I couldn’t say, and I didn’t care. If Itza was willing, if she still wanted to leave her home and with me attempt to reach the outside world, we would start as soon as possible. But if she hesitated, if she wavered, I would remain, would abandon all thoughts of leaving. I would far rather remain in the valley forever than to make her unhappy, to cause her to pine for Mictolan and her people, to have her regret ever having left the valley. It would not be much of a hardship for me to remain there. I had Itza, I would have plenty to occupy my mind, to keep me busy and interested, I would be well-to-do, I would occupy a far higher and more important position than I could ever hope for among my own people. Why, after all, did I want to leave? I really could not explain it myself. It was not homesickness, not a desire to be among my own race. I had been too much of a wanderer, had made my home in too many lands, among too many diverse and alien people, to miss the companionship of those of my race, to have any sentimental or patriotic longings. In fact I had no real home. To be sure I was an American by birth, but I had spent but a comparatively small portion of my life in the States. London, Madrid, Lima, Mexico, La Paz; the wild heights of the Andes, the silent jungles of the Amazon, the deserts of Peru; the Gran Chaco, the Llanos; Broadway, Piccadilly, the Prado of Havana, the Plazas de Armas of scores of Latin cities were all equally familiar, equally dear or equally unimportant to me. Nowhere had I a family or relations, nowhere but in Mictolan had I a heart interest, or truer, dearer friends. Whatever it was, it was there. As long as the flames rose above the temple they would beckon me, urge me to be gone, and I hoped and prayed that if Itza decided she preferred to remain, the Bridge of Light might vanish forever, thus putting an end to my longings and my hopes. But Itza was as anxious to go as I was to have her. Indeed, she was, if anything, more enthusiastic. I knew the dangers, the hardships, the sufferings that faced us. I could foresee the weary miles, the dense jungles, the terrific mountains, the impassable streams, the vast wilderness that we would be forced to traverse. Even if we found that semi-mythical Way of the Symbols--in which I confess I had little faith--it would be no child’s play, no picnic to wander for days through the unexplored country to some remote outpost of civilization. But Itza knew nothing of this. She had no kith or kin in Mictolan; she was an orphan, she had no ties other than me to bind her or hold her, and to tell the truth, her experiences had not been conducive to developing any great fondness for her native valley or her own people.