“Doubtless our friend Zibalbay will satisfy them,” I said.
“Good. Now be pleased to follow me,”—and Mattai led us across courts and through passages till we reached a little ante-room filled with ancient carvings and decorated with flowers, where some girls stood chatting.
“Tell the Lady Maya that her guests await her,” said Mattai, then turned to take his departure, adding, in a low voice, “doubtless we shall meet at noon upon the pyramid, and there you will see I know not what; but, whatever befalls, be sure of this, strangers, that I will protect you if I can. Farewell.”
One of the girls vanished through a doorway at the further end of the chamber, and, having offered us seats, the others stood together at a little distance, watching us out of the corners of their eyes. Presently the door opened, and through it came Maya, wearing a silken serape that covered her head and shoulders and looking very sweet and beautiful in the shaded light of the room.
“Greeting, friends,” she said, as we bowed before her. “I have my father’s leave to show you something of this city that you longed so much to see. These ladies here will accompany us, and a guard, but we shall want no litters until we have ascended the great temple, for I desire that you should see the view from thence before the place is cumbered with the multitude. Come, if you are ready.”
Accordingly we set out, Maya walking between us, while her guards and ladies followed after. Crossing the square, which had been the scene of the festival of the previous night, but now in the early morning was almost deserted, we came to the inclosure of the court-yard of the pyramid, a limestone wall worked with sculptures of hunting scenes, relieved by a border of writhing snakes, and at intervals by emblems of the Heart. At the gateway of this wall we paused to contemplate the mighty mass of the pyramid that towered above us. There is one in the land of Egypt that is bigger, so said the señor, although he believed this to be a more wonderful sight because of its glittering slopes of limestone, whose expanse was broken only by the vast stair that ran up its eastern face from base to summit.
“It is a great building,” said Maya, noting our astonishment, “and one that could not be reared in these days. Tradition says that five-and-twenty thousand men worked on it for fifty years—twenty thousand of them cutting and carrying the stone, and five thousand laying the blocks.”
“Where did the material come from, then?” asked the señor.
“Some of it was hewn from beneath the base of the temple itself,” she answered, “but the most was borne in big canoes from quarries on the mainland, for these quarries can still be seen.”
“Is the pyramid hollow, then?” I asked.