XI
NOT the most patient of men, Northrup was tempted to express himself in very strong words and to inform Miss Yahoya that from now on she could do as she pleased for all of him, either go to Strang or the devil and be done with it. Nor did the smile which she turned on Strang as she went by him soften Northrup's mood.
"I have broken the sacred silence, O Yahoya, goddess!" Strang was scarcely more than whispering and yet Northrup's eager ears caught the words clearly enough. "But it was because harm was threatened you and I feared for you. Am I forgiven?"
"Am I true goddess, then, Eddie?" she asked softly.
"The white man in yonder says you are not," he answered quickly, his eyes watchful of her slightest change of expression. "He is a liar. Inaa says you are not; he is a false priest, bewitched. They shall both suffer for it, Yahoya. Tiyo denies your godliness. He too shall suffer. Shall they not, Yahoya?"
"Take them when you will!" she said, her eyes flaming; and so she passed on.
Northrup shrugged his shoulders. He told himself that he had done his best and that he were a mad fool to attempt anything further in the face of what confronted him. But since madness had the way of galloping down his blood when crises came, he was by no means sure what the ending might be. He knew that he would watch; that if Strang or his crowd sought to lay hands on one Sax Northrup, there was going to be a fight worth a man's while.
As Yahoya, walking erect and swiftly across the level space, came to the cliff's edge, Strang, followed by the old patriarchal figure, Muyingwa and the other young men, went close behind her. Northrup noted the glance which passed between Muyingwa and the girl, Nayangap, a glance easily understood since there was not much difference between it and the glance which might pass between two young people in a box at the opera. Then Northrup strode out after the others.
If there was to be a fight it was well to plan a bit while there was time. He forced his mind to this now and away from Yahoya.
He saw that the Indians, heavily armed as they were, might be held off by a man with an automatic and plenty of ammunition. He saw that if Strang carried a gun it was hidden about his clothes. He did not believe that Strang had any sort of firearm upon him. It would have been the natural thing for the man's hand to have gone its way to his hip when Northrup had struck him in the mouth; and he had made no such gesture. There were a thousand ways in which a man, out on the desert for months, might have lost his weapon.
"If I'm the only man here with a gun," pondered Northrup, "they'll have their work cut out for them if they start anything."
He could withdraw toward the other steps, up which he had come from the first cañon. In the narrow passageway he could hold them back while he swept up the jug of water. After that, what was to be would be.
The dawn had come at last. Yahoya, standing upon the brink of the precipice, stood very still, her head thrown back a little, her eyes upon the pale moon, her arms lifted. Northrup came closer to the edge and looked down.
The dark forms there were quiet, had grown as motionless as Yahoya's own. The whole tribe gathered there stood with lifted arms, with faces turned up. Now and then when a form stirred Northrup could see that it was a stagger of drunkenness, could guess that the stuff which they had been drinking was the terribly intoxicating juice of the agave, which, fermented in rawhide bags, puts frenzy into men.
Suddenly through the silence floated Yahoya's voice, singing softly. She was chanting the sacred song, the song which people said she was singing when she appeared before Inaa out of the night. She gave the words strange little twists of mispronunciation—but the words were English! There was no doubting that they were English, or rather that they had been English when Yahoya's baby voice had sung them for the first time into Inaa's ears.
It struck Northrup as an odd little thing that this song alone should have remained to the girl of the tongue which had been her mother's, this song which she could not understand, but whose sounds had been kept fresh through frequent repetition.
And, somehow, the whole thing struck him as more pitiful than amusing, although both elements mixed into it. Here was Yahoya, who had called him liar for saying she was no true goddess, singing in all seriousness her sacred song; down there, far below, was a tribe of Indians listening to her sacred song with a sort of reverence. And the song itself was a nursery jingle!
Buzzfuzz was a jolly fly,
Very blithe and gay!
He began his lively dance
With the break of day.
Up and down the window-pane
With a dainty tread,
Sometimes on his tiptoes slides,
Sometimes on his head!
Northrup caught a grin on Strang's face and could have kicked him for it. In his own eyes he felt a sting of salt mist. He no longer had a desire to laugh at Yahoya or at the face-lifted crowd below. He no longer felt resentment toward the girl. He did feel a quick impulse to sweep her up into his arms, to hold her tightly, as one might hold a very little, motherless child; to carry her away from here and make life over for her.
