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THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE
By Thomas Allibone Janvier
Copyright, 1890, by Harper & Brothers.
_All rights reserved._
TO C. A. J.
Departimiento y ha entre los engaños. Catales y ha que son buenos,
e tales que malos, e buenos son aquellos que los omnes fazen a
buena fe e a buena intencion.--ALONZO el SABIO, Setena Partida,
Titulo xvi., Ley ii.
[Illustration: The Dying Cacique.]
CONTENTS.
PROLOGUE
I. FRAY ANTONIO
II. THE CACIQUE'S SECRET
III. THE MONK'S MANUSCRIPT
IV. MONTEZUMA'S MESSENGER
V. THE ENGINEER AND THE LOST-FREIGHT MAN
VI. THE KING'S SYMBOL
VII. THE FIGHT IN THE CAÑON
VIII. AFTER THE FIGHT
IX. THE CAVE OF THE DEAD
X. THE SWINGING STATUE
XI. THE SUBMERGED CITY
XII. IN THE VALLEY OF DEATH
XIII. UP THE CHAC-MOOL STAIR
XIV. THE HANGING CHAIN
XV. THE TEMPLE IN THE CLOUDS
XVI. AT THE BARRED PASS
XVII. OF OUR COMING INTO THE VALLY OF AZTLAN
XVIII. THE STRIKING OF A MATCH
XIX. THE SEEDS OF REVOLT
XX. THE PRIEST CAPTAIN'S SUMMONS
XXI. THE WALLED CITY OF CULHUACON
XXII. THE OUTBREAK OF REVOLUTION
XXIII. A RESCUE
XXIV. THE AFFAIR AT THE WATER-GATE
XXV. THE GOLD-MINERS OF HUITZILAN
XXVI. THE GATHERING FOR WAR
XXVII. AN OFFER OF TERMS
XXVIII. THE SURRENDER OF A LIFE
XXIX. THE ASSAULT IN THE NIGHT
XXX. THE FALL OF THE CITADEL
XXXI. DEFEAT
XXXII. EL SABIO'S DEFIANCE
XXXIII. IN THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE
XXXIV. A MARTYRDOM
XXXV. THE TREASURE-CHAMBER
XXXVI. THE VENGEANCE OF THE GODS
XXXVII. THROUGH DARKNESS TO LIGHT
XXXVIII. KING CHALTZANTZIN'S TREASURE
EPILOGUE
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
THE DYING CACIQUE
THE LETTER FROM THE DEAD
PACKING IN THE CORRAL
THE FIGHT IN THE CAÑON
THE CAVE OF THE DEAD
AFLOAT ON THE LAKE
EL SABIO'S PREDICAMENT
MAKING THE PEACE-SIGN
THE FULFILMENT OF THE PROPHECY
THE STRIKING OF A MATCH
CHECKING YOUNG'S OUTBREAK
THE LEAP FROM ABOVE THE WATER-GATE
THE TLAHUICOS AND THEIR GUARDS
IN THE GATE-WAY OF THE CITADEL
THE LAST RALLY
EL SABIO'S DEFIANCE
FRAY ANTONIO'S APPEAL
YOUNG'S STRUGGLE WITH THE PRIEST CAPTAIN
IN THE LIBRARY BEFORE THE OPEN FIRE
_Who'd hear great marvels told--
Come listen now!
Who longs for hidden gold--
Come listen now!
Who joys in well-fought fights,
Who yearns for wondrous sights,
Who pants for strange delights--
Come listen now!_
_For here are marvels told
To listen to!
Here tales of hidden gold
To listen to!
Here gallant men wage fights,
Here pass most wondrous sights,
Here's that which ear delights
To listen to!_
THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE
PROLOGUE.
"God sends nuts to them who have no teeth:" which ancient Spanish
proverb of contrariety comes strongly to mind as I set myself to this
writing.
By nature am I a studious, book-loving man, having a strong liking for
quiet and orderliness. Yet in me also is a strain that urges me, even
along ways which are both rough and dangerous, to get beyond
book-knowledge, and to examine for myself the abstractions of thought
and the concretions of men and things out of the consideration whereof
books are made. And I hold that it is because I have thus sought for
truth in its original sources, instead of resting content with what
passes for truth, being detached fragments of fact which other men have
found and have cut and polished to suit themselves, that I have gathered
to myself more of it, and in its rude yet perfect native crystals, than
has come into the possession of any other modern investigator. In making
which strong assertion I am not moved by idle vanity, but by a just and
reasonable conception of the intrinsic merit of my own achievement: as
will be universally admitted when I publish the great work, now almost
ready for the press, upon which, in preparatory study and in convincing
discovery, I have been for the past ten years engaged. For I speak well
within bounds when I declare that a complete revolution in all existing
conceptions of American archæology and ethnology will be wrought when
_Pre-Columbian Conditions on the Continent of North America_, by
Professor Thomas Palgrave, Ph.D. (Leipsic), is given to the world.
