CONQUISTADORS AT THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH 'So what did happen to this treasure?' 'The Indians say that they first came to the city of Mexico from a place far to the north, in the desert, ' the friar said. 'Chicomoztoc it's called, the Place of the Seven Caves. They climbed up from a land beneath the ground and migrated by stages to the Valley of Mexico. The priest who Dona Isabella's father spoke to said that, before the final destruction of Tenochtitlan, seven temple priests took the treasure into the deserts of the north and concealed it deep within Chicomoztoc, in Tollan, the chief of their ancestors' subterranean cities.' 'My father searched the desert for the entrance to the caves, ' Dona Isabella added, 'but he never found them. It was his fruitless searching that bankrupted our family. He returned to Spain an impoverished man and soon our fortunes foundered. Now that we are destitute, my brother has taken up this foolish quest in his turn. We will wander the sands of the desert fruitlessly, until our bones bleach white in the sun '"