All day the wounded and the women reposed, gazing a good deal, but sleeping more.  During the afternoon, however, our wonder-loving Mrs. Stanley roused herself from her lethargy and rushed into an adventure such as only she knew how to find.  In the morning she had noticed, at the other end of the pueblo from her quarters, a large room which was frequented by men alone.  It might be a temple; it might be a hall for the transaction of public business; such were the diverse guesses of the travellers.  Into the mysteries of this apartment Aunt Maria resolved to poke.

She reached it; nobody was in it; suspicious circumstance!  Aunt Maria put an end to this state of questionable solitude by entering.  A dark room; no light except from a trap door; a very proper place for improper doings.  At one end rose a large, square block of red sandstone, on which was carved a round face environed by rays, probably representing the sun.  Aunt Maria remembered the sacrificial altars of the Aztecs, and judged that the old sanguinary religion of Tenochtitlan was not yet extinct.  She became more convinced of this terrific fact when she discovered that the red tint of the stone was deepened in various places by stains which resembled blood.

Three or four horrible suggestions arose in succession to jerk at her heartstrings.  Were these Moquis still in the habit of offering human sacrifices?  Would a woman answer their purpose, and particularly a white woman?  If they should catch her there, in the presence of their deity, would they consider it a leading of Providence?  Aunt Maria, notwithstanding her curiosity and courage, began to feel a desire to retreat.

Her reflections were interrupted and her emotions accelerated by darkness.  Evidently the door had been shut; then she heard a rustling of approaching feet and an awful whispering; then projected hands impeded her gropings toward safety.  While she stood still, too completely blinded to fly and too frightened to scream, a light gleamed from behind the altar and presently rose into a flame.  The sacred fire!—­she knew it as soon as she saw it; she remembered Prescott, and recognized it at a glance.

By its flickering rays she perceived that the apartment was full of men, all robed in blankets of ebony blackness, and all gazing at her in solemn silence.  Two of them, venerable elders with long white hair, stood in front of the others, making genuflexions and signs of adoration toward the carved face on the altar.  Presently they advanced to her, one of them suddenly seizing her by the shoulders and pinioning her arms behind her, while the other drew from beneath his robe a long sharp knife of the glassy flint known as obsidian.

At this point the horrified Aunt Maria found her voice, and uttered a piercing scream.

At the close of her scream she by a supreme effort turned on her side, raised her hands to her face, rubbed her eyes open, stared at Clara, who was lying near her, and mumbled, “I’ve had an awful nightmare.”