The Flute of the Gods Part 37

He turned and stumbled downward blindly, and Yahn Tsyn-deh clung to him and gripped his hand cruelly for silence, and when they sank at last beside a great boulder, her arms were around him, as though that clasp kept the solid world from crumbling beneath her feet.

"No--no--no!" muttered Ka-yemo as though she had actually uttered words of persuasion,--"it is what their padre said long ago. Their strong G.o.d has an army of saints, and of angels,--they stand guard;--all who go against them are swept into the flames of their Underworld! It is what the Padre Luis said--and now it has been seen by my eyes! Their altars are the stronger altars,--we will go there--we will both go;--the fire of their h.e.l.l will not reach us at their altar--the medicine prayers of their padre are strong prayers--we will go to him--"

The old fear of his boyhood had enveloped him as the unchained electric force had enveloped the heights. Yahn Tsyn-deh put up her hand to her throat;--she felt herself strangle for breath as she listened.

"It was some trick!" she insisted--though she also had trembled with awe--"Listen to me!--they have many tricks--these white men! Because of a trick will you go to their altars, and be shamed in your clan?

Their priest is the head of all things--will you follow the steps of another when you can wear the feathers of a leader? Will you be laughed at by the tribe? Hear--oh hear!--and let your heart listen!

Never again will the G.o.ds send you this chance to be great--this is your day and your night!"

"Their devils keep guard--the flames of their h.e.l.l no man can fight!"

"Ka-yemo!--I am holding you close--I give myself to you!--one arrow only must you send when the witch maid is killed, and Tahn-te is killed,--one arrow, and forever you are the highest, and I am your slave to give you love! Ka-yemo!"

The light of the moon was sending a glow above Na-im-be mountains. The moon itself was not yet seen, but enough light was on the mesa for the pleading girl to see the face of the man she adored.

The face was averted and turned from her. In terror he bent the arrow shafts across his knee, and flung the bow far down into the shadows.

"_Ka-yemo!_"--she moaned as the last vestige of her idol was destroyed by his own hand;--"do you give me then to the Castilian? Must _I_ pay the debt?"

"Against the G.o.ds of their h.e.l.l I will not send arrows," he muttered--"He may not claim you--the sign sent to me here is a strong sign--a G.o.d of fire is a strong G.o.d--and I am only a man! It may be that if we go to their padre--and if we confess--"

She could see that he was blindly groping in his mind for some chance--some little chance, to be forgiven--to be forgiven by the Castilians whose feet would be on his neck--and on hers!

It was his day and his night, and he had thrown it away! Never again could the day dawn in joy for those two.

She drew him to her as the light grew, and looked in the face she had loved from babyhood. It was a long look, and a strange one. She was thinking of the archer above them who waited to send death to a man and a maid!

"What is it?" he asked as her fingers slipped from his shoulder along his arm and clasped his hand with the closeness, the firmness of settled resolve.

"It is that you have chosen," she said quietly. "It is the right of the man to choose;--and it will be well. It is the right of the woman to follow: and before the moon comes again from the blanket of the east we will know--and the G.o.ds will know, that the choice is a good choice!"

She held his hand and led him upwards;--steadily, yet without haste.

The edge of the moon showed red, and the moon was to be clear of the mountains when Tahn-te came to the portal of the star--thus had his mother told the girl while Yahn listened like a coiled snake close to the well.

To Ka-yemo, Yahn seemed again the adoring creature of love. She held him close, and whispered endearing things. Never had Yahn, the Apache tigress, let him see how completely her love could make her gentle and make him master. The sweetness of it, and the absolute relief when the arrows were destroyed--gave him a sense of security;--It would be easy to confess to the padre;--the Castilians would be glad of converts--and Juan Gonzalvo--someway they could make words to Juan Gonzalvo--and padre would help--and--

Holding closely his hand she led him up the ancient stairway, and the little doorways of the cliff dwellings showed black, for the moon had slipped above the far hills and shone, a dulled ball of fire through the sultry haze. Enough light it threw on the white cliffs to show any moving creature, and Ka-yemo glanced fearfully towards the portal of the star, for surely a movement was there!

But Yahn Tsyn-deh at the head of the stairway looked straight ahead where a man with a strong bow held himself close in the shadow of a great rock. When the tw.a.n.g of the bow string sounded, she loosened not her hand from that of Ka-yemo as he fell, but with her other hand she pulled aside the robe from her breast--also the necklace of the white metal, that not anything turn aside the point of the arrow which was to follow.

And when it came she fell to her knees, and then over the huddled body of the man she had loved and led to death.

She loosened not her hand, and only once she spoke.

"It is a good choice," she whispered, but he had led the way into the Twilight Land--and she followed as she had said was the right of a woman.

And the clan of Ka-yemo could chant songs of bravery all their days and not know that Yahn the Apache had saved the pride of her father's people, and had hidden the weakness of Ka-yemo on the heights of Pu-ye!

CHAPTER XXI

THE CALL OF THE ANCIENT STAR

When the moon had scarce reached the center of the sky, a gray faced man slipped through the corn fields of the river lands, and spoke to the Spanish sentry who paced before the dwellings where the camp was made outside the wall.

The sentry wondered who the woman was who had held him belated, for many were now coming from Shufinne, and some of them were pretty.

