Kitabı oku: «The Flute of the Gods», sayfa 18
And a long, shivering, high keyed chant of the Te-hua people went upwards to the sky, that the gods might know they were witness. But in the midst of it the rumbling as of thunder was under their feet and the earth rocked. Sulphurous fumes came upwards from the long closed crevices of the solitary mesa; and to the south there was the crash as of falling worlds, and the great mesa of The Face lifted before their eyes, and settled again as a wave of the river lifts and breaks on the shore.
The chant of the sacrifice was silenced on their lips, and they fled downward at that sight, for the face of the God-Maid of the mesa no longer looked upwards to the sun! The outline of the brow, and the cheek, and the dainty woman’s chin they could still see;–but the face was turned from them–turned toward the south–where the gods have ever gone in an evil season!
And only Don Ruy Sandoval saw the heart put back in the breast of the witch maid, and saw her wrapped in the white robe of the Po-Ahtun-ho, and saw the crevice where the Powers of the Underworld had opened a grave for her there on the Mesa of the Hearts.
And even he watched afar off; for there was that in the face of the Indian priest not to be understood by the white man who felt both pity and horror.
But he waited at the foot of the mesa, and held the canoe while the Po-Ahtun-ho, who had the logic of a white man, but the heart of an Indian, came down and entered it in silence, and as they crossed the river, stared as though scarcely seeing it, at The Face now turned southwards on the mesa.
“You–loved her?” said Don Ruy at last and something of the tone of a lover in the voice made Tahn-té close his eyes for a moment, and then look at the Castilian. He did not need to speak.
“Yet–you could do–that?”
“When the gods are angered against earth people, it is always the most precious they demand in sacrifice,” he said. “When we make vows, the gods watch that we keep the vows–else we pay, Señor,–we pay–we pay!”
CHAPTER XXIII
THE PROPHECY OF TAHN-TÉ
Vague tremblings were still felt underfoot; the river was red with the clay of fallen banks. Smoke came from an ancient crater to the south, and also the east, and above the Mesa of the Hearts hung a cloud of volcanic dust, or a puff of smoke escaped from the red ash-covered fissures of the Underworld.
The women were gathered in terror in the court, but fled at the sight of Tahn-té. The anger of the earth was a thing of fear; but he was made see that there were worse things, and they covered the faces of their children that his eyes might not rest on them.
At the door of the council house he paused and Don Ruy beside him. There was much talk. All the leading men were there, also Padre Vicente and Don Diego. They entered and there was silence.
No one offered to Tahn-té the pipe, and no one spoke to him.
The priest of the New God had told them things–he knew men’s hearts–he had confessed so many!–He told them it was love for the witch maid by which the hand of the sorcerer kept every other man from touching her.–Even to take the heart from her breast, was an easier thing than to give her to the men of Te-gat-ha or of Povi-whah, who had looked on her face and asked for her, also he had wrapped about her his priestly robe of office before he laid her in the earth where Satan had broken the rock to reach for her!
Their sorcerer had traded his robe of office for the evil love of an enchantress:–never again must a god be offended by sound of his prayers!
And no one offered him the pipe, and no one spoke to him. He sat alone and looked with unseeing eyes at the weeping god on the altar.
Padre Vicente was seated in a place of honor. He looked at Tahn-té across the circle, and it was plain that the ways had changed since that other day of council when they had looked into each other’s eyes, and the pagan had been the Ruler!
The right hand man of the governor arose. He was the oldest man, and he spoke.
“While the earth has trembled we have talked–and the trembling has grown little while we talked,” he said. “It is plain that the gods have sent these signs that we may know our white brothers are indeed of the sun, and the symbol of the sun should be given to their keeping.”
Another man arose.
“Also these new brothers will guard our fields from the Navahu and the Apache,” he said. “We will have the tamed animals to ride, and our enemies will run before the fire sticks our brothers will give us.”
The governor arose.
“Their god we are asked to take, and the god will do much for us if the sun symbol is given to their keeping. To us that seems good. The keepers of the sun symbol are two, and must be only two. Let it be for the ancients of the Po-Ahtun to say which man of their order gives up the secret, and makes medicine to forget it was ever in his keeping.”
A man of the Po-Ahtun stood up and looked at Tahn-té.
