No one who has never been alone with a fellow man and unable to converse with him can appreciate what it meant to be able to talk with the savage beside me. To be sure, his knowledge of the Tecun was as limited as my own, but we could understand each other, could express thoughts, could ask questions and give replies and could even converse to a limited extent. The chief was as pleased as myself. He informed me his name was Maliche, that he and his tribe dwelt in a large village near the “Great Water,” which I took to be Lake Itzaltango, and that they were returning from a war with the Mitzes and were celebrating their victory by making an offering of one of their prisoners, when I had come upon them in the ancient temple. I tried my best to learn if he and his people were of the Maya race, if he believed in the Mayan gods, but my command of the Tecun was too limited. But from the manner in which he had behaved at his first sight of my codex, and his action when the flood had threatened us in the cañon, I felt sure that the gods of the Mayas were his and that his ancestors had been under Mayan rule, if not of the Maya race. It was far more important for us to find food and to proceed on our way than to discuss racial affinities and religions, however. The first problem was soon solved by Maliche. In less than an hour, he had fashioned a crude but serviceable bow and several long arrows of cane tipped with palm wood, and if I had had any doubts as to the ability of my companion to provide food for us with his hastily manufactured weapons, they were soon dispelled, for within twenty minutes after we had started on our way, he had killed a small deer. But even the savage instinct and attainments of Maliche could not solve the question of our route. To be sure, our direction had been towards the northwest when we had come to the cañon, and it was a simple matter to continue in a northwesterly direction. But we had no means of knowing whether we were five, fifteen or fifty miles north, east, south or west of the spot where we had descended into the Valley of Death, as I now mentally called it.