He leveled his weapon as Mancheno fled, but reconsidered and did not draw trigger. “I’ve only three shots left,” he explained to Henry, half in apology. “And in this country one can never tell when three shots will come in handiest, ‘as I’ve found out, beyond a doubt, beyond a doubt.’” “Look!” the peon cried, pointing to his father and to the distant mountainside. “That is why they ran away. They have learned the peril of the sacred things of Maya.” The old priest, running over the knots of the tassel in an ecstasy that was almost trance-like, was gazing fixedly at the distant mountainside, from which, side by side and close together, two bright flashes of light were repeating themselves. “Twin mirrors could do it in the hands of a man,” was Henry’s comment. “They are the eyes of Chia,” the peon repeated. “It is so written in the knots as you have heard my father say. _Wait in the foot-steps of the God till the eyes of Chia flash._” The old man rose to his feet and wildly proclaimed: “_To find the treasure we must find the eyes!_” “All right, old top,” Henry soothed him, as, with his small traveler’s compass he took the bearings of the flashes. * * * * * “He’s got a compass inside his head,” Henry remarked an hour later of the old priest, who led on the foremost mule. “I check him by the compass, and, no matter how the natural obstacles compel him to deviate, he comes back to the course as if he were himself a magnetic needle.” Not since leaving the foot-step, had the flashings been visible. Only from that one spot, evidently, did the rugged landscape permit the seeing of them. Rugged the country was, broken into arroyos and cliffs, interspersed with forest patches and stretches of sand and of volcanic ash. At last the way became impassable for their mounts, and Ricardo was left behind to keep charge of the mules and mule-peons and to make a camp. The remainder of the party continued on, scaling the jungle-clad steep that blocked their way by hoisting themselves and one another up from root to root. The old Maya, still leading, was oblivious to Leoncia’s presence. Suddenly, half a mile farther on, he halted and shrank back as if stung by a viper. Francis laughed, and across the wild landscape came back a discordant, mocking echo. The last priest of the Mayas ran the knots hurriedly, picked out a particular string, ran its knots twice, and then announced: “_When the God laughs, beware!—so say the knots._” Fifteen minutes were lost ere Henry and Francis succeeded in only partly convincing him, by repeated trials of their voices, that the thing was an echo. Half an hour later, they debouched on a series of abrupt-rolling sand-dunes. Again the old man shrank back. From the sand in which they strode, arose a clamor of noise. When they stood still, all was still. A single step, and all the sand about them became vocal. “_When the God laughs, beware!_” the old Maya warned.