Upon this work I say that I have been engaged for ten years. Rather
should I say that I have been engaged upon it for forty years; for its
germs were implanted in me when I was a child of but six years old.
Before my intelligence at all could grasp the meaning of what I read, my
imagination was fired by reading in the pages of Stephens of the wonders
which that eminent explorer discovered in Yucatan; and my mind then was
made up that I would follow in his footsteps, and in the end go far
beyond him, until I should reveal the whole history of the marvellous
race whose mighty works he found, but of whose genesis he could only
feebly surmise. And this resolve of the child became the dominant
purpose of the man. In my college life at Harvard, and in my university
life at Leipsic, my studies were directed chiefly to this end.
Especially did I devote myself to the acquisition of languages, and to
gaining a sound knowledge of the principles of those departments of
archæology and ethnology which related to the great work that I had in
view. Later, during the ten years that I occupied (as I believe usefully
and acceptably) the Chair of Topical Linguistics in the University of
Michigan, all the time that I properly could take from my professorial
duties was given exclusively to the study of the languages of the
indigenous races of Mexico, and to what little was to be found in books
concerning their social organization and mode of life, and to the broad
subject of Mexican antiquities. By correspondence I became acquainted
with the most eminent Mexican archæologists--the lamented Orozco y
Berra, Icazbalceta, Chavero, and the philologists Pimentel and Peñafiel;
and I had the honor to know personally the American archæologist
Bandelier, the surpassing scientific value of whose researches among the
primitive peoples of Mexico places his work above all praise. And by the
study of the writings of these great scholars, and of all writings
thereto cognate, my own knowledge steadily grew; until at last I felt
myself strong enough to begin the investigations on my own account for
which I had sought by all these years of patient preparation fittingly
to pave the way.
But inasmuch as my life until a short time since has been wholly that of
a scholar, and wholly has been passed in quiet ways, I truly have had no
teeth at all for the proper cracking of the nuts which have come to me
in the course of the surprising adventures that I have now set myself to
narrate. For in the course of these adventures (necessarily, yet sorely
against my will) I have been thrust by force of circumstances into many
imminent and prodigious perils; much time that I gladly would have
devoted to peaceful, fruitful study I have been compelled to employ in
rude and profitless (except that my life was saved by it) battling with
savages; and--what most of all has pained me--many curious and
interesting skulls that I gladly would have added entire to my
collection of crania, I have been driven in self-defence to ruin
irreparably with my own hands.
All of which diversities of my likings and my happenings will appear in
due order, as I tell in the following pages of the strange and wonderful
things which befell me--in company with Rayburn and Young and Fray
Antonio and the boy Pablo--in our search after and finding of the great
treasure that was hidden, in a curiously secret place among the Mexican
mountains more than a thousand years ago, by Chaltzantzin, the third of
the Aztec kings.
I.
FRAY ANTONIO.
My heart was light within me as I stood on the steamer's deck in the
cool gray of an October morning and saw out across the dark green sea
and the dusky, brownish stretch of coast country the snow-crowned peak
of Orizaba glinting in the first rays of the rising sun. And presently,
as the sun rose higher, all the tropic region of the coast and the brown
walls of Vera Cruz and of its outpost fort of San Juan de Ulua were
flooded with brilliant light--which sudden and glorious outburst of
radiant splendor seemed to me to be charged with a bright promise of my
own success.
And still lighter was my heart, a week later, when I found myself
established in the beautiful city of Morelia, and ready to begin
actively the work for which I had been preparing myself--at first
unconsciously, but for ten years past consciously and carefully--almost
all my life long.
Morelia, I had decided, was the best base for the operations that I was
about to undertake. My main purpose was to search for the remnants of
primitive civilization among the more isolated of the native Indian
tribes; and out of the fragments thus found, pieced together with what
more I could glean from the early ecclesiastical and civil records, to
recreate, so far as this was possible, the fabric that was destroyed by
the Spanish conquerors. Nowhere could my investigations be conducted to
better advantage than in the State of Michoacan (of which State the city
of Morelia is the capital) and in the adjacent State of Jalisco; for in
this region tribes still exist which never have been reduced to more
than nominal subjection, and which maintain to a great extent their
primitive customs and their primitive faith, though curiously mingling
with this latter many Christian observances. Indeed, the independence of
the Indians of these parts is so notable that the proverb "Free as
Jalisco" is current throughout Mexico. Moreover, Morelia is a city rich
in ancient records. The archives of the Franciscan province, that has
its centre here extend back to the year 1531; those of the Bishopric of
Michoacan to the year 1538; and those of the Colegio de San Nicolás to
the year 1540; while in the recently founded Museo Michoacano already
has been collected a rich store of archæological material. In a word,
there was no place in all Mexico where my studies and my investigations
could be pursued to such advantage as they could be pursued here.
