45
“It may be they will not look for us here,” he said as he saw who it was in the chapel––“Perhaps––if one keeps near––to their strong god: and you are close also––and––”
“I stay close because it is my work,”––said Tahn-té. “Some of the men tied to the stakes out there bent before their strong god and said prayers there.––Did it save them?”
“They will kill us––we will never see our people––they will kill us!” muttered Ka-yemo shaken with fear.
“I do not think they want to kill us:––they still need us for many things. We are only boys, we have not wives that we refuse to give to the white men––if we had it might be different, who knows?”
“Is that the cause?”
“The white men will give a different one––but that is the cause! The men of this valley think it is enough if they give their houses, and their corn, and their woven blankets to their fine white brothers:––the red men are foolish men,––so they burn at the stake out there!”
Ka-yemo stared at him, and crouched in his blanket.
“You say strange things,” he muttered. “I think when they get crazy with the spirit to kill that they will kill us all. I do not stay to be killed––I go!”
Tahn-té staring at the emblems of holiness on the altar scarcely heard him.
“I go, Tahn-té,––I go if I have to swim the river with the ice.––Do you stay here to be killed?”
“I am here to learn many things––I learn but little yet, I cannot go.”
“But––if you die?”
“I think it is not yet that I die,” said Tahn-té––“There is much to do.”
46
“And––if I live to see––our people?”
“Tell my mother I am strong––and I feel her prayers when the sun comes up. Tell the governor I stay to learn what the white god does for the red men; when I have things to tell the people I will come back to Povi-whah.”
But the ice of that winter melted, and the summer bore its fruit, and the second spring time had come to the land before Tahn-té crossed the mesas and stood at his mother’s door.
“Thanks––that you have come,” she said, and wept, and he held her hand and did not know the things to say, only:––“Thanks that our gods have brought me back.”
“And the magic of the white man?”
“It is here,” and he opened a bag made of buffalo skin, and in it were books and papers covered with written words. She looked on them with awe. Her son was only a boy but he had won that which was precious, and earned honors from the men of her tribe and her clan.
“Not to me must you tell it first,” she said––“The Ruler will hear you, and the governor,––they will decide if it is to be known, or if it is to be secret.”
The old men sprinkled prayer meal––and smoked medicine smoke over the books to lift any lingering curses from the white men’s god, and then the boy opened the pages and made clear how the marks stood for words, and the words put all together stood for the talk of the white god. It was a thing of wonder to the council.
“And it is a strong god?” asked the Ruler.
“It is strong for war:––not for peace,” said the boy.
“Ka-yemo brought back the words of the medicine-man47of the grey blanket who talked of their god. All his talk was of peace and of love in the heart. Is that true?”
“It is true. He was a good man. It may be that some men are born so good that even the gods of the men of iron cannot make them evil. And Padre Luis was born into the world like that.”
“We listen to you to hear of the moons and the suns since you went away.”
The boy told of the fruitless search to the east for the wonderful land of the slave’s romance, where the natives used golden bowls instead of earthen vessels for food, where each soldier was so sure of gaining riches that the weight of provisions carried was small lest the animals be not strong enough to carry all the gold and the food also.
The old men laughed much at this search for the symbol of the Sun Father along the waters of the Mischipi, and commended the wise men of Ci-cu-yé who had the foresight to plan the romance, and to send the slave to lead the adventurers to the land of false dreams.
It was bad, however, that the strangers had not lost themselves in the prairies, or were not killed by the fierce tribes of the north:––it was bad that they came back to the villages of the P[=o]-s[=o]n-gé river.
Then the boy told of the final despair of the conquerors, and their disheartened retreat to the land of the south. For two years they had terrorized the people of the land––worse enemies than the Navahu or the Comanche or the Apache fighter, then when they had made ruins where towns and gardens had been, they said it was all of no use since the yellow metal was not found in the ground.
“Did the wise men of iron not know that where48the yellow metal is in the earth, that there is ever the symbol of the Sun Father, and that it must be a thing sacred and a hidden place for prayer?”
“They did not know that:––no man told them.”
K[=a]-ye-fah, the ancient Ruler blew smoke from his pipe to the four ways, and spoke.
“Yet among the men they burned to ashes in the village square were many who could have told them that, and three who could have told them where such prayer places were hidden! It is well, my children, that they did die, and not tell that which the Sun Father has hidden for his own people:––it is well!”
“It is well!” echoed the others of the council.
“We all die when the day or the night comes,”––continued the old man. “It is well that we die in bravery for the sake of the others who have to live and walk the earth path. It is well that we have strong hearts to think about. One day I shall go in the ground with my fathers; I am old, and the trail has been long, and in my old days the sunlight has been covered for me.”
