honored."

As he neared the gateway, Roger saw that the building was well-nigh
filled with an immense pile, carefully built up, of what at first
appeared to him cannon balls, only of larger size than any he had
seen piled in the batteries of Plymouth, and of a white color. Then
the thought struck him they were great turnips, or some such root,
which might be held sacred to the god. But as he entered the
building the truth flashed across him--the great pile was composed
entirely of human skulls.

Roger had made up his mind that, although he would not give way in
the slightest in the matter of his faith, he would yet abstain from
shocking the religious feeling of the natives. After the first
involuntary start at the discovery, he silenced his feelings, and
asked how many skulls there were in the heap. He could not,
however, understand the reply, as he had not yet mastered the Aztec
method of enumeration, which was a very complicated one.

Roger walked along one side of the pile, counted the number of
skulls in a line, and the number of rows, and then tried to reckon
how many skulls there were. Roger was not quick at figures,
although his father had tried hard to teach him to calculate
rapidly, as it was necessary for one who traded, and bought and
sold goods of all descriptions, to be able to keep his own figures;
or he would otherwise be forced always to carry a supercargo, as
was indeed the custom in almost all trading ships, for there were
few masters who could read and write, far less keep accounts.
However, as he found there were a hundred skulls in each line, and
ten rows, and as the heap was nearly square, it was not a difficult
task to arrive at the conclusion that there must be a hundred
thousand skulls in the pile.

This seemed to him beyond belief, and yet he could arrive at no
other conclusion. If a hundred thousand victims had been offered
up, in one temple of this comparatively small city, what must be
the total of men killed throughout the country? The pile had, no
doubt, been a long time in growing, perhaps a hundred years; but
even then it would give a thousand victims, yearly, in this one
temple.

Although it seemed well-nigh impossible to Roger, it was yet by no
means excessive, for according to the accounts of all historians,
Mexican and Spanish, the number of victims slain, annually, on the
altars of Mexico amounted to from twenty-five to fifty thousand.

"The god has good reason to be please