“A man and a woman hold that secret of the symbol of the god,” he said. “In our own kiva must that be spoken of, and not in another place. But the hearts of our people are gentle towards our new brothers who smell out witches, and do not mate with them! Our order will surely make medicine that the priest of the great king be given that secret to keep for us, and the Sun God will smile again on our land.”
“It is well–it is very well,” said all the council. And then there was a long silence, and they looked at Tahn-té until he arose.
“Not except I die for you, will you believe;–and even then you will not believe,” he said in sadness. “You, my people, will accept the god of the gold hunters, and you will not see that it is only riches they want at your hands! In other years you will see. When the men of Te-hua work in chains for the men of Spain–and for the masters of the men of Spain!–Then in that day will the men of Te-hua tell to their sons these words–the words of the prophecy of Tahn-té!”
“We are much troubled, and our hearts are sad,” said Po-tzah. “The magic of the white god is strong–and their priest has let our people see that it is strong. We do not want that magic against our children.”
“Against your children will the magic come in the unborn years!” said Tahn-té with decision. “You will take the god of the white man because one more god, or one more baptism hurts no man. You will be trapped by fair words until I see the time when you can circle in the half of a day all the fields you dare plant for your own! The Flute of the Gods will be silenced in the land. Your Te-hua daughters will be slaves for the men of the iron! The sacred places will be feeding lands for their animals. The Te-hua priests will wait the word of the white man ere they dare go to the groves of the sacred trees for the prayer wreaths to the gods!”
“The sacred pine must be sacred to all–always!” said Po-tzah.
“Not anything is sacred to the white men–I have looked in their books;–I, of all Te-hua men!”
Padre Vicente saw that the old magic of the talking leaves was potent;–and he arose without waiting for formal interpretation.
“He has looked in the books with the eyes of a sorcerer!” he declared, thus openly accusing Tahn-té before the council.–“He has read crooked things–and his words are the words of the man who mated with the witch in the hills!”
The council stared at this new sign that strong magic was with the priest of the robe–he was suddenly given knowledge of the tongue of Te-hua! Don Diego stared in wonder and crossed himself many times.
“It is a language infernal even to the people born to it,” he gasped–“but that it should be given to one of us on the day when we are openly claimed as brothers is a special sign of grace. Thanks to the saints who sent it your way instead of mine!”
“This man has brought evil on you until the earth groans and turns,” continued the Padre. “His mother of the caves is called ‘holy’ and he is called strong in the light of the sky:–But the sky is angry, and the Great God and his saints are angry that this sorcerer has cheated you so long with enchantments of the devil! Be strong for the saving of your own souls, and leave him to his witch mates and to his hell!”
Even Don Ruy was astounded that the padre addressed the council in their own words–truly of all priests ever frocked he had found the one most subtle for the work in hand, for having gained the council–as it was easy to see he had gained them–Padre Vicente spoke in Castilian to Tahn-té.
“Yet does my office exact absolution for you, if you but crave it with a contrite heart,” he said for the benefit of Don Ruy and Don Diego who listened. “You have worked for your devils, and they have deserted you, and stripped you of power. Acknowledge the true God and the saints will intercede for your favor.”
Tahn-té looked at him, and his smile was strange.
“There was a man named Judas in your holy book,” he said, “only silver did he crave for his work. You are greater than Judas; you work for the metal more precious. Is it thirty pieces you want ere you crucify me utterly?”
The figure of a woman darkened the entrance–a slender fragile figure who moved to him swiftly, and noted no others in the dusk of the council house. In Shufinne the word had reached her of the horror of Pu-yé–and she had come quickly as might be, and the sound of his living voice drew her breathless, but thankful to his side, and his arm circled her in support and in tenderness as he looked over her head to the Te-hua men of the council.
“I see your thoughts, and I read them,” he said. “The men who seek the gold have put a wall between you and me. That which you have you can give them;–but remember in your hearts that there are things which belong to the unborn, and such things you have no power to give them. Only so long as you keep your own religion, and your own gods, so long will your tribe stand as a tribe;–no longer! Step by step your children will have to fight the strangers for that which is now your own. Only your god-thoughts will bind you as brothers;–the god of the gold hunters will poison your blood, and will divide your clans, and will divide your children, until your names are forgotten in the land!”
