"How is this done, this glowing of red, of blue?"
"I will explain, Señor. In the hidden city I saw it. The opal hung by a golden thread before the shrine of Huitzilopochtli, and this thread was twisted in a certain way by the priests. By careful calculation, they could tell how far it would untwist, so that the opal stone depended motionless, showing the colour they wished. If they desired war, the red side of the stone revealed itself—if peace the blue. To prophesy plenty, the yellow ray came to the front, and so on with all the tints."
"Then you say, Don Juan, that if these Indians saw the opal glowing blue, they would lay down their arms?"
"Assuredly, Señor! and withdraw at once to Totatzine, leaving Xuarez to meet the forces of the Junta alone. If the stone glows blue, they know it is the will of the god that they should not fight."
Don Miguel smiled incredulously.
"I doubt, Señor, whether these warriors, flushed with the sacking of Puebla de los Naranjos and Chichimec would obey the stone now, even though it glowed blue and thus proclaimed peace."
"Excelencia!" broke in Cocom, earnestly, "you know, not the power of the Chalchuih Tlatonac. I, Señor am a good Catholic. I believe not in the devil stone; but my countrymen, Señor, think that the spirit of the god Huitzilopochtli dwells in the gem. They believe that he would punish them with plagues unto death were they to disobey his will as conveyed by the opal. The shining precious stone is the strongest thing in the world to them. Believe me, Excelencia, that when the warriors see the stone glow blue, even were they on the eve of entering Tlatonac, they would lay down their arms and retire to the forests."
"I trust this may be so," said Maraquando, addressing himself to Jack, not unimpressed by the Indian's speech; "but where, Señor Duval, do you propose to let them see the opal?"
"In the chapel of Padre Ignatius, outside the walls," replied Jack, promptly. "Cocom knows where there is an image of the war-god. He will set it up on the altar of the chapel. Before it, by a thread, we will hang the sacred stone. At dawn all will be ready, and Cocom can so twist the thread that when the opal hangs motionless it will glow blue. The Indians will arrive during the night. At dawn they will spread themselves through the suburbs, and enter the chapel of the good Padre. There they will see the image of their god, the sacred splendour of the opal. They will kneel down and worship, watching the twisting of the gem. When it stops and glows blue, then will they know Huitzilopochtli is satisfied with the sacking of the two towns, and now commands peace. Before noon, Excelencia, there will not be a single Indian left before the walls. They will retire into the forests, to the sacred city of Totatzine, and thus will Xuarez lose his allies."
Maraquando listened to this proposal in silence, his cheek resting in the palm of his right hand, nor when Jack had concluded did he alter his position. He mused long and deeply, neither of his guests attempting to interrupt his meditations. This idea of detaching the Indians from Xuarez, by means of the opal, seemed to him to be childish. That an army of six thousand untutored savages flushed with victory should voluntarily retire at the bidding of Huitzilopochtli spoken through the stone, seemed improbable. But then Maraquando had never been to Totatzine, he did not know in what extreme veneration the opal was held by the Indians, and thus deemed Jack's proposition weak, when in reality it could scarcely have been stronger. Nothing is so powerful as superstition, and to work on the minds of the Indians through their abject belief in the virtues of the shining precious stone was a master-stroke on the part of Duval.