl had Indian blood, and, despite the wealth and Christian teaching of her husband--returned to Indian worship at his death. For that she was called mad, and ended her days in a Convent. The daughter of course will also be mad if she refuses to be guided by the good friends who select her husband--that husband was her only gate to freedom, knowing which the maid did certainly do some mad things:--to strangers she tried to speak--from her duenna she slipped out in the night time--oh there is no doubt that all the evidence will show plainly in court that she is more mad than her mother--"

"Chico!"--The hand of Don Ruy rested on the shoulder of the lad--"You are telling me the hidden part of a story to which I have listened from other lips--and your eyes have tears in them!--Tush!--be not ashamed lad. You yourself have heart for the lady?"

"Not in a way unseemly," retorted the lad, dashing the water from his eyes,--"to think of the mother dead like that behind the bars is not a cheery thing! As for the daughter--I dare call myself her foster brother, and I dare pray for her that she finds the chance to die in the open!"

"What a little world it is!" said the adventurer. "Do you mean that you did come with a message--and that your heart failed you as to consequences? You failed the lady--my unknown lady of the tryst?"

"Excellency:--the maid thought you a person of adventure, and she dared hope to buy your services--then--you two know best what you whispered in the dark!--but she no longer thought of purchase money in exchange for helping her escape to a ship;--G.o.d knows what she thought of, for you must not forget that she is called mad, Senor! But with all her madness she would not have approached your highness with the same freedom had she dreamed that your rank was high as the camp whispered to me the day I came for speech with you! That rank told me a story I could not go back and tell her, Senor--so--I used my forged letter written on viceregal paper, and secured service with a man instead of a maid."

"And left her waiting?"

"I could do her no help by going back--she is no worse off than if I had not come."

"She sent you for the silken broidery?"

"She said if you could come to her service, the scarf or a certain page of a certain book would serve as a sign:--letters are difficult things--boys who carry them are tripped up at times and learn the might of a lash. To send a jewelled bauble and ask for the silken scarf was a less harmful thing for the messengers."

"You imp of an Indian devil! a souvenir was sent me--and a message--and I am hearing no word of it until now in this pagan land!"

"Excellency:--the message is of little moment now--it was only a matter of a tryst--and you were too far on the journey! But the ardor of the Capitan Gonzalvo may bring us all strange moments,--and it may be some graves! If mine should be among them, and you should live to go back, you can take from my neck the bauble trusted to me by the lady. It is one of the records of her madness. But you will not quite laugh at it, Senor--and you will forgive me that I could not give it to you as she had dreamed in her madness that I could easily do."

"Mad? By our Lady!--there has been no madness from first to last but my own when I was tricked away from her by lies pious and politic!

Oh--oh!--our padre was in it deep, and I have served their purpose!

And you--you girl-faced little devil--what share is yours in all this?

Whose tool have you been from first to last?"

"Whose?"--the lad had regained his careless mien--"surely not that of Dame Venus or her son, Master Cupid! It is well for me to find employ in the wilderness--never again dare I seek service with lord or lady!"

"Your lady lost her wits ere she made you amba.s.sador on a love quest!"

"Without doubt you speak truth, Excellency. I might add--(had I not been whipped into politeness to my superiors!) that the deluded maid had lost her wits ere she fell into love with a face seen from a balcony--or with a voice whispering to her in the darkness of a rose bower!"

Don Ruy looked at him without much of sweetness in the glance.

"I've two minds regarding you," he stated,--"and one of them is to thresh you for faithlessness and a forward tongue!"

"Then I beg that you choose the other mind!" said the secretary, on his feet, alert, and ready to make a run if need be. "Don Diego could not well spare me in the midst of his struggles with the heathen, and his desire that honest things be set down in the 'Relaciones.'

Moreover--Excellency, it would take many words to convince that pious gentleman that I had been faithless in aught--to you!"

There was a pitiful little quaver in the last words by which Don Ruy was made ashamed of his threat, for despite his anger that the lad was over close in the confidence of the unknown Mexican maid, yet the stripling had been a source of joy as they rode side by side over the desert reaches, and he knew that only for him had those Indian thoughts been given that were heresy most rank for any other ears. In ways numberless had the devotion of the lad been manifest.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PAGE _Page 198_]

But Don Ruy had little heart to discuss the matter, he was still flushed with the annoying thought that the young cub had been let know every whisper of the moment under the roses. He walked away without more words.

And Yahn who was watching the two, was very glad in her heart. She could plainly see that those two who had laughed at her sometimes, were having a quarrel that was a trouble to each, for Don Ruy walked away with an angry frown, and the page stood by the terrace steps a long time, and looked across the river with no smile on his face.

CHAPTER XIV

THE COURIER AND THE MAID

Ere the morning star saw its face in the sacred lake of the Na-im-be mountains, Tahn-te, the Po-Ahtun-ho, had done a thing not of custom:--he was leaving the governor to hear the prayers of Povi-whah, while he, for reasons politic, made the run to the most northern of pueblos.

