Then her hand went under her manta and drew out the curved knife.
She spoke one brief sentence, and lifted the blade over her head. It caught the light of the hovering sun, and the Indians near enough to hear her words set up a scream of such unearthly emotion that the priest turned ashen, and made the sign to ward off evil.
It was merely coincidence that a near flash of lightning flamed from the heavens as she lifted the knife,––but it inspired every Indian to a crashing cry of exultation.
And it did not end there, for a Palomitas woman had carried across the desert a small drum of dried skin stretched over a hollow log, and at the words of Tula she began a soft tum-tum-tum-tum on the hidden instrument. The sound was at first as a far echo of the thunder back of the dark cloud, and the voices of the women shrilled their emphasis as the drum beat louder, or the thunder came nearer.
Kit Rhodes decided Marto was entirely correct as to the inspiration back of that anthem.
“Sangre de Christo! look at that!” muttered Marto, who meant to turn his back on the entire group, yet was held by the fascination of the unexpected.
Four Indian youths with a huge and furious bull came charging down the mesa towards the corral. A reata fastened to each horn and hind foot of the animal was about the saddle horn of a boy, and the raging bellowing creature was held thus at safe distance from all. The boys, shouting with their joy of victory, galloped past the plaza to where four great stakes had already been driven deep in the hard ground. To those stakes the bull would be tied until the burden was ready for his back––and his burden would be what was left of “Judas” when the women of the slave trail got through with him!
“God the father knows I am a man of no white virtues,” muttered Marto eyeing the red-eyed maddened brute, “but here is my vow to covet no comradeship of aught in the shape of woman in the district of Altar––bred of the devil are they!”
He followed after to the corral to watch the tying of the creature, around which the Indian men were gathered at a respectful distance.
But Rhodes, after one glance at the bellowing assistant of Indian vengeance, found himself turning again to Tula and the padre. That wild wail and the undertone of the drum was getting horribly on his nerves,––yet he could not desert, as had Marto.