Speculation aside, here was one point which Zoraida herself had vouched for: since girlhood she had been accustomed to coming here. It would appear inevitable that the atmosphere of the place would have deeply influenced young fancies; that what she was now was largely due to these conflicting influences. What wonder that she saw nothing unlikely in her dreamings of herself as queen of a newly created empire? All that Zoraida was, all that she did, all that she threatened to do, the passion and the regal manner and the look of a naked knife in her eyes, was but to be expected.
Zoraida led on and he followed. Their way led toward the stonework he had glimpsed through the shrubs and vines. Here was a many-roomed building, walls richly carved into records of ancient feasts and glories, battles and triumphs. They passed in through a wide entrance; within the walls were lined with satiny hardwoods, the panels chosen with nice regard to color and grain. Doors opened to right and left and ahead, giving views of other chambers on some walls of which still hung ancient cloths; there were chairs and tables and benches and chests. Zoraida went on, straight ahead and to the doorway of a much larger, high-vaulted chamber. And again was Kendric treated to a fresh surprise.
As she stood in the door and he looked over her shoulder, six old men, evidently awaiting her arrival, bent themselves almost to the floor in a reverential posture that expressed greeting and adoration. Again Kendric's fancies were drawn back into ancient Mexico. They wore loose white cotton robes; their beards fell on their aged breasts; in their sashes were long knives of itztli, like that upon the sacrificial stone. They might have been the old priests who sacrificed for the Tezcucan, their existences prolonged eternally here in an atmosphere of antiquity.
Zoraida spoke and they straightened, and one man answered. Kendric could not understand a word. Then, shuffling their sandaled feet, the six went out through a door at the side.
"I thought you said," said Kendric, "that since your father's death no man had entered here?"
"And do these six look as though they had come here recently from the outside world?" she retorted, smiling. "The youngest of them, Señor Jim, first came to Nezahualcoyotl's gardens more than sixty years ago. When he was less than a year old, hence bringing with him no knowledge of any other place than this."
"And you mean that they have never gone out from here?"
"Would they thrust their heads through solid rock? Would they tread along corridors carpeted with snakes? Would they grow wings and soar to the stars up there? Not only have they never gone out; they do not so much as know that there is an Outside to go to."
"But you come to them!"
Zoraida laughed.