left behind us, none seems more fitting
than this for the telling of his story."

His eyes glanced over the men circled above the great pool. The stars
were making little points of light in the rock bound water. Far below
in the desert a coyote called to his intimates. Indians loitered at
the edge of the circle. And at the rim of of the mesa, and high places
of the natural fortress, armed sentinels paced;--dusk figures against
the far sky. It was truly a place made for tales of adventure.

"Whatever evil your much hated Greek was guilty of, there is one
question to ask:--in monk's cell, or in the battles for the
wrong--left he the record of a coward?"

"No," acknowledged Don Diego--"but his zeal was damnable in all
things."

"I ask because various things which he endured could scarcely be
understood if you put him in the list of the weak or the incapable."

"Often the strength of the Evil One is a stupendous force for his
chosen people," agreed Don Diego. "That is widely known in Europe
to-day when Paracelsus with infernal magic of the mind makes cures
which belong by every right to the saints alone!"

"And the people are truly cured of their ills--truly healed?"

"Their bodies are truly healed for the life that is temporal, but each
soul is doomed for the life that is eternal. No Christian doubts that
the mental magic of the physician is donated by Beelzebub whose tool
he is."

"He was a student of exceeding depth,"--agreed Padre Vicente--"and it
may be he has found magic forbidden to man. But the Greek laid claim
to no such power as that, however much it is said that the devil loved
him! He had only a strong body, and the dislike to see it cut to
pieces for a heathen holiday."

"De Soto, it is said, found a dirk of his when he crossed the land of
Apalache years later, seeking empire. But the tribes could or would
tell nothing of the lost Greek and the negro slave. The latter was
killed by the people called Natchez, and the Greek, who had been among
many things:--a sailor, escaped by the water, leaving no trail--not
even the trail made by a white skin in a land of dusk people.

"From the Turks he had learned a trick of using stain of barks and
herbs. His hair was of brown, but the eyebrows and lashes were heavy
and dark. After using such concoction, a mirror of clear water showed
him no trace of himself except the eyes--they were blue beyond hope,
but the heavy lashes were a help and a shadow.

"With sto