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He’ll do for another pious catchword in another revolution.”

The man went away, unable to stand any more.

“Oh dear!” thought Kate. It really is hard to bear.”

But she wanted to hear more of Quetzalcoatl.

“Did you know,” she said to the man later, showing him the little pot, “that they find those things in the lake?”

“They’re common enough!” he said. “They used to throw them in, in the idolatrous days. May still do so, for what I know. Then get them out again to sell to tourists.”

“They call them ollitas of Quetzalcoatl.”

“That’s a new invention.”

“Why, do you think?”

“They’re trying to start a new thing, that’s all. They’ve got this society on the lake here, of the Men of Quetzalcoatl, and they go round singing songs. It’s another dodge for national-socialism, that’s all.”

“What do they do, the Men of Quetzalcoatl?”

“I can’t see they do anything, except talk and get excited over their own importance.”

“But what’s the idea?”

“I couldn’t say. Don’t suppose they have any. But if they have, they won’t let on to you. You’re a gringo—or a gringita, at the best. And this is for pure Mexicans. For los señores, the workmen, and los caballeros, the peons. Every peon is a caballero nowadays, and every workman is a señor. So I suppose they’re going to get themselves a special god, to put the final feather in their caps.”

“Where did it start, the Quetzalcoatl thing?”

“Down in Sayula. They say Don Ramón Carrasco is at the back of it. Maybe he wants to be the next President—or maybe he’s aiming higher, and wants to be the first Mexican Pharoah.”

Ah, how tired it made Kate feel; the hopelessness, the ugliness, the cynicism, the emptiness. She felt she could cry aloud, for the unknown gods to put the magic back into her life, and to save her from the dry-rot of the world’s sterility.

She thought again of going back to Europe. But what was the good? She knew it! It was all politics or jazzing or slushy mysticism or sordid spiritualism. And the magic had gone. The younger generation, so smart and interesting, but so without any mystery, any background. The younger