The ludicrousness of the idea soon gave place to admiration, and before I had been domiciliated in the palace of the Princess a month, I had become perfectly infatuated with her native language, and regarded it as the most beautiful and expressive ever spoken by man. And now, after several years have elapsed since its melodious accents have fallen upon my ears, I hesitate not to assert that for richness and variety of tone, for force and depth of expression, for harmony and sweetness--in short, for all those characteristics that give beauty and strength to spoken thought--the royal tongue of the aboriginal Americans is without a rival. For many days after my mysterious appearance in the midst of the great city I have described, my fate still hung in the balance. I was examined and re-examined a hundred times as to the mode of my entrance into the valley; but I always persisted in making the same gestures, and pointed to the sky as the region whence I had descended. The guards stationed at every avenue of entrance and exit were summoned to the capital, and questioned closely as to the probability of my having passed them unawares; but they fully exculpated themselves from all blame, and were restored to their forfeited posts. Gradually the excitement in the city subsided, and one by one the great nobles were won over to credit the story of my celestial arrival in their midst, and I believed the great object of my existence in a fair way to be accomplished. Every facility was afforded me to learn the royal tongue, and after a little more than a year's residence in the palace, I spoke it with considerable fluency and accuracy. But all my efforts hitherto were vain to obtain a key to the hieroglyphics. Not only was the offense capital to teach their alphabet to a stranger, but equally so to natives themselves, unconnected with the blood royal. With all my ingenuity and industry, I had not advanced a single letter. One night, as I lay tossing restlessly upon my bed, revolving this insoluble enigma in my mind, one of the mosaic paving-stones was suddenly lifted up in the middle of the room, and the figure of a young man with a lighted taper in his hand stood before me. Raising my head hastily from the pillow, I almost sank back with astonishment when I recognized in the form and features of my midnight visitor, Pio the Carib boy. CHAPTER V. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." --SHAKSPEARE.