Tahn-té did not know what he meant, but the other men bent their heads in sympathy.
“It is twice four moons since my child K[=a]-ye-povi was carried away in the darkness when we fought the Navahu in the hunting grounds to the west,”––he continued. “No one has found her––no trader has brought her back. When a woman, she will not know her own people, or our own speech. I think of that, and grow weak. Our people have never been slaves––yet she will be a slave for our enemy the Navahu! So it is that I grow old more quick, and the time may come soon to sleep on our Mother––the Earth.”
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“We wish that it comes not soon,” said the governor, and the others signified their assent.
“Thanks, thanks that you wish it. I do not speak of it to give sad hearts. I speak because of the days when I may be gone, and another than me will hold the knowledge of a sacred place where the Sun Father hides his symbol. It is good that I hear of the men who let themselves go into ashes, and when if they had said once:––‘I know where it is––the metal of the Sun!’ all might have gone free and lived long days. My children:––it may be that some day one of you will hold a secret of the sacred place where strong magic lives! If it be so, let that man among you think in his heart of the twenty times ten men who let themselves be burned into ashes by the white men of iron! Guard you the sacred places––and let your ashes go into the sands, or be blown by the winds to the four ways. But from the sacred things of the gods, lift not the cover for the enemy!”
The old man trembled with the intensity of the thought and the dread of what the unborn years might bring.
After a moment of silence the governor spoke:
“It may be that you live the longest of all! No one knows who will guard the things not to be told. But no Te-hua can uncover that which belongs to the Sun Father, and the Earth Mother.”
“It is true:––thanks that it is true!”––said the other men, and Tahn-té knew he was listening to things not told to boys.
“Thanks that you speak so,” said the Ruler. “Now we have all spoken of this matter. It is done. But the magic of the white hunters of gold, we have not yet heard spoken. How is it, boy, that50you have brought all these signs of it:––what made blind their eyes?”
“Not anything,” said Tahn-té. “It was a long time I was with them. Some men had one book, or two, other men had papers that came in great canoes from their land in Spain. Some had writings from their fathers or their friends. These I heard read and talked of around the camp fire. When they went away some things were thrown aside or given to the padres who were to stay and talk of their gods. All I found I hid in the earth. The people of Ci-bo-la killed Padre Juan, and I traded a broken sword for his books and his papers. The sword I also had buried. They were afraid of the books, I had learned to read them, and I was not afraid.”
“And you came from Ci-bo-la alone?” asked the governor,––“it is a long trail to carry a load.”
“All was not carried from there. I came back to Ci-cu-yé to learn more from Padre Luis who meant to live there. He did not live so long, but while he lived he taught me.”
“The men of Ci-cu-yé killed him too?”
“They made him die when they said I must not take beans or meal to him where he lived in a cave, and where he made prayers for their shadow spirits.”
“You wanted that he should have food?” asked the Ruler.
“I wanted that he should live to teach me all the books before the end came,” said the boy simply. “It is not all to be learned in two winters and one summer.”
“That is true,” said K[=a]-ya-fah the Ruler. “All of a man’s life is needed to learn certain things of magic. It is time now that you come back and begin51the work of the Orders. You have earned the highest right a boy has yet earned, and no doors will be closed for you on the sacred things given to people.”
“We think that is so,” said the governor––“no doors will be closed for the son of S[=aa]-hanh-que-ah, the Woman of the Twilight.”
This was the hour he had dreamed of through the months which had seemed horrible as the white man’s hell. One needs only to read the several accounts of Coronado’s quest for the golden land of the Gran Quivera in 1540-42 to picture what the life of a little native page must have been with the dissatisfied adventurers, by whom all “Indians” were considered as slaves should their service be required.
Men had died beside him on the trail––and there had been times when he felt he too would die but for the thought of this hour when he could come back, and the council could say––“It is well!”
“I thank you, and my mother will thank you,” he said with his eyes on the stones of the kiva lest the men see that his eyes were wet. “My mother said prayers with me always, and that helped me to come back.”
“The prayers of the Shadow Woman are high medicine,” assented one of the men. “She brought back my son to live when the breath was gone away.”
“As a little child she had a wisdom not to be taught,” affirmed the Ruler––“and now it is her son who brings us the magic of the iron men. Tell us how you left the people of Ci-cu-yé.”
“They were having glad dances that the Christians were gone, and that the padres were dead as other men die. So long as they let me I carried food and water to Padre Luis. Then they guarded me in the kiva, and laughed at me, and when they let me go I52knew it was because he was no longer alive. No:––they did not harm me. They were too pleased that I could tell them of where their slave whom they called the ‘Turk’––led the gold hunters searching for the Quivera of yellow metal and blue stones. They had much delight to hear of the woeful time of the white men. I could stay all my days at Ci-cu-yé and be precious to them, if I would talk of the trouble trail to Quivera, but when I had seen that the Padre was indeed gone to the Lost Others, my work was no more at Ci-cu-yé. I took his books also for my own––and all these things I have brought back at Povi-whah to make good my promise when I went away. Some things in the books, I know, and that I can tell you. Of the rest I will work until I do know, and then I can tell you that.”
“That is good,” said K[=a]-ye-fah the Ruler. “You shall be as my son and in the long nights of the winter moons we will listen. The time told of in the prophecies of Ki-pah is coming to us. He said also that in each danger time would be born one to mark the way for the people to follow––in each danger time so long as the Te-hua people were true to the gods!”
Tahn-té breathed on the hand of the old men, and went up from the kiva into the cool night of the early summer.
It was too wonderful a night for aught but to reach up in thought to the height of the warm stars. They came so close he could feel their radiance in his heart.
Twice had his name in council been linked to the prophecies of the wise and mysterious prophet of the ancient days! Always he had known that the Woman of the Twilight and he were not to live the life of the others. He had not known why they53were set apart for unusual experiences, but to-night he dared to think. With the words of the wise men still in his ears––the rulers who could make and unmake––he knew that no other boy had ever heard the praise and promise he had heard. He knew they thought they were giving words to one who would be a leader in the years to come––and this first night under the peace of the stars, he was filled with a triumph and an exaltation for which there were no words.
He would be a leader––not of war––not of government for the daily duties of village life, but of the Things of the Spirit which seemed calling within him to highest endeavor. He knew as yet nothing of Te-hua ceremonies––he had all to learn, yet he felt inspired to invent some expression for the joy which was his.
The new moon seemed to rest on the very edge of the mesa above him:––the uplifted horn looked like a white flame rising from purple shadows.
A white flame!––awhiteflame!
To the Indian mind all signs are symbolic,––and the flame was exactly above the point where the light was set ceremonially and regularly to light the Indian god back to his own people!
A point of white flame above that shrine of centuries!
No eyes but his saw it at exactly that angle––of course it was not meant for other eyes. It was meant that it should be seen by him alone on his first night with the people he meant to work for! With the memory of the prophecies in his ears had he seen it. It could mean only that the god himself set it there as a proof that the devotion of Tahn-té was acceptable––and that he had been born of his mother that the54prophecies might be fulfilled at the right time––and that the light of the moon on his face had meant–––
His thought came so quickly that all the air of the night appeared alive with the unseen––and the unseen murmured in his ears, and his memories––and in his heart!
Suddenly he stretched his open hands high to the stars, and then ran across the level to the foot of the bluff. It was high and very steep, but wings seemed his––his heart was on the summit, and his body must follow––must get there before the white flame sank into the west––must send his greeting to answer the greeting of the god!
In the pouch at his girdle was the fire flint, and a wisp of the silky wild flax of tinder. Two sticks of dead scrub piñon was there; he broke them in equal lengths and laid them in the cross which is the symbol of the four ways, and of the four winds from which the sacred breath is drawn for all that lives––the symbol also of union by which all human life is perpetuated. All fires of sacrifices,––or of magic power, must commemorate these things which are sacred things, and Tahn-té placed them and breathed upon them, and touched them with the spark from the white flint, and then arose in joy and faced the moon yet visible, knowing that the god had seen his answering flame on the shrine––and that it meant a dedication to the Things of the Spirit.
And as he stood there on the mesa’s edge, exalted at the wonder of the night, he did not speak, yet he heard the echo of words in his own voice:––“No one but Tahn-té shall gather the woods for the fire to light Po-se-yemo back;––and when he sees the blaze, and comes back, you will tell him it was his son who kept the fire!”
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Like a flash came the memory of that other time at the edge of that other mesa in Hopi-land! He had said those words to his mother––and had forgotten them. He could never forget them again, for the god had sent them back to him to remember. And Tahn-té trembled at the wondrous signs given him this night, and sprinkled meal to the four ways, and held prayer thoughts of exaltation in his heart.
And this was the last day of the boy years of Tahn-té.
He began then the years of the work for which his Other Self told him he had been born on earth.
