Page:Daany Beédxe.djvu/17

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gathered around the central government building, where they were talking with the authorities. They were very strange men, dressed in an austere manner; they shone peace and harmony, but at the same time, strength and sobriety.

As all children, Night Eagle came under the crowd, through a forest of legs came to the building gate and he could see the visitors. However, he oldest man in the group mightily called his attention, a very strange force attracted him to the man, whom all paid much reverence and admiration.

His small body shook when the foreigner smiled at him; without thinking he approached, he was immediately stopped, but the old man intervened and took him in hand, leading to an interior patio and sitting with the child, on the edge of a pond.

The crowd expectation climaxed, when time went by and the venerable old man and the child, fluidly and naturally talked, as two adults and the child began to glow. After a time, the old man asked for a room and conducted a very special ceremony, with the other men who were they with him, and where the boy occupied a central part.

At the end the man gave the boy a small snail that was hanging on his chest and said good bye to him with great affection; days later, although everyone in the village talked about it, no one, or his parents, could explain to him who were these men and especially the strange and venerable old man, who gave him the snail.

Night Eagle was a pleasant company for his parents; their house was on a plot on the outskirts of town. It was composed of a large adobe room, with reed, mud and straw roof. The floor was compacted dirt, inside were rolled petates where they slept, a shelf where they kept a few belongings and clothes. In one of the side walls, there was a shrine, where every morning and at night, they

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