The Flute of the Gods

by Marah Ellis Ryan

With her eyes on his she chanted the words, and the Te-hua oarsmen dared not look on her face for very terror. The words they did not know––but no victim had ever yet gone singing to that altar.

“In my thoughts I approach––I approach! The Sun God approaches, Earth’s end he approaches. Estsan-atlehi approaches In old age walking The beautiful trail. In my thoughts I approach––I approach! The Moon God approaches Earth’s end he approaches––”

The canoe touched the shore, and the maid clasped the hand of Tahn-té and went over the sand lightly as a child who wanders through flower fields to a festival. He looked in her eyes and knew that the magic of the sacred seed was strong, and that the hand of no man could hurt her.

“Your trail is to the hills,” he said.––“To the heart of the forest you go. Where the bluebird builds her nest––there you build the nest where we meet again. You see your wings in my hair? I wear both of them that they lead me again to your trail when the time comes. When the bluebird calls 316 to her mate, I will hear your voice in that call. When the anger of the gods has passed, I will find you again in the Light beyond the light at the trail’s end.”

“At the trail’s end,” she said as a child repeats a lesson––“I build the nest for you, and sing the bluebird song for you at the trail’s end.”

“Thanks to the gods that it will be so,” he said, and sprinkled prayer meal to the four ways.––“The Spirit People stand witness! The gods will be good in that Afterworld;––I will find you again.”

They had reached the edge of the mesa––and the pale yellow of the sky had been covered with a weird murky red. For all the many followers, a strange hush was on the height, and far in the south low thunder was heard. The same still, heavy air of the night was brooding over the world, and long rays of copper and dull red were flung like banners to the zenith. Each man’s eyes looked strange questions into the eyes of his neighbor, and the Te-hua men came not close to the witch maid, and the man at the altar.

“The Sun God approaches––approaches! Earth’s end he approaches!”

They could hear the low chant of her witch song, and they could see Tahn-té offer prayer meal to the Spirit People of the four ways, and to the upper and the nether world. At his word she laid herself on the rock, and no other priest was asked to help, or to hold her, and that was a sacrifice such as had never been seen in that place.

“No hand but mine shall touch you:––O Bird of my Wilderness!” he said.