There was nothing useful for me to do in the stern as this vessel, like all we had seen in this country, lacked a tiller, and all of the steering had to be accomplished with paddles by my companions. For want of any more constructive pursuit, I stretched out as far as I dared on the bare wood and shut my eyes, in vague hopes of drifting off and waking up relieved from our exertions. I snatched a few, broken minutes of shallow sleep, which I noticed more from the erratic way the duration of our voyage seemed to pass than from any actual good that it did me. I even found time for a few short disconnected dreams in which flashes of ash-strewn, sepulchral cities, bloodstained obsidian knives, and the cruelly triumphant face of Necocyaotl, both young and old, figured all too prominently.
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