But Capitan Gonzalvo laid himself down to dream of no woman. He crept to the pallet of Padre Vicente. There were no words lest others be aroused, but a pressure of a hand was enough to bring the padre to his feet, the sleep of the man was ever light as that of one who does sentry duty day time and night time.

Out into the open of the summer night they both pa.s.sed, and in the shadow of a wall where the Te-hua sentinel could not see, a man of iron broke down and half sobbed a confession of horror.

The padre paced to and fro in the dusk of the night, and gave not over much care to the shaken heart of the penitent.

"A hundred Aves, and half as many rosaries,--and candles for the altar of San Juan when we return to Mexico." He tabulated the penance on his fingers, with his mind clearly not on those details.

"Take you courage now, and hark to me," he said brusquely. "You say you saw the maid and the man dead one on the other;--and that you fled across the mesa at sight of their faces. That pretty Apache devil told you that the witch lived at that place, and that the Po-Ahtun-ho was her lover. How know you that it was not indeed witchcraft you looked upon? How know you that the infernal magic was not used to change the faces of the two that you be sent home not knowing which are dead and which are living? This may yet be turned to our advantage."

Juan Gonzalvo was past thinking. Not though gold was found as plentiful as the white stones of Pu-ye would he again go to the witch accursed spot! His own armor had been touched by the fire of h.e.l.l in that place until he had lain it aside while he waited for the coming of the sorcerer, and the sorcerer had in some way kept hidden--magic spells had been worked to blind the eyes of Gonzalvo to the faces of the others--even though light was given for the arrows to speed true!

He would fight living Indians in the open:--but no more would he trail witches in the dark!

So he mumbled and made prayers and calmed himself somewhat at sight of the calm, ever cool padre.

"Go you to your rest," said his reverence at last,--"and forget all the work of this night."

"Forget?--but they will be found--they--"

"I will see that they are found, but let it not trouble you," stated Padre Vicente. "We must meet trickery by trickery here. Go to your bed, and sleep too sound for early waking."

"But--how--"--between the shock and fear of the night, Gonzalvo fairly clung to the quiet strength of the padre.

"Take your sleep:--and keep a still tongue forever! I have had a dream or a vision this night," and the padre smiled grimly. "I can as well afford a vision as can the elect of the Po-Ahtun!--and my vision will send people of Ka-yemo's clan to search for dead friends on the heights of Pu-ye!"

"And if they find there also--?"

"Ah!" and the padre nodded and smiled that the thought had penetrated the shocked mind of Capitan Gonzalvo;--"If they find there also the evidence that their high priest is the lover of a witch--and that he runs from council prayers to meet her in the night:--is that not the best of all things the saints could send us? You have done good work for the cause this night, Juan Gonzalvo. Go now to your sleep--and when you hear of that which is found on Pu-ye, you hear it for the first time!"

The council of that night had been a late council because of the quaking of the earth. Every one knew it was time that a sacrifice be made to the visitor in the sky. All of evil was coming to the land because this had not been done. One Yutah slave belonged to the Quan clan, and a robe and sh.e.l.l beads must be given by the vote of the council to that clan. It would be a better thing to use the new Navahu who was made captive by the men of iron, but their new brothers would not listen to this wisdom.

When the sun looked over the edge of the mountain in the new day the sun must see the heart lifted high;--and the body must go to the murmuring river--then only could hope come that the evil magic be lifted from the land of the Te-hua people.

Thus the vote had been, and thus had Tahn-te been held in council long after the time the Moon Mother came over Ni-am-be mountains.

Don Ruy was at that council, and asked to speak against the offering of blood to the G.o.d whose eye was as the star. But Tahn-te listened and then spoke,

"Your own G.o.d of the book asks for sacrifice--your G.o.d of the book accepted his own son as a sacrifice--and that people prospered! Your priests teach the blood atonement, and the death they gave the earth-born G.o.d was a hard death--if he had really died there! Being a G.o.d he could not die in that way;--all medicine men who know strong magic know that. But the blood was spilled and the spirit went away from that place--the earth G.o.ds always go away like that while they are young;--never do they die. There are days--and there are nights, when they come back! They speak in many ways to earth people. You men of iron do not to-day make blood sacrifice to your G.o.ds;--so you say!

Yet your people go out to battle and kill many people for your G.o.d--also many of your own people are killed in such G.o.d wars--your tribes of different names call these wars 'holy'. Our people do not think like that. Even the wild tribes hold the Great Mystery sacred in their hearts. They will fight for hunting ground, or to steal women or corn--but to fight about the G.o.ds would bring evil magic on the land--the old men could not be taught that it is a good thing! Also your Holy Office has the torch, and the rack, and the long death of torture for the man who cannot believe. The priests of your jealous G.o.d do that work, and their magic is strong over men. You talk against our altars, but on our altars there is not torture,--there is one quick pain--and the door of the Twilight Land is open and the spirit is loose! This world where we live is a very ancient world, but it is not yet finished. All the old men can tell you that. It may be in the unborn days that earth creatures may see the world when it finished,--and when the G.o.ds come back, and speak in the sunlight to men. In that time the sacrifice may be a different sacrifice. But in this time we follow the ancient way for the G.o.ds have not shown us a different way."