Then he drew from his medicine pouch a second rosary, a beautifully wrought thing of ebony and gold.
“Señor” he said,––“if I mistake not, it was your animal I helped but yesterday. Is it not so?”
“It was in truth––and much am I in your debt for that help!” said Ruy Sandoval with heartiness––“it is no fault of mine that I am late in rendering thanks. You deny that you are king––yet I have known majesty easier to approach!”
“And the animal is now well, and shows no marks of the Christian’s Satan?”
“Sound:––every inch of him!”
“Thanks that you say so, and that you do not fear to say so,” said Tahn-té. “Since it is so, it makes clear that the printed word, or the graven image is no weight to True Magic, even when taught us by pagan gods! For ten years I have read, day time and night time, all there is to read in the books of your church left by Padre Luis––also all the other books left by the men of Señor Coronado’s company, and by Padre Juan Padilla who died at Ci-bo-la. Side by side I have studied the wisdom of these books, and the wisdom of our ancient people of the Te-hua, as told to me by the old men. One has never held me from seeing clear that which I read in the other, and the graven image has only the Meaning and the Power which each man gives to it! It was with me when I took away the sting of the Brother Snake. Padre Luis was a man who would have been a good man in any religion––that is why I kept this symbol of him––not for the crucified god on it! But for the sake of the god, is it sacred to you because your heart tells you to think that way. It is right to be what a man’s heart tells him to be. I give you the prayer beads. I give it to you because your horse helped me to show your people that the pagan gods are strong, if the heart of the man is strong!”
In the “Relaciones” Don Diego wrote that––“The horrification of that moment was a time men might live through but could not write of.––For myself I know well that only the invisible army of the angels kept the beams of the roof from crushing us, as well as the poor pagans, who sat themselves still in a circle with pleasant countenances!”
Ruy Sandoval knew courage of any kind when he 184 saw it, and he met Tahn-té midway of the council and accepted the rosary of beauty from his hand.
“My thanks to you, Señor Cacique,” he said––“the more so for the care given this relic. The Fray Luis de Escalona was known of my mother––also was known the lady from whom this went to his hand. A goldsmith of note fashioned it, and its history began in a palace;––strange that its end should be found here in the desert of the Indies.”