PICTURES OF THE PAST
"Oh, how I wish we had some news from the war!" exclaimed Ned.
"Well," said Senorita Felicia, doubtfully, "there isn't much, but I
suppose there is some almost ready to come."
"I'm tired of waiting for it," replied Ned, "and if there isn't to be
any war news, I wish I had some books!"
The thought that was in Ned Crawford's mind had broken out suddenly, as
he sat at the dinner-table of Senora Mercedes Paez, at the end of those
first days after his arrival in the city of Mexico. There were a number
of persons at the table, and at the head of it was Senora Paez herself.
She was shorter and stouter, but she was every ounce as stately and
imposing as was even Senora Tassara. In front of her sat one affair
which had, from the beginning of his visit in that house, made him feel
more at home than he might otherwise have done. He had become used to
it, and it seemed like an old friend. That Seville coffee-urn had
ornamented the table in the house at Vera Cruz, his first refuge after
he came ashore out of the destructive norther. It had winked at him from
a similar post of honor in the country-house out in Puebla, and Senora
Tassara had affectionately brought it with her to the residence of her
city cousin. She had said that she thought it would be safer here, even
if the city should be captured by those terrible robbers, the Americans.
They could not be intending to steal and melt up all the old silver in
Mexico.
"Why, Senor Carfora!" exclaimed Senorita Felicia, indignantly. "Did you
not know? Aunt Paez has piles and piles of books. They are up in the
library. If you wish to read them, she will let you go there. I had
forgotten that you know how to read. He may do it, may he not, Aunt
Mercedes?"
"Of course he may," replied the senora, "but it is a curious idea for a
boy of his age."
"Oh, thank you!" exclaimed Ned. "But what I'd like to have are some
books that tell about old Mexico and about the city of Tenochtitlan,
that stood here before the Spaniards came. I've been all around
everywhere. I've seen the swamps and the lakes and the walls and forts
and everything. The great cathedral--"
"That," interposed Senora Tassara, "stands on the very spot where an old
temple of the Aztec war-god stood. There were altars in it, where they
used to kill and burn hundreds and thousands of human sacrifices to
Huitzilopochtli, and there were altars to other gods."
"I can't exactly speak that name," said Ned, "but I want to know all
about him and the sacrifices. I want to learn, too, just how Cortes and
his men took the old city. I suppose that when the Americans come, it
will be a different kind of fight--more cannon."
"They won't get here at all," quietly remarked a military-looking old
gentleman sitting near the other end of the table. "It is a long road
from the Rio Grande, and President Paredes is to march, in a few days,
to crush our enemies with an army of twenty thousand men. They have not
so much as taken Monterey yet. You are right, though. If they should
ever get here, they will find the city harder to take than Cortes did.
They will all die before the walls."
He spoke with a great deal of patriotic enthusiasm, and Ned knew that it
was his turn to keep still, for the old gentleman had no idea that he
was talking to a wicked young gringo. Senora Paez, however, calmly
replied:
"Ah, Colonel Rodriguez, my dear friend, the President himself has said
that, after he has beaten them at the northern border, as he surely
will, the Americans are sure to make another attempt by way of Vera
Cruz. That, too, was the opinion of our brave friend, Colonel Guerra,
and he is making every preparation for a siege. It is part of our
grateful hospitality to our guest, Senor Carfora, that his friends have
supplied the Castle of San Juan de Ulua with the ammunition which will
be needed. He came over on the ship which brought it, and he has
remained with us ever since."
Just then Ned Crawford knew what it was to feel very mean indeed. He
felt as if he himself were telling a large lie, and his cheeks flushed
red-hot. He was aware, nevertheless, that even Senora Tassara had not
been told everything, and that Senora Paez was reasonably honest in what
she had been saying. There was no necessity for enlightening Colonel
Rodriguez. Hardly, therefore, had the old gentleman vehemently
exclaimed, "They never can take San Juan de Ulua!" than Ned went hastily
back to his first subject of the ancient history.
"That's it," he said. "I want to find out how Cortes got ashore, and how
he fought his way from the coast to this place. He must have had to
cross the mountains, through the passes, just as our party did when we
came."
"Yes," said the colonel. "He had to climb seven thousand and five
hundred feet up out of the _tierra caliente_, and, if any gringos ever
try that path, they will find all the passes full of fighting Mexicans
and good artillery well posted. Hernando Cortes had all the gunpowder
there was in America when he tried that road."
