And Po-tzah had said, “Speak for our children to the god.”
He seemed to hear Po-tzah’s voice, and the words repeat themselves in the dusk, and––stranger still––another voice back of Po-tzah’s! it also spoke of children––through the chanted prayer he heard it––baffling yet insistent.
Then he knew it!
He knew it as the first shadow of the visions which 125 the prayer was bringing:––it was the voice of the Ruler whose office he now held––the aged man who had once worn the white robe and said––“If she had not died––her children would be your children!”
The picture of Po-tzah’s small brown babe came between him and the sacred figure on the rock,––a strange thing for the voice to suggest! A little child––in the dusk––and––sheltering arms around it!
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“Oh You! Oh––Indwelling God! Come to me! Grey ghost––white ghost Why is the false enchantment? Grey ghost of darkness–– White ghost of high hills Make way for sacred magic, Sink far your darkened spells! O You! O Indwelling God Come to me!” |
In the dusk a shadow––or it might have been a drooping bough of the piñon tree––gave outline of a bent head above the outline of the babe––only a strange trick of carving on the gray stone, and swaying branches outlining a head––then the shoulders––then an arm about the babe! To the mind of the mystic it was the visible temptation of a black enchantment in the very presence of the god!––The strongest the opposing powers could send to man under vows of prayer and search for the spirit medicine of the highest thought.
The Signal Fire to the Mountain God Page 129