There was a moment of silence. The dark faces of the girls and men seated on the ground were turned up to Kate, watching her fixedly, in the half light, counting every word. In the outer air, thunder muttered in different places.
“And now, Niña,” came the cool, clear voice of Maria del Carmen, “El Señor is going back again to His Father, and our Quetzalcoatl is coming back to us?”
“And the Santísima is leaving us?” put in the hurried voice of Juana. “Think of it! The Santísima is leaving us, and this Quetzalcoatl is coming! He has no mother, he!”
“Perhaps he has a wife,” said Kate.
“Quien sabe!” murmured Juana.
“They say,” said the bold Concha, “that in Paradise he has grown young.”
“Who?” asked Juana.
“I don’t know how they call him,” muttered Concha, ashamed to say the word.
“Quetzalcoatl!” said Ezequiel, in his barking strong young voice. “Yes, he is young. He is a god in the flower of life, and finely built.”
“They say so! They say so!” murmured Juana. “Think of it!”
“Here it says so!” cried Ezequiel. “Here it is written. In the second Hymn.”
“Read it then, Julio.”
And Julio, now nothing loth, took out a second paper.