f the caves," said
a man of the Po-Ahtun, for Tahn-te 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-te 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-te," 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.

[Illustration: "BACK! THING OF THE EVIL ONE!" _Page 324_]

The Te-hua men also drew away;--even Po-tzah averted his face when
Tahn-te 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-te 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-te looked at him; and again there was no need
for words.

"Medicine can be made to make a man forget," said Tahn-te 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-te. "By al