CHAPTER XII.
I confess that when we made ready to leave the island on the following morning, I did so with something not unlike regret. Wardy, too, must have felt the same, for he suggested that we take a last look at that stolid image into whose secrets we had blundered. As for the others, Benny seemed glad to go, Ixtual was unfathomable, perhaps imbued with confidence that he would return after we outlanders were banished forever, and Juan was as imperturbable as any mule he ever packed.
We stowed our belongings, now so much smaller in bulk, on the raft and made our way back to the mainland, where without waste of time we recovered our beasts and despite their protests loaded them with their burdens. We took a final look at the esplanade, and headed out into the great highway that, not
