The maid looked from face to face in the glare of freshly lit torches, and caught little of meaning from the rapid speech. But no one touched her, and she looked with confidence into the eyes of Tahn-té. He had not moved from his tracks, and he held himself proudly as he faced the man who had long wished his humiliation.
“When the time comes to fast in the hills, I will know it,” he said,––“and no hand touches the heart of this maid, but––my own!”
“It is at sunrise,” said the governor, stilled by the look of the Po-Ahtun-ho––“a runner has been sent––the council will be waiting for the enchantress, and the women to prepare her will be waiting.”
“I will lead her,” said Tahn-té and took her hand, and from the medicine pouch he took one bead of the by-otle, and in Navahu he bade her eat of it in secret, which she did wonderingly, and the men of the Tain-tsain clan walked before and after them and held torches, and they went down the steep of Pu-yé before the moon had touched the pines of the western hills. And a runner was sent to Shufinne that the people there might come and put Yahn Tsyn-deh and her lover under the earth together.
CHAPTER XXII
“AT THE TRAIL’S END!”
The morning stars were shining through the gray threatening sky, when a slender blanket draped figure stepped from Ysobel’s doorway into the dusk, and came near putting foot on Don Ruy Sandoval who lay there as if on guard.
There was a little gasp, and the blanket was clutched more closely.