"And when your father dies," Francis queried, "then, being his son, you will be the Maya high priest?"
"No, senor," the peon shook his head. "I am only half — May a. I cannot read the knots. My father did not teach me because I was not of the pure Maya blood."
"And if he should die, right now, is there any other Maya who can read the knots?"
"No, senor. My father is the last living man who knows that ancient language."
But the conversation was broken in upon by Leoncia and Kicardo, who, having tethered their mules with the others, were gazing sheepishly down from the rim of the depression. The faces of Henry and Francis lighted with joy at the sight of Leoncia, while their mouths opened and their tongues articulated censure and scolding. Also, they insisted on her returning with Eicardo.
"But you cannot send me away before giving me something to eat," she persisted, slipping down the slope of the depression with pure feminine cunning in order to place the discussion on a closer and more intimate basis.
Aroused by their voices, the old Maya came out of a trance of prayer and observed her with wrath. And in wrath he burst upon her, intermingling occasional Spanish words and phrases with the flood of denunciation in Maya.
"He says that women are no good," the peon interpreted in the first pause. "He says women bring quarrels among men, the quick steel, the sudden death. Bad luck and God's wrath are ever upon them. Their ways are not God's ways, and they lead men to destruction. He says women are the eternal enemy of God and man, forever keeping God and man apart. He says women have ever cluttered the footsteps of God and have kept men away from travelling the path of God to God. He says this woman must go back."
With laughing eyes, Francis whistled his appreciation of the diatribe, while Henry said:
"Now will you be good, Leoncia? You see what a Maya thinks of your sex. This is no place for you. California's the place. Women vote there."