The Flute of the Gods

by Marah Ellis Ryan

So, seeing that the guard was good, and that each arquebus was near, and in readiness if need be for dusky visitors, the company fell asleep well content. Only Don Ruy strolled over the path through the sand and tried to fancy how the girl and the Greek had managed the hiding there. A little of the story had been told him in the monastery when the great plan had been made, but no names were given, and the telling of it this night had been a very different matter––he had so lately crossed the desert where those two refugees had wandered, that the story had now a life unknown before. Even the sand billows and the rock walls of the mesa spoke as with tongues. The mate to this wonderful Ah-ko could not, he thought, be in the world any where, and the romance of the young priestess and the Greek adventurer fitted the place well and he felt that the priest of the wild places had chosen rightly in keeping the story until they had climbed to this place where the story of the gold had its beginning.

As he retraced his steps, they took him past the sleeping place of José and his wife of Mexico. Beside them was spread the blankets of Chico, but the lad was not there,––he was standing apart, at the edge of the sheer cliff, looking out over the desert reaches where the sand was blue grey in the star light.

“Hollo!”––said Don Ruy and halted in surprise, “do you select sentry duty when you might sleep soft on the sand? Must I send you another blanket to woo you to a bed?”

“Your Excellency has been most generous in the 102 matter of the blanket––one has been enough to keep record of your kindly heart.”

“Then why not enjoy your sleep as a hearty lad should? Has this place of wonder bewitched you––or has the story of the Greek and the gold stirred you into ambitions beyond repose?”

The lad might have retorted by reminding Don Ruy that he also was abroad while his company slept,––usually a glib pertness would have answered his employer, but the answer came not readily, and when it did,––his excellency saw in a surprised moment that the boy was not such a child as the careless company fancied him.

“I have thought nothing of the Greek––and little of the gold,” he said. “But the woman who followed the love and the man across the deserts––and who died alone somewhere in the sands like a starved dog––of her I was thinking! All the magic she had learned could not save her from hell when that one man came in her path!”

“But––you are only a lad and may not understand these things,”––said Don Ruy––“The girl may have died like that, it is true, but the hell in the life she perhaps never got glimpse of,––since she loved the man!”

“But if the dead do know, would not a sort of hell be hers when she learned she had given the magic medicine of her God for the idle gift––bestowed by another mistress?”

Then the lad marched to his blankets and wrapped himself in them, leaving Don Ruy the question to ponder.