“The sorcerer who tells you this is the brother to the serpents in the Desert!” said Padre Vicente springing to his feet in angry impatience;–“enough of words have been said of this–.”
A sound between a scream and a moan silenced the words on his lips, and Don Ruy felt his blood run chill, as the drooping figure of the Woman of the Twilight stood suddenly upright with lifted hand.
“Teo!”–she murmured in utter gladness,–and moved through the half light of the room towards the Castilians. “Teo!”
“Holy God!” whispered Don Ruy, while the padre turned white. Don Diego stared in horror–only one named Teo came in his mind–the Greek who should belong to the Holy Office in Seville;–the man whose word even now was wanted as to the older days of Christian slave trade in Europe!
“Don Teo!” she was quite close to him now, and she spoke as a trembling child who craves welcome,–“I–Mo-wa-thé–speak! O Spirit;–you have come back from the Star–you have come–.”
The Te-hua men, and Tahn-té also, waited in wonder. Never before had the Twilight Woman gone like that to a man–and she was so close that the man shrank from her against the wall of the room.
“Back!”–he muttered, and he spoke Te-hua now, and his voice was rough with rage and fear,–“This woman is evil, and brings evil power!”
“She is the Woman of the Twilight–the holy woman of the caves,” said a man of the Po-Ahtun, for Tahn-té could find no words for the wonder she wakened.
“She is an enchantress who fights against the true god and his angels;–a witch of evil magic!”–and the padre was white, and breathing hard lest she touch him.
“A witch!”–she echoed in horror.–“I?–Teo–.”
She crept to him in abject supplication and reached out her hand, touching the sleeve of his robe.
“Back!”–he shouted in horror–and held the crucifix between them–“Thing of the Evil One! May your tongue be palsied–may your magic fail–may–.”
Tahn-té hurled him aside, and caught his mother as she fell; and the padre leaned half fainting against the wall, with great beads of sweat standing on his face, and the crucifix still lifted as a barrier or as a threat.
But the threat was useless to the slender creature of the caves.
“Teo–Teo!” she whispered, and then “Tahn-té,” and then the breath went, and her son laid her gently on the floor, while the padre regarded him with a new horror! Don Ruy watching them both, choked back an oath at the revelation in the white face.
The Te-hua men also drew away;–even Po-tzah averted his face when Tahn-té looked from one to the other!
Again had their eyes seen the strength of the white medicine god. The holy Woman of the Twilight had been destroyed before their eyes. It was the greatest magic they had yet seen!
Tahn-té saw it, and knew it; and felt as he had felt when a boy, and he had stood alone and apart–the only child of the sky. He had come again into his own! He was akin to none of earth’s children.
Then the man of the Po-Ahtun spoke.
“Two there were who held the secret of the sun symbol;–Now there is only one,–she has taken it through the Twilight Land to the Light beyond the light.”
“Two?”–said Don Ruy–“and this woman was one? And the other?”
No one spoke, but Tahn-té looked at him; and again there was no need for words.
“Medicine can be made to make a man forget,” said Tahn-té to the men of Te-hua–“but no medicine can be made to make a man remember! One keeper of the secret is dead by the magic of the white priest. Your children’s children will give thanks in the days to come that it was not given to the men of iron.”
“It is a secret of the tribe!” protested the man of the Po-Ahtun.
“It is now the secret of the god who hid it in the earth,” said Tahn-té. “By all earth people who knew it–it has been forgotten!”
“But–without it we will lose our brothers of the new god!”
“Without it you will surely lose your brothers of the new god!” he assented. “Each time you look on the God-Maid of the mesa who has turned away her face, you will remember the prophecies of Tahn-té! Each time the God of Young Winter paints leaves yellow for the sleep to come, your children will see a sign on the mountain to tell them that Tahn-té was indeed Brother to the Serpent as that man said in his mocking!–also that the prayers of Tahn-té do not end. Free I came from the Desert to you, and I carried the Flute of the Gods, and fruit for your children:–free I go out from your dwellings and carry my ‘witch mother’ to rest!”
He gathered her in his arms, and looked once into the pallid face of her accuser and destroyer. At that look from the pagan priest the white priest shrank and covered his face with the cowl.
