The Flute of the Gods

“Your pardon, Excellency,” he said lowly. “It is not for me to advise, but I heard some words of the two over there–may I speak?”

“Yes, my lad, and quickly as may be. Their two heads are over close together for discretion. I fear I shall have the task and expense of providing a duenna for my beauteous interpreter.”

“Little enough of love there is with that dame!” commented the other,–“it is hate–your Excellency–and for you to say whether their private hates may not be a breeder of woe for all of us.”

“You mean–?”–and Don Ruy motioned with his head towards the kiva.

“Yes:–it is the Cacique. The woman for some cause is bitter with hate against him.–Juan Gonzalvo is eager to listen–he is restless as quicksilver already with suspicion of strange things. In the far south he and his comrades made little odds of riding rough shod over the natives–here he would do the same at a word from the padre.”

“And that word we can ill afford when we are but a handful!” decided Don Ruy,–“Hum!–for instant annihilation of the proud pagan we can depend on Gonzalvo, the padre, and Maestro Diego, if it came to a showing of hands. There must be no showing:–Capitan Gonzalvo!”

“Yes, Excellency.”

Gonzalvo crossed quickly to him, while Yahn stood sulkily watching the three with lazy, half closed eyes.

“You forget none of the pagan Cacique’s words–or his defiance of Holy Church?”

“His defiance of Holy God!–Excellency,” answered Gonzalvo hotly,–“and that is not all–I have heard things–I am putting them together–You saw his eyes–scarcely Indian eyes! You heard his accursed logic of heresy–not all Indian–that! Indians may think like that in their accursed hearts, but they do not find the quick words to argue with their superiors as does this insolent dog! Listen, Don Ruy, for I have found the clue–and he belongs to me–that man!”

“To you–Capitan?”

“To me! You have listened to mad things of his birth and of his clan–the girl of the twilight and the seed bearer–well, what I tell you seems even more mad, but it will be true if ever we get to the end of it–that story of the thrice accursed Teo the Greek–you recall it?–he did without doubt cross this river and saw the Pueblos,–this sorcerer is of his spawn–he and his medicine mother come back in good time with their Star God story, and the seeds–the identical seeds of the padre’s story! See you not what it all leads to? He has the blood of the Greek in him:–in any Christian land he has enough of it to be broken on the wheel for his damnable heresies!”

“But–since we are not in a Christian land, and doubtless shall never see him in a Christian land?”

“That narrows it down to man and man, Excellency! His father made a slave of mine–my earliest oath on the Cross and on the Faith, was vengeance against the Greek and all his blood! God of Heaven!–to think that of all the priests of Mexico you chose the one who knew that story!–and that of all the Indian tribes, we have come to the one where the half Greek sorcerer rules like a Turk! Don Ruy–you have led me north to vengeance–my sword and my arm are forever to your cause.”

“Many thanks to you, Capitan, but in this case it is not your sword I shall command–except to remain in its scabbard!–but your speech I must silence while we give this matter of the Cacique a season of prayer and due consideration.”

“Excellency–I do not understand–”

“You understand at least all that a soldier need, Capitan,” said Don Ruy with smiling ease. “Your commission comes from me,–and I did not bestow it for the furtherance of private quarrels. Until I give the word, your speech must not again mention the thing you suspect–”

“But–the padre–”

“Least of all must the padre or Señor Brancedori hear even a whisper of it! Neither private vengeance, nor religious war must be pursued while the company is on our present quest.”

“You would have me break my oath on the cross–save a heretic alive who belongs in the deepest pit?–Excellency!”

Gonzalvo’s voice had much of pleading. He felt himself a man cheated of his righteous dues.

“Your holy vengeance will keep until our quest is over–and the more time to prepare your soul,” suggested Don Ruy. “Then–if the gold is found, and all goes well, you two can have open fight before we take the road to the south. But until that lucky hour, the first and the last word for you is–silence!”

Gonzalvo stood, staring in baffled rage. It was to the padre he should have gone first. He had played the wrong card in the game. Was Don Ruy bewitched as well as his horse?

“At least I shall have a double debt to pay when my time does come, Excellency”–he said at last. “His pagan discourse warrants him a Christian knife, and will insure him a corner of hell when I send him there!”

At a respectful distance the secretary had seated himself, and rested with brow on fists.

“How now?”–asked Don Ruy. “You seem little heartened by all this brave talk of righteousness. Think you the monk’s life of cloister and garden looks fair after all?”

“In truth, Señor, if you have the desire to despatch a lackey to your lady love across the sands, you may choose me if you like!” agreed the lad. “I have neither heart nor stomach for this contest of souls or no souls–the pagan blood for my far away grandmother unfits me for judgement–this heretic of the white robe is fighting the same fight of my own people–but he fights it like one inspired by the nahual of a god. Yet–there is only one finish to it! Bulls-hide shields and arrows stand not long before steel coats and leaden bullets–I would be elsewhere when the finish comes, Señor.”

“The nahual of a god!” repeated Don Ruy, “now what may that mean in Christian speech?”

“In Christian speech it does not exist–the church has spilled much blood that it be washed from the pagan mind,” said the lad. “But the nahual is the guardian angel or guardian devil born to earth with each man–it is like his shadow, yet unseen, it is part of the Great Mystery from the other side of the dawn and the other side of the dark. Once open worship was given to the Nahual, and their priests were strong. Now if the worshippers do meet, it is in secret. This man has truly drawn to himself a strong nahual and it should give him much of the magic which the good padre tells us is accursed.”

