retinue, and resume the sway of his people and their descendants.
Tezcatlipoca had conquered, but not for aye. The immutable laws which had
fixed the destruction of Tollan assigned likewise its restoration. Such
was the universal belief among the Aztec race.

For this reason Quetzalcoatl's statue, or one of them, was in a reclining
position and covered with wrappings, signifying that he was absent, "as of
one who lays him down to sleep, and that when he should awake from that
dream of absence, he should rise to rule again the land."[1]

[Footnote 1: Torquemada, _Monarquia Indiana_, Lib. vi, cap. xxiv. So in
Egyptian mythology Tum was called "the concealed or imprisoned god, in a
physical sense the Sun-god in the darkness of night, not revealing
himself, but alive, nevertheless." Tiele, _History of the Egyptian
Religion_, p. 77.]

He was not dead. He had indeed built mansions underground, to the Lord of
Mictlan, the abode of the dead, the place of darkness, but he himself did
not occupy them.[1] Where he passed his time was where the sun stays at
night. As this, too, is somewhere beneath the level of the earth, it was
occasionally spoken of as _Tlillapa_, The Murky Land,[2] and allied
therefore to Mictlan. Caverns led down to it, especially one south of
Chapultepec, called _Cincalco_, "To the Abode of Abundance," through whose
gloomy corridors one could reach the habitation of the sun and the happy
land still governed by Quetzalcoatl and his lieutenant Totec.[3]

[Footnote 1: Sahagun, _Historia_, Lib. iii. cap. ult.]

[Footnote 2: Mendieta, _Hist. Eclesiast. Indiana_, Lib. ii, cap. v. The
name is from _tlilli_, something dark, obscure.]