IN WHICH COHEYOGO EXHIBITS HIS CRAFTINESS
While the Great Sun, by virtue of his divine origin, was technically
the high-priest of the nation, it had come about, at the time of Count
Louis de Sancerre’s sojourn among the sun-worshippers, that the chief
of the holy men, upon whom devolved the duty of keeping alive the
sacred fire, had, by the strength of his bigoted personality, usurped
all religious authority and had made the temple independent of, and
more potent than, the royal cabin. While the chief priest had never
openly defied the Great Sun, he had, nevertheless, gradually become the
most influential personage in the nation.
It was the advent of Coyocop which had given to Coheyogo, the chief
priest, an opportunity for making himself, with no visible break
between the church and state, practically omnipotent in the City of the
Sun.
Just how thoroughly Coheyogo believed that Julia de Aquilar was the
very incarnation of the sun-spirit which, tradition had assured his
people, would come to them from the shore of a distant sea, it is
impossible to say. It is a fact, however, that from the moment of her
arrival among the sun-worshippers the chief priest had openly accepted
the maiden as a supernatural guest from whom emanated an authority
which he and his fellow-priests were in duty bound to obey. For the
furtherance of his own ends and the increase of his own power, the
crafty Coheyogo could have taken no better course.
It had come about that Noco as interpreter--the connecting link between
the spirit of the sun and the chief priest of the temple--had found
herself in a position of great influence. The old hag, a compound of
superstition, spitefulness, and saturnine humor done up in a crumpled
brown package, had derived malicious satisfaction from playing
Coheyogo’s game with a skill and an audacity which had saved her from
the many perils which had menaced her in the pursuit of this eccentric
pastime.
Coheyogo would visit Coyocop with Noco and lay before the sun-spirit
some problem dealing with the attitude of the temple toward a question
at that moment interesting the sun-worshippers. The quick-witted
and fearless interpreter would answer the chief priest with advice
originating in her own fertile brain, and, in this way, would protect
Coyocop from cares of state, while she made a willing tool of
Coheyogo and satisfied her own love of mischief. Within well-defined
limitations, old Noco, at the moment of which we write, held under
her control more actual power than either the Great Sun or the chief
priest. As the tongue of Coyocop, the court of last resort in a
priest-ridden state, the old crone, with little fear of detection,
could put into the mouth of the sun-spirit whatever words she chose.
Fortunately for Coyocop and the sun-worshippers, the aged linguist
was, at heart, progressive rather than reactionary. She had cherished
for years a detestation for the bloody sacrifices of the temple, which
heterodoxy, had Coheyogo suspected it, would have long ago brought
her life to a sudden end. As it was, the old interpreter had made use
of Coyocop to mitigate, as far as possible, the horrors which a cruel
cult, administered by heartless priests, had inflicted upon a brave,
kindly, but too plastic race.
It was now a full hour past high noon, and Coheyogo stood, surrounded
by the temple priests, confronting Cabanacte by the sacred fire. The
interior of the sun-temple was not less repulsive to an unbiased eye
than the skull-crowned palisades outside. Divided into two rooms
of unequal size, the interior of the blood-stained fane served the
double purpose of a gigantic oven to keep the veins of the living at
fever-heat and of a tomb in which the bones of the noble dead might
crumble into dust. In the larger of the two rooms, in which the chief
priest was now holding a council of the elders, stood an altar seven
feet long by two in width and rising to a height of four feet above
the floor. Upon this altar rested a long, hand-painted basket in which
reposed the remains of the reigning Great Sun’s immediate predecessor.
The heat of the room was intense, for no windows broke the monotony of
the temple’s walls; mud-baked partitions, nine inches in thickness.
Rows of plaited mats covered the arched ceiling of the interior. At the
end of the room furthest from the sacred fire, folding doors, closed at
this moment, opened into the private apartments of the chief priest.
Running from these doors, along both sides of the smoke-blackened hall,
wooden shelves supported the grewsome relics of horrid ceremonials.
