While they gazed at this sorrowful sight, there came to them a bent old woman, sad of face and lined and wrinkled, and her talk was more like croaking than human speech. Secret and watchful was she in her manner. To the twin brothers and Bright Eyes, who stood a little apart from the rest of the band, she spoke, asking them:
“What do ye here, my fine fellows? And why come ye to this place of evil and misery?”
One of the three answered boldly that they came to slay the giant Zipacna, telling her that he was a thing of evil and that evil things must be laid low if the world is to be fair.
“Then,” said she, “ye are doubtless prepared to die, for in times past many have thought to slay Zipacna, but themselves have been led into feasting and into pleasure and soft living, and so the memory of the good that was intended, passed and became less than a dream.”
Her words they found strange, but she went on to tell them of a land over the hill where all was fair and where none had to work and where the sun shone. There seemed but little meaning in her words.
But they made answer, saying: “We have but one desire, which is to slay Zipacna for the evil that he has done and must do. As for your land of fine things, if to live there would make us soft and idle, then must our eyes be closed to it.”
Hearing that, the old woman seemed pleased and the shadow of a smile touched her face. But her manner changed swiftly it seemed, for she shot a question at them which was this: “You passed the caves of Cakix whose bones now are white? Give me then of the precious stones that lay in the caves there,” and so saying, stretched forth her skinny arm, her hand hollowed to receive gifts.
“It was not for such toys that we came. We saw but touched not the precious stones, nor the gold, nor anything that was there. Indeed, to have done so would but have hampered us in the doing of that which we set out to do.” Thus Hunapu made reply and the others nodded.
“And how did ye escape the apes of the forest?” she asked.
“We stood side by side and met danger.”