face to face with the boy Tahn-te who stood nude and fair beside dark
companions.

Tahn-te was accustomed to the curious regard of strangers who visited
the country of Tusayan. He had heard so often that he was a child of
the sky that this explanation of his fairer skin seemed to him a very
clear and logical explanation of the case.

But after the runner had been listened to by the governor and fed, and
a herald from the terraced housetop had called aloud the startling
message brought by him to the people of Ah-ko, the boy went away from
the other boys, and wrinkled his brows in boyish thought, and stared
across to the ancient crater of Se-po-chineh until his mother sought
him, and found him.

"You are weary, my son, that you come alone from the others?"

"The others only talk yet tell nothing," he said gloomily, "and of
that which the runner tells I wish to hear much. You hear what he says
of white men like gods who come from the south searching for the blue
stones and the stone of the sun fire, and taming strange beasts to
carry them on their way?"

"Yes, it is true, I hear," she said.

"And you think it is magic? Is it that they are gods--or demons--or
men like these men?"

"If they were gods would they not know where the stones of the
sunlight are hidden in the earth?"

"Are they children of the moon or the sun, or the stars that they are
white?" he demanded.

"It may be so," she said very lowly, conscious that his gloomy eyes
were trying to make her see what he felt, but she must not see, and
she spoke with averted head.

Then he rose and stood erect and stretched out his arms their widest
and surveyed himself with measuring gaze and a certain pride, but the
other thought came back with its gloom and he laughed shortly with
disdain of himself.

"I have felt stronger than all the boys--always! Do you know why that
has been? I know now why--it was because I stood alone,--I was the
only child of the light and I dreamed things of that. Now a man tells
us there are many such people, and their magic is great, and my
strength goes because of the many!"

His mother stroked his hand reassuringly. "Na-vin (my own)," she said
steadily. "I have felt your dreams, and I also dream them. Fear no one
born of the light or of the darkness, and when you are a man you will
have all your strength--and more than your own strength."

"You say that, my mother?"

She held her head erect now and looked straight and steadi