THE song died away and the stillness of the Festival of Silence went with it. A thunder of voices crashed through the night. Wild yells, until now pent up in riotous breasts, broke out everywhere. And though the voices seemed crying all things in the world, from everywhere rose the shout:
"Yahoya! Yahoya! Yahoya!"
Down yonder the forms were circling drunkenly now—men, women and children stopping only that they might drink, reeling more and more, shouting, lifting their voices in shrill, finely drawn notes, like the yapping of a thousand coyotes.
But from the seething mess came out several forms, walking swiftly and straight. From here there was no need to look twice to see that it was the old priest, Inaa, who led them. Close behind him came Tiyo and after him a score of young men, all armed as were the followers of Strang. They were now coming up the steps. Northrup looked quickly to see what Strang was doing.
He had gathered about him the half-dozen men who had come with him and was giving sharp orders. Northrup marveled a little to see them, one after the other, withdraw until they had lost themselves in the shadows under the overhanging cliffs.
"If he means business," wondered Northrup, "why doesn't he make the fight as they come up the cliffs? The way Tiyo went for him? Or has his nerve left him, after all?"
Now, standing upon the cliff's edge where all above and below might see them, were three forms, that of a white-clad maiden, her face radiant, a strange brightness in her eyes, the form of Strang close to her at her left, Northrup upon her right, a dozen steps away. Then there was old Inaa, standing between Northrup and Yahoya, then Tiyo a little back, his eyes like hard, cold stones upon Strang. The others who had followed until now remained a score of steps from the precipice where they were not to be seen from below.
"Now the show-down," grunted Northrup to himself. "It's Strang against Tiyo. Who wins?"
Inaa slowly lifted his hand. The shouting ceased below; again the leaping forms grew still save for a little swaying. It seemed to Northrup, however, that they were vaguely restless, eager for the happening of something at which he could only guess. Was it merely the marriage ceremony? Or were there many men down there waiting a signal to take sides, some with Strang, some with Inaa and Tiyo?
"Look, People of the Hidden Spring!" cried Inaa suddenly, his voice floating out wildly, his two arms wide-flung. "See how Inaa has kept you from under the heel of the world of Bahanas! How many have come here in the memory of grown men? Two—no more. How many have gone away again, to tell of what they have seen here? None! Has not Inaa guarded you well? Look before the light comes; see where, across the desert, the eyes of Inaa are watching!"
Then Northrup, looking out the way the old man pointed across the wide sweep of desert to the south, saw a great pillar of flame standing red against the pale sky. It shot upward from the distant mountain-peaks, and he knew that at the least those peaks were fifty miles away!
He looked to the eastward and saw again a pillar of red fire lapping at the skies and knew that it was little closer than the first. He looked to the west and saw the third. And suddenly, as he remembered the old Indian woman who had kept him alive, he thought that there was less madness than sanity in the things she had told him.
Was she one of the outposts of this strange people, after all? Had her fires shot their swift messages here that Inaa might know if all were well? Had the blaze his own hands had kindled before her dying eyes spoken to Inaa, too? Were there seven cities of Chebo, as she had told; was this people but the first of them? Had the old Spanish adventurers but told the truth after all of the wonderful cities of Cibola; and had they remained all these years hidden from the white man? He felt his blood tingling through him.
He looked to the north. Here the cliffs stood up so that one might not look far out as in the other directions. But here, clearly outlined against the sky, was the form of a man. And the man was shouting, his voice coming down clearly:
"In the north all is well, Father! The fire burns red!"
Again the people below shouted, crying:
"The red fires burn! It is well!"
And again they fell silent abruptly.
"Inaa has guarded his children well," went on the priest solemnly. "For fifty years has he not been Inguu and Inaa (mother and father) to you? Because the gods were pleased did they not send one of their kind, the Goddess Yahoya, to live with you? Did they not send the Bahana whom you call the Man of Wisdom to cure the sick and teach you how to make better things from gold—beautiful things for you to wear, cups from which to drink? And has not Inaa kept the Bahana here so that he might not go out to tell of what he has seen and so bring the cursed white men here, as they have gone everywhere else over the world?"
A moment he was silent. Then, his voice lowered a little, he continued:
"Inaa is old, his years weigh him down. Yahoya this night, her heart opened to the future, has said that already is the Skeleton House made ready for the coming of Inaa. But he does not go and leave his people without a thought for their welfare. He leaves behind him one to step into his place, the biggest man among you, the mightiest with his hands, the swiftest runner across the desert, the most tireless, Tiyo, the head captain of your young men!"
