cloud to be dragged low in the dust!

CHAPTER XX

THE CHOICE OF YAHN TSYN-DEH

And while Yahn Tsyn-deh laid the trap, and the medicine drums sounded,
and the women gathered the children close because of the trembling
earth, one girl robed in the skin of a mountain lion waited alone at
the portal of the star, and knelt in the shadow, and looked with eyes
of fear at the great pieces of severed cliff, or ancient wall sent
crashing downwards by the force of the earth shock.

Past her portal they had crashed until it seemed the roof must fall
also, and she gathered the robe of Tahn-te about her, and came as far
as might be into the open--and watched with longing eyes the trail
across the mesa to the great river!--for that trail was as the path of
the sun to her,--or the rainbow in the sky!

The feet of Tahn-te had touched that trail, and when the night came,
and the moon rose in the great circle over the eastern hills--over
that trail would he come, and though the mountains themselves crashed
downwards to the mesa, he would hold her close, and the very spirits
of darkness could send no more fear!

She kept very still there waiting at the portal, for strange noises
were heard on the mesa, a dislodged stone rumbling down the long
slope--or a bit of loose clay falling from the ancient walls. At times
the smaller sounds suggested passing feet--and above all things must
she remain hidden from people until he came for her--he--the god-like
one who had brought her to this dwelling so akin to the dwellings of
the Divine Ones of the Navahu land in the place called Tse-ye. The
difference was that the Tse-ye dwellings were deep in the heart of the
world--while these dwellings were lifted high above the world.

But she knew without words that he indeed belonged to the Divine Ones
ere he brought her to the ancient dwellings. That her name had been in
his heart, and on his lips before she herself had told him, was but a
part of the strange sweet magic of the new life into which he had led
her.

Through the storms--and the dark nights--and the long days of
loneliness had she lived since he had hidden her first from the scouts
of Te-gat-ha--but they had passed over her as dreams of sweetness
pass.--That the groves of pine, or the mesa of the river, hid him from
her sight, did not mean to her that he had quite gone away, the
wonderful magic wrought by him made it possible for her to feel his
arms about her even when she lay