“For a boy you have a fund of strange lore!” commented Don Ruy,–“too much for good company in the night time,–small wonder that you range abroad and dream under the stars! The monks never taught you all of it. Come:–tell me truly of your escapade–what sent you to our ranks?”

The lad flushed, then shrugged his shoulders and regarded the toes of his sandals.

“Excellency–if you require that I tell you–I am most certain never to get the commission to carry message to lady of yours!” he said so whimsically that the excellency laughed and promised him constant employment on such embassies if fortune found him ladies.

“Then:–I must speak myself a failure! A damsel did trust me with some such message to her cavalier and seeing that the love was all on one side–and that side her own–I dared not go back and face her–not even her guerdon could I by any means steal from him; brief:–I saved my neck by following you and leaving the land!”

“Was she so high in power?”

“Yes:–and–no, Excellency. She was, with all her estates, so close under the guard of the Viceroy that she could win all favors but–freedom!”

“How?” queried Don Ruy with wrinkled brow–his thoughts travelling fast to the converse of the gentle maniac as told him by the padre. “Has the Viceroy then a collection of pretty birds in cages–and must they sing only for the viceregal ear?”

“I cannot tell as to other cages, Señor, but this one was meant to sing only for a viceregal relative:–if she proved heretic, then the convent waited and her lands were otherwise disposed of.”

“Hum! Then even in the provinces such rulings work as swiftly as at court! Well, what outer charge was there?”

“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;–God knows what she thought of, for you must not forget that she is called mad, Señor! 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, Señor–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, Señor–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 ambassador 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.

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-té, 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-té 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-té 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-té 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 God 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-té 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 Wálpi in Tusayan.

Wálpi 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-té 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 tombé 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 God-Maid on the south mesa where the great star hung low? Was she the Goddess 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 piñons 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 piñon 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.

“Doli (Blue Bird)–me!” she said appealingly. “Navahu”–then she held her hand out as though measuring the height of a child.–“Te-hua–me!”

“Te-hua!”–he caught her hand and knew that she was not a vision, though he had first known of her in a vision. She was a living maid, and twice on wilderness trails had she come to him!

“Te-hua–you?” he half whispered, but in Te-hua words she could not answer him–only begged rapidly in Navahu for protection–and motioned with fear towards the villages where the tombé was sounding.

To give help to an escaped captive of Te-gat-ha while on the trail to ask friendship of Te-gat-ha, was an act not known in Indian ethics–but as when he had been wakened by her in the cañon of the high walls–so it was now–the outer world drifted far, and the eyes of the girl–pleading–were the only real things. In his hours on the trail through the forest he had thought the ever-present picture of her in his heart might be strange new magic for his undoing, but to hear her tremulous girl voice:–and to see the broken thong, and the symbols of the most primitive of tribal dances, drove into forgetfulness the thought of all magic that was false magic. The gods had sent the vision of her in the dawn of the sacred mountain, that he–Tahn-té–might know her for his own when she crossed his trail for help. The Navahu goddess of the earth jewel had surely sent her–else why the pair of blue wings between them? The symbolism of it was conclusive to the Indian mind, and he reached out his hand.

“Come!” he said gently. “Little sister,–come you with me!”

When the sentinel on the wall of Te-gat-ha sighted a strange runner who ran to them, and ran with swiftness, the word went to the governor, and he sent his man of the right hand to the gate of the wall.

In times of feasts these two had met before the days when the prayers were listened to by Tahn-té, and the greeting given to the visitors was a greeting to a friend.

As they crossed the court, Tahn-té could see that confusion and alarm was there. A woman who had been chidden was weeping, and the governor of war had his scouts at the place in the wall where the water ran under the bridge of the great logs–that was the only place where one could creep through without passing the gates, where the sentinel could always see.

“She is a witch!” wailed the woman who was in tears–“The painting was being done on her,–she would have been complete–and then it was the pot boiled over in the ashes:–they blinded my eyes, and the child was in the ashes also, and the body of him was burned. Could I see the witch when my eyes were blind? Could I hear the witch when my child screamed? Could I know she would cover herself with a deer skin and go into the ground, or into the clouds? On no trail of earth can you find her. She is a witch who brings bad luck to my house!”

But the men, heeding not her words, went over the ground in ways towards the mountains, and looked with keenness on all the tracks of women’s feet.

Beyond the words of the women, Tahn-té heard nothing more of the person who was painted almost to completeness ere she went into the clouds, or into the ground. It was not etiquette to make questions. The wise old governor gave greeting to the visitor as if no thing had happened more unusual than the rising or setting of the sun.

Tahn-té had been many times to Te-gat-ha when the Sun races were made in the Moon of Yellow leaves. At that time the Sun Father grows weak, and the races are made that he may look down and see the earth children as they show strength, and the prayer of the race is that the Sun Father goes not far away, but seeks strength also, and grows warm again after a season.

Thus Tahn-té knew kindly the people, and the chief men were called to hear why a runner had been sent at this time to the brothers of the North.

The head men wrapped themselves in the robes of ceremony, the younger priests painted their bodies with the white, and into the kiva of council they descended with their visitor of high office.

On the shrine there, Tahn-té placed a fragment of the sun symbol taken from the pouch at his girdle. Before a white statue of the weeping god he placed it, and the Keeper of the Sacred Fire there, breathed on his hand, and threw fragrant dried herbs of magic on the live coals, that all evil and all discord be driven out by the fumes, and when the smoke drifted upwards and out by the way of the sky, the talk was made.