Long lines of baskets, daubed with red and yellow paint, contained the
revered dust of Great Suns gone into the land of spirits accompanied
by the loyal souls of their strangled wives and retainers. Scattered
between these tawdry urns, the shelves bore crudely-wrought clay
figures of men, women, serpents, owls, and eagles; and here and there
an offering of fruit, meat, or fish stood ready to satisfy the craving
of any uneasy ghost coming back dissatisfied with the cuisine of the
spirit-world.
Grouped around the sacred fire, in which logs of oak and walnut
preserved a flame which the sun-god had vouchsafed to man in a remote
day of grace, the temple priests, whose dark faces bore evidence of
their internal agitation, stood listening and watching as Cabanacte
and Coheyogo faced each other at this crisis and discussed, in subdued
tones, a question of immediate significance. As the chosen discoverer
of Coyocop, the instrument employed by the great spirit for the
fulfilment of an ancient prophecy, Cabanacte occupied an influential
position in the eyes of the temple brotherhood. The inspiration from
on high, which had turned the giant’s feet toward a haunted shingle
upon which the spirit of the sun lay asleep, might at any moment stir
his tongue with words of divine origin. Since the night upon which
Cabanacte had brought Coyocop to the City of the Sun, he had always
been listened to with rapt attention by the jealous guardians of the
sacred fire.
“He threatens me, you say?” muttered Coheyogo angrily, gazing up at
Cabanacte with flashing eyes. “And you have told the people that the
Great Sun dies because I do not worship this white-faced conjurer who
says the moon is his? Beware, oh Cabanacte, what you do! I’ll dare the
magic of his silver wand and prove to him the sun-god is omnipotent.”
Drawing himself up to his full height, until he towered a full
half-foot above the stately sun-priest, Cabanacte exclaimed, in a low,
insistent voice:
“Have you forgotten Coyocop? Did she not last night--old Noco tells the
tale--command you to do honor to this white face from the moon? ’Tis
you, Coheyogo, who should now take heed. ’Tis not moon-magic which you
would defy. ’Tis Coyocop herself, the spirit of the sun, our god.”
The chief priest remained silent for a time, gazing thoughtfully at
the sacred fire, which seemed to roar and flash and snap and dance
before his restless black eyes as if it threatened him with tortures
for harboring a sacrilegious thought. Had not the spirit of the sun
itself, through Coyocop’s inspired tongue, commanded him to treat the
nation’s white-faced guest with all respect? The great power which
Coheyogo had wielded for a year seemed to be slipping from his grasp.
Its foundation-stone had been the word of Coyocop. Should he not heed
her late behest he’d pull the very underpinning from beneath his
tower of strength. Furthermore, the Great Sun, an easy-going monarch,
subservient to the chief priest’s stronger will, lay at death’s
door. His successor to the throne, his sister’s son, Manatte, was a
headstrong, stubborn youth, upon whom the influence of Coheyogo was but
slight. Should the chief priest lose at one stroke the countenance of
Coyocop and the good-will of the Great Sun, the supremacy of the temple
would be destroyed upon the instant, and Coheyogo would find himself
hurled from a pinnacle of power to a grovelling attitude among a people
chafing under the cruel tyranny of a bloodthirsty priesthood. Turning
fretfully from the threatening blaze to glance up again at the steady
eyes of Cabanacte, the chief priest said:
“The words of Coyocop come straight from God.” Facing then the
expectant priests, he cried sternly: “Go forth, my brothers, and bid
the people to disperse at once. Tell them to go to their homes and
offer prayers that the Great Sun may be spared to us. Then come to me
here, for I have other work for you to do.”
Left alone in the stilling room with Cabanacte, the chief priest went
on:
“Direct the moon-man and old Noco to attend me here. If yonder white
face has no evil wish, it may be that his magic may save our king from
death.”
Cabanacte smiled grimly.
“I know not, Coheyogo,” he remarked, as he turned toward the exit to
the temple, “that the envoy from the moon will heed your curt command.
But this I do believe, that, if besought, he’d use his greatest power
to save our Sun alive. I will return to you at once.”
