'Where are my sisters?
Oh! surely I have dreamed an evil dream.

I dreamed that the gods of my forefathers were strong once more, and that once more they drank the blood of men.' 'Your ill dream has a worse awakening, Otomie,' I answered.

'The gods of hell are still strong indeed in this accursed land, and they have taken your sisters into their keeping.' 'Is it so ?' she said softly, 'yet in my dream it seemed to me that this was their last strength ere they sink into death unending.

Look yonder!' and she pointed toward the snowy crest of the volcan Xaca.
I looked, but whether I saw the sight of which I am about to tell or whether it was but an imagining born of the horrors of that most hideous night, in truth I cannot say.

At the least I seemed to see this, and afterwards there were some among the Spaniards who swore that they had witnessed it also.
On Xaca's lofty summit, now as always stood a pillar of fiery smoke, and while I gazed, to my vision the smoke and the fire separated themselves.
Out of the fire was fashioned a cross of flame, that shone like lightning and stretched for many a rod across the heavens, its base resting on the mountain top.