A great shout swept up from below:
"Tiyo! Tiyo! Tiyo!"
And then, as silence was settling, a loud voice boomed out:
"Tiyo for our Head Man; Yahoya for our Goddess! Tiyo and Yahoya!" And again many voices arose crying, "Tiyo and Yahoya!"
Tiyo himself, at a sharp glance from the old man, came forward another step, swiftly, standing very close to Yahoya, so close that her gown brushed him. The cheering rose more windily from below. Strang's eyes and Tiyo's met then. To Northrup it was a sheer wonder that the two men could hold themselves back from flying at each other's throats.
While they shouted down there Inaa was speaking swiftly with Yahoya. Northrup could not catch the words, but words were not needed now to tell what Inaa was saying. He was commanding, urging, threatening. And when Yahoya answered, it seemed that she had given him an answer that pleased him.
"Listen, my children," cried Inaa, his voice ringing with the triumph in it. "The White Goddess is pleased with you this dawning. Her heart is yours. It is not her wish to journey back up through the skies down which she came; it is not her wish to move on down into the underworld where the abode of the gods is. She will linger here with you, she will wed Tiyo and you shall be their children, blessed of the gods!"
Northrup could see that Yahoya was smiling. She leaned out over the abyss until he was afraid for her, thinking that madness had come upon her and that she was going to fall. She lifted her hand and there fell the great silence again, seeming now more breathless than ever. And then, when everything was still, when they waited and wondered why she did not speak, suddenly she broke the silence. And not with a spoken word, but with a clear burst of laughter leaping out over them from her red lips.
Inaa frowned and plucked at his beard; Tiyo shifted his feet, looking uncertainly from his father to Yahoya; Strang stared at her much as Northrup was staring. And still, until she had done, Yahoya gave free vent to her tinkling laughter.
"You have heard Inaa," she cried at last, her voice clear and steady, confident and imperious. "Now hear Yahoya! Do I look to you like one afraid? Do I tremble as if with fear? Does my body shake as men's bodies do when they look on death? And yet have I been threatened tonight! Aliksai. Listen.
"It is the dawning and Yahoya, the Goddess, has said that she would wed. Whom would you have her take for husband, my People of the Hidden Spring? Shall it be Tiyo here? He is hungry for me; he is shaking with the desire for me; Inaa bids me marry him! Shall it be the Man of Wisdom? He is covetous of beautiful things and he wants Yahoya! His eyes burn me with the greed in them. Shall I take him for husband?
"Are you not my people, O People of the Hidden Spring? Shall not your wish enter the heart of the White Goddess? Cry out in a loud voice and say whom shall Yahoya wed?"
Northrup moved closer without knowing that he did so, thrilled with the girl's fearlessness. He had heard her words to Strang, he had seen her seem to agree with Inaa. What was she going to do?
She herself had given the sign for division. In the shouting which answered her there were many voices clamoring for Tiyo, many for Strang. And as by magic the throng about the fires was shaken into its two factions, women drawing back, men grouping here and yonder about their leaders.
"Wait!" Yahoya's clear young voice cut through the din like a bell through a roll of thunder. "Wait and listen! The Man of Wisdom has said to me: 'Will you wed me?' And Yahoya, the Goddess, promised! Inaa has said to me, 'Will you wed Tiyo my son?' And Yahoya told him, 'I have promised and a goddess may not break her word!' What is the answer, my people?"
Only a murmur crept up to her in answer. Men looked at her wonderingly, waiting and listening as she had commanded. And again she laughed.
"Yahoya will tell you," she cried lightly, her rising voice seeming to soar upward upon wings of happiness. "Yahoya, the goddess, may not lie. But what maiden among you would not lie for her lover? Yahoya, who is no goddess but a white maid, will not wed with Tiyo. And she will not wed with Strang, who is a coward. She chooses her own lover, and if it be death—why then, she chooses death with him."
Like a flash she had fled along the cliff-edge, sweeping by Tiyo, avoiding Inaa's clutching fingers. She had sped to Northrup's side and her arms flashed upward and about his shoulders.
"Save me from them, Saxnorthrup!" she whispered. "I am only a maid—and I am afraid!"
As Northrup stared down at the face at his breast, he felt the wild flutter of her heart against him and heard her whispering:
"Of you only am I not afraid—because I love you, Saxnorthrup!"