“Good. Now listen. That which was lost is found, the half which is named ‘Night’ has appeared in the land, for I have seen it with my eyes, and it is to tell you of it that I have travelled hither.”
“Speak on,” I said.
“Lord, yonder in Chiapas there is a ruined temple that the antiguos built, and to that temple have come a man and a woman, his daughter. The man is old and fierce-eyed, a terrible man, and the girl is beautiful exceedingly. There in the ruins they have dwelt these four months and more, and the man practises the art of medicine, for he is a great doctor, and has wrought many cures, though he takes no money in payment for his skill, but food only.
“Now it chanced, lord, that my wife, whom I married but two years ago, was very sick,—so sick that the village doctor could do nothing for her. Therefore the fame of the old Indian who dwelt in the ruined temple having reached me, I determined to visit him and seek his counsel, or, if possible, to bring him to my home.
“When my wife heard of it, she said it was of no use, as she saw Death sitting at the foot of her bed. Still I kissed her and went, leaving her in charge of the padre of the village and some women, her sisters. With me I took a lock of her hair, and some fowls and eggs as a present to the Lacandone, for they said that, though of our race, this doctor was not a Christian.
“Starting before the dawn I travelled all day by the river and through the forest, till at evening I came to the ruined temple which I knew, and began to climb its broken stair. As I neared the top, a man appeared from beneath the leaning arch that is the gateway of the stair, and stood gazing at the ball of the setting sun. He was an aged man, clad in a linen robe only, very light in colour, with long white beard and hair, a nose hooked like a hawk’s beak, and fierce eyes that seemed to pierce those he looked upon and to read their most secret thoughts.
“‘Greeting, brother,’ he said, speaking in our own tongue, but with a strange accent, and using many words which are unknown to me, ‘What brings you here?’
“Then he looked at me awhile, and asked slowly:
“‘Say, brother, are you sick at heart?’
“Now, lord, when I heard those words whereof you know the meaning, I was so astounded that I almost fell backwards down the ruined stair, but, recovering myself, I tried him with a sign, and lo, he answered it. Then I tried him with the second sign, and the third, and the fourth, and so on up to the twelfth, and he answered them all, though not always as we use them. Then I paused, and he said: