“Ev—ever?”
“Perhaps never. Who knows?”
CHAPTER XV
THE HIDDEN CITY
It was strange, weird, fascinating, this march of the Mayas. The rhythmic chant, the all but inaudible pat-pat of their bare feet, the sighing wind in the palms that waved like plumes above their heads, all this stamped deep into the minds of the boy and the girl impressions that time will never erase.
It was a march, a grand processional, but where to? What was to be the end of it? Armed to the teeth, these men had but a short half hour before been following, surrounding them, perhaps planning to kill them as intruders in their secret land. What of the present? Was this a march done in their honor? Was Johnny being thought of as a hero because of having saved the life of that beautiful Indian girl, and was this march given in his honor? Or was it a ceremonial march which would end with their being sacrificed to some gods, black, green or gold?
As he pondered these questions, Johnny remembered something he had read in Hardgrave’s book, something that had made his blood run cold. The Mayas did offer sacrifices to their gods, or at least they had in olden times. And now, as he recalled it, he understood the presence of those pools along the trail. The Maya country was a land without streams. It was a limestone country. All the water ran in underground grottos. From time to time one of these grottos caved in, forming a pool. That was the secret of the pools they had seen. Some of these pools held more terrible secrets. Some of them were thousands of years old. A party of scientists, coming upon one of these in a territory that had been abandoned by the Mayas, had found not only rich treasure in ornaments of gold, silver, onyx and jade, but human skulls as well. The lives of those whose skulls lay hidden for so many years beneath the water had been sacrificed to some god. What god? The god of the rising sun? of the noon-day sun? of the setting sun? of fire? of water? Who could tell. There lay their skulls, mute testimony of the death they had died.
“So we, too, may die?” Johnny whispered to himself. “Who knows?”
As for Jean, knowing nothing of this, she was enjoying the experience to its full. And why not? Why dream of tragedy in the sunlight of a glorious day?
The march came to a halt before a long, low building, and at once an elderly man, dressed in an embroidered cape which, with his dignified bearing, gave him quite an air of distinction, came out to greet them.
At once the beautiful Indian girl broke away from the ranks of the warriors and began a long and excited speech. Accompanied by many gestures and many a nod of her head in the direction of the white trio, this speech was impressive indeed.