Much in the council of the strangers had shown him their power over the old men whose minds were divided between dread of the savage tribes, and wonder if the youth of Tahn-te gave him warrant for all the knowledge expressed by him.

The governor of Te-gat-ha had sent no men to the council of Povi-whah.

From that fact had Tahn-te reasoned that Te-gat-ha meant to show no favors to the white strangers. Te-gat-ha was of itself, very strong, else it could not have held its walls against the Yutah and the wild tribes of the north. Therefore would Te-gat-ha be a good comrade.

Twenty leagues it lay across the river and the mountain, but Tahn-te had ere the dawn taken the bath in the living stream of the river:--it runs and never tires, and its virtues are borrowed by the bather who lets it have its way with him while he whispers the prayers of the stars of the morning.

He knew that this was the moon and the time of the moon, when the summer ceremonies were made in Te-gat-ha to the G.o.d of Creations, and because of a wonderful visitor in the sky, he knew that special ceremonies would be held. The Ancient Star was near the zenith--never must it depart without a life to strengthen it on the downward trail!

The Po-Ahtun-ho in his ceremonial person never leaves the region of the sanctuary, any more than the pope across the seas dare go adventuring. It was as Tahn-te the courier, that he carried the message of the Po-Athun to the man of Te-gat-ha that no shadow of doubt be left in his mind as to where they stood in the Pueblo brotherhood.

The mountain forest of Te-gat-ha, and the rose thickets close to the brown walls make it a place of beauty. Through the open court between the century old buildings, runs the mountain stream with its message from the heights to the hidden river cutting deep down in the green plain to the west.

The valley of Povi-whah was beautiful in itself as a garden is good to look on when the spirits of the Growing Things have worked well with the man who covers the seed, but Te-gat-ha brought thoughts of a different beauty--even as did the memory of Walpi in Tusayan.

Walpi breathed the spirit of a tragic life, the last fortress of a mysterious people. Te-gat-ha sat enthroned facing the setting sun.

Ancient, beautiful and insolent--with the insolence which refused to grow old though she had been mistress of many centuries.

Tahn-te the dreamer,--the student of mystic things, was subtly conscious of that almost personal--almost feminine appeal of Te-gat-ha. Strong in its beauty as in its battles--it yet retained a sensuous atmosphere that was as the mingling of rose bloom and wild plum blossom, of crushed mint grown in the shadows of the moist places, and clinging feathery clematis, binding by its tendrils green thickets into walls impregnable.

He could hear the beating of the tombe while yet out of sight of the sentinel on the western wall of the terrace. Medicine was being made, or dances were being danced.

While he ran through the forest his thoughts had drifted again and again to the vision of the bluebird maid. Was she the earth form of the G.o.d-Maid on the south mesa where the great star hung low? Was she the G.o.ddess Estsan-atlehi who wore for him the color of the blue earth jewel sacred to her?--was she the shadow of the dream-maid of all his boy days--the K[=a]-ye-povi who had gone from earth to the Light beyond the light? All the wild places spoke of her, each stream he crossed made him see the young limbs pictured in the pool--each bird song made him remember the symbol sent to him by the vision--the world was a sweeter place because of the vision.

It came even against his will between himself and the priest of the robe who had called him "Sorcerer"--and who was the real general he would have to do battle with in the near days. The others he scarcely thought of, but that one of the wise tactful speech he must think of much.

Then while he told himself that the thought of the men of iron must never be forgotten for even the sweetest of forest dreams;--in that same moment the rustling of the wind in the pinons made him thrill with the closeness of the remembered vision as no sight of living maid had ever made him thrill:--might it be magic from Those Above to try his strength? Might the memory of the maid and the pool, be akin to that temptation of the babe and the arms of the mother outlined on the shadows of the ancient graven stone?

That had plainly been false enchantment--and he had danced it away in the prayer dance to the Ancient Father. It had not returned even in his dreams. But the maid of the bluebird had not ever gone quite away.

So close she seemed at times that if he turned his head quickly in the places of shadows he felt that he might see her again before the Spirit People hid the body of beauty.

And then--as he ran, and turned where the trail circled a rugged column of stone at the edge of the pinon woods,--there a shadow flitted as a bird past the great gray barrier. He turned from the trail almost without volition of his own, and followed the flitting shadow, and--the maid of the bluebird wing was again before him!

Not merging into the shadows as before. Against the grey wall of rock she stood as a wild hunted thing at bay--breathless, panting--but with head thrown back to look death in the face.

But death was not what she saw in his eyes--only a wonder great as her own--and with the wonder fear,--and something else than fear.

Plainly she had been bound by thongs of rawhide, for one yet hung from her wrist. Much of her body was bare, her greatest garment was a deerskin robe held in her hand as she ran.

Because of this, could he see that her body and her arms were decorated with ceremonial symbols in the sacred colors, and the painting of them was not complete. It was evident she had been chosen for the forest dance of the maidens who were young. It was plain also that she had resisted, and had in some way broken from the people.

At the something other than fear in his eyes, she gained courage, and at the bluebird's wing in his head band, she stared and touched the one in her own braids, and then touched her own breast.