“It moves well, and beautifully smooth:––this tale of the outlaw,” agreed Don Ruy––“but it is that end we are eager for––and the how it was compassed––that 95 she turned slave––or mistress––or both in one, as alas!––has chanced to men ere our day!––was the doom expected from the earliest mention of the pitiful and most devout lady––devout to her devils! But of the end––the end?”
“The end came to him long after they parted, and for one winter and one summer were their wanderings to the west. Of the Firebrand river deep between rock walls he had heard, and of the ocean far beyond, and of Mexico to the south. To reach the river they crossed dry leagues of desert and lived as other wild things lived. But the river was not a thing for boats or journeys, and they went on beyond it seeking the sea. Strange things and strange lives they passed on the way. His skin had been stained many times and his beard was plucked out as it grew. Enough of Indian words he learned to echo her own tale to the brown savages, and the tale was, that they were medicine people of Te-hua in the land of P[=o]-s[=o]n-gé, and that they travelled to the shores of the sea for dances and prayers to the gods there. And sometimes food was given them––and some times prayers were sent in their keeping. Thus was their journey, until in the south, in the heart of a desert they found the place of the palms where the fruit was ripe, and the water comes from warm springs, and looks a paradise––but is as a hell when the sand storms come:––and human devils live to the South and by the Sea of Cortez.
“They knew nothing of that, it was a place for rest, and a place of food, and they rested there because of that, and gathered food for the further journey.
The Place of the Palms Page 94
“All medicine people of the tribes carry on their neck or in a pouch at the belt, some sacred things of their magic practices, and under the palms, when other amusement was not to be found, it pleased him to see what his brown girl carried hidden even from her master. It took much persuasions, for she felt that evil would happen if it was shown except it be a matter of ceremony. Then she at last took from the pouch, salt from a sacred lake, feather and claw and beak of a yellow bird, a blade of sharpest flint, and––this!”
He again held the piece of gold that they might see it. Even the Indians leaned forward and looked at it and then eyed the white men and each other in silence. To them it was “medicine” as the priest told the adventurers it had been to the Te-hua girl.
“Your Greek pirate of the good luck went close to madness at the certain fact that for months he had been walking steadily away from the place where this was found. To the girl it was a sacred thing hidden in the earth of her land by the sun––and only to be used for ceremonies. The place where it grew was a special hidden place of prayer offering.”