The pain of death itself, compared
To this, is hardly worth a thought.”
The song gave way to silence, and, drawing himself erect, like a man who awakens from a trance, de Sancerre turned to Noco:
“’Tis the spirit of the sun,” whispered the old crone. “’Tis Coyocop. She sings at night the songs we cannot understand.”
“Listen, señora,” muttered the Frenchman, striving to check the impetuosity which tempted him to defy the perils surrounding him and to enter the hut without more ado. “’Tis the spirit of the sun—of life and hope and love! I worship her, señora. By what astounding chance— But let that pass! Doña Noco, you must speak to Coyocop at once. Tell her—”
De Sancerre’s words died upon his lips, for the wiry old hag had dragged him by the arm around a corner of the cabin before he could end his sentence.
“Silence,” she murmured. “A priest of the temple has come this way to listen to the spirit’s voice. ’Tis well for us that my old eyes are quick.”
Not heeding the angry protests of the Frenchman, whose longing to send a word of greeting to a singer whose voice seemed to have reached him from a land far over-sea was driving him to desperate deeds, Noco led de Sancerre rapidly, by a circuitous path they had not trod before, toward the quarter of the sleeping town in which her hut awaited them. Beneath the ghastly sentinels grinning down at them from the temple’s palisades they stole for a space, and then turned to pick their way toward Noco’s home behind cabins which cast long shadows toward the east.
Stepping from the gloom into the moonlight, Noco, holding the Frenchman like a captive by the arm, was about to enter her hut with her rebellious guest when there arose around them, as if the earth had suddenly given birth to a night-prowling priesthood, the white-robed figures of a score of silent men.
“What have we here?” exclaimed de Sancerre, breaking away from Noco’s clutch, and drawing his rapier from its sheath. “My sword is fond of moonlight! Ask these ghostly cowards, señora, how they dare to dog the footsteps of the Brother of the Moon. Just say to them that in this blood-stained blade there’s magic, made of silver-dust, to kill a thousand men.”