From a fellow-archæologist in the City of Mexico I brought a letter of
introduction to the director of the Museo, the learned Dr. Nicolás Leon;
and so cordially was this letter worded, and so cordially was it
received, that within the day of my coming into that strange city I
found myself in the midst of friends. At once their hearts and their
houses were opened to me, and they gave me with a warm enthusiasm the
benefit of their knowledge and of their active assistance forwarding the
work that I had in hand.
In the quiet retirement of the Museo I opened to that one of its members
to whom the director especially had commended me, Don Rafael Moreno, the
purposes which I had in view, and the means by which I hoped to
accomplish them. "Surely," I said, "among the free Indians in the
mountains hereabouts much may be found--in customs, in tone of thought,
in religion--that has remained unchanged since the time of the
conquest."
Don Rafael nodded. "Fray Antonio has said as much," he observed,
thoughtfully.
"And as your own distinguished countryman, Señor Orozco y Berra, has
pointed out," I continued, "many dark places in primitive history may be
made clear, many illusions may be dispelled, and many deeply
interesting truths may be gathered by one who will go among these
Indians, lending himself to their mode of life, and will note accurately
what he thus learns from sources wholly original."
"Fray Antonio has professed the same belief," Don Rafael answered. "But
that his love is greater for the saving of heathen souls than for the
advancement of antiquarian knowledge, he long ago would have done what
you now propose to do. He has done much towards gathering a portion of
the information that you seek, even as it is."
"And who is this Fray Antonio, señor?"
"He is the man who of all men can give you the wisest help in your
present need. We see but little of him here at the Museo, though he is
one of our most honored members, for his time is devoted so wholly to
the godly work to which he has given himself that but little remains to
him to use in other ways. He is a monk, vowed to the Rule of St.
Francis. As you know, since the promulgation of the Laws of the Reform,
monks are not permitted in our country to live in communities; but, with
only a few exceptions, the conventual churches which have not been
secularized still are administered by members of the religious orders to
which they formerly belonged. Fray Antonio has the charge of the church
of San Francisco--over by the market-place, you know--and virtually is a
parish priest. He is a religious enthusiast. In God's service he gives
himself no rest. The common people here, since his loving labors are
among them while the pestilence of small-pox raged, reverently believe
him to be a saint; and those of a higher class, who know what heroic
work he did in that dreadful time, and who see how perfectly his life
conforms to the principles which he professes, and how like is the
spirit of holiness that animates him to that of the sainted men who
founded the order to which he belongs, are disposed to hold a like
opinion. Truly, it is by the especial grace of God that men like Fray
Antonio are permitted at times to dwell upon this sinful earth."
Don Rafael spoke with a depth of feeling and a reverence of tone that
gave his strong words still greater strength and deeper meaning. After
that moment's pause he resumed: "But that which is of most interest to
you, señor, is the knowledge that Fray Antonio has gained of our native
Indians during his ministrations among them. It is the dearest wish of
his heart to carry to these heathen souls the saving grace of
Christianity, and for the accomplishment of this good purpose he makes
many journeys into the mountains; ministering in the chapels which his
zeal has founded in the Indian towns, and striving earnestly by his
preaching of God's word to bring these far-wandered sheep into the
Christian fold. Very often his life has been in most imminent peril, for
the idolatrous priests of the mountain tribes hate him with a most
bitter hatred because of the inroads which his mild creed is making upon
the cruel creed which they uphold. Yet is he careless of the danger to
which he exposes himself; and there be those who believe, such is the
temerity with which he manifests his zeal, that he rather seeks than
shuns a martyr's crown."
Again Don Rafael paused, and again was it evident that deep feelings
moved him as he spoke of the holy life of this most holy man. "You will
thus understand, señor," he went on, "that Fray Antonio of all men is
best fitted by his knowledge of the ways of these mountain Indians to
advise you touching your going among them and studying them. You cannot
do better than confer with him at once. It is but a step to the church
of San Francisco. Let us go."
What Don Rafael had said had opened new horizons to me, and I was
stirred by strange feelings as we passed out together from the shady
silence of the Museo into the bright silence of the streets: for Morelia
is a quiet city, wherein at all times is gentleness and rest. For
priests in general, and for Mexican priests in particular, I had
entertained always a profound contempt; but now, from an impartial
source, I had heard of a Mexican priest whose life-springs seemed to be
the soul-stirring impulses of the thirteenth century; who was devoted in
soul and in body to the service of God and of his fellow-men; in whom,
in a word, the seraphic spirit of St. Francis of Assisi seemed to live
again. But by this way coming to such tangible evidence of the survival
in the present time of forces which were born into the world six hundred
years ago, my thoughts took a natural turn to my own especial interests;
and, by perhaps not over-strong analogy, I reasoned that if this monk
still lived so closely to the letter and to the spirit of the Rule that
St. Francis, six centuries back, gave to his order, most reasonably
might I hope to find still quick something of the life that was in full
vigor in Mexico only a little more than half that many centuries ago.
