ight, there will be many days
that their hearts will be sick. We must not make these days come when
we have enemies to fight."

"Do you fear?" demanded the temptress petulantly. It irked her that
his first thought was of caution--while hers was of annihilation for
the man who loomed so large that no other man could be seen in the
land.

"If you think I fear would you find me here in this witch place with
you?" he asked. "It has been forbidden that any one comes here--yet
have I come!"

Plainly he felt brave that he had defied the Po-Ahtun-ho in so much as
he had walked to the forbidden sacred places, and Yahn felt a storm of
rage sweep over her at the knowledge. But it had been a storm of rage
like that by which he had once been driven away from her! And she
smothered all the words she would have spoken, and clung to him, and
whispered of his greatness,--and the pride he could bring to the clan
when Tahn-te, the lover of witches, no longer made laws in the land.

In her own heart she was making prayers that the alarm of the Navahu
warriors prove a false thing, and the vision of Tahn-te be laughed at
by the clans. To hear him laughed at would help much!

But that was not to be, for ere the dawn broke, came shouts from
Shufinne--and signal fires, and the Te-hua men of Pu-ye ran swiftly to
guide their Castilian brothers in arms, and the savages who had hoped
to steal women in the darkness, found that thunder and lightning and
death fought for the Te-hua people--and the men of iron rode them down
with the charmed animals and strange battle cries.

When the daylight came there were dead Navahu on the field south of
Shufinne--the flower of the shields had bloom! Two dead Te-hua men
were also there, and a wounded Navahu had been taken captive by Juan
Gonzalvo. Ka-yemo carried two fresh scalps, and Don Ruy lay huddled in
a little arroyo, where a lance thrust had struck him reeling from the
saddle, and Tahn-te had leaped forward to grapple with the Navahu who,
hidden on the edge of the steep bank, waited the coming of the
horseman and lunged at him as head and shoulders came above the
level.

Where the breastplate ends at the throat he struck, and the blade of
volcanic glass cut through the flesh. At the savage yell of triumph
the horse swerved--stumbled, and with a clatter of metals rolled down
the embankment.

As the Navahu rushed downward with lifted axe and eager scalping
knife, an arrow from the bow of Tahn-te pi