It had been a wonder night in the life of Yahn Tsyn-deh. The love of her wild heart had been given back to her––and vengeance against his rival had been put within reach of her hands! The heights of Pu-yé were enchanted––and the Ancient Star had shone on her with kindness. It was a good 266 time in her life and she must work in quickness ere the change came, for the watchful gods of the sky do not stand still when the signs are good signs.
And she crept back to the arms of her lover, and they watched together the medicine shadow woman creep downward until the dark hid her.
Yahn counseled that at once they go to the governor and tell that which they heard, but Ka-yema said “no,” for if the Navahu enemy did come, the power of Tahn-té was needed by the Te-hua warriors––it was not the time to kill the witch woman or kill the prayer thoughts.
“You are strong to fight without Tahn-té,” whispered the girl who made herself as a vine in her clinging clasp of him.
“But not to fight against Tahn-té and his secret powers of the sky,” answered Ka-yemo. “The old men know he is strong in visions. When the time comes that he fall low in their sight, there will be many days that their hearts will be sick. We must not make these days come when we have enemies to fight.”
“Do you fear?” demanded the temptress petulantly. It irked her that his first thought was of caution––while hers was of annihilation for the man who loomed so large that no other man could be seen in the land.
“If you think I fear would you find me here in this witch place with you?” he asked. “It has been forbidden that any one comes here––yet have I come!”
Plainly he felt brave that he had defied the Po-Ahtun-ho in so much as he had walked to the forbidden sacred places, and Yahn felt a storm of rage sweep over her at the knowledge. But it had been 267 a storm of rage like that by which he had once been driven away from her! And she smothered all the words she would have spoken, and clung to him, and whispered of his greatness,––and the pride he could bring to the clan when Tahn-té, the lover of witches, no longer made laws in the land.
In her own heart she was making prayers that the alarm of the Navahu warriors prove a false thing, and the vision of Tahn-té be laughed at by the clans. To hear him laughed at would help much!
But that was not to be, for ere the dawn broke, came shouts from Shufinne––and signal fires, and the Te-hua men of Pu-yé ran swiftly to guide their Castilian brothers in arms, and the savages who had hoped to steal women in the darkness, found that thunder and lightning and death fought for the Te-hua people––and the men of iron rode them down with the charméd animals and strange battle cries.