We turned off from the Calle Principal by the little old church of La
Cruz, and passed onward across the market-place, where buying and
selling went on languidly, and where a drowsy hum of talk made a
rhythmic setting to a scene that seemed to my unaccustomed eyes less a
bit of real life than a bit lifted bodily from an opera. Facing the
market-place was the ancient church; and the change was a pleasant one,
from the vivid sunlight and warmth of the streets to its cool, shadowy
interior: where the only sign of life was a single old woman, her head
muffled in her _rebozo_, praying her way along the Stations of the
Cross. For more than two hundred and fifty years had prayer been made
and praise been offered here; and as I thought of the many generations
who here had ministered and worshipped--though evil hearts in plenty, no
doubt, both within and without the chancel there had been--it seemed to
me that some portion of the subtle essence of all the soul-longings for
heavenly help and guidance that here had been breathed forth, by men and
women truly struggling against the sinful forces at work in the world,
had entered into the very fabric of that ancient church, and so had
sanctified it.
We crossed to the eastern end of the church, where was a low door-way,
closed by a heavy wooden door that was studded with rough iron nails and
ornamented with rudely finished iron-work; pushing which door open
briskly, as one having the assured right of entry there, Don Rafael
courteously stood aside and motioned to me to enter the sacristy.
From the shadowy church I passed at a step into a small vaulted room
brilliant with the sunlight that poured into it through a broad window
that faced the south. Just where this flood of sunshine fell upon the
flagged floor, rising from a base of stone steps built up in a pyramidal
form, was a large cross of some dark wood, on which was the life-size
figure of the crucified Christ; and there, on the bare stone pavement
before this emblem of his faith, his face, on which the sunlight fell
full, turned upward towards the holy image, and his arms raised in
supplication, clad in his Franciscan habit, of which the hood had fallen
back, knelt Fray Antonio; and upon his pale, holy face, that the rich
sunlight glorified, was an expression so seraphic, so entranced, that it
seemed as though to his fervent gaze the very gates of heaven must be
open, and all the splendors and glories and majesties of paradise
revealed.
It is as I thus first saw Fray Antonio--verily a saint kneeling before
the cross--that I strive to think of him always. Yet even when that
other and darker, but surely more glorious, picture of him rises before
my mind I am not disconsolate; for at such times the thought possesses
me--coming to me clearly and vehemently, as though from a strongly
impelled force without myself--that what he prayed for at the moment
when I beheld him was that which God granted to him in the end.
Some men being thus broken in upon while in the very act of communing
with Heaven would have been distressed and ill at ease--as I assuredly
was because I had so interrupted him. But to Fray Antonio, as I truly
believe, communion with Heaven was so entirely a part of his daily life
that our sudden entry in nowise ruffled him. After a moment, that he
might recall his thoughts within himself and so to earth again, he arose
from his knees, and with a grave, simple grace came forward to greet us.
He was not more than eight-and-twenty years old, and he was slightly
built and thin--not emaciated, but lean with the wholesome leanness of
one who strove to keep his body in the careful order of a machine of
which much work was required. His face still had in it the soft
roundness and tenderness of youth, that accorded well with its
expression of gracious sweetness; but there was a firmness about the
fine, strong chin, and in the set of the delicate lips, that showed a
reserve of masterful strength. And most of all did this strength shine
forth from his eyes; which, truly, though at this first sight of him I
did not perceive it fully, were the most wonderful eyes that ever I have
seen. As I then beheld them I thought them black; but they really were a
dark blue, and so were in keeping with his fair skin and hair. Yet that
which gave them so strong an individuality was less their changing color
than the marvellous way in which their expression changed with every
change of feeling of the soul that animated them. When I first saw them,
turned up towards heaven, they seemed to speak a heavenly language full
of love; and when I saw them last, stern, but shining with the exultant
light of joy triumphant, they fairly hurled the wrath of outraged Heaven
against the conquered powers of hell. And I can give no adequate
conception of the love that shone forth from them when pitying sympathy
for human sorrow, or even for the pain which brute beasts suffered,
touched that most tender heart for which they spoke in tones richer and
fuller than the tones of words.
Don Rafael, standing without the door that he had opened in order that I
might precede him, did not perceive that we had interrupted Fray Antonio
in his prayers; and began, therefore, in the lively manner natural to
him, when I had been in due form presented as an American archæologist
come to Mexico to pursue my studies of its primitive inhabitants, to
commend the undertaking that I had in hand, and to ask of Fray Antonio
the aid in prosecuting it that he so well could give.
Perhaps it was that Fray Antonio understood how wholly my heart already
had gone out to him--assuredly, later, there was such close sympathy
between us that our thoughts would go and come to each other without
need for words--and so was disposed in some instinctive way to join his
purposes with mine; but, be this as it may, before Don Rafael well could
finish the explanation of my wishes, Fray Antonio had comprehended what
I desired, and had promised to give me his aid.
