“Entonces!—Read then,” said Juana.
“He is afraid,” murmured Maria del Carmen, laying her hand on the young man’s knee. “However, read, Julio! Because the Niña wants to hear.”
And after a moment’s struggle, Julio said in a muffled voice:
“Do I begin from the beginning.”
“Yes, from the beginning! Read!” said Juana.
The young man took a sheet of paper, like an advertisement leaflet, from under his blanket. At the top it had the Quetzalcoatl symbol, called the Eye, the ring with the bird-shape standing in the middle.
He began to read in a rather muffled voice:
“I am Quetzalcoatl with the dark face, who lived in Mexico in other days.
“Till there came a stranger from over the seas, and his face was white, and he spoke with strange words. He showed his hands and his feet, that in both there were holes. And he said: ‘My name is Jesus, and they called me Christ. Men crucified me on a Cross till I died. But I rose up out of the place where they put me, and I went up to heaven to my Father. Now my Father has told me to come to Mexico.’
“Quetzalcoatl said: You alone?