Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 189, No. 4 — page 110: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

580 came apprehensive that he had lost her, and started to retrace his steps. Then, she became apparent in a little cleared space off to the left. The huitzin was dropped at her feet. The girdle and the short skirt and the regalia of Sun Win- dows outlined her figure, in the new moon light. Her hands were aloft. She was speaking softly. She was absorbed in her prayer, oblivious of any possible danger or intrusion. He crept closer and crouched on one knee, watching her for a moment, entranced. Ever since the Sun test he had been telling him- self that his concern for her was solely that of one marooned white person for another, similarly outcast. He had deluded himself with the thought that he was only a humanitarian. Now, a ereat tide of love welled in his heart; no price was too great for her protection. With her in danger or distress, life would be worthless. Respectfully, he waited until her prayer was over. It went on for a long, long time, although to him, the period was short. He could not distinguish what she said, but he could not doubt her sincerity. To her this was apparently no mumbo jumbo of a conventional ritual. It was a supplication which poured from her heart with fervor. Lucky the tribe with such a High Priestess; dull the moon which would not respond to such a prayer. “ Za,” he whispered. She was so ab- sorbed she did not hear him. He rose and went a pace nearer, and spoke a little more loudly: “ Za.” She turned swiftly like a startled fawn, and saw him advancing in the moonlight. She reached down and seized her huitzin, pulling it up over her shoulders, and wrap- ping it securely about her. He almost smiled to himself. How revelatory of her true origin was this instinct to clothe herself! A primitive woman would have thought nothing of scanty clothing under the gaze of a man. Only a woman with a psychic response to centuries of modest training would so intuitively respond to the first suggestion of male advent. She was not frightened, evidently, only on guard. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. She saw at once who it was. “You,” she exclaimed sternly, but in a low voice. He was grateful for the softness of her voice. Speaking as she did, it would not carry back to the waiting guards at the edge of the glen. He realized that this hushing of her tones was in a very subtle sense an acceptance of the conspiracy he desired now to propose. Emboldened, he came very close to her, until only the space of an arm’s length separated them. At first he thought he read in her eyes a gladness to see him, but then her brows contracted, and she drew the huitzin more closely about her, as her head went back and she said tensely: “ This is a terrible mistake.” “No, Za, it was the only way I could think of to reach you. I was afraid to go to the pueblo. I must tell you what I have learned. I must talk with you.” “Oh, Xtla, for your own sake, beware! Return at once, quickly. Even if I can forget what you have done in coming here like this, the council may hear of it and then I—even Za—could not save you.” Impulsively he laid a hand on her arm. She started to withdraw it, and then stood firmly looking at him as if hypnotized; wanting to hear what he had to say, and yet as if dominated by an unspoken, overmas- tering fear. 4 “Za,” he pleaded, “ you are no more Mayan than I. Back behind your skull is a white brain just like mine. Your heart is white. Look,” he laid his hand on hers, “your skin is white, like mine.” She seemed to shrivel, and closed her eyes, as if in pain. “ No,” she muttered, breathing heavily: “No! No!” The instinctive male in him took this to be a woman’s “ no.” Her body swayed very slightly toward him, but her eyes opened as though with an effort of the will, and this time she said more vehemently: “No, I am Mayan.” And then added as though recalling an almost forgotten ritual: “I am Za, daughter of the Sun, divine gift of the god to Maya.” Suddenly, as if in a second, he was af- flicted with a perception of what he had to meet in her. It was more than just ignorant superstition. It was that, but it was the (E(0) .OO ili S (EO)