The Flute of the Gods

by Marah Ellis Ryan

“By the name of these people, the Queres, and the name of the village Ah-ko, this should be the place of the sacrificial intentions,” said the priest. “By the careful account given, this is the pool to which the trail led, and it may even be that the ancient Cacique 93 to whom, but now, I gave the cigarro, was chief priest of the sacrifice in that day.”

“A truly delectable neighbor for a help to pleasant fancy,” said Don Ruy and laughed. “If the amiable devil should be moved to sacrifice now, I would be the nearest to his hand––think you he would make ill use of my youth and tenderness?”

“His Sanctity, the padre was indeed wise that no word of this was breathed in the viceregal ears of Mexico,” said Don Diego with a testiness not yet subdued over the question of utter damnation for the souls unregenerate. “Piety would carry me far––but no warrant is mine to follow even the Highest where cannibals do wait for unholy sustenance!” and he arose and bowed to Don Ruy.

“Oh––Name of the Devil!” said his noble ward, and laughed and stretched his legs. “I may not be so unholy as your words would suggest. Give not a dog a bad name in the days of his youth!”

And at this the scandalized and pious dignitary multiplied words to make clear how far from such meaning were his devoted intentions. But if wild tribes must be fed ere their souls could be reached,––victims could be found other than the heir of a duchess!

At which outburst Don Ruy suggested that he save his pious breath and devote it to prayers, and to take some of his own medicine by remembrance that soul of king and soul of peasant weighed the same before high God.

“After which devout exhortation from your servant, good father, we again give ear to the tale of that devil’s disciple––the Greek Teo,” he said, “Did they find him in the sand? And did the merciful dame hide in the sand also?––if so the prison 94 might not be without hope. Holy Saint Damien!––to think that the man walked these same stony heights––and drank from that pool!”

“They never found him in the sand.” The priest ignored the other frivolous comment. “They never found him anywhere, and a slave from the Navahu people was made a sacrifice in his stead. The strange girl was a Te-hua medicine maid or magic learner of things from the wise men of Ah-ko. Her prayers were very many, and very long, and she made a shrine for prayer on the sand beside the stone wall where he was hidden. Their men set watch on her, she knew it, but not anything did they find but a girl who made her prayers, and gave no heed to their shadowings.

“When were ended her days of devotion to the false gods––then she ate, and drank, and took the way to her own people; with moderate pace she took that trail north, but when night came, she ran like the wild thing she was, again to the south, crept unseen again into this fortress, and led the rescued man as far to the west as might be until the dawn came. With the coming of the sun, came also a sand storm of great stress, and all trace of their steps were covered, and the medicine maid saw in that a mystic meaning.

“To Turk and Spaniard the refugee might be only Teo the Greek, a fugitive from all high courts. But to the Indian he was a lost God of the Great Star for whom even the desert winds did duty. When with moistened yucca root he rubbed his hands that the white skin showed, she bent her head to the sand, and was his slave until ... the end!”