“It is not good luck to say things against the man of strong magic,” stated José. “Ka-yemo, the war 233 capitan would like if Tahn-té had never come from the land of the Hópitû––but Ka-yemo says no evil words of Tahn-té––he knows that Tahn-té has ears to hear far off, and eyes to see in the dark.”
“Do you forget you are a Christian soul?” demanded the padre. “The holy saints can kill the evil powers even in the sons of Satan! Let me hear no more of the ‘eyes of the dark;’––pagan trickery!”
José said no more, but it was easy to see that the veneer of foreign ritual had made little impression on the Indian mind. He feared all the devils of the Christian hell, and most of the gods of the pagan pantheon. A policy of propitiation towards all the unseen powers is the wise and instinctive attitude of the primitive mind. He slipped his prayer beads through his fingers as taught for prayer, but to be quite certain that evil be bribed to keep its distance, he stealthily scattered prayer meal as he walked behind the others, and Yahn who was coming behind them, saw him, and laughed. She was glad of heart to see that the Te-hua, after years of the white man’s religion, was still at heart, a devotee of the Sun.
“He says that Tahn-té the Ruler has not the strong magic,” he said lowly to Yahn––“but no one else says so in this land.”
Yahn did not care to discuss the power of Tahn-té––it was a bitter thing in her days.
And as the little group went on through the fragrant sage and the yellow bloom, Tahn-té himself stood almost on their trail, but a little to one side where a knoll was.
Still as a thing of stone he stood there. His hand shaded his eyes while he gazed across the sage 234 levels––across the water of the river and to the yellow and red sands beyond.
Even at their footsteps near, and their voices, he made no sign and wavered not in his gaze. Don Ruy glancing at him saw that his expression was keen, yet incredulous. So strange was it that Don Ruy instinctively turned in his saddle to see the thing at which Tahn-té looked and frowned.
At first he could see only the wavering lines of heat across the level––and then he saw the thing, and with a word halted the others and pointed.
Out of the red and yellow sand and soft green patches of the desert growth a group of men were outlined against the low hills. Indians with lances and with shields.