The old man, without seeming to care for the darkness, pressed his horse with his knees, gave him his head, and galloped off.
The sorcerer, with bent person and head stretched forward, listened anxiously to the lessening sound of the chief's rapid course. When all was still again, he raised himself erect, a smile of triumph played across his thin and livid lips, and he uttered triumphantly the words, "At last!"—a summary of the thoughts secreted in his heart.
Then he arose, left the calli, seated himself a few paces from it, crossed his arms over his chest, and chanted, in a deep bass and a mournful and monotonous rhythm, the Apache lament, beginning with the following verse, which we reproduce as a specimen of the language of this barbarous people:
"El mebin ni tlacaelantey
Tuz apan Pilco payentzin
Ancu maguida coaltzin
Ay guinchey ni polio menchey."
[I have lost my tlacaelantey in the country of Pilco. Oh, murderous knives, which have changed him into shades and flies!]
As the sorcerer went on with his song, his voice became by degrees louder and more confident. In a short time, warriors, wrapped in their bison robes, issued from several of the huts, and, with furtive steps, approached the sorcerer, and entered the calli. At the close of the lament, the sorcerer rose, ascertained that no other person was coming towards him, that no laggard was loitering at his call, and in his turn entered the calli, to join those whom he had convoked thus singularly.
There were twenty men in all; they stood silent and motionless, like bronze statues, round the fire, whose flames, revived by the draught caused by their entrance, threw sinister shadows over their stern and determined features. The amantzin placed himself in the midst, and said:
"Let my brothers sit at the council fire."
The warriors squatted down in a circle.
The sorcerer then took from the hands of the hachesto, or public crier, the great calumet, the bowl of which was of red clay, and the tube six feet long, of aloes wood, garnished with feathers and hawks' bells. He filled it with a washed tobacco, called morriche, which is never used except upon great occasions, lighted it with a medicine stick, and having drawn a long breath of more than a minute, and discharged the smoke through mouth and nose, presented the calumet to the warrior on his right. The latter followed his example; and the calumet passed thus from hand to hand, till it returned to the amantzin.