ce.
There were thirty and one of them still alive, and of these five were
Spaniards. I noted that the Spaniards were chained the last of all the
line. It seemed that the murderers would keep them till the end of the
feast, indeed I discovered that they were to be offered up at the rising
of the sun. How could I save them, I wondered. My power was gone. The
women could not be moved from their work of vengeance; they were mad
with their sufferings. As well might a man try to snatch her prey from a
puma robbed of her whelps, as to turn them from their purpose. With the
men it was otherwise, however. Some of them mingled in the orgie indeed,
but more stood aloof watching with a fearful joy the spectacle in
which they did not share. Near me was a man, a noble of the Otomie, of
something more than my own age. He had always been my friend, and after
me he commanded the warriors of the tribe. I went to him and said,
'Friend, for the sake of the honour of your people, help me to end
this.'

'I cannot, Teule,' he answered, 'and beware how you meddle in the play,
for none will stand by you. Now the women have power, and you see they
use it. They are about to die, but before they die they will do as their
fathers did, for their strait is sore, and though they have been put
aside, the old customs are not forgotten.'

'At the least can we not save these Teules?' I answered.

'Why should you wish to save the Teules? Will they save us some few days
hence, when WE are in their power?'

'Perhaps not,' I said, 'but if we must die, let us die clean from this
shame.'

'What then do you wish me to do, Teule?'

'This: I would have you find some three or four men who are not fallen
into this madness, and with them aid me to loose the Teules, for we
cannot save the others. If this may be done, surely we can lower them
with ropes from that point where the road is broken away, down to the
path beneath, and thus they may escape to their own people.'

'I will try,' he answered, shrugging his shoulders, 'not from any
tenderness towards the accursed Teules, whom I could well bear to see
stretched upon the stone, but because it is your wish, and for the sake
of the friendship between us.'

Then he went, and presently I saw several men place themselves, as
though by chance, between the spot where the last of the line of Indian
prisoners, and the first of the Spaniards were made fast, in such a
fashion as to hide them from the sight of the mad