The Malebolge was the barranca, the ravine which wound through the country, narrow here—but its momentousness successfully prescinded their minds from the goat. The little stone bridge on which they stood crossed it. Trees, their tops below them, grew down into the gulch, their foliage partly obscuring the terrific drop. From the bottom came a faint chuckling of water.
“This ought to be about the place, if Alcapancingo’s over there,” Hugh said, “where Bernal Díaz and his Tlaxcalans got across to beat up Quauhnahuac. Superb name for a dance band: Bernal Díaz and his Tlaxcalans . . . Or didn’t you get around to Prescott at the University of Hawaii?”
“Mn hm,” Yvonne said, meaning yes or no to the meaningless question, and peering down the ravine with a shudder.
“I understand it made even o