"The señor already has a book-knowledge of our native tongues. That is
well. The speaking knowledge will come easily. He shall have the boy
Pablo for his servant. A good boy is Pablo. With him he can talk in the
Nahua dialect--which is the most important, for it is sprung most
directly from the ancient stock. And I will arrange that the señor shall
live for a time in the mountains--it will be a hard life, I fear--at
Santa María and at San Andrés, in which villages he can gain a
mouth-mastery of both Otomí and Tarascan. A little time must be given to
all this--some months, no doubt. But the señor, who already has studied
through ten years, will understand the needfulness of this short
discipline. To a true student study in itself is a delight--still more
that study which makes the realization of a long-cherished purpose
possible. The señor, I know, reads Spanish, since so perfectly he speaks
it"--this with a gracious movement of the hands and a courteous
inclination of the body that enhanced the value of the compliment--"but
does the señor read with ease our ancient Spanish script?"
"I have never attempted it," I answered. "But as I can read easily the
old printed Spanish, I suppose," I added, a little airily, "that I shall
have no great difficulty in reading the old script also."
Fray Antonio smiled a little as he glanced at Don Rafael, who smiled
also, and as he turned out his hands, answered: "Perhaps. But it is not
quite the same as print, as the señor will know when he tries. But it
makes no difference; for what is most interesting in our archives I
shall be glad--and so also will be Don Rafael--to aid him in reading.
"You must know, señor," he went on, dropping his formal mode of address
as his interest in the subject augmented, and as his feeling towards me
grew warmer, "that many precious documents are here preserved. So early
as the year 1536 this western region was erected into a Custodia,
distinct from the Province of the Santo Evangelio of Mexico; and from
that time onward letters and reports relating to the work done by the
missionaries of our order among the heathen have been here received. In
truth, I doubt not that many historic treasures are hidden here. In
modern times, during the last hundred years or more, but little thought
has been given to the care of these old papers--which are so precious to
such as Don Rafael and yourself because of their antiquarian value, and
which are still more precious to me because they tell of the sowing
among the heathen of the seed of God's own Word. It is probable that
they have not been at all examined into since our learned brothers Pablo
de Beaumont and Alonzo de la Rea were busy with the writing of their
chronicles of this Province--and the labors of these brothers ended more
than two hundred and fifty years ago. In the little time that I myself
can give to such matters I already have found many manuscripts which
cast new and curious light upon the strange people who dwelt here in
Mexico before the Spaniards came. Some of these I will send for your
examination, for they will prepare you for the work you have in
contemplation by giving you useful knowledge of primitive modes of life
and tones of faith and phases of thought. And while you are in the
mountains, at Santa María and San Andrés, I will make further searches
in our archives, and what I find you shall see upon your return.
"With your permission, señores, I must now go about my work. Don Rafael
knows that I am much too ready to forget my work in talk of ancient
matters. It is a weakness with me--this love for the study of
antiquity--that I struggle against, but that seems rather to increase
upon me than to be overcome. This afternoon, señor, I will send a few of
the ancient manuscripts to you. And so--until we meet again."
II.
THE CACIQUE'S SECRET.
Fray Antonio punctually fulfilled his promise in regard to the
manuscripts, and I had but to glance at them in order to understand the
smile that he had interchanged with Don Rafael when I so airily had
expressed my confidence in my ability to read them. To say that I more
easily could read Hebrew is not to the purpose, for I can read Hebrew
very well; but it is precisely to the purpose to say that I could not
read them at all! What with the curious, involved formation of the
several letters, the extraordinary abbreviations, the antique spelling,
the strange forms of expression, and the use of obsolete words I could
not make sense of so much as a single line. Yet when, being forced into
inglorious surrender, I carried the manuscripts to the Museo, and
appealed to Don Rafael for assistance, he read to me in fluent Spanish
all that I had found so utterly incomprehensible. "It is only a knack,"
he explained. "A little time and patience are required at first, but
then all comes easily." But Don Rafael did here injustice to his own
scholarship. More than a little time and patience have I since given to
the study of ancient Spanish script, and I am even yet very far from
being an expert in the reading of it.
In regard to the other promise that Fray Antonio made me--that he would
send me a servant who also would serve as a practical instructor in the
Nahua, or Aztec, dialect--he was equally punctual. While I was taking,
in my bedroom, my first breakfast of bread and coffee the morning
following my visit to the church of San Francisco, I heard a faint sound
of music; but whether it was loud music at a distance or very soft music
near at hand I could not tell. Presently I perceived that the musician
was feeling about among the notes for the sabre song from _La Grande
Duchesse_--selections from which semi-obsolete opera, as I then
remembered, had been played by the military band on the plaza the
evening before. Gradually the playing grew more assured; until it ended
in an accurate and spirited rendering of the air. With this triumph, the
volume of the sound increased greatly; and from its tones I inferred
that the instrument was a concertina, and that whoever played it was in
the inner court-yard of the hotel. Suddenly, in the midst of the music,
there sounded--and this sound unmistakably came from the hotel
court-yard--the prodigious braying of an ass; and accompanying this came
the soft sound of bare feet hurrying away down the passage from near my
door.
