Roy Norton

“ Wardy called to me, and I took his place while he, highly triumphant, stood beneath and watched the effect; but the doctor, caring nothing for our investigations, had climbed upward until he could see the tablet plainly, and now called down: “The tablet is to the god Icopan, supreme over all the Maya world, sacred to the Maya religion; a god of gods; presumably the god of the sun, and for the first time known to modern civilization. We have made the greatest discovery of its kind that has been made in hundreds of years!” ”

“ By the will of the gods we, the last of the keepers of the sacred place, are to die. And by the will of my brothers who guard the last fires on the sacred altars, I, the priest of records, am to strive to finish my task before the great plague which has already laid its hand upon me, ends my mortal life. Of all those of our once great people who dwelt by the borders of the sacred lake, and of the priests of the Holy Island, all are fled, or dead, save we who, with fidelity, abide to the last in this room. ”

“ We who have been initiated into the secrets of the Mountains of the Sacred Gods have, obedient to the inspired ancient commands, cast loose the great bridge above the chasm that the sacred temple of the god Icopan may remain inviolate until it is HIS WILL that it again be visited. We, his priests, have no knowledge of how long the great god Icopan may choose to rest. The key tablets to the deep treasure chambers of the sacred god have been left in his possession and care guarded by his feet. ”