“A cat!” she exclaimed. “It is a cat.”
“Or a coyote!”
“A coyote!”
“Let’s look!” said Villiers. “Why how awfully interesting! Do you think it’s old?”
“It is old?” Kate asked.
“The time of the old gods,” said the boatman. Then with a sudden smile: “The dead gods don’t eat much rice, they only want little casseroles while they are bone under the water.” And he looked her in the eyes.
“While they are bone?” she repeated. And she realised he meant the skeletons of gods that cannot die.
They were at the landing stage; or rather, at the heap of collapsed masonry which had once been a landing stage. The boatman got out and held the boat steady while Kate and Villiers landed. Then he scrambled up with the bags.
The man in white trousers, and a mozo appeared. It was the hotel manager. Kate paid the boatman.
“Adios, Señorita!” he said with a smile. “May you go with Quetzalcoatl.”