“For the first time have my eyes beheld the eyes of Chia.”
He ran the knots of the sacred tassel and began a prayer in Maya, which, could they have understood, ran as follows:
“O immortal Chia, great spouse of the divine Hzatzl who created all things out of nothingness! O immortal spouse of Hzatzl, thyself the mother of the corn, the divinity of the heart of the husked grain, goddess of the rain and the fructifying sun-rays, nourisher of all the grains and roots and fruits for the sustenance of man! O glorious Chia, whose mouth ever commands the ear of Hzatzl, to thee humbly, thy priest, I make my prayer. Be kind to me, and forgiving. From thy mouth let issue forth the golden key that opens the ear of Hzatzl. Let thy faithful priest gain to Hzatzl’s treasure——Not for himself, O Divinity, but for the sake of his son whom the Gringo saved. Thy children, the Mayas, pass. There is no need for them of the treasure. I am thy last priest. With me passes all understanding of thee and of thy great spouse, whose name I breathe only with my forehead on the stones. Hear me, O Chia, hear me! My head is on the stones before thee!”
For all of five minutes the old Maya lay prone, quivering and jerking as if in a catalepsy, while Leoncia and Francis looked curiously on, themselves half-swept by the unmistakable solemnity of the old man’s prayer, non-understandable though it was.
Without waiting for Henry, Francis entered the cave a second time. With Leoncia beside him, he felt quite like a guide as he showed the old priest over the place. The latter, ever reading the knots and mumbling, followed behind, while the peon was left on guard outside. In the avenue of mummies the priest halted reverently——not so much for the mummies as for the sacred tassel.
“It is so written,” he announced, holding out a particular string of knots. “These men were evil, and robbers. Their doom here is to wait forever outside the inner room of Maya mystery.”
Francis hurried him past the heap of bones of his father before him, and led him into the inner chamber, where first of all, he prostrated himself before the two idols and prayed long and earnestly. After that, he studied certain of the strings very carefully. Then he made an announcement, first in Maya, which Francis gave him to know was unintelligible, and next in broken Spanish:
“From the mouth of Chia to the ear of Hzatzl——so is it written.”
Francis listened to the cryptic utterance, glanced into the dark cavity of the goddess’ mouth, stuck the blade of his hunting-knife into the key-hole of the god’s monstrous ear, then tapped the stone with the hilt of his knife and declared the statue to be hollow. Back to Chia, he was tapping her to demonstrate her hollowness, when the old Maya muttered:
“The feet of Chia rest upon nothingness.”