56CHAPTER VITAHN-TÉ––THE RULER
Summers of the Sun, and winters when the stars danced for the snow, had passed over the valley of Povi-whah. New people had been born into the world, and old people had died, but the oldest man in the council, K[=a]-ye-fah––the Ruler of Things from the Beginning, had lived many years after the time when he thought the shadow life must come to him. And to the Woman of the Twilight he had said that it was her son who kept him living––her son to whom he taught the ancient things of his own youth. In the keen enthusiasms he had found such a son as he had longed for. The lost daughter, K[=a]-ye-povi, he had never found––and never forgotten. To Tahn-té he had talked of her until she almost lived in their lives. The face of the god-maid on the south mesa had for K[=a]-ye-fah the outline of chin and backward sweep of hair strangely akin to the face of the lost child. He liked to think the god-maid belonged more to his clan of Towa Toan––the High Mesa clan––than to another.
“If she had not gone into the shadow land, her face would have looked that way,” he said.
“And we could gather bright flowers for her hair,”––said the boy––“they would be sweeter than the cold, far brightness of the stars where the god-maid waits,” and he pointed to where Antares gleamed from the heart of the Scorpion above the dusk profile,––“I think of K[=a]-ye-povi as the dream maid. She57will be my always young sweetheart––my only one.”
“That is good,” said K[=a]-ye-fah––“very good for the work of the unborn years.”
For the youth was to carry on the tribal prayers to the gods when K[=a]-ye-fah no longer walked on earth. And his teaching must be greater than all other teaching, for the Ruler was planning for the work of the days to come.
And in a day of the early spring the work was made ready, for to S[=aa]-hanh-que-ah he said:––“A week ago So-hoah-tza went under the waters of the river and never breathed again. To him was given the guard of the sacred place of the Sun Father. I have not yet made any other the guardian. You are the woman of the order of the Po-Ahtun––I give you the guard to keep. Call the governor––but call your son first. You shall be guard as So-hoah-tza was guard, but Tahn-té shall be guard as I have been! Lean lower, and let your ear listen and your heart keep sacred the word. I go to our Lost Others––but I leave you to guard.”
The governor came, and all were sad, but no one thought that the life was over. K[=a]-ye-fah talked and smiled as one who goes to a feast.
But Tahn-té, standing tall and still by the couch said:––“It will be over! This morning he wakened and said he would go with the sun to-day. He has no other thought, and he will go!”
And the women wept, and made ready the things of burial for the high priest of the highest order. If Tahn-té said he would go into the shadows at that time––the women knew that it would be so. Tahn-té, as they knew him, joyous in the dances of the seasons,––was never in their minds apart from Tahn-té the prophet whose dreams even as a boy, had58been beyond the dreams of the others who sought visions.
And as the sun touched the black line of the pines on the western mountain, the aged Ruler asked for his wand of office, and the governor gave it to him, and with his own hand he gave it to Tahn-té, that even when his own form was covered with the soil, his vote would be on record in the minds of those who listened––and that vote gave to his pupil in magic, the wand of power––The youngest qualified member of the Order of Spiritual things was thus acclaimed as the Po-Ahtun-ho, a Ruler of Things from the Beginning.
Twenty-four years he had lived––but the time of life with the white men had counted more than double. In magic of many kinds he was more wise than the men of years, and the heart of his mother was glad with the almost perfect gladness when Tahn-té stood in the place of the Ancient Wisdom and listened as the ear of the god listens to the recitation of many tribal prayers.
The Po-Ahtun-ho also listens at times to the individual appeals of the things of every day life––as a father listens to a child who seeks advice. To the more ancient Rulers the younger people were often afraid to go––various “uncles” of the village were appealed to instead. But the youth of Tahn-té made all things different––even the love of a man for a maid, was not so small a thing that the new Ruler made the suppliant feel how little it was.
And one of the first who came to him thus––who knelt and offered a prayer to him, the prayer of a love, was the little Apache tigress who had been first of his own village to greet him in Ua-lano––Yahn Tsyn-deh, who had grown so pretty that the men of59the other villages talked of her, and her mother had asked great gifts for her. But the mother had died with the winter, and Yahn refused to be subject to the Tain-tsain clan of her father, and there had been much trouble until she threatened to go back to her mother’s tribe, and many thought it might come to that after all––for she was very strong of will.
But before Tahn-té the Po-Ahtun-ho she crouched, and sobs shook her, and her hair covered her face as a veil.
“If it is of the clan, Yahn, it is to the governor you should speak:––” said Tahn-té––“from him it may come to me if he thinks best. There are rules we must not break. Because I carried you, when little, on my shoulder, is no reason to walk past the door of the governor and bring his duties to me.”
He spoke kindly, for his heart was kind towards the little fighter of boyhood’s days. Her alien blood was ever prompting her to reckless daring beyond the customs of Te-hua maidens. In a different way, he himself was an alien and it helped him to understand her. But this day he saw another Yahn––one he had not known could hide under the reckless exterior.
She tossed back her hair and faced him.
