CHAPTER XXIV.
NAHUA BEARS WITNESS
Some hours passed, and again the gates were opened, and through them came Tikal and a guard of five men. The guard he left by the gates, advancing alone to where we were seated near the far end of the hall.
“What would you of us?” asked Maya. “Can you not leave me in peace even here in my dungeon?”
“I desire to speak with you alone, Maya.”
“Then, Tikal, I tell you now what I have told you before, that I will not listen to your words alone. If you have anything to say, say it in the presence of my husband and my friend, or go and leave it unsaid.”
“You speak roughly to one who comes here in the hope of saving the lives of all of you,” he answered; “still I will bear with you in this as I have borne with you in much else. Listen: all your crimes are known to me, for Nahua, my wife, has revealed them to me. I know how you and that dead rogue, Mattai, on whom the curse of heaven has most justly fallen, forged the prophecy and violated the sanctuary, for I have held the proofs of it in my hand.”
“Do you know that we did this to save our lives,” asked Maya, “for if we had not done it, Mattai would have murdered us in order that, by removing me, he might assure his daughter in her place?”
“I do not know why you did it, nor do I care, seeing that nothing can lighten such a crime; but I think that you did it in order that you might win yonder white man as a husband. At the least the thing is done, and vengeance waits you,—vengeance from which there is but one escape.”
“What escape?” asked Maya quickly, for when she learned that Tikal knew everything, all hope had faded from her heart, as from ours.
“Maya, two people live, and two alone, who know this tale,—Nahua my wife, and I myself. Till this morning there was but one, for Nahua only told me of it when she found that you had not escaped, and this she has done that she may be rid of you whom she hates as her rival. Therefore it was that she would have held me back from pursuing you, and therefore it is that she will appear before the Council of the Heart this night, so that her evidence may ensure your instant death in the Pit of Waters. But as it chances, least of anything on the earth do I desire that my eyes should lose sight of you, whom now as ever I love better than anything on the earth.”