at circled on the plaza, and as food or drink was offered
each, a portion was poured on the sand as a libation to the ghosts of
the lately dead, and the name of each departed was included in the
wailing chant sung over and over.

It was a weird, hypnotic thing, made more so by the curious light,
yellow and green in the sky, preceding that dark cloud coming slowly
with sound of cannonading from the north. Though the sun had not set,
half the sky was dark over the eastern sierras.

"The combination is enough to give even a sober man the jim-jams,"
agreed Kit. "Dona Jocasta is sick with fear of them, and has gone in
to pray as far from the sound as possible. The letter will go to her,
and the belt will go to Tula who may thank you another day. This day
of the coming back she is not herself."

"Mother of God! that is a true word. No girl or woman is like that!"

The priest, who had talked with the sick and weary, and listened to
their sobs of the degradation of the slave trail, had striven to speak
with Tula, who with head slightly drooped looked at him under her
straight brows as though listening to childish things.

"See you!" muttered Marto. "That _manta_ must have been garb of some
king's daughter, and no common maid. It makes her a different thing.
Would you not think the padre some underling, and she a ruler giving
laws?"

For, seated as she was, in a chair with arms, her robe of honor
reached straight from her chin to her feet, giving her appearance of
greater height than she was possessed of, and the slender banda
holding her hair was of the same scarlet of the broideries. Kit
remembered calling her a young Cleopatra even in her rags, and now he
knew she looked it!

He was not near enough to hear the words of the priest, but with all
his energy he was striving to win her to some view of his. She
listened in long silence until he ceased.

Then her hand went under her _manta_ and drew out the curved knife.

She spoke one brief sentence, and lifted the blade over her head. It
caught the light of the hovering sun, and the Indians near enough to
hear her words set up a scream of such unearthly emotion that the
priest turned ashen, and made the sign to ward off evil.

It was merely coincidence that a near flash of lightning flamed from
the heavens as she lifted the knife,--but it inspired every Indian to
a crashing cry of exultation.

And it did not end there, for a Palomitas woman had carried across the
des