The Flute of the Gods

by Marah Ellis Ryan

It was a silent meal, for it was his first day of failure. All other things he had won––but to win his brothers to brotherhood against the strongest enemy they or their fathers had ever met––was a thing beyond his strength.

They had chosen to be blind, and for the blind, no one can see!

Standing on the terrace, the governor spoke alone to Tahn-té of the thing which the men of iron 212 sought––it was the same thing Alvarado had asked of when he had come north from Coronado’s camp. It was strange that the sign of the Sun Father was a thing the white men sought ever to carry from the land. It must be strong medicine and very precious to them!

It was not possible for Tahn-té to make clear that the virtue of the yellow metal was not a sacred thing––only a thing of barter as shell beads or robes might be.

“Is it as they say,”––said his host after a smoke of silence––“is it as they say that the Order of the Snake is again made strong by you in Povi-whah?”

“It is true,” said Tahn-té. “The help I have is not much. The Great Snake they all revere for the sacred reasons, but only the very old men know that with the Ancients the medicine of the wild brother snakes was strong medicine for the hearts of men. Maybe I can live long enough to teach the young men that the strong medicine is yet ours, and that the wild brother snake can always help us prove to the gods that it is ours.”

“It is true that it is ours,” assented the old man,––“and it is good when the visions come to show us how it is ours,”––then after a little, he added:––“For the sleep you will stay with my clan?” but Tahn-té, standing on the terrace, shook his head and pointed to the south.

“Thanks that you wish me,” he said,––“but the work is there and the watching is there. When the smoke is over––I ask for your prayers and––I go!”

Steadily he ran on the trail past the thickets of the rose, and the great rock by the trail––steadily under the stars a long way. Then out of the many small night sounds of the wilderness he heard behind him 213 the long call of a night bird in flight. Only a little ways did he go when again that little song of three descending notes came to him. It was very close this time, but he neither halted nor made more haste. For all the heed given it he might not have hearkened to it more than to the cricket in the grass.

Yet it spoke clearly to his ears. He knew that sentinels had been placed along his trail, and as he ran steadily, and alone, past each, he knew that the watchers were keen of eye and ear, and that the last two sent each other the signal “All is well,”––also he knew that the signal would be echoed back along the trail until each watcher would know that their visitor was on the trail alone, and all was well, and each could go back to Te-gat-ha and report to the war chief, and find sleep.