g our people
swear that his ghost haunts the crypts to this day, wailing among the
bones of the dead. Twelve years ago we butchered the people of Tolkemec,
but the feud raged on between Tecuhltli and Xotalanc, as it will rage
until the last man, the last woman is dead.

"It was fifty years ago that Tecuhltli stole the wife of Xotalanc. Half
a century the feud has endured. I was born in it. All in this chamber,
except Tascela, were born in it. We expect to die in it.

"We are a dying race, even as those Xuchotlans our ancestors slew. When
the feud began there were hundreds in each faction. Now we of Tecuhltli
number only these you see before you, and the men who guard the four
doors: forty in all. How many Xotalancas there are we do not know, but I
doubt if they are much more numerous than we. For fifteen years no
children have been born to us, and we have seen none among the
Xotalancas.

"We are dying, but before we die we will slay as many of the men of
Xotalanc as the gods permit."

And with his weird eyes blazing, Olmec spoke long of that grisly feud,
fought out in silent chambers and dim halls under the blaze of the
green fire-jewels, on floors smoldering with the flames of hell and
splashed with deeper crimson from severed veins. In that long butchery a
whole generation had perished. Xotalanc was dead, long ago, slain in a
grim battle on an ivory stair. Tecuhltli was dead, flayed alive by the
maddened Xotalancas who had captured him.

Without emotion Olmec told of hideous battles fought in black corridors,
of ambushes on twisting stairs, and red butcheries. With a redder, more
abysmal gleam in his deep dark eyes he told of men and women flayed
alive, mutilated and dismembered, of captives howling under tortures so
ghastly that even the barbarous Cimmerian grunted. No wonder Techotl had
trembled with the terror of capture. Yet he had gone forth to slay if he
could, driven by hate that was stronger than his fear. Olmec spoke
further, of dark and mysterious matters, of black magic and wizardry
conjured out of the black night of the catacombs, of weird creatures
invoked out of darkness for horrible allies. In these things the
Xotalancas had the advantage, for it was in the eastern catacombs where
lay the bones of the greatest wizards of the ancient Xuchotlans, with
their immemorial secrets.

* * * * *

Valeria listened with morbid fascination. The feud had become a terrible
eleme