I opened the door and looked out, but the passage was empty. The gallery
overlooked the court-yard, and stepping to the edge of the low stone
railing, I beheld a sight that I never recall without a feeling of warm
tenderness. Almost directly beneath me stood a small gray ass, a very
delicately shaped and perfect little animal, with a coat of most
extraordinary length and fuzziness, and with ears of a truly prodigious
size. His head was raised, and his great ears were pricked forward in a
fashion which indicated that he was most intently listening; and upon
his face was an expression of such benevolent sweetness, joined to such
thoughtfulness and meditative wisdom, that in my heart (which is very
open to affection for his gentle kind) there sprung up in a moment a
real love for him. Suddenly he lowered his head, and turned eagerly his
regard towards the corner of the court-yard where descended the
stair-way from the gallery on which I stood; and from this quarter came
towards him a smiling, pleasant-faced Indian lad of eighteen or twenty
years old, whose dress was a cotton shirt and cotton trousers, whose
feet were bare, and on whose head was a battered hat of straw. And as
the ass saw the boy, he strained at the cord that tethered him and gave
another mighty bray.
"Dost thou call me, Wise One?" said the boy, speaking in Spanish. "Truly
this Señor Americano is a lazy señor, that he rises so late, and keeps
us waiting for his coming so long. But patience, Wise One. The Padre
says that he is a good gentleman, in whose service we shall be treated
as though we were kings. No doubt I now can buy my rain-coat. And thou,
Wise One--thou shalt have beans!"
And being by this time come to the ass, the boy enfolded in his arms the
creature's fuzzy head and gently stroked its preternaturally long ears.
And the ass, for its part, responded to the caress by rubbing its head
against the boy's breast and by most energetically twitching its scrag
of a tail. Thus for a little time these friends manifested for each
other their affection; and then the boy seated himself on the pavement
beside the ass and drew forth from his pocket a large mouth-organ--on
which he went to work with such a will that all the court-yard rang with
the strains of Offenbach's music.
It was plain from what he had said that this was the boy whom Fray
Antonio had promised to send to me; and notwithstanding his
uncomplimentary comments upon my laziness, I had taken already a strong
liking to him. I waited until he had played through the sabre song
again--to which, as it seemed to me, the ass listened with a slightly
critical yet pleased attention--and then I hailed him.
"The lazy Señor Americano is awake at last, Pablo," I called. "Come up
hither, and we will talk about the buying of thy rain-coat, and about
the buying of the Wise One's beans."
The boy jumped up as though a spring had been let loose beneath him, and
his shame and confusion were so great that I was sorry enough that I had
made my little joke upon him.
"It is all right, my child," I said, quickly, and with all the kindness
that I could put into my tones. "Thou wert talking to the Wise One, not
to me--and I have forgotten all that I heard. Thou art come from Fray
Antonio?"
"Yes, señor," he answered; and as he saw by my smiling that no harm had
been done, he also smiled; and so honest and kindly was the lad's face
that I liked him more and more.
"Patience for yet a little longer, Wise One," he said, turning to the
ass, who gravely wagged his ears in answer. And then the boy came up the
stair to the gallery, and so we went to my room that I might have talk
with him.
It was not much that Pablo had to tell about himself. He was a
Guadalajara lad, born in the Indian suburb of Mexicalcingo--as his
musical taste might have told me had I known more of Mexico--who had
drifted out into the world to seek his fortune. His capital was the
ass--so wise an ass that he had named him El Sabio. "He knows each word
that I speak to him, señor," said Pablo, earnestly. "And when he hears,
even a long way off, the music that I make upon the little instrument,
he knows that it is from me that the music comes, and calls to me. And he
loves me, señor, as though he were my brother; and he knows that with
the same tenderness I also love him. It was the good Padre who gave him
to me. God rest and bless him always!" This pious wish, I inferred,
related not to the ass but to Fray Antonio.
"And how dost thou live, Pablo?" I asked.
"By bringing water from the Spring of the Holy Children, señor. It is
two leagues away, the Ojo de los Santos Niños, and El Sabio and I make
thither two journeys daily. We bring back each time four jars of water,
which we sell here in the city--for it is very good, sweet water--at
three _tlacos_ the jar. You see, I make a great deal of money,
señor--three _reales_ a day! If it were not for one single thing, I
should soon be rich."
That riches could be acquired rapidly on a basis of about twenty-seven
cents, in our currency, a day struck me as a novel notion. But I
inquired, gravely: "And this one thing that hinders thee from getting
rich, Pablo, what is it?"
