eaches where the sand
was blue grey in the star light.

"Hollo!"--said Don Ruy and halted in surprise, "do you select sentry
duty when you might sleep soft on the sand? Must I send you another
blanket to woo you to a bed?"

"Your Excellency has been most generous in the matter of the
blanket--one has been enough to keep record of your kindly heart."

"Then why not enjoy your sleep as a hearty lad should? Has this place
of wonder bewitched you--or has the story of the Greek and the gold
stirred you into ambitions beyond repose?"

The lad might have retorted by reminding Don Ruy that he also was
abroad while his company slept,--usually a glib pertness would have
answered his employer, but the answer came not readily, and when it
did,--his excellency saw in a surprised moment that the boy was not
such a child as the careless company fancied him.

"I have thought nothing of the Greek--and little of the gold," he
said. "But the woman who followed the love and the man across the
deserts--and who died alone somewhere in the sands like a starved
dog--of her I was thinking! All the magic she had learned could not
save her from hell when that one man came in her path!"

"But--you are only a lad and may not understand these things,"--said
Don Ruy--"The girl may have died like that, it is true, but the hell
in the life she perhaps never got glimpse of,--since she loved the
man!"

"But if the dead do know, would not a sort of hell be hers when she
learned she had given the magic medicine of her God for the idle
gift--bestowed by another mistress?"

Then the lad marched to his blankets and wrapped himself in them,
leaving Don Ruy the question to ponder.

CHAPTER IX

YAHN, THE APACHE

"Brothers:--you of the life
--Of also the fire divine!
You of the mountains
Of also the Mother Mist!
Out of the mist is a voice.
It is not the voice afraid!
Out of the shadows,
Out of the forests,
Out of the deserts
It is born!
In a good hour it is born.
The wind of the Sun sends it breath!
Brothers:--the Dawn drives the Darkness
And in the mountain strong
No one sings fear!
Out from far worlds it comes,
With the strong Dawn it comes
Brothers:--be mountain str