“How should I speak with Phen-tza the governor––he is the uncle of Ka-yemo! It is he who has helped do this thing––he would make me a slave or have me whipped! How should I speak with him? Ka-yemo knows that the governor his uncle, will––”
“Ka-yemo! What has Ka-yemo done? What trouble does he make?”
“Oh––no trouble!” her words were bitter words,––“Only the governor his uncle, has talked with the family of Tsa-fah and the marriage is made with his60daughter Koh-pé of the beads, and you––know, Tahn-té––you know!”
Tahn-té did know, he regarded her in silence.
“Speak!”––she pleaded. “You are more than governor––you are the Highest! Magic is yours to make and to unmake. Unmake this thing! With your magic send him back to me––to me!”
“Magic is not for that:––it is for Those Above!”
Again she flung herself at his feet and wept. The sobs hurt him, yet he must not lift her. She begged for a charm––for a spell––for black magic to strike dead the wearer of the red bears and the blue beads, for all wild things a wild passion could suggest.
“If you could see into the other years you would be content to have it as it is,” he said gently––“the years ahead may––”
“I care nothing for the years ahead! I want thenow!––I want––”
“Listen!” he said, and she fell silent with covered face. “That which you feel for Ka-yemo is not the love of marriage. A man takes a wife for love of a wife and a home and children in the home. A man does not chain himself to a tigress whose bite and whose blows he has felt. A man would wish to be master:––what man has been born who could be master in your home?”
“You do not know. You have lived a different sort of life! I could be more than another wife––than any other wife! I shall kill some one!––” and she rose to her feet––“unless the magic comes I kill some one!”
“And then?”
“Then Phen-tza the governor will have me61strangled, and they will take me to my grave with ropes of raw hide and there will not any where be a sad heart for Yahn Tsyn-deh.”
“You see how it is––he is precious to you––as he always has been. But your love is too great a love for happy days. Always it will bring you the ache in the heart. No thing of earth should be given the love like that:––it is a fire to burn a whole forest in the days of its summer, and in the winter snows there will be only ashes.”
“Good!––then I, Yahn, will rather burn to the ashes in such summer days, and be dead under the snows in the winter of the year!”
“And after that?”
“After that will not the Po-Ahtun-ho be Ruler always? Will he not remember his friends who are precious in the Beyond as he remembers this one to-day?” she asked mockingly. “K[=a]-ye-fah told the council that you have lived a life no other man lives, and that no woman is precious to you:––when you find the woman who is yet to come, may a viper poison her blood––may a cat of the hills tear her flesh! May you love until madness comes––and may the woman find only death in your arms––and find it quickly!”
When the Woman of the Twilight came in from the field with yellow corn pollen for the sacred ceremonies, the lattice of reeds at the outer door was yet shaking as from touch of a ruthless hand, or a strong wind.
“Who was it that cried here?” she asked. “Who has left you sad?”
“Perhaps a prophetess, my mother,” answered Tahn-té, and sat thoughtful where Yahn had left62him. And after a long time he arose and sought the governor.
But it was fated that the governor and the new Ruler were not to talk of the love of a maid or the marriage of a man that day.
A runner had been sent to Povi-whah from Kat-yi-ti. He gave his message, and stayed to eat while other runners took the trail, and before the sun had moved the width of a hand across the sky, the villages of Kah-po and Tsa-mah and Oj-ke were starting other runners to Ui-la-ua and far Te-gat-ha and at Kah-po the head men gathered to talk in great council over the word brought from the south.
For the word was that the men of the iron and the beards and the white skins were again coming to the land of the People of the Sun. They came in peace, and searched for the lost padres. A man of the gown was with them for prayers, and a Te-hua man who had been caught by the Navahu long winters ago and traded to the land of green birds. The Te-hua man said the white people were good people, and he was guiding them to the villages by the big river, P[=o]-s[=o]n-gé.
63CHAPTER VIITHE SILKEN SCARF
Of the many godly enterprises set afoot for exploration and conquest in New Spain of the sixteenth century, not all have chronicles important enough for the historian to make much of. But there were goings and comings of which no written record reached the archives. Things forbidden did happen even under the iron heel of Castilian rule, and one of the hidden enterprises grew to be a part of the life of the P[=o]-s[=o]n-gé valley for a time.
Not that it was unchronicled, but there was a good reason why the records were not published for the Spanish court.
It was a pretty romantic reason also––and the usual one, if we may trust the world’s judgment of the foundation of all trouble. But a maid tossing a blossom from a Mexic balcony could not know that the stranger from Seville to whom it was thrown was the son of an Eminence, instead of the simple gentleman named Don Ruy Sandoval in a royal letter to the Viceroy. With him travelled his tutor whose tutelage was past, and the position a difficult one for even the Viceroy to comprehend.