"It is that I eat so much, señor," Pablo answered, ruefully. "Truly it
seems as though this belly of mine never could be filled. I try
valiantly to eat little and so to save my money; but my belly cries out
for more and yet more food--and so my money goes. Although I make so
much, I can scarcely save a _medio_ in a whole week, when what El Sabio
must have and what I must have is paid for. And I am trying so hard to
save just now, for before the next rainy season comes I want to own a
rain-coat. But for a good one I must pay seven _reales_. The price is
vast."
"What is a rain-coat, Pablo?"
"The señor does not know? That is strange. It is a coat woven of palm
leaves, so that all over one it is as a thatch that the rain cannot come
through. What I was saying just now to El Sabio--" Pablo stopped
suddenly, and turned aside from me in a shamefaced way, as he
remembered what he also had said to El Sabio about my laziness.
"--Was that out of the wages I am to pay thee thou canst save enough
money to buy thy coat with," I said, quickly, wishing to rid him of his
confusion. And then we fell to talking of what these wages should be,
and of how he was to help me to gain a speaking knowledge of his native
tongue--for so far we had spoken Spanish together--and of what in
general would be his duties as my servant. That El Sabio could be
anything but a part of the contract seemed never to cross Pablo's mind;
and so presently our terms were concluded, and I found myself occupying
the responsible relation of master to a mouth-organ playing boy and an
extraordinarily wise ass. It was arranged that both of these dependants
of mine should accompany me in my expedition to the Indian villages; and
to clinch our bargain I gave Pablo the seven _reales_ wherewith to buy
his rain-coat on the spot.
I was a little surprised, two days later, when we started from Morelia
on our journey into the mountains to the westward, to find that Pablo
had not bought his much-desired garment; though, to be sure, as the
rainy season still was a long way off, there was no need for it. He
hesitated a little when I questioned him about it, and then, in a very
apologetic tone, said: "Perhaps the señor will forgive me for doing so
ill with his money. But indeed I could not help it. There is an old man,
his name is Juan, señor, who has been very good to me many times. He has
given me things to put into this wretchedly big belly of mine; and when
I broke one of my jars he lent me the money to buy another with, and
would take from me again only what the jar cost and no more. Just now
this old man is sick--it is rheumatism, señor--and he has no money at
all, and he and his wife have not much to eat, and I know what pain that
is. And so--and so--Will the señor forgive me? I do not need the
rain-coat now, the señor understands. And so I gave Juan the seven
_reales_, which he will pay me when he gets well and works again; and
should he die and not pay me--Does the señor know what I have been
thinking? It is that rain-coats really are not very needful things,
after all. Without them one gets wet, it is true; but then one soon gets
dry again. But truly"--and there was a sudden catching in Pablo's throat
that was very like a sob--"truly I did want one."
When Pablo had told this little story I did not wonder at the esteem in
which Fray Antonio held him, and from that time onward he had a very
warm place in my heart. And I may say that but for his too great
devotion to his mouth-organ--for that boy never could hear a new tune
but that he needs must go at once to practising it upon his beloved
"instrumentito" until he had mastered it--he was the best servant that
man ever had. And within his gentle nature was a core of very gallant
fearlessness. In the times of danger which we shared together later,
excepting only Rayburn, not one of us stood face to face and foot to
foot with death with a steadier or a calmer bravery; for in all his
composition there did not seem to be one single fibre that could be made
to thrill in unison with fear. Of his qualities as a servant I had a
good trial during the two months that we were together in the
mountains--in which time I got enough working knowledge of the Indian
dialects to make effective the knowledge that I had gained from
books--and I was amazed by the quickness that he manifested in
apprehending and in supplying my wants and in understanding my ways.
As to making any serious study of Indian customs--save only those of the
most open and well-known sort--in this short time, I soon perceived that
the case was quite hopeless. Coming from Fray Antonio, whose benevolent
ministrations among them had won their friendship, the Indians treated
me with a great respect and showed me every kindness. But I presently
began to suspect, and this later grew to be conviction, that because my
credentials came from a Christian priest I was thrust away all the more
resolutely from knowledge of their inner life. What I then began to
learn, and what I learned more fully later, convinced me that these
Indians curiously veneered with Christian practices their native heathen
faith; manifesting a certain superstitious reverence for the Christian
rites and ceremonies, yet giving sincere worship only to their heathen
gods. It was something to have arrived at this odd discovery, but it
tended only to show me how difficult was the task that I had set myself
of prying into the secrets of the Indians' inner life.
