A troubled, half-frightened expression came over her face but she smiled and glanced trustfully at me and made no further effort to leave my side as we halted and awaited the approaching procession. In the lead, clearing the street of the crowds, and forcing them back by means of heavy wooden staves, were several dozen Indians clad only in loin cloths but wearing tight-fitting leather caps adorned with blue feathers. Behind these marched several columns of warriors in robes of quilted cotton, their heads covered with shining copper helmets bearing nodding plumes of red, white and green. Each carried a long bronze-headed lance and a round shield decorated with mosaic symbols of the Plumed Serpent. Following these was a band playing upon double-ended drums, long reed pipes and pottery whistles, while behind the musicians was a knot of long-robed, long-haired men ablaze with gold and jewelled ornaments and surrounding a marvelous litter borne on the shoulders of eight men. Even in the soft subdued light which resembled bright moonlight, the palanquin scintillated and sparkled with iridescent hues as though sprinkled with diamond dust. But at the time I scarcely glanced at the golden, gem-encrusted litter, for my eyes were fixed upon the man who sat within it--the high-priest of Mictolan, Kinchi Haman. * * * * * NEVER have I seen a more repugnant, a more repulsive creature. He seemed a fiend in human form if ever there was one, and he was scarcely human at that. His face was indescribably horrible, for some affection or disease had eaten away the cheeks and nose until the jaw bones were visible; he had the appearance of a living death’s head. Above the yawning black holes that should have been a nose, his malignant eyes burned in deep bony sockets. A shock of coarse hair, dyed red by lye, grew low on his artificially flattened forehead and hung about his shoulders, and although I did not know it at the time, he was a hunchback with weak bowed legs and gorilla-like arms. He was dressed in a long robe of black with a border of symbols in the sacred red, white and green, an immense carved emerald was suspended by a chain of heavy gold links about his neck and upon his head was a narrow gold band bearing two long tail feathers of the sacred Quetzal trogan. As he saw Itza beside me, his eyes flashed, his lips drew back over the fleshless jaws and he was the personification of fury. “Back to your home, Daughter of Kinich Ahau,” he snarled. “How dare ye walk in the presence of him who comes, shameless one that thou art?” Itza, terror on her face, shrank back, but I tightened my hold on her arm. “Have no fear, beloved,” I whispered.