“My voice is for peace with these our lifelong enemies. I have said.”
Then came the nacon, the chief of all the fighting men, powerful, thick-set and sturdy. As he arose the warriors clashed their weapons in a deafening roar and then all were silent, awaiting his words.
“O Batab, ruler,” he said, “we have listened with reverence to the words of our high priest, with awe and submission to the words of our gods that came from his lips. We have heard with respect the measured, temperate wisdom of our aged kulel. He has said that we must not delay our sacrifice and yet his voice is for peace.
“I, too, say that we must not delay, but why need we who are among the greatest and strongest in the land, ask of any one permission to sacrifice and worship? Who gave the Cocomes the right to say who may worship in the temples or make sacrifice at the Sacred Well? Is not Chi-chen Itza the holy city of the gods, our gods as well as theirs?
“Let us open wide the path to and from the Sacred City and keep it open with the points of our spears, the keen edges of our swords, and the swift terror of our hul-ches. I have spoken.”
The batab, with the ah-kin, the kulel, and the nacon turned toward the assembled people and the batab cried in tones that rolled over the thickly packed mass and beyond into the trees of the forest:
“What is your voice? What is the word of my people?”
With a noise like thunder came the mighty chorus:
“We want food! We are dying. We go into the forest to dig for roots to fill our empty stomachs and we find none. The land is accursed and even the birds no longer fly over it and the snakes even no longer burrow within it.”
The batab pondered deeply and long, then raised his head and said: