"Search me," Francis laughed. "But this I do know: those green eyes of the elephant-eared one are the largest emeralds I've ever seen or dreamed of. Each of them is really too large to possess fair carat value. They should be crown jewels or nothing."
"But a couple of emeralds and a couple of rubies, no matter what size, should not constitute the totality of the Maya treasure," Henry contended. "We're across the threshold of it, and yet we lack the key-"
"Which the old Maya, back on the barking sands, undoubtedly holds in that sacred tassel of his," Leoncia said. "Except for these two statues and the bones on the floor, the place is bare."
As she spoke, she advanced to look the male statue over more closely. The grotesque ear centered her attention, and she pointed into it as she added: "I don't know about the key, but there is the key — hole."
True enough, the elephantine ear, instead of enfolding an orifice as an ear of such size should, was completely blocked up save for a small aperture that not too remotely resembled a key-hole. They wandered vainly about the chamber, tapping the walls and floor, seeking for cunninglyhidden passageways or unguessable clues to the hiding place of the treasure.
"Bones of tierra caliente men, two idols, two emeralds of enormous size, two rubies ditto, and ourselves, are all the place contains," Francis summed up. "Only a couple of things remain for us to do: go back and bring up Kicardo and the mules to make camp outside; and bring up the old gentleman and his sacred knots if we have to carry him."
"You wait with Leoncia, and I'll go back and bring them up," Henry volunteered, when they had threaded the long passages and the avenues of the erect dead and won to the sunshine and the sky outside the face of the cliff.
Back on the barking sands the peon and his father knelt in the circle so noisily drawn by the old man's forefinger. A local rain squall beat upon them, and, though the peon shivered, the old man prayed on oblivious to what might happen to his skin in the way of wind and water. It was because the peon shivered and was uncomfortable that he observed two things which his father missed. First, he saw Alvarez Torres and Jos6 Mancheno cautiously venture out from the jungle upon the sand. Next, he saw a miracle. The miracle was that the pair of them trudged steadily across the sand without causing the slightest sound to arise from their progress. When they had disappeared ahead, he touched his finger tentatively to the sand, and aroused no ghostly whisperings. He thrust his finger into the sand, yet all was silent, as was it silent when he buffeted the sand heartily with the flat of his palm. The passing shower had rendered the sand dumb.
He shook his father out of his prayers, announcing:
"The sand no longer is noisy. It is as silent as the grave. And I have seen the enemy of the rich Gringo pass across the sand without sound. He is not devoid of sin, this Alvarez Torres, yet did the sand make no sound. The sand has died. The voice of the sand is not. Where the sinful may walk, you and I, old father, may walk."