COMING OF THE CASTILIANS
Because a runner from Kat-yi-ti had been killed on the trail by a mountain lion, and because the village of Povi-whah had forgotten the strangers from the south in the excitement of Tahn-té’s return (for many there were who thought never to see him again!)––because of these things it was that the men of iron rode unseen by the river, and the alarm was called from sentry to sentry on the mesa where the workers in flint shaped the arrow-points, and were guards as well for the village below.
There was no mistaking the glint of sunlight on steel and helmet, and the beasts with strange strappings. The men of the beards were indeed at the very edge of their planted fields!
And they saw more than that, for they saw a girl who ran from the shore to meet them. So fleet was her running that her hair swept like a dusk cloud behind her, and the soldier Gonzalvo stared at her with open mouth.
“By the true cross, that looks better to me than the thimble full of gold!” he announced, and Don Ruy laughed and put his horse on the other side of Don Diego as though to protect him from temptation.
“You, and his reverence the padre, have the records and the prayers to your share,” he suggested,––“but eyes bright as those––and lips as tempting––”
“The heathen wench does look like the seven deadly sins for enticement,” agreed Don Diego and made the sign of the cross.
“A shameless wench, indeed,” agreed Padre Vicente––“with her bosom bare, and little but her hair as a cloak!––What is it she calls?––Holy God!––did you hear?”
All had halted now. Pretty women and girls had been hidden in the villages of their trail. Even if they chanced to glimpse one it was by chance––and among the wall-housed barbarians no dames bold as this one had been seen:––neither had one been seen so alluring.