In reply to Taxmar’s questions, Aguilar, who now spoke the language quite well, endeavored to explain the nature of his religion.  Not many of the Spaniards who expected to convert the Indians went so far as this.  If they could by any means whatever make their subjects call themselves Christians and observe the customs of the Church, it was all they attempted.  Taxmar was not the sort of person to be converted in that informal way.  He demanded reasons.  If Aguilar advised him against having unhappy people murdered to bribe the gods for their help in the coming campaign, he wished to know what the objection was, and what the white chiefs did in such a case.  The idea of sacrificing to one’s god, not the lives of men, but one’s own will and selfish desires, was entirely new to him.

While Jeronimo was still wrestling with the problem of making the Christian faith clear to one single Indian out of the multitudes of the heathen, a neighboring cacique appeared on the scene,—­jealous, angry and suspicious.  He had heard, he said, that Taxmar sought the aid of a stranger, who worshiped strange gods, in a campaign directed against his neighbors.  He wished to know if Taxmar considered this right.  In his own opinion this stranger ought to be sacrificed to the gods of the Mayas after the usual custom, or the gods would be angry,—­and then no one knew what would happen.

Aguilar thought it possible that Taxmar might reply that the conduct of an army was no one’s business but the chief’s.  That would be in line with the cacique’s character as he knew it.  He did not expect that any chief in that ancient land would dare to defy its gods openly.

Taxmar did not meet the challenge at once.  His deep set opaque black eyes and mastiff-like mouth looked as immovable as the carving on the basalt stool upon which he sat.  The cacique thought he was impressed, and concluded triumphantly,

“Who can resist the gods?  Let the altar drink the blood of the stranger; it is sweet to them and they will sleep, and not wake.”

“I shall do nothing of the kind,” said Taxmar, the clicking, bubbling Maya talk dropping like water on hot stones.  “When a man serves me well, I do not reward him with death.  My slave’s wisdom is greater than the craft of Coyotl, and if his gods help me it is because they know enough to do right.”

The other chief went home in rage and disappointment and offended dignity.

No one, who has not tried it, can imagine the sensation of living in a hostile land, removed from all that is familiar.  Until his captivity began Aguilar had never been obliged to act for himself.  He had always been under the authority of a superior.  He had questioned and wondered, seen the injustice of this thing and that, but only in his own mind.  When everything in his past life had been swept away at one stroke, his faith alone was left him in the wrecked and distorted world.  He had never dreamed that Taxmar was learning to respect that faith.