Neil smiled happily and stamped on the spear.
“He understands,” Neil said to Erik. “He knows we are friends.”
Neil pointed a finger at his own chest and said, “Neil.”
The Maya shook his head and shrugged.
Neil repeated the action. “Neil,” he said. He pressed his finger against Erik’s powerful chest and said, “Erik.”
He then pointed to the old man, and spread his palms wide as he shrugged.
The old man seemed to be struggling for meaning. He touched Neil’s chest and asked, “Nee-ill?”
Neil nodded happily. “Neil.”
“Neil,” the old man repeated.
Neil pointed to Erik again. “Erik,” he said. For an amusing moment, he felt very much the way Tarzan must have with his “Boy-Tarzan-Jane” routine.
The old man understood fully now. He pointed to the bearded Norseman and repeated, “Err-ik.”
He looked quizzically at Olaf and pointed a long, thin finger at the squat Norseman’s chest.
“Olaf,” Neil said.
“O-laf,” the Maya repeated.
Then Neil pointed to the old man.
“Talu,” the Maya said. “Talu.”
“Talu,” Neil repeated.
The old man seemed to think a game of some sort was being played. He pointed to the captain with the scar across his lips and said, “Baz.”
Neil repeated this name, and one by one introduced the Maya soldiers, becoming very much amused at Neil’s repetition of each name.
When this was done, he stared at Neil, apparently waiting for something more to be said.
“Erik,” Neil said hastily, “give me something I can offer the old man. A present.”
Erik glanced down at his belt, then changed his mind when he saw the old man’s narrow waist. He touched his chest with widespread hands, wondering what he could give the old man. And then his hands went to the metal helmet that sat atop his blond head. He lifted it down with two hands, placing one under each of the metal wings, and offered it to the old man.
The old man shook his head and grinned, pointing to Erik’s head and wiggling his finger impatiently.
“He doesn’t want it, I guess,” Neil said disconsolately.
“What else can we give him?” Erik asked.
Neil was wearing his dungarees, boots, and a tee shirt. There wasn’t very much he could offer the old man, actually. His eyes suddenly fell on his wrist watch, the one he’d gotten from Uncle Frank on his sixteenth birthday. Quickly he unbuckled it and held it out to the withered Maya.
The old man stared curiously at the instrument, his eyes squinting down at the dial. Neil noticed that Erik, too, was looking at the watch with great interest.
The old man shrugged his shoulders.
Neil realized he’d have a difficult time trying to explain a wrist watch to an ancient Maya. But he pointed up at the sun and slowly moved his finger across the sky.
The old man seemed to grasp the concept immediately.
“Itzamna,” he said, nodding his head. “Itzamna.”
Neil didn’t know whether this meant “time” or “sun.” But he nodded his head and held out the watch again. The old man refused it a second time and turned to say something to the Maya soldiers. The soldiers nodded, touched their foreheads in salute, about-faced, and walked off into the city.
“They’re gone,” Olaf said, speaking for the first time since they’d entered the city. “Let’s run. The soldiers are gone.”
The old man seemed to sense what Olaf was suggesting so excitedly, and his eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“Silence,” Erik commanded, and Olaf caught his tongue.
Neil was wondering why the soldiers had touched their foreheads when leaving the old man. There was the remotest possibility that he was an officer, but Neil felt this was unlikely. Why then had they…?
His thoughts were cut short by the sound of a familiar voice.
“Neil! Neil, are you all right?”
It was Dave, two Maya soldiers behind him with spears. Following him, guarded by the heavily armed Mayas, was the rest of the crew.
Dave broke into a run, ignoring the spears.
“Neil! Are you all right?” he asked desperately.
Two soldiers started after Dave, but the old man snapped an order and they stopped short, the dust rising up around them. In deference, they touched their hands to their foreheads and watched the proceedings respectfully.
Neil clasped Dave’s hands. “It’s okay,” he said. “Everything’s okay, Dave. These people are friends.”
“They’re Mayas, you know,” Dave said, his eyes blazing. “We’ve found Yucatan after all, pal.”
“I know, I know,” Neil said excitedly. He turned to the old Maya and pointed at him.
“This is Talu.”
The old man smiled. “Talu.”
Dave caught on and pointed to himself. “Dave.”
Talu nodded.
“I think he’s a big wheel,” Neil whispered to Dave. “He orders these other guys around like waiters.”
“Probably a priest,” Dave murmured.
Neil snapped his fingers. “That’s it! I should have known. He is a priest, I’ll bet.”
Suddenly the street seemed to fill itself with milling bodies. They gathered around the group of strangers, inquisitive brown eyes taking in the curious scene.
Talu addressed the people softly as Neil looked over the crowd. The men were dressed differently than either Talu or the soldiers. They wore a waist garment that passed between their legs, and their chests were bare except for a square mantle thrown over the shoulders.
Skilfully embroidered into the ends of the waist covering with colored threads, were complicated designs-and some of the men had feathers colorfully decorating their garments in intricate mosaics.
The women’s garments extended far enough up to cover the base of their chests. Many of them wore colorful jewelry.
Neil noted with surprise that many of the men and women were tattooed on their faces.
Talu went on speaking to the people, and they listened quietly. When he had finished, they took up a chant, waving their arms over their heads.
Then they began laughing and shouting, and running off to various parts of the city, leaving the street almost deserted again, with the dust leaping into the air in playful gusts.
Talu spoke to Neil. Neil listened carefully and then shrugged his shoulders.
Dave slapped his forehead. “Oh, no! Wonder boy understands Maya too. He must.”
“No, Dave, I don’t. Look, he’s trying to explain something to us.”
Talu had opened his mouth wide, and was now putting his fingers into it. He dropped his fingers, pantomimed the lifting of an imaginary object, and then put his fingers back into his mouth.
“Food,” Neil said in sudden understanding.
“I’ll be darned,” Dave agreed. “The old boy is inviting us to dinner.”
They sat at low, rectangular tables piled high with food. Four persons sat at each table on small wooden stools provided by Talu. In addition to the stools, Talu had given each of his guests a cloak of fine feather mosaic work and a painted pottery vase which rested on the table before them.
Neil sat at a table with Erik, Dave, and Talu. The other Norsemen were seated at tables arranged in a large square within a court in front of one of the big buildings.
Food in great variety, some foods that Neil knew and others he could only guess at, stretched out in abundance at each table, and Neil realized that this was no ordinary meal but a banquet prepared in honor of the visitors.
Many different types of meat, all cooked to a succulent brown, melted in Neil’s mouth as he tasted each hungrily-deer, wild boar, turkey, small birds that were delicious to the palate.