“Ruy Sandoval is a good enough name to go to the priest with,” he said, “and if ‘Doña Bradamante’ has no other I’ll give her one if she’ll take it.”
“Despite the Indian grandmother, and the madness of longing for life in the open––and––.”
“And the Viceroy and court of Spain to boot!” he declared recklessly. “Sweetheart, I must have the right to guard you in a new way if need be, for these are strange days.”
Even while they spoke the stars were shot over by the green light of a promised dawn, and against the faint sky line of the mesa a strange procession came. Men carrying long fringes of the cedar such as grow in the moist places in the cañons,––also festoons of the ground pine, and flowers of the sun with the brilliant petals like warm rays.
The bearers of these ran swiftly, but the others moved more steadily, and Don Ruy called to José to learn for him the meanings of things, and why Tahn-té, the Ruler, walked like that as if in prayer, and clasped hands with a girl who smiled up in his face as a child on a holiday, though all the older men looked as though walking to battle.
“It is the witch maid who has brought evil magic on the land,” said José, who had heard the herald––“also she has enchanted the Po-Ahtun-ho with devil’s arts, and has killed Yahn Tsyn-deh and Ka-ye-mo with Navahu arrows on Pu-yé. They say she laughs to show that no knife can harm her, and she goes to the altar instead of the Yutah;––for it is she the earth groaned for.”
“Go––”––said Don Ruy to his lately claimed “Doña Bradamante”––“keep within the house with Ysobel until we come again. There may be much to 310 do, Lady mine, but there are no records for you to keep this day.”
And without protest or reply he was obeyed. There was something so awful in the sight of the smiling maid of the bluebird wing, and the wails of the women who mourned those she had destroyed, that one would willingly flee the sight of their meeting.
But the Te-hua guards closed around the enchantress and the fanatics of vengeance were barred out. Those meant for the Mesa of the Hearts were not to be given to people!
Publicly the governor made thanks to the priest of the men of iron;––he it was who had smelled out the witch––and sent the men where her dead was found! Plain it was that their white brothers helped in magic and in battle. Let the old men think wisely and well before they let such brothers go from the land. For the angry gods, and the quaking earth, the priest of the beard had found the cause;––also the cure had he found. Did not the sun symbol belong to this man for this work? Let the old men think well of this thing!