“You–go?” said Po-tzah.
“In the place of Povi-whah another will hear your prayers to the gods, and I–Tahn-té the outcast–I go!”
No more words were spoken among the men of the council. In silence they watched him as he walked with his burden up the trail of the mesa where he had run so gladly to make his boy vow at the shrine.
No happy sign shone for him this time in the sky. It was as he said to Don Ruy;–those who make vows to the gods,–and forget them for earth people, pay–and pay prices that are heavy! But above him a bird swept into the golden sky. He put up his hand to the wings in his hair–and heard plainly the words of the mate who would wait his call at the trail’s end.
And Don Ruy Sandoval watched the man called “sorcerer” out of sight, and then went to the dwelling of José and gathered to his breast the secretary who had adopted blanket draperies.
“Sweetheart comrade,” he said without proper prelude or preparation–“There is not anything in this weary world worth living for but Love, and Love alone. Shall we take the homeward journey and go where we can guard it?”
“There are tears in your eyes,” said his “Doña Bradamante,”–“and you look as if you make love to me, yet think of some other thing!”
“I have seen a man live through hell this day,” he answered. “Never ask me, Sweetheart–what the hell was. It is beyond belief that a man could live it, and continue to live after it.”
CHAPTER XXIV
THE BLUEBIRD’S CALL
Even in the long after years in stately Christian Spain, Don Ruy was a silent man when his serene lady in stiff brocades and jewelled shoes would mock at court pageantry and sigh for the reckless days when she had worn the trappings of a page and followed his steps into the north land of barbaric mysteries.
Mystery much of it had remained for her! The life of the final days in the terraced village by the great river had been masked and cloaked for her. Ysobel and José had been silent guards, and Don Ruy could not be cajoled into speech!
But there had been a morning he suddenly became a very compelling commander for all of them; and his will was that the cavalcade head for the south and Mexico as quickly as might be, and that Padre Vicente de Bernaldez separate from them all and seek converts where he would. A horse and food was allowed to him, but no other thing.
Don Diego exclaimed with amazement at such arrangement, and warned Don Ruy that the saints above, and Mother Church in Spain, would demand account for such act on the part of even Don Ruy Sandoval!
“Is it indeed so?” asked Don Ruy, and smiled with a bitter meaning as he looked on the padre:–“Will you, señor priest, tell this company it is at your own will and request that you remain in this land of the barbarians? Or is your mind changed, and do you fancy Seville as a pleasant place for a journey?”
But Padre Vicente turned the color of a corpse, and said openly before them all, that he asked freedom to journey to other Indian villages. Thus, white and silent he was let go. He went without farewell. If he found other villages none can tell, but the men of a great Order framed before the building of the Egyptian pyramids, do know that the traces of a like Order is to-day in one of the villages of that province of New Spain, and that there is legend of a white priest who lived in their terraces of the mesa, and taught them certain things of the strange outside world so long as they let him live. But his name is not remembered by men.
What Don Ruy Sandoval said to the Viceroy of Mexico on his return, was in private conference, but a royal galleon carried him, and carried a strangely found Mexic bride, across the wide seas to Spain, where the wonderful “Relaciones” were made the subject of much converse, but never printed, and during the lifetime of the adventurer called Ruy Sandoval, the province of New Spain along the Rio Grande del Norte was locked and barred against the seeker of gold or of souls–it was the closed land of mystery:–the province of sorcerers, where Mother Earth hid beneath her heart the symbol of the Sun Father.
But there are legends there in the valley of the Te-hua people to tell of that time of trial three centuries ago. Also there are the records written on mesa and mountain. In the time of that far away, the Spirit People worked together on Na-im-be Mountain until of the evergreen pine, a giant figure of a man grew there, and around him is growing the white limbs and yellow leaves of the aspen groves. The hands of that figure reach high overhead and are to the south, and they hold the great Serpent whose body is as a strung bow in its arch, and whose head is high on the hill where the enchanted lake, known by every one, reflects the sky. Tahn-té, whose mother was the Woman of the Twilight, said the God of Winter would send a sign that the people might know the ancient worship of the creeping Brother was a true thing–and so it was done–all men can see it when the Spirit People turn yellow the leaves.
