“They believe so in the old country,” Fritz affirmed.
But Arthur only laughed at him. “You're thinking of Napoleon, Fritzey. He had a star that went out when he began to lose battles. I guess the stars don't keep any close tally on Sandtown folks.”
We were speculating on how many times we could count a hundred before the evening star went down behind the cornfields, when someone cried, “There comes the moon, and it's as big as a cart wheel!”
We all jumped up to greet it as it swam over the bluffs behind us. It came up like a galleon in full sail; an enormous, barbaric thing, red as an angry heathen god.
“When the moon came up red like that, the Aztecs used to sacrifice their prisoners on the temple top,” Percy announced.
“Go on, Perce. You got that out of Golden Days. Do you believe that, Arthur?” I appealed.
Arthur answered, quite seriously: “Like as not. The moon was one of their gods. When my father was in Mexico City he saw the stone where they used to sacrifice their prisoners.”
As we dropped down by the fire again some one asked whether the Mound-Builders were older than the Aztecs. When we once got upon the Mound-Builders we never willingly got away from them, and we were still conjecturing when we heard a loud splash in the water.
“Must have been a big cat jumping,” said Fritz. “They do sometimes. They must see bugs in the dark. Look what a track the moon makes!”
There was a long, silvery streak on the water, and where the current fretted over a big log it boiled up like gold pieces.