the wings of an awful
storm, yet issuing unharmed, unawed, bright of face, as the mighty orb
the sons of Anahuac worshipped.

He told how an envious few held to the contrary: that these fair-skins
had come as evil emissaries from the still more evil Mictlanteuctli,
mighty Lord of Death-land, who had laden them with pestilence and
brain-sorrow and eye-darkness, with orders to devastate this, the last
fair city of the ancient race.

With low, sternly suppressed tones, the young warrior went on to tell of
what followed: of the wicked attempt made by those malcontents to punish
the bearers of death and misery; then, his voice rising and growing more
clear, he told how, from a clearing-sky, there came a single shaft flung
by the mighty hand of the great god, Quetzalcoatl, before which the
impious dog went down in everlasting death.

"Struck by lightning, eh?" interpreted Waldo, who seemed born without
the influence of poetry. "Served him mighty right, too!"

Bowing submissively, although it could be seen he scarcely comprehended
just what those blunt words were meant to convey, Ixtli spoke on,
seemingly with perfect willingness, so long as the adored "Sun Children"
formed the subject-matter.

From his laboured statement, Bruno gathered that the sudden death of one
who had dared to lift an armed hand against the woman so mysteriously
placed there in their very midst awed all opposition to the general
belief in the divine origin of mother and child; and ere long Victo
was installed as a sort of high priestess of the temple more especially
devoted to the Sun God.

That was long ago, and when Ixtli was but a child. As he grew older,
and his father, Red Heron, was appointed as chief of guards to the Sun
Children, Victo took more notice of the lad, and ended in teaching him
both the English tongue and its Christian creed, so far as lay in his
power to comprehend.

Then came less pleasing information concerning the Children of the Sun,
which went far to prove that the death of one evil-minded dog had
not entirely purged the Lost City, and it was with harsher tones and
frowning brows that Ixtli spoke of the head priest, or paba, Tlacopa the
evil-minded, who had built up a powerful and dangerous sentiment against
both Victo and Glady, even going so far as to declare before the holy
stone of sacrifice that the Mother of Gods demanded these falsely titled
Children of the Sun.

"The fair-faced God must come soon, or too late!"