"My dear young friend," said Senora Paez, "you will find plenty of the
books you wish for. My husband was fond of collecting them. After
dinner, the senorita will show you the library, and you may read
anything there."
Ned was silent once more, for he was still feeling mean, and was asking
himself whether he were not, after all, a kind of spy in the Mexican
camp, going around in disguise, and all the while wishing that he could
help the American army to capture the city.
"Anyhow," he thought, "I can't help myself just now, and when the city
is taken, everything in the Paez house will be entirely safe. I
shouldn't wonder if that old coffee-urn will be safer from thieves than
it is now. There have been half a dozen burglaries since we came, and
I've seen hundreds of the wildest-looking kinds of fellows from the
mountains. Every man of them looked as if he'd like to steal some
silver."
While he was thinking, he was also listening, with a great deal of
interest, to a description which the old officer was giving of the
defences of Monterey, and of the reasons why the American troops would
surely be defeated. It appeared that he had at one time been the
commander of the garrison of the fortress known as the Black Fort, just
outside of the walls of Monterey, on the north, and he evidently
believed it to be impregnable. Ned was no soldier, and it did not occur
to him to ask, as General Taylor might have done, whether or not it was
possible to take the town without wasting time in taking the fort first.
"Come, Senor Carfora," said Felicia, as they all arose from the table,
"I will show you the library. You can't do much reading there to-night,
though, for the lamps have all been taken away. I do not wish to go
there, anyhow, except in the daytime. It is a pokerish kind of place. Do
you believe in ghosts? I do not, but, if I were a ghost, I would pick
out that library for a good place to hide in. Come along. You are a
foreigner, and any kind of good Mexican ghost won't like you."
Whether she herself did so or not, she led the way, and no lamp was as
yet needed, although the day was nearly over and the shadows were
coming. Up-stairs they went and through a short passageway in the second
story of the Paez mansion, and they were almost in the dark when she
said to him:
"Here we are. Hardly any one ever comes here, and it will be dreadfully
dusty. Books are dusty old things anyhow."
She turned the big brass knob in the dusky door before them, and shoved
against it with all her might, but Ned had to help her with his
shoulder, or the massive mahogany portal would not have yielded an inch.
It did go slowly in, upon its ancient-looking bronze hinges, and then
they were in a room which was worth looking at. It was not so very
large, only about fifteen feet by twenty, but it was unusually high, and
it had but one tall, narrow slit of a window. Close by this, however,
were a finely carved reading chair and table, ready to receive all the
light which the window might choose to let in. Ned was staring eagerly
around the room, when his pretty guide remarked:
"You had better see all you can before it gets any darker. Take down as
many books as you want. I don't care much for those fusty-musty old
histories. I must go away now--"
"Hullo, senorita!" exclaimed Ned. "There is a lamp on the table. I have
some matches--"
"I don't believe you can make it burn," she said, "but you can try. It
has not been lighted for this ever so long, and the oil may have dried
up."
Around she whirled and away she went, leaving Ned to his own devices.
His next thought was almost impolite, after all, for he was more than
half glad that she did go, so that he might have the library all to
himself to rummage in. He did not instantly examine the lamp, for he had
never before been in just this kind of room, and it fascinated him. All
its sides were occupied by high bookcases, every one of them crammed
full of volumes of all sorts and sizes. He thought that he had never
seen larger books than were some of the fat folios on the lower shelves.
There were great, flat, atlas-looking concerns leaning against them, and
out on the floor stood several upright racks of maps. Old Senor Paez may
have been what is called a book-worm. At all events, Ned had understood
that he was a very learned man, with a strong enthusiasm for American
history.
"Heavens and earth!" suddenly exclaimed Ned. "What is that?"
He darted forward to a further corner of the room, as if he were in a
great hurry to meet somebody who had unexpectedly come in. It certainly
was something almost in human shape, but it had been standing there a
long while, and the hand which it appeared to hold out to him was of
steel, for it was nothing in the wide world but a complete suit of
ancient armor. It was so set up in that corner, however, that it almost
seemed alive, with its right hand extended, and its left holding a long,
pennoned lance. Its helmet had a barred vizor, so that if there had been
any face behind that, it would have been hidden. Ned went and stood
silently before it for a moment, staring at that vizor.
