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“But, as the Shaman kept on prodding the Cacique, as hunters stir up a bear before killing him, they began to see that there was something more coming, and they stood still, packed solidly in the square to listen. On all the housetops roundabout the women and the children were as still as images. A young priest from the steps of the Hill, who thought he must back up the Cacique, threw up his arms and shouted, ‘Give her to the Sun!’ and a kind of quiver went over the people like the shiver of still water when the wind smites it. It was only at the time of the New Fire, between harvest and planting, that they give to the Sun, or in great times of war or pestilence. Waits-by-the-Fire moved out to the edge of the platform.

“‘It is not, O People of the Sun, for what is given, that the gods grow angry, but for what is withheld,’ she said, ‘Is there nothing, priests of the Sun, which was given to the Sun and let go again? Think, O priests. Nothing?’

“The priests, huddled on the stairs, began to question among themselves, and Waits-by-the-Fire turned to the people. ‘Nothing, O Offspring of the Sun?’

“Then she put off the Shaman’s thought which had been a shield to her. ‘Nothing, Toto?’ she called to a man in the crowd by a name none knew him by except those that had grown up with him. She was Given-to-the-Sun, and she stood by the carved stone corn of the god-house and laughed at them, shuffling and shouldering like buffaloes in the stamping-ground, and not knowing what to think. Voices began to call for the man she had spoken to, ‘Toto, O Toto!’

“The crowd swarmed upon itself, parted and gave up the figure of the ancient Priest of the Sun, for they remembered in his day how a girl who was given to the Sun had been snatched away by the gods out of sight of the people. They pushed him forward, doddering and peering. They saw the woman put back her Shaman’s bonnet from her head, and the old priest clap his hand to his mouth like one suddenly astonished.

“Over the Cacique’s face came a cold glint like the coming of ice on water. ‘You,’ he said, ‘you are Given-to-the-Sun?’ And he made a gesture to the guard to close in on her.

“‘Given-to-the-Sun,’ she said. ‘Take care how you touch that which belongs to the gods, O Cacique!’

“And though he still smiled, he took a step backward.

“‘So,’ he said, ‘you are that woman and this is the meaning of those prophecies!’

“‘I am that woman and that prophet,’ she said with her hand at her throat and looked from priests to people. ‘O People of the Sun, I have heard you have a charm,’ she said,–‘a Medicine of the Sun called the Eye of the Sun, strong Medicine.’

“No one answered for a while, but they began to murmur among themselves, and at last one shouted that they had such a charm, but it was not for witches or for runaway slave women.

“You had such a charm,’ she said, for she knew well enough that the sacred charm was kept in the god-house and never shown to the people except on very great occasions. She was sure that the priests had never dared to tell the people that their Sacred Stone had disappeared with the escaped captive.

“Given-to-the-Sun took the Medicine bag from her neck and swung it in her fingers. ‘Had!’ she said mockingly. The people gave a growl; another time they would have been furious with fright and anger, but they did not wish to miss a syllable of what was about to happen. The priests whispered angrily with the guard, but Given-to-the-Sun did not care what the priests did so long as she had the people. She signed to the Seven, and they came huddling to her like quail; she put them behind her.