We had been through a terrible ordeal, and I thanked God that the “whirlwind that cut the rocks” had been spared us, even though all the other terrors of Katchilcan’s story had materialized according to schedule. Still--and I glanced apprehensively about and shivered at the thought--there was yet time, for despite my common sense and reason I was becoming imbued with the idea, obsessed with the conviction that the Book of Kukulcan would be borne out to the letter. Indeed, so foolishly (or so I considered it) superstitious, or credulous, had I become that my half-formed fears of what was to come were allayed by remembrance of the old priest’s statement that the way would be made easy to him who owned the codex. I rather smiled at the thought. If our way across those terrible deserts had been “easy,” then Heaven have mercy on the unfortunate to whom the passage was hard! But whatever might be in store, there seemed nothing threatening in the spot where we were at the moment, and I cannot hope to describe the delight, the comfort, the luxury of the soft green foliage, the cool moss-covered earth, and the babbling of the stream after those nightmarish days of endless sand, lava and scorching, blistering sun. With our stomachs filled with good food, with our weary limbs rested, with the musical sound of the brook and the chirping of insects in our ears, we stretched ourselves upon the soft earth and slept. With a start, an involuntary yell, I leaped up, dazed, bewildered, trembling. Was it a nightmare or a reality that had awakened me, terrified me? Maliche too, was awake. He, too, was shaking, glancing about with terror on his face. Had the same thing aroused him, to leave him weak, filled with nameless dread, or had my yell, my movement, awakened him? With stammering tongue, I formed a question. But the words died on my lips, my face blanched and I shook, shivered, cowered as the still night air was rent by a blood-curdling, piercing, demoniacal scream from somewhere in the blackness.