As she stood in the door and he looked over her shoulder, six old men, evidently awaiting her arrival, bent themselves almost to the floor in a reverential posture that expressed greeting and adoration. Again Kendric's fancies were drawn back into ancient Mexico. They wore loose white cotton robes; their beards fell on their aged breasts; in their sashes were long knives of itztli, like that upon the sacrificial stone. They might have been the old priests who sacrificed for the Tezcucan, their existences prolonged eternally here in an atmosphere of antiquity. Zoraida spoke and they straightened, and one man answered. Kendric could not understand a word. Then, shuffling their sandaled feet, the six went out through a door at the side. "I thought you said," said Kendric, "that since your father's death no man had entered here?" "And do these six look as though they had come here recently from the outside world?" she retorted, smiling. "The youngest of them, Señor Jim, first came to Nezahualcoyotl's gardens more than sixty years ago. When he was less than a year old, hence bringing with him no knowledge of any other place than this." "And you mean that they have never gone out from here?" "Would they thrust their heads through solid rock? Would they tread along corridors carpeted with snakes? Would they grow wings and soar to the stars up there? Not only have they never gone out; they do not so much as know that there is an Outside to go to." "But you come to them!" Zoraida laughed. "And I am a spirit, a goddess to worship, the One who has always been, the power that created this spot and themselves!" "They are captives and caretakers of a sort?" he supposed. "But when they are dead? Who then will keep up your elaborate gardens?" "Wait. They are returning. There is your answer." The six ancients filed back. Each man of them led by the hand a little child, the oldest not yet seven or eight. All boys, all bright and handsome; all filled with worship for Zoraida. For they broke away from the old men and ran forward, some of them carrying flowers, and threw themselves on their knees and kissed Zoraida's gown. And then, with wide, wondering eyes they looked from her to Jim Kendric. "Poor little kids," he muttered. And suddenly whirling wrathfully on Zoraida: "Where do they come from? Whose children are they?" "There are mysteries and mysteries," she told him, coldly. "Stolen from their mothers by your damned brigands!" he burst out. She turned blazing eyes on him. "Be careful, Jim Kendric!" she warned. "Here you are in Zoraida's stronghold, here you are in her hand! Is act of hers to be questioned by you?" She made a sudden signal. The six little boys withdrew, walking backward, their round worshipful eyes glued upon their goddess. Then they were gone, the old men with them, a heavy door closing behind them.