Scarcely was the first victim dead when the second was seized and
treated in a like fashion, the multitude prostrating themselves as
before. And then last of all came my turn. I felt myself seized and my
senses swam, nor did I recover them till I found myself lying on the
accursed stone, the priests dragging at my limbs and head, my breast
strained upwards till the skin was stretched tight as that of a drum,
while over me stood the human devil in his red mantle, the glass knife
in his hand. Never shall I forget his wicked face maddened with the lust
for blood, or the glare in his eyes as he tossed back his matted locks.
But he did not strike at once, he gloated over me, pricking me with the
point of the knife. It seemed to me that I lay there for years while the
paba aimed and pointed with the knife, but at last through a mist that
gathered before my eyes, I saw it flash upward. Then when I thought that
my hour had come, a hand caught his arm in mid-air and held it and I
heard a voice whispering.
What was said did not please the priest, for suddenly he howled aloud
and made a dash towards me to kill me, but again his arm was caught
before the knife fell. Then he withdrew into the temple of the god
Quetzal, and for a long while I lay upon the stone suffering the agonies
of a hundred deaths, for I believed that it was determined to torture me
before I died, and that my slaughter had been stayed for this purpose.
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