"I say," he muttered, as if he did not care to speak any louder. "I
don't believe General Taylor's men would care to march far with as much
iron as that on them--not in hot weather. But the old Aztecs didn't have
anything that would go through that kind of uniform. If Cortes and his
men wore it, there is no wonder that they went on killing the Indians
without being much hurt themselves."
In fact, not all of them had been dressed up in precisely such a manner,
although they did wear armor.
Ned examined the whole affair, piece by piece, from head to foot, and
then he turned away from his inspection, for the room behind him was
getting dim and it was time for him to look at his lamp. He took out a
match as he went toward the table at the window, and in a moment more he
was busy with a wick which seemed to be determined not to burn for him.
"It's an old whale-oil lamp," he remarked. "Mother had one, once. I
remember seeing her try to light it and it would sputter for ever so
long. There! It's beginning to kindle, but it's too big for me to carry
around and hunt for books with. I wish I had a smaller one. Hullo!
Here's one of the biggest of those old concerns, right here on the
table."
It was a folio bound in vellum, and when he opened it a great deal of
dust arose from the cover which banged down. Then Ned uttered a loud
exclamation, and was glad he had succeeded in lighting the lamp, for
there before his eyes was a vividly colored picture of a most
extraordinary description. Moreover, it unfolded, so that it was almost
twice the size, length, and width of the book pages.
"They are all in Spanish," he said, "but I guess I can read them.
They're more than a hundred years old. People don't print such books,
nowadays. Nobody would have time enough to read them, I suppose, and
they couldn't sell 'em cheap enough. This is wonderful! It's a picture
of the old Mexican god, Huitzilopochtli."
There was an explanatory inscription, and the artist had pictured the
terrible deity sitting upon a throne of state, gorgeously arrayed in
gold and jewels, and watching with a smile of serene satisfaction the
sacrifice of some unfortunate human victims on the altar in the
foreground at the right. One of the priests attending at the altar had
just cut open the bosom of a tall man lying before him, and was tossing
a bleeding heart upon the smoking fire, where other similar offerings
were already burning.
"That must have been a horrible kind of religion," thought Ned. "I'm
glad that Cortes and his men in armor came to put an end to it. Senora
Paez told me that in only a few years before he came, and her
great-grandfather and his father with him, those priests cut up more
than twenty thousand men, women, and children. He's a curious kind of
god, I should say, to sit there and grin while it was going on."
He could not linger too long over one picture, however, for he had
discovered that there were others in that volume which were as
brilliantly colored and as interesting. On the whole, it was not
necessary to hunt for anything better than this the first evening, and
it appeared as if he were asking a useless question of the steel-clad
warrior in the corner, when at last he turned to him to say:
"Did you ever see anything like this before? I never did. Were you
there, in any of these battles? This is the way that Cortes and his
cavalry scared the Indians, is it? They were awfully afraid of horses.
You can buy horses for almost nothing, nowadays, anywhere in Mexico.
I've learned how to ride 'em, too, but didn't I get pitched off by some
of those ponies! It would have scared mother half to death. I wish I
could see her to-night, and show her some of these pictures. I'd like to
see Bob and the girls, too. They never saw a book like this."
He had examined a number of the pictures, and the lamp was burning
fairly well, but a long time had elapsed since he came into that room,
and he was not at all aware of it.
"Senor Carfora?" called out a voice in the doorway. "Oh, you are here.
You did light the lamp. I was almost afraid you were in the dark."
"No, I'm not," said Ned. "I made it burn, and I've been looking at all
sorts of things. These pictures are just wonderful."
"Oh!" she said, "I would not be in this room in the dark for anything! I
know all those things in that book, though. They are hideous! But they
say that that suit of armor has the worst kind of ghost in it."
"Maybe it has," said Ned. "I don't believe he can get out, anyhow. He's
just stuck in it. I'd rather wear the clothes I have on."
"Well," she replied, "mother sent me to find if you were here, and it
is dreadfully late--"
"Oh, yes!" interrupted Ned. "I suppose it is time for me to go to bed.
I'll go, but I mean to see all there is in this library, senorita. I
won't try to read it all. I don't care for ghosts, but I'd like to see
one."
"I do not care for them in the daytime, either," she told him. "But old
Margarita, the Tlascalan, says that they come at night and sit here and
tell stories of all the Mexican idol gods. All of them hate us, too,
because we turned them out of their temples, and I hate them."
"I'm glad they are gone, anyhow," said Ned, but it was really time to
go, and he carried some of the most brilliant of those illustrations
into some of his dreams that night.