Cocom could not understand this alarm. Like all Indians, he regarded death with stoical resignation, and would have been perfectly willing himself to have been offered on the altar of sacrifice, seeing such a death would admit him at once into the Paradise of the sun. But he was very old, and therefore useless. The gods demanded a man, handsome, young, in the flower of his age, and therefore was it certain that Jack would be acceptable to the bloodthirsty Huitzilopochtli. "Did Don Hypolito know this when he delivered me to your friends?" "It was for that purpose he delivered you, Señor." "Oh, fiend! devil!" cried Jack, trying to rise in his bed. "I wish I had my fingers round his throat!" "Lie quiet, Señor," said Cocom, forcing him back. "You will make yourself ill again." "Why should I not, seeing I am only reserved for this frightful death?" "That is as it may be, Señor," observed Cocom, significantly. "What do you mean?" asked Duval, with sudden hope. "Hush!" replied the old man, laying his finger on his lips, and glancing apprehensively around. "In this temple the very walls have ears." "You can save me?" "Perhaps. I know not." "But----" Cocom bent over Jack on the pretence of arranging the bed-clothes, and brought his lips close to the young man's ear. "Say not a word, Señor. If the priests suspect me, you are lost. I come hither as my fathers came before me, but I worship not the devil-stone. I am a true Catholic, Señor. The priests wanted a victim, and asked me to betray to them Don Pedro, when he was with me beyond the walls. Then I refused, and said I could not do so. The end of the cycle approaches, and the priests were alarmed, so they sent to Don Hypolito, and promised to make all the Indians help him in his war, if he procured them a white man for a victim to the gods. Don Hypolito promised, and two days ago sent you." "The fiends!" "Hush! I am a medicine-man, placed here by the priests to cure you; but they think I wish to see you sacrificed. I do not. I will save you." "Oh, Cocom, I thank you." "Are you mad, Señor?" whispered the Indian, thrusting him hurriedly back; "eyes may be on us now. The walls of this room are pierced with secret eye-places." Jack recognised the wisdom of this reasoning, and sank back on his couch. It was just as well he did so, for at that very moment the drapery of the door was swept aside, and a man entered the room.