With these words the dusky giant strode past the hideous, grinning
idols of baked clay, and the plaited coffins of the royal dead, and
made his way to the great square from which the white-robed priests
were driving an awe-struck, moaning people to their homes.
Coheyogo, glancing furtively around the deserted hall in which the
spectres of the dead seemed ready to chase the flickering shadows
cast by the miraculous fire, bent down and threw a huge log into the
mocking flame, as if to quiet for a moment its spiteful, chiding voice.
Suddenly behind him he heard the stealthy footfall of a white-robed
underling. Turning quickly from the fire, Coheyogo’s piercing eyes
rested upon a priest whom he had recently despatched to the Great Sun’s
cabin.
“What news?” cried the chief priest, eagerly. “He still lives?”
“Magani! Listen, master! He lives, and, tossing on his bed, mutters
strange words beneath his breath. ’Tis a devil that is in him, for he
talks of things we cannot see.”
“And his physician?” asked Coheyogo, impatiently.
“He has done his best, but his eyes are wild and he shakes his head in
impotence.”
“He’ll shake it in the noose should the Great Sun die,” muttered the
chief priest, with cruel emphasis. “What boots his boasted skill if he
fails us when we need him most? But, hark! Our brothers have returned.”
Filing into the temple like a procession of white ghosts with charred
faces, the priests of the sun grouped themselves in a circle behind
their chief, and stood awaiting in silence the outcome of a crisis
which might, at its worst, satisfy their ever-present craving for
human sacrifices to offer to their god, the innocent and genial orb
of day. That the cruel and crafty Coheyogo dreaded the news of the
Great Sun’s death more keenly than they, in their love for an inhuman
custom, desired it, they had no means of knowing. But they were to
learn presently that there was a new force at work in their city with
which they had never before been called upon to deal. As they stood
there silent, eager-eyed, remorseless, longing for a continuance of
the thrilling sport for which the death of Chatémuc had but whetted
their appetites, the sound of light, dainty footsteps approaching the
entrance to the temple reached their quick ears. Turning toward the
doorway at the further end of the hall, Coheyogo and his motionless
and noiseless brood gazed upon an approaching figure which, in spite
of its lack of size, was most impressive at that fateful moment. De
Sancerre had donned a flowing garment of white mulberry bark, which
hid his gay velvets from view and fell in graceful lines from his neck
to his feet. His head was bare, and his hair, a picturesque mixture of
black and gray, emphasized the pleasing contour of his pale, clean-cut
face.
With drawn rapier, the symbol of his dreaded moon-magic, the French
aristocrat, his eyes fixed upon the chief priest, strode solemnly
toward the sacred fire, followed at a distance by Noco and her
long-limbed grandson. As he came to a halt in front of Coheyogo, de
Sancerre raised the hilt of his sword to his chin and made a graceful,
sweeping salute with the weapon. Turning to Noco, who had now reached
his side, he said to her:
“Say to the chief priest that I come to him in amity or in defiance,
as he may choose. Tell him that the Brother of the Moon makes no
idle boasts, but that ’tis safer for the City of the Sun to win his
friendship than to arouse his wrath.”
[Illustration: “COOL, MOTIONLESS, WITH UNFLINCHING EYES, THE FRENCHMAN
STOOD WATCHING THE CHIEF PRIEST”]
Coheyogo, with a face which none could read, listened attentively to
the old crone’s defiant words. His black eyes held the Frenchman’s
gaze to his. There was something in the latter’s glance that exercised
upon the sun-worshipper a potent fascination, an influence more
effective than the impression made upon him by Noco’s speech. The
lower type of man succumbed, in spite of his physical superiority, to
the will-power of a higher and more complicated intellect than his
own. Even had Coheyogo considered it expedient at that moment to wreak
summary vengeance upon his white-faced, smiling challenger, it is to be
doubted that his tongue could have uttered the words which would have
sent de Sancerre to his doom. Cool, motionless, with unflinching eyes
and a mouth which wore the outlines of a derisive smile, the undersized
Frenchman stood watching the chief priest, outwardly as self-confident
as if he had possessed, in reality, the destructive power of which he
boasted. Presently Coheyogo turned to Noco, whose wrinkled countenance
was twitching with excitement in the fitful glow of the sacred fire.
