There was so much probability in what Young said that I did not attempt to argue with him; yet was I convinced that in what Fray Francisco had written, and still more in what the dying Cacique had said to me, there was a substantial element of truth.
Finding that nobody replied to him, for all of us were sore at heart and so disposed to silence, Young turned to the statue of Chac-Mool and proceeded to abuse it vigorously, on the ground that it was an idolatrous product of the Aztec race that was at the root of all our troubles. For, as he truly said, had there been no Aztecs to begin with, our departure on a wild-goose chase after an Aztec treasure-house would have been an impossibility. His attention having been thus fixed upon the idol, his habit of investigation got the better of his ill-will towards it, and he mounted the altar to examine it more closely--continuing the while to address it in language that was eminently unparliamentary.
"A pretty-looking sort a specimen _you_ are!" he said, in a tone of vast contempt. "But you're about what I'd expect folks like that friend of th' Professor's, th' Cacique, t' worship. It takes a low sort of a heathen, even in his blindness, t' bow down to a stone like you--with your twisted head, an' your stubby legs, an' your little fryin'-pan over your stomach. Why, where I come from they wouldn't have you even for a stone settee in a park. No, you're not fit even t' sit on--unless, maybe, it's on th' flat top of your crooked head;" and by way of testing this possibility, Young seated himself on the head of Chac-Mool.
And then a very extraordinary thing happened. The idol, and the great slab of stone on which it rested and of which it was a part, slowly moved; the head sinking, and the other end of the slab, on which the legs were carved, rising in the air! Young sprang up with a cry as he felt the stone sinking beneath him; and the figure, relieved of his weight, settled back into its former position with a slight jar. In a moment that the slab was in the air there had come from under it a gleam of light.
In the excitement wrought by this strange accident our hurts were forgotten; and we eagerly clambered upon the altar to investigate the matter further, while hope and wonder thrilled our hearts.