“Come, time passes,” I commanded him. “Today Kinich Ahau must be satisfied with the offices of the little priests. Kukulcan demands your presence. Lead the way, O, Kinchi Haman.” There was nothing he could do but obey. Still shaking and terrified, he led the way to the waiting litters and, surrounded by the plumed guards and richly-clad nobles, we were carried to the great temple of the Plumed Serpent. Everywhere, filling the great plaza, covering the flat house-tops, crowding the streets, were the people, awaiting me, eager to witness the ceremony of the setting sun conducted by the Son of Kukulcan before the altar of his father. Up the broad stone stairs of the great pyramidal _Kus_ we ascended. Thrice the terrace at its summit we passed, and then, descending from our litters, I followed Kinchi Haman into the narrow, tapering doorway of the temple proper. My every sense was on the alert, my nerves keyed up. I was rapidly approaching a climax that would end either in my death or by raising me to supreme power, and it behooved me to take advantage of every opportunity. I noted every detail of my surroundings, took in everything. And despite the danger I was in, despite the strain I was under and the dangerous part I was to play, I found my scientific interest in my surroundings rapidly overriding all other considerations. Scores, hundreds of times I had delved and wandered among the ruins of ancient Mayan temples. The form, the entrance, the narrow yard-wide passageway, the sculptures upon the stones, the frescoes on the walls, the strangely stepped-in ceiling, all were familiar. But never before had an archeologist seen the interior of a Mayan temple as it was when in daily use. No other scientist had ever seen one of the temples when it was occupied, when it contained the fittings, the furnishings, the objects devoted to the worship of the almost unknown Mayan gods. And so little was known of the people and their religion, that no one--not even Joyce or Morley, Saville or even Cervantes, had ever been able to imagine or revisualize these things. Yet here was I, following the high priest through the labyrinth of narrow corridors within a temple filled with objects such as no museum in the world possessed. Wonderful tapestries and textiles, and marvelous hangings covered with magnificent feather pictures covered the walls. In tiny niches, images of gods, of divinities, of sacred birds and beasts of solid gold, of jade, of lapis, of crystal and of amethyst were placed.