Other things spoken by him have come true until the Te-hua priests know that one born of a god did once live among them as a boy and as a man.
Like children bewildered did the clans of Povi-whah watch the silent swift departure of their white brothers from whom they had hoped much. They thought of many things and had trouble thoughts while they waited until the mourning of Tahn-té in the hills would be over, and he would come again to their councils. But when the waiting had been so long that fear touched their hearts, then men of the highest medicine sought for him in the hills, that his fasts be not too long, and he be entreated to return:–that turned-away face of the God-Maid on the mesa made their hearts weak, and they needed the strong prayers of Tahn-té. His name meant the Sunlight, and their minds were in shadow after his going away.
With prayer words and prayer music they sought for him, and sacred pollen was wafted to the four ways, and all the ways of the Spirit, that the help of the Lost Others might come also.
They told each other of the promise of Po-se-yemo and of Ki-pah, that in each time of stress a leader who was god-sent would come to the Te-hua people so long as they were faithful to the Things of the Spirit.
This had truly been a season of stress, and an appeal of new, strange gods!
Tahn-té, the leader, had been born and had come to them; the Flute of the Ancient Gods he had carried as the Sign!–and as they whispered it to each other, their eyes had a new terror, and they sought wildly for reasons to justify themselves.
He had come. They had choice, and they chose the new white brothers, and the new god promises!
He had come;–and they had closed their hearts against his words–they had driven him away as in other days the Ancient Fathers had driven Po-se-yemo to the south:–for the gods only live where the hearts of men are true, and strong, and of faith!
These things they had been told by the Ancients, but they remembered it now anew as they followed each other in silence to the hills, and to the white walls of Pu-yé–and to the tomb there newly built that the Woman of the Twilight might rest where her people had lived in the lost centuries.
The portal of it was closed, and the sign of her order was cut in the rock at the portal.
The priests made many prayers, but no trace of the lost Ruler could they find. All was silence in that place of the dead, but for the song of a bluebird flitting from one ancient dwelling to another.
Younger men went far to the west where the people of the Hopi mesas had loved him;–somewhere in the world he must be found!
But the Hopi people mourned also, for they had heard the strange call of a flute across the sands in the night time, and had feared to answer to the call, and in the morning there was no sound of the flute, and no priest of the flute to be found:–only a trail across the desert sand–and the trail led the way of the sun trail, and the Winds of the Four Ways blew, and swept it from sight–and they knew in their hearts that Tahn-té had sent his good-bye call ere he went from the land of men to the land of gods.
They knew also that he went alive–for the god-born do not die.
This word the couriers took back to the Te-hua people of the Rio Grande, and fires were lit for him as they have been lighted for centuries that the god Po-se-yemo might know that their faith in the valley of the great river was yet strong for the ancient gods.
Three centuries of the religion of the white strangers have not made dim the signal fires to those born of the sky!
The walls of Povi-whah have melted again into Mother Earth. Silent are the groves where the Ancient Others carved their homes from the rock walls of the heights. Wings of vivid blue flit in the sunlight from the portal of the star to bough of the piñon tree–and a brooding silence rests over those high levels;–only the wind whispers in the pines, and the old Indians point to the bird of azure and tell of a Demon-maid who came once from the land of the Navahu, and wore such wings, and sang a song of the blue bird, and enchanted a god-born one with her promise to build a nest and wait for him–at the trail’s end!
An ancient teller of Te-hua legends will add that the trail of Tahn-té was covered by the sands of the Four Ways and no living people ever again looked on his face,–and that the Te-hua priests say the strong god of the men of iron swept him into the Nothing because he alone stood against the new faith in that time of trial.
The teller of tales does not know if this be true or not–all gods can be made strong by people, and it is not good to battle against the god of a strong people:–they can send strange sorceries and wild temptings, and the Navahu maid had such charm she was never forgotten by men who looked upon her face. It is also well known that the bluebird is a sacred bird for medicine, and does call at every dawn on those heights, and the wings worn in the banda of Tahn-té might, through strong love, have become a true charm;–and might have led him at last to the nest of the witch maid in some wilderness of the Far Away;–who can tell?
But all men know that the prophecies of Tahn-té are true to-day in the valley of the Rio Grande–and that his vision was the vision of that which was to be.
Aliksai!
