Tahn-té was accustomed to the curious regard of strangers who visited the country of Tusayan. He had heard so often that he was a child of the sky that this explanation of his fairer skin seemed to him a very clear and logical explanation of the case.
But after the runner had been listened to by the governor and fed, and a herald from the terraced housetop had called aloud the startling message 27 brought by him to the people of Ah-ko, the boy went away from the other boys, and wrinkled his brows in boyish thought, and stared across to the ancient crater of Se-po-chineh until his mother sought him, and found him.
“You are weary, my son, that you come alone from the others?”
“The others only talk yet tell nothing,” he said gloomily, “and of that which the runner tells I wish to hear much. You hear what he says of white men like gods who come from the south searching for the blue stones and the stone of the sun fire, and taming strange beasts to carry them on their way?”
“Yes, it is true, I hear,” she said.
“And you think it is magic? Is it that they are gods––or demons––or men like these men?”
“If they were gods would they not know where the stones of the sunlight are hidden in the earth?”
“Are they children of the moon or the sun, or the stars that they are white?” he demanded.
“It may be so,” she said very lowly, conscious that his gloomy eyes were trying to make her see what he felt, but she must not see, and she spoke with averted head.
Then he rose and stood erect and stretched out his arms their widest and surveyed himself with measuring gaze and a certain pride, but the other thought came back with its gloom and he laughed shortly with disdain of himself.