"You may sleep here," Wiki announced briefly. "Food will be brought later."
"Are we at liberty to go out if we please?" I asked is he was leaving.
"Why not?" he returned indifferently. "But you must be careful. Your faces are strange to our people."
We pondered this statement until our doubts were presently set at rest by a visit from a party of the temple priests—the wearers of the serpent's skin kilts—headed by the voluble young man. They stalked in whilst I was dressing an arrow-cut in Tawannears' shoulder, their faces bleakly scowling, gathered up our guns, powder-horns and shot-pouches and walked out again. Peter started to rise, but sank to his haunches at a word from me.
"We better break dot feller's headt," he grumbled.
"That was what they wanted," I said.
"Otetiani is right," agreed Tawannears. "The guns are useless. If we had resisted they would have made it an excuse to kill us."
"Ja, dot's maype true," admitted Peter thoughtfully. "Andt what do we do now, eh?"
"Nothing," I answered. "'Tis sound strategy to hold our hands. This situation is still shaping. I know not what other powers there may be, but of the four leaders we have seen, I think Wiki has to make up his mind about us. The serpent priest hates us for reasons of his own. The old woman has given no sign. The girl Kachina has s fancy for Tawannears, but there is as much danger as advantage in that. Your feet are set upon a crooked path, brother."
Tawannears smiled, as I had not seen him smile in years, with a kind of glad expectancy.