CHAPTER IX
Maxatla Speaks
THOUGH unobserved by Boots, when the canoe was dragged to the galley’s side, two other events took place simultaneously with its capture.
Far away at the end of the black cliff a boat rushed out of some invisible harbor, propelled by six oarsmen of such unusual muscle that the heavy vessel seemed fairly to leap from the water at every stroke.
And nearer at hand another galley, heading leisurely toward Tonathiutl, suddenly diverted its course and swept down toward the master priest’s craft.
The prow of this second galley bore a strange figurehead—the reared body of a gigantic serpent, crested with feathers like a heron, a collar of plumes about its golden neck.
Boots looked straight up into Topiltzen’s leering face. The lesser priestlings had left their po
