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“You have heard the story of that white man, or god, sometimes called Quetzal by the Indians, and sometimes Cucumatz, who came to these lands in the far past and civilised their peoples? Afterwards he vanished away in a ship, promising that when many generations had passed he would return again.

“When he had gone, the empire which he created fell into the hands of two brothers, whose chief city was either at Palenque or in its neighbourhood, and the citizens of this empire, like we Christians, worshipped one good god, the true God, under the name of the Heart of Heaven, and to Him they offered few sacrifices save those of fruit and flowers. Now one of these brothers married a wife from another country—a daughter of devils, very beautiful and a great witch.

“Soon this woman, as in the story of the wives of Solomon and their lord, drew away the king, her husband, from the true faith to the worship of the gods of her own land, and brought it about that he offered human sacrifice to them. Then there arose a great confusion in that country, and the end of it was that the people divided themselves into two parties, the worshippers of the Heart of Heaven and the worshippers of devils.