When the victim had been led up the winding
stairway to the top, the central figure in a procession of priests and
attendants, he was laid upon a stone altar and his heart was cut out and
offered to the idol, after which the body was eaten at a ceremonial
feast. The eight captives who remained now understood that the food they
had had was meant merely to fatten them for future sacrifice. Half mad
with horror, they crouched in the hot moist darkness, and listened to
the uproar of the savages.
A strong young sailor by the name of Gonzalo Guerrero, who had done
good service during the hurricane, pulled Jeronimo by the sleeve, "What
in the name of all the saints can we do, Padre?" he muttered. "Jose and
the rest will be raving maniacs."
Aguilar straightened himself and rose to his feet where the rays of the
moon, white and calm, shone into the enclosure. Lifting his hands to
heaven he began to pray.
All he had learned from books and from the disputations and sermons of
the Fathers fell away from him and left only the bare scaffolding, the
faith of his childhood. At the familiar syllables of the Ave Maria the
shuddering sailors hushed their cries and oaths and listened, on their
knees.
This was a handful of castaways in the clutch of a race of man-eaters
who worshiped demons.
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