Since the youth rebelled at the habit of a monk––he had been given a space for adventure under godly surveillance. The godly surveillance limped a trifle at times. And because of this did Don Ruy walk again in the moonlight under the balcony and this64time more than a blossom came to him––about the stem of a scarlet lily was a flutter of white! The warm light of the Mexic moon helped him to decipher it––a page from Ariosto––the romance of Doña Bradamante––and the mark of a pen under words uttered by the warrior-maid herself––words to warm a cooler youth than this one from over seas:––“Why seek I one who flies from me?––Why implore one who deigns not to send me reply?”
Whereupon there was no further delay as to reply––there was found an open gate to a garden where only stars gave light, where little hands were held for a moment in his––soft whispers had answered his own––and he was held in thrall by a lace wrapped señorita whose face he had not even looked on in the light. All of Castile could give one no better start in a week than he had found for himself in three days in the new world of promise.
For there were promises––and they were sweet. They had to do with a tryst two nights away––then the lady, whom he called “Doña Bradamante” because of the page torn from that romance, would enlighten him as to her pressing need of the aid of a gentleman, and courage would be hers to tell him why a marked line and a scarlet lily had been let fall in his path––and why she had trusted his face at first sight––though he had not yet seen her own––and why––
It was the usual thing––the page of a poem and a silken scarf as a guerdon of her trust.
He found the place of the tryst with ease for a stranger in the Mexic streets, but a glimmer of white robe was all he saw of his unknown “Doña Bradamante.” Others were at the tryst, and their staves and arms lacked no strength. He heard a woman65scream, then he heard her try again to scream and fail because of a hand on her throat, and beyond that he knew little for a night or two, and there was not much of day between.
Monkly robes were the next thing in his range of vision––one face in particular, sallow and still with eyes glancing sideways, seeing all things;––divining much! soft steps, and bandages, and out of silence the excited shrillness of Don Diego Maria Francisco Brancadori the tutor:––the shepherd who had lost track of his one rather ruffled lamb.
Pious ejaculation––thanks to all the saints he could think of––horror that the son of an Eminence should be thus abused––prophecies of the wrath to come when the duchess, his mother––At this Don Ruy groped for a sword, and found a boot, and flung it, with an unsanctified word or two, in the direction of the lamentation.
“You wail worse than a dog of a Lutheran under the yoke,” he said in as good a voice as he could muster with a cut in his lip. “What matter how much Eminence it took to make a father for me––or how many duchesses to make a mother? I am labelled as plain Ruy Sandoval and shipped till called for. If you are to instruct my youth in the path it should tread––why not start in with a lesson on discretion?”
At this hopeful sign of life from the bundle of bandages on the monk’s bed, Maestro Diego approached and looked over his illustrious charge with a careful eye.
“Discretion has limped far behind––enterprise, else your highness would cut a different figure by now––and––”
To Don Ruy, a Message in the MoonlightPage 63
To Don Ruy, a Message in the MoonlightPage 63
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“Choke back your infernal highnesses!” growled the younger man. “I know well what your task is to be here in this new land:––it is to send back reports of duty each time I break a rule or get a broken head. Now by the Blood, and the Cross, if you smother not your titles, and let me range free, I tell you the thing I will do:––I will send back a complaint against you to Seville––and to make sure that it goes, no hand shall carry it but your own. Ere they can find another nurse maid for my morals, I’ll build me a ship and go sailing the South seas for adventure––and your court tricksters will have a weary time in the chase! I like you better than many another godly spy who might have been sent, and I promise myself much joy in the journal of strange travels it is in your mind to write. But once for all, remember, we never were born into the world until a week ago!”
“But your Excellency––
“By the Great Duke of Hell! Will you not bridle your tongue when the damned monks are three deep at the key hole?”
By which it will be seen that the travels of the pious Don Diego were not all on paths of roses.
A little later the still faced priest of the stealthy glances came in, and Don Ruy sat on the side of the bed, and looked him over.
“You are the one who picked me up––eh? And the gentlemen of the streets had tossed me into a corner after discreetly starting my soul on its travels! Warm trysts your dames give to a stranger in this land––when you next confess the darlings, whisper their ears to be less bloodthirsty towards youth innocence!”
The man in the robe smiled.
“That unwise maid will make no more trysts,” he67said quietly,––“not if she be one important enough to cause an assault on your Highness.”
“Did they––?”
“No––no––harm would not be done to her, but her destiny is without doubt a convent. The men who spoiled your tryst earn no purses as guard for girls of the street,––sacred walls will save them that trouble for a time––whether maid or wife I dare promise you that! It is as well you know. Time is wasted seeking adventure placed beyond mortal reach.”
