Again her voice reached them and this time the tones were clear and the words certain.
“Greetings to you––Lords––Castilians!”
A shout went up from the men. At last a land had been reached where an interpreter was not needed for the woman. It put a different complexion on the day. Tired men straightened in their saddles and Ruy Sandoval laughed at the amaze on the face of Gonzalvo––that hardy soldier of many lands stared as if by a witch enthralled.
“How call you yourself, mistress?” inquired the priest coldly, “and is it the custom of the men of the P[=o]-s[=o]n-gé to send their wives to greet men who travel?”
“Yahn Tsyn-deh I am,”––she said––“and not wife.”
“Humph!” the grunt of Maestro Diego was not polite. Even the desert might not be a safe place to bring youth if damsels of this like grew in the sage clumps. “It is said to be a good luck sign when a man comes first over the threshold on a New Year’s day and on a Monday,––it starts the year and 139 the week aright––and how read you this of a female crossing first for us the line of welcome in the new land of treasure?––read you good fortune here in all that would be ill fortune at home?”
“Save your croaking since she is beautiful to a marvel!” said Don Ruy lightly. “If they tell us truly that the world is round, who knows that we may not be nicely balanced on an opposite to Seville, and all things of life and portent to be reversed? There’s a thought for your ‘Relaciones!’––treasure it, señor!––treasure it!
“I am not yet of a mind that the unsanctified globe theory is to be accepted by true believers!” announced Don Diego with decision––“that you well know!––and also you know that my scriptural evidence––”
“Is as good as that of any man!” agreed his charge who was more his master and tormentor. “But if we halt here while you make the maps of Cosmo in the sand, we will miss the rest of the maids, for all my looking shows me no others on the run to us.”
Yahn was, meanwhile, with great unconcern, making braids of her hair, and breathing with more ease, and using her eyes well the while. The piercing look of the padre was the only one she faltered under, and that of Gonzalvo she met in elusive coquetry.