Even while he spoke a curious shock ran through the men, and they stared at each other in amaze and question. Plainly the floor had lifted under their feet as though some demon of the Underworld had heaved himself upward in turning over in his sleep.
Screams and loud cries were heard from the terraces, men came tumbling up the ladders from the kivas, and Master Chico let fall a slender treasured volume of Señor Ariosto’s romances and ran, white faced and breathless to Don Ruy, who caught and held him while the world swayed about them.
In truth he did not even release him so quickly as might be after the tremor had passed, but no man had time or humor to note the care with which he held the secretary, or that it was the lad himself who drew, flushing red, from the embrace of very strong arms.
“I––I feared you might not know––I came to tell you––” was the lame explanation to which Don Ruy listened, and smiled while he listened.
“I wonder what ‘Doña Bradamante’ would have done in all her bravery of white armor if such an earth wave had shaken her tilting court?” he asked, but the secretary did not know, and with face still flushed, and eyes on the ground, went to seek Yahn Tsyn-deh to hear if this was a usual thing that walls lifted in wavy lines––and that chimneys toppled from Te-hua dwellings.
The old people said it was long since the earth had shaken itself, and they watched closely the Mesa of the Hearts, and the mesa of the god-maid face, and a mountain over towards Te-gat-ha. If the 281 anger of the earth was great against earth people, then smoke would come from certain earth breathing places,––and the sentinels kept watch––and the old men watched also.
And around the village went a murmur of dire import––for it was plain that the Great Mystery was sending many signs to the Te-hua people;––the altars had been too long empty!
A strange foreboding filled the air, and the Castilians gathered in little groups and talked. To send the Navahu captive to his death at the hands of the tribe was not to their fancy, but if a member of a Te-hua clan must be offered up, who could tell what vengeance that clan might not take on the strangers?
Padre Vicente looked over all, and listened to much, and then talked to the governor:––was it not the time to take strong brothers that they share both the evil and the good together?
“The gods are certainly not well pleased with us, we make offerings and we make prayers––and the only good they let come to us has been our brothers of the iron and thunder and the fire sticks,” said Phen-tzah. “Yes, I think it is the time to take brothers of a strong god.”