Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 189, No. 4 — page 95: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE SUN. TEST. Tench passed an arm around the kind- ly, bent old shoulders. “‘ You have been my friend. May it always be so. I will need you; for I am ignorant, and I would be a good Mayan. Accept me as your son and teach me in the way I should go.” Xlaco grinned with delight. ‘“ I am hon- ored,” he murmured. ‘“ Come with me,” and he led the way along the street toward the stone hut Tench had occupied. The two former guards half started to their feet, but Xlaco frowned upon them and exclaimed “ Go, you, about your business. He is free now, a Mayan. My son, Xtla, a Priest of Za.” Most of that day Tench spent in the company of his adopted father, Xlaco, gleaning from him what he could of May- an lore. He learned that his new name, Xtla, meant “fleet one,” that it was a name revered in the tribe above all others, except that of Za, and was held in each generation by the fastest runner. The former Xtla had died only a few months before, and the races just run had been held partly for the purpose of select- ing his successor. It was the custom usu- eally to name the winner of the distance race as Xtla, for sprinting did not rank among the Mayans as so great an accom- plishment as distance running. However the advent of the puma the afternoon before had dispersed the dis- tance runners, and the long race had not been officially finished; as yet it had no winner. Therefore Tench, in the judgment of the elders, stood forth among all of the youths as the fleetest of foot. This accidental circumstance, combined with his fortitude before the lion, and the rescue of Za, had given the council no choice. They had elected him as Xtla, the fleet one. He would remain Xtla until some unto- ward act of his own, or death, intervened to deprive him of the first honor in the tribe, which the name indicated. There would be other races, and other years, but in none of them would he be expected to participate, and while he held the title of Xtla none other could achieve it. ~ Tench asked about Huasco, his nearest competitor. Xlaco’s wrinkled face cloud- | 565 ed. “Spawn of the Evil One,” he mut- tered. “He ran well. His nose was at my shoulder,” Tench observed. “ God was testing you,” Xlaco grumbled. ‘* Huasco has the look of Satan.” “To-day,” Tench went on, “ his seemed the only face that was not pleased. I saw him look daggers at me as I left the coun- cil chamber.” “He is not a Mayan,” Xlaco said this with his face partly averted, as if admit- ting a shameful and distressing fact. “Not Mayan!” Tench echoed. “ How can that be?” “ Huasco’s mother,” Xlaco explained, “was the loveliest of the Mayan maidens in the year of the spring dance when she came forward as a virgin. She was chosen by the council to be the bride of the finest of the Mayan youths of that year. The night when she was to be mated, she dis- appeared. “‘ She went from her home no one knew where. For long it was thought that she had been lost in the jungle. It was said that a lion had seized and devoured her, and she was given up as a pitiful prey to the Evil One. “ Another maiden was allotted to the young man who was to have been her mate, and a burial prayer was said over her name. A year elapsed, and then one day, down by the steam baths, we found her, tired and hungry, alone, with a baby in her arms. ‘“‘ She would not say where she had been. She would not disclose who had taken her, or whether she had gone of her own free will. She would not say who was the father of her child. She seemed all but demented. “Before the council could try her for desertion and disobedience to our law of mating, she died. This child, her boy, grew up and became Huasco.” “ Oh,” said Tench. Xlaco paid no attention to this remark, but went on: “It is the Mayan law that no life may be taken by man. The Sun alone can command life or death. The Sun acts through his own handmaidens, fire and water, to give or take life from man and beast. “ Each spring when the rains are at their 7 ~comicbooks (E(9)