“The Chief Priest of the Sun has no quarrel with the Brother of the
Moon,” said the old hag, addressing de Sancerre a moment later. “But
he says to him that the Great Sun, in health and strength at sunrise,
now lies tossing in peril of his life. Is it true, he asks, that you
have threatened to bring down the same strange sickness upon the temple
priests?”
“Not if they do the bidding of Coyocop, the spirit of the sun,”
answered de Sancerre, curtly, closely scanning Coheyogo’s face as Noco
repeated his words. Then he turned to the interpreter and went on:
“Let the chief priest understand that the spirit of the sun and the
spirit of the moon go hand in hand, to the greater glory of the God of
gods. Say to him that together Coyocop and I can make a nation great
or destroy it at a word. Disobedience to us is impiety to God. If he,
Coheyogo, would know this truth, he must be docile, patient, and abide
my time. If in his mind the shadow of a doubt remains that what I say
is true, let him recall the legends of his race, the promises and
prophecies which your fathers told their sons.”
There reigned an ominous silence in the stifling, ill-smelling room
for a time, broken only by the malicious crackling of the sacred
fire or the impatient grunt of some overwrought priest. Coheyogo,
fearing to lose his power by accepting the proffered alliance, but too
superstitious to defy the unseen rulers of the universe by rejecting
it, stood, grim and self-absorbed, scanning a distressing problem from
many points of view. He dared not offend Coyocop, but he resented de
Sancerre’s claim to a share in the supernatural authority which the
sun-worshippers had attributed to her. After long reflection, the chief
priest looked down at the grinning Noco and said:
“Say to the Brother of the Moon that if he has sufficient power to
bring down destruction upon this City of the Sun, or even to cast an
evil spell upon our king, he is wise enough to cure the latter of the
sickness which has laid him low. If he will lead the Great Sun back to
us from the very gates of death, he will find within this temple none
but servants glad to pay him homage and obey his words. But, if he
fails to raise our king, ’twill prove to us he either boasts too much
or bears us no good-will.”
De Sancerre’s lips turned a shade lighter, but the mocking smile
did not desert them, as Noco translated Coheyogo’s ultimatum into
her clumsy Spanish. But even in that moment of supreme dismay, when
his life, so he reflected, had been staked against loaded dice, the
Frenchman could not refrain from casting a glance of admiration at the
crafty priest who had played his game so well. If de Sancerre should
undertake the restoration of the Great Sun’s health and should fail
to save his life, even Coyocop would be powerless to protect him from
the fate which had befallen Chatémuc. He had planned to visit the
sick-bed of the King, and to send for Julia de Aquilar to meet him
there, should he find that the Great Sun lay afflicted by no contagious
disease. But de Sancerre had not foreseen that his boastfulness--which
had served him well at times--would place him in his present plight,
making his very life dependent upon his skill as a physician. He dared
not hesitate, however, to accept the gauntlet thrown down by the
keen-witted schemer, whose black eyes were now fixed upon him with a
sardonic, defiant gleam.
“It will give me great joy to restore my friend, the ruler of this
land, to health,” said de Sancerre calmly to Noco, his gaze still
meeting Coheyogo’s unwaveringly. “Will you request the chief priest to
accompany me to the royal bedside?”
With these words, the Frenchman turned his back upon the sacred fire
and its jealous guardian, and strode haughtily toward the temple’s exit.
“_Nom de Dieu_,” he muttered to himself, “I know more about the slaying
of my fellow-men than how to save them from the jaws of death! I would
I could recall the odds and ends of medicine I’ve gathered in my time!
But, even then, I fear my skill would not suffice. The Great Sun, if I
mistake not, has no more to gain from me than I from him. St. Maturin,
be kind to us!”