“Why don’t you eat?” demanded the demon, cramming at the same time a huge mouthful of the meat, bones and all, into his wide throat.
“We are eating,” said one of the girls.
“Then why do you throw my food away?”
“We are throwing away only the bones.”
“Well, the bones are the better part,” retorted the demon, taking another huge mouthful, by way of example, big enough to make a grown man’s meal. “Oh, yes!” he added; “I forgot that you had baby teeth.”
After the meal was finished, the old demon said: “Let us go out and sit down in the sun on my terrace. Perhaps, my pretty maidens, you will comb an old man’s hair, for I have no one left to help me now,” he sighed, pretending to be very sad. So, showing the girls where to sit down, without waiting for their assent he settled himself in front of them and leaned his head back to have it combed. The two maidens dared not disobey; and now and then they pulled at a long, coarse hair, and then snapped their fingers close to his scalp, which so deceived the old demon that he grunted with satisfaction every time. At last their knees were so tired by his weight upon them that they said they were done, and Átahsaia, rising, pretended to be greatly pleased, and thanked them over and over. Then he told them to sit down in front of him, and he would comb their hair as they had combed his, but not to mind if he hurt a little for his fingers were old and stiff. The two girls again dared not disobey, and sat down as he had directed. Uhh! how the old beast grinned and glared and breathed softly between his teeth.
The two brothers had carefully watched everything, the elder one starting up now and then, the younger remaining quiet. Suddenly Mátsailéma sprang up. He caught the shield the Sun-father had given him—the shield which, though made only of nets and knotted cords, would ward off alike the weapons of the warrior or the magic of the wizard. Holding it aloft, he cried to Áhaiyúta: “Stand ready; the time is come! If I miss him, pierce him with your arrow. Now, then—”
He hurled the shield through the air. Swiftly as a hawk and noiselessly as an owl, it sailed straight over the heads of the maidens and settled between them and the demon’s face. The shield was invisible, and the old demon knew not it was there. He leaned over as if to examine the maidens’ heads. He opened his great mouth, and, bending yet nearer, made a vicious bite at the elder one.
“Ai, ai! my poor little sister, alas!” with which both fell to sobbing and moaning, and crouched, expecting instantly to be destroyed.
But the demon’s teeth caught in the meshes of the invisible shield, and, howling with vexation, he began struggling to free himself of the encumbrance. Áhaiyúta drew a shaft to the point and let fly. With a thundering noise that rent the rocks, and a rush of strong wind, the shaft blazed through the air and buried itself in the demon’s shoulders, piercing him through ere the thunder had half done pealing. Swift as mountain sheep were the leaps and light steps of the brothers, who, bounding to the shelf of rock, drew their war-clubs and soon softened the hard skull of the old demon with them. The younger sister was unharmed save by fright; but the elder sister lay where she had sat, insensible.
“Hold!” cried Mátsailéma, “she was to blame, but then—” Lifting the swooning maiden in his strong little arms, he laid her apart from the others, and, breathing into her nostrils, soon revived her eyes to wisdom.
“This day have we, through the power of sawanikia, seen24 for our father an enemy of our children men. A beast that caused unto fatherless children, unto menless women, unto womenless men (who thus became through his evil will), tears and sad thoughts, has this day been looked upon by the Sun and laid low. May the favors of the gods thus meet us ever.”
Thus said the two brothers, as they stood over the gasping, still struggling but dying demon; and as they closed their little prayer, the maidens, who now first saw whom they had to thank for their deliverance, were overwhelmed with gladness, yet shame. They exclaimed, in response to the prayer: “May they, indeed, thus meet you and ourselves!” Then they breathed upon their hands.
The two brothers now turned toward the girls. “Look ye upon the last enemy of men,” said they, “whom this day we have had the power of sawanikia given us to destroy; whom this day the father of all, our father the Sun, has looked upon, whose light of life this day our weapons have cut off; whose path of life this day our father has divided. Not ourselves, but our father has done this deed, through us. Haste to your home in Héshokta and tell your father these things; and tell him, pray, that he must assemble his priests and teach them these our words, for we divide our paths of life henceforth from one another and from the paths of men, no more to mingle save in spirit with the children of men. But we shall depart for our everlasting home in the mountains—the one to the Mountain of Thunder, the other to the Mount of the Beloved—to guard from sunrise to sunset the land
