“There, old lady, stand there for a while, or sit down if that will rest your feet. They ought to be tired after standing on nothing for so many centuries.”
A cry from Leoncia drew his gaze to the portion of the floor just vacated by the large feet of Chia. Stepping backward from the displaced goddess, he had been just about to fall into the rock-hewn hole her feet had concealed. It was circular, and a full yard in diameter. In vain he tested the depth by dropping lighted matches. They fell burning, and, without reaching bottom, still falling, were extinguished by the draught of their flight.
“It looks very much like nothingness without a bottom,” he adjudged, as he dropped a tiny stone fragment.
Many seconds they listened ere they heard it strike.
“Even that may not be the bottom,” Leoncia suggested. “It may have been struck against some projection from the side and even lodged there.”
“Well, this will determine it,” Francis cried, seizing an ancient musket from among the bones on the floor and preparing to drop it.
“The message of the sacred knots is: _whoso violates the nothingness beneath the feet of Chia shall quickly and terribly die_.”
“Far be it from me to make a stir in the void,” Francis grinned, tossing the musket aside. “But what are we to do now, old Maya man? From the mouth of Chia to the ear of Hzatzl sounds easy——but how?—and what? Run the sacred knots with thy fingers, old top, and find for us _how_ and _what_.”
For the son of the priest, the peon with the frayed knees, the clock had struck. All unaware, he had seen his last sun-rise. No matter what happened this day, no matter what blind efforts he might make to escape, the day was to be his last day. Had he remained on guard at the cave-entrance, he would surely have been killed by Torres and Mancheno, who had arrived close on his heels.
But, instead of so remaining, it entered his cautious, timid soul to make a scout out and beyond for possible foes. Thus, he missed death in the daylight under the sky. Yet the pace of the hands of the clock was unalterable, and neither nearer nor farther was his destined end from him.
While he scouted, Alvarez Torres and José Mancheno arrived at the cave-opening. The colossal, mother-of-pearl eyes of Chia on the wall of the cliff were too much for the superstition-reared Caroo.