“Convent––eh? Do your holy retreats teach the little tricks the lady knew? And do they furnish their vestals with poems of romance and silks and spices of Kathay?”
He drew from an inner pocket a little scarf of apple green with knotted fringes, and butterflies, various colored in dainty broidery. As the folds fell apart an odor of sweetness stole into the shadowy room of the monastery, and the priest was surprised into an ejaculation at sight of such costly evidence, but he smothered it hastily in a muttered prayer.
After that he listened to few of the stranger’s gibes and quips, but with a book of prayers on his knee he looked the youth over carefully, recalled the outburst of Don Diego as to origin, and the adventurer’s own threat to build a ship and sail where chance pointed. Plainly, this seeker of trysts, or any other thing promising adventure, had more of resource than one might expect from a battered stranger lifted out of the gutter for the last rites.
The priest––who looked a good soldier and who was called Padre Vicente “de los Chichimecos” (of the wild tribes) read further in his book of hours, and then spoke the thing in his mind.
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“For a matter of many years in this land of the Indies I have waited for a man of discreet determination for a certain work. The virgin herself led me to the gutter where you groaned in the dark, and I here vow to build her a chapel if this thought of mine bears fruit.”
“Hump! My thanks to our Lady,––and I myself will see to the building of the chapel. But tell me of the tree you would plant, and we’ll then have a guess at the fruit. It may prove sour to the taste! Monkly messes appealed to me little on the other side of the seas. I’ve yet to test their flavor on this shore of adventure.”
Padre Vicente ignored the none too respectful comment––and took from his pocket a bit of virgin gold strung on a thread of deer sinew.
“Your name is Don Ruy Sandoval,” he said. “You are in this land for adventure. You content yourself with the latticed window and the strife of the streets––why not look for the greater things? You have wealth and power at your call––why not search for an empire of––this?”
Then he showed the virgin gold worn smooth by much wearing.
Don Ruy blinked under the bandage and swore by Bradamante of the adventure that he would search for it gladly if but the way was shown.
“Where do we find this golden mistress of yours?” he demanded, “and why have you waited long for a comrade?”
“The gold is in the north where none dare openly seek treasure, or even souls, since Coronado came back broken and disgraced. I have waited for the man of wealth who dared risk it, and––at whose going the Viceroy could wink.”
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“Why wink at me––rather than another?”
“That is a secret knotted in the fringes of the silken scarf there––” said Padre Vicente with a grim smile. “Cannot a way be found to clear either a convent or a palace of a trouble breeder, when the church itself lends a hand? You were plainly a breeder of trouble, else had you escaped the present need of bandages. For the first time I see a way where Church and the government of the Indies can go with clasped hands to this work. In gold and converts the work may prove mighty. How mighty depends whether you come to the Indies to kill time until the day you are recalled––or improve that time by success where Coronado failed.”
“And if we echo his failure?”
“None will be the wiser even then! You plan for a season of hunting in the hills. I plan for a mission visit by the Sea of Cortez. Mine will be the task to see how and where our helpers join each other and all the provisioning of man and beast. Mine also to make it clear to the Viceroy that you repent your––”
“Hollo!”––Don Ruy interrupted with a grimace. “You are about to say I repent of folly––or the enticing of a virgin––or that I fell victim to the blandishments of some tricky dame––I know all that cant by rote!––a man always repents until his broken head is mended, but all that is apart from the real thing––which is this:––In what way does my moment with a lady in the dark affect the Viceroy of the Indies? Why should his Excellency trouble himself that Ruy Sandoval has a broken head––and a silken scarf?”
Padre Vicente stared––then smiled. Ruy Sandoval had not his wits smothered by the cotton wool of exalted pamperings.
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“I will be frank with you,” he said at last. “The Viceroy I have not yet addressed on this matter. But such silken scarfs are few––that one would not be a heavy task to trace to its owner.”
“Ah!––I suspected your eminence had been a gallant in your time,” remarked Don Ruy, amicably––“It is not easy to get out of the habit of noticing alluring things:––that is why I refused to do penance for my birth by turning monk, and shrouding myself in the gown! Now come––tell me! You seem a good fellow––tell me of the ‘Doña Bradamante’ of the silks and the spices.”
“The destiny of that person is probably already decided,” stated the priest of the wild tribes, “she is, if I mistake not, too close to the charge of the Viceroy himself for that destiny to be questioned. The mother, it is said, died insane, and the time has come when the daughter also is watched with all care lest she harm herself––or her attendants. So I hear––the maid I do not know, but the scarf I can trace. Briefly––the evident place for such a wanton spitfire is the convent. You can easily see the turmoil a woman like that can make as each ship brings adventurers––and she seeks a lover out of every group.”
