“What an animal to make a noise like that?” interrogated Clara, in a tone of surprise.
“Of course it is an animal,” rejoined Costal, “that howls so. Sufficiently frightful, I admit—to those who do not know what sort of creature it is; but to those who do, it is nothing.”
“What kind of animal is it?” demanded Clara.
“Why, an ape; what else? A poor devil of a monkey, that you could knock over with a bit of a stick; as easily as you could kill an opossum. Ah, hombre! the voice of the great Tlaloc is more terrible than that. But see! what have we yonder?”
As Costal spoke, he pointed to the shore of the lake whence they had come, and near the point where they had left their horses. It was in this direction, moreover, the howlings of the ape had been heard.
Clara followed the pointing of his companion, and both now saw what gave a sudden turn to their thoughts—a party of horsemen carrying torches, and scouring the selvage of the woods, as if in search of something they had lost.
The two worshippers watched until the torches were put out, and the horsemen passing round the shore disappeared under the shadows of a strip of forest.
Costal was about to resume his invocations; when, with his eyes still turned towards the point where the horsemen had left the shore of the lake, he beheld an apparition that caused even his intrepid heart to tremble. By the thicket of reeds, and close to the water’s edge, a white form appeared suddenly, as if it had risen out of the lake. It was the same which had been seen by Don Cornelio from his perch upon the tree.
It was not fear that caused the Zapoteque to tremble. It was an emotion of exulting triumph.
“The time is come at last!” cried he, seizing the arm of his companion. “The glory of the Caciques of Tehuantepec is now to be restored. Look yonder!”