“My Indian was earnestly pointing up and ahead. I raised my eyes and became electrically, tinglingly awake. There, high up, wraith-like in the waning moonlight, loomed what seemed a Grecian temple of colossal proportions, atop a great steep hill. So massive did it seem in the half-light of the approaching morning that I could think of it only as an impregnable fortress high above the sea, on some rocky, wave-dashed promontory. As this mass took clearer shape before me with each succeeding hoof-beat of my weary steed, it grew more and more huge. I felt an actual physical pain, as if my heart skipped a few beats and then raced to make up the loss.
“Thus for the first time I viewed the Great Pyramid of Kukul Can, now called El Castillo—the Castle. And I shall always be glad that I had the good fortune to get my first glimpse of it in this fashion. Times without number I have since passed and repassed this grand old structure, yet never have I walked in its shadow without a quickening of the pulse or without recalling undimmed the vision of that moonlit night. And, as I look back through my years of intimate companionship with my City of the Sacred Well, it seems to me that moonlit nights are linked inextricably with nearly all the important events that have there befallen me—or, at least, with those which are pleasant in retrospect.
“By the time I had dismounted and unsaddled my horse my Indian was already curled up and fast asleep. The poor horse was, I think, in sound slumber the minute his feet came to a halt. But for me, weary as I was, sleep was out of the question. I must see more of this magic city. Reaching the foot of the steep ascent, I crawled painfully up what had obviously once been a tremendous stairway, now overgrown with small trees and shrubs. At the end of a breathless climb I reached a narrow, level stone ledge eighty feet above the ground and faced the north door of the temple—the temple of the great god Kukul Can. This sheer pile of perfectly joined masonry pierced by a forty-foot doorway within whose sides I could dimly discern intricate and fantastically carved bas-reliefs; this time-grayed temple of a forgotten faith, viewed there in the silence and solitude of eerie moonlight—is it to be wondered at if my knees shook just a little and if I glanced apprehensively over my shoulder awaiting the terrible, majestic wrath of the god whose temple was profaned by the eyes of an unbeliever?
“On my eminence I turned slowly and gazed out over the dead city. Here and there, some near by and some at a distance, were a dozen other pyramids surmounted by buildings. A few seemed well preserved, others were in picturesque ruins, all ghostly white in the moonlight, except where a doorway or a shadow stood out in inky blackness. I could see the long shadow of that old temple we call the ‘Nunnery.’ The stillness was broken only by the monotonous hum of hidden cicadas; or was it the distant beat of phantom tunkuls, or sacred drums, warning that the ancient God of the Feathered Serpent did but sleep and might at any moment awake?
“And then my eyes were caught and held by a broad raised roadway leading straight away from the temple toward a vast black pool overgrown with trees. Breathless, frozen to the spot, I could only look and look, for in a blinding flash I realized that I was gazing at the Sacred Way, and at its end the Sacred Well in whose murky depths even then might lie the pitiful bones of many once lovely maidens sacrificed to appease a grim god. What untold treasures this grisly well might hide! What tragedies had been enacted at its brink!
“I descended and as I walked along the Sacred Way I thought of the thousands, millions perhaps, of times this worn thoroughfare had been trodden in bygone ages where all was now desolate. Here was I, a grain of dust moving where kings and nobles of countless centuries before had trod, and where, for all I know, kings and nobles may again tread long years after I am still a grain of dust but moveless.
“At the brink of the well I peered into the blackness and continued to gaze into its depths, picturing in my mind’s eye the awesome ceremonies it had witnessed. The chant of death begins, swelling softly over the slow pulsing of the drums. The solemn procession leaves the holy temple of Kukul Can and the funeral cortège advances along the broad raised avenue of the Sacred Way, toward the Sacred Well, the dwelling-place of Noh-och Yum Chac, the terrible Rain God who must be placated by human sacrifice. The corn in the fields is withering, crying for rain. If the anger of Yum Chac be not appeased famine will follow and the dread Lord of Death, Ah Puch—he of the grinning, sightless skull—will walk abroad in the land.
“Slowly, slowly the cortège draws near. At its head is the high priest, clad in ceremonial vestments and elaborate feathered head-dress, as befits the pontiff of the Feathered Serpent. And what is this embroidered bower borne so reverently by sturdy, sun-browned lesser priests? Is it a bier, a stately catafalque? Is the pitiful victim already dead? Ah, no! she moves, beautiful, flawless—the most lovely maiden to be found in the land. Through every city and village and country-side, for weeks and weeks, a thousand priests have sought her, this fairest flower of Maya maidenhood. Her face is pale. She knows the supreme honor that is hers—she who is to become so soon the bride of the Rain God. But there is terror in those lovely eyes, a benumbing, cold fear of the Unknown.
“And behind them, filling the whole of the Sacred Way, come the king, the nobles, the great warriors and many priests. Already on the far side of the Sacred Well is gathered a silent, grave-faced multitude, the whole populace of the city and pilgrims from afar.
“The high priest enters the little temple at the brink of the well. The dirge ceases, the drums are stilled. He performs his devotions to the Rain God. He lights the sacred incense-burners and the fragrant blue vapor floats, curling, upward. Again the slowly chanted dirge starts, to the muted beating of the drums. He lights a basket of sweet-smelling copal incense, holds it aloft, and casts it into the well. The chant grows louder, the drums beat faster.