“Jesus!––and hell to come! Then I was only one of a sort––all is fish to the net of the love lorn lady! Maestro Diego would have had the romance and the lily if he had walked ahead instead of behind me!––and he could have had the broken head as well!” Then he sniffed again at the bit of silk, and regarded the monk quizzically.
“You have a good story, and you tell it well, holy father,” he said at last,––“and I am troubled in my mind to know how little of it may be truth, and how71much a godly lie. But the gold at least is true gold, and whatever the trick of the lady may be, you say it will serve to win for me the privilege to seek the mines without blare of trumpets. Hum!––it is a great favor for an unknown adventurer.”
“Unknown you may be to the people of the streets, and to your ship mates,” agreed the Padre. “But be sure the Viceroy has more than a hint that you are not of the rabble. The broils you may draw to yourself may serve to disquiet him much––yet he would scarce send you to the stocks, or the service of the roads. Be sure he would rather than all else bid you god speed on a hunting journey.”
“But that you are so given to frankness I should look also for a knife in the back to be included in his excellency’s favors,” commented Don Ruy. “Name of the Devil!––what have I done since I entered the town, but hold hands with one woman in the dark––and be made to look as if I had been laid across a butcher block on a busy day! Hell take such a city to itself! I’ve no fancy for halting over long in a pit where a gentleman’s amusements are so little understood. If the Doña of the scarf were aught but an amiable maniac the thing would be different. I would stay––and I would find her and together we would weave a new romance for a new world poet! But as it is, gather your cut throats and name the day, and we’ll go scouring the land for heathen souls and yellow clinkers.”
Padre Vicente de Bernaldez was known by his wonderful mission-work to be an ecclesiastic of most adventurous disposition. Into wild lands and beyond the Sea of Cortez had he gone alone to the wild tribes––so far had he gone that silence closed over his trail72like a grave at times––but out of the Unknown had he come in safety!
His fame had reached beyond his order––and Ruy Sandoval knew that it was no common man who spoke to him of the Indian gold.
“Francisco de Coronado,” stated this padre of the wilderness, “came back empty handed from the north land of the civilized Indians for the reason that he knew not where to search. The gold is there. This is witness. It came to me from a man who––is dead! It was given him by a woman of a certain tribe of sun worshippers. To her it was merely some symbol of their pagan faith––some priestly circle dedicated to the sun.”
“It sounds well,” agreed Don Ruy––“but the trail? Who makes the way? And what force is needed?”
For a guide the Padre Vicente had a slave of that land, a man of Te-hua baptized José, for five years the padre had studied the words and the plans. The man would gladly go to his own land,––he and his wife. All that was required was a general with wealth for the conquest. There were pagan souls to be saved, and there was wealth for the more worldly minds. The padre asked only a tenth for godly reasons.
Thus between church and state was the expedition of his Excellency Don Ruy Sandoval ignored except as a hunting journey to the North coast of the Cortez Sea––if he ranged farther afield, his own be the peril, for no troops of state were sent as companions. The good father had selected the men––most of them he had confessed at odd times and knew their metal. All engaged as under special duty to the73cross:––it was to be akin to a holy pilgrimage, and absolution for strange things was granted to the men who would bear arms and hold the quest as secret.
Most of them thought the patron was to be Mother Church, and regarded it as a certain entrance to Paradise. Don Ruy himself meekly accepted a role of the least significance:––a mere seeker of pleasure adventures in the provinces! It would not be well that word of risk or danger be sent across seas––and the Viceroy could of course only say “god speed you” to a gentleman going for a ride with his servants and his major domo.
And thus:––between a hair brained adventurer and a most extolled priest, began the third attempt to reach the people called by New Spain, the Pueblos:––the strangely learned barbarians who dwelt in walled towns––cultivating field by irrigation, and worshipping their gods of the sun, or the moon, or the stars through rituals strange as those of Pagan Egypt.
Word had reached Mexico of the martyrdom of Fray Juan Padilla at Ci-bo-la, but in the far valley of the Rio Grande del Norte––called by the tribes the river P[=o]-s[=o]n-gé,––Fray Luis de Escalona might be yet alive carrying on the work of salvation of souls.
The young Spanish adventurer listened with special interest as the devotion and sacrifices of Fray Luis were extolled in the recitals.
“If he lives we will find that man,” he determined. “He was nobly born, and of the province of my mother. I’ve heard the romance for which he cloaked himself in the gray robe. He should be a prince of the church instead of a wandering lay brother––we will have a human thing to search for in the world beyond the desert––ours will be a crusade to rescue him from the infidel lands.”