Indeed, but for an accident, I should have returned to Morelia no wiser,
practically, than when I left it; but by that turn of chance fortune
most wonderfully favored me, and with far-reaching consequences. It was
on the last afternoon of my stay in the village of Santa María; and the
beginning of my good-luck was that I succeeded in walking out upon the
mountain-side alone. My walk had a decided purpose in it, for each time
that I had tried to go in this direction one or another of the Indians
had been quickly upon my heels with some civil excuse about the danger
of falling among the rocks for leading me another way. How I thus
succeeded at last in escaping from so many watchful eyes I cannot say,
but luck was with me, and I went on undisturbed. The sharply sloping
mountain-side, very wild and rugged, was strewn with great fragments of
rock which had fallen from the heights above, and which, lying there for
ages beneath the trees, had come to be moss-grown and half hidden by
bushes and fallen leaves. In the dim light that filtered through the
branches, walking in so uncertain a place was attended with a good deal
of danger; for not only was there a likelihood of falls leading to
broken legs, but broken necks also were an easy possibility by the
chance of a slip upon the mossy edge of one or another of the many
ledges, followed by a spin through the air ending suddenly upon the
jagged rocks below. Indeed, so ticklish did I find my way that I began
to think that the Indians had spoken no more than the simple truth in
warning me against such dangers, and that I had better turn again while
light remained to bring me back in safety; and just as I had reached
this wise conclusion my feet slid suddenly from under me on the very
edge of one of the ledges, and over I went into the depth below.
Fortunately I fell not more than a dozen feet or so, and my fall was
broken by a friendly bed of leaves and moss. When I got to my feet
again, in a moment, I found myself in a narrow cleft in the rocks, and I
was surprised to see that through this cleft ran a well-worn path. All
thought of the danger that I had just escaped from so narrowly was
banished form my mind instantly as I made this discovery; and full of
the exciting hope that I was about to find something which the Indians
most earnestly desired to conceal, I went rapidly and easily onward in
the direction that I had been pressing towards with so much difficulty
along the rocky mountain-side. The course of this sunken path, I soon
perceived, was partly natural and partly artificial. It went on through
clefts such as the one that I had fallen into, and through devious ways
where the fragments of fallen rock, some of them great masses weighing
many tons, had been piled upon each other in most natural confusion, so
as to leave a narrow passage in their depths. And all this had been done
in a long-past time, for the rocks were thickly coated with moss; and in
one place, where a watercourse crossed the path, were smoothed by water
in a way that only centuries could have accomplished. So cleverly was
the concealment effected, the way so narrow and so irregular, that I
verily believe an army might have scoured that mountain-side and never
found the path at all, save by such accident as had brought me into it.
For half a mile or more I went on in the waning light, my heart
throbbing with the excitement of it all, and so came out at last upon a
vast jutting promontory of rock that was thrust forth from the
mountain's face eastwardly. Here was an open space of an acre or more,
in the centre of which was a low, altar-like structure of stone. At the
end of the narrow path, being still within its shelter, I stopped to
make a careful survey of the ground before me; for I realized that in
what I was doing Death stood close at my elbow, and that, unless I acted
warily, he surely would have me in his grasp. Coming out of the shadows
of the woods and the deeper shadows of the sunken path to this wide open
space, where the light of the brilliant sunset was reflected strongly
from masses of rosy clouds over all the eastern sky, I could see
clearly. In the midst of the opening, not far from the edge of the
stupendous precipice, where the bare rock dropped sheer down a thousand
feet or more, was a huge bowlder that had been cut and squared with
ineffective tools into the rude semblance of a mighty altar. The
well-worn path along which I had come told the rest of the story. Here
was the temple, having for its roof the great arch of heaven, in which
the Indians, whom the gentle Fray Antonio believed to be such good
Christians, truly worshipped their true gods; even as here their fathers
had worshipped before them in the very dawning of the ancient past.
A tremor of joy went through me as I realized what I had found. Here was
positive proof of what I had strongly but not surely hoped for. The
Aztec faith truly was still a living faith; and it followed almost
certainly that, could I but penetrate the mystery with which it was
hedged about so carefully by them still faithful to it, I would find
all that I sought--of living customs, of coherent traditions--wherewith
to exhibit clearly to the world of the nineteenth century the wonderful
social and religious structure that the Spaniards of the sixteenth
century had blotted out, but had not destroyed. What my
fellow-archæologists had accomplished in Syria, in Egypt, in Greece, was
nothing to what I could thus accomplish in Mexico. At the best, Smith,
Rawlinson, Schliemann, had done no more than stir the dust above the
surface of dead antiquity; but I was about to bring the past freshly and
brightly into the very midst of the present, and to make antiquity once
more alive!
As I stood there in the dusk of the narrow pathway, while the joy that
was in my heart swelled it almost to bursting, there came to my ears the
low moaning of one in pain. The faint, uncertain sound seemed to come
from the direction of the great stone altar. To discover myself in that
place to any of the Indians, I knew would end my archæological ambition
very summarily; yet was I moved by a natural desire to aid whoever thus
was hurting and suffering. I stood irresolute a moment, and then, as the
moaning came to me again, I went out boldly into the open space, and
crossed it to where the altar was. As I rounded the great stone I saw a
very grievous sight: an old man lying upon the bare rock, a great gash
in his forehead from which the blood had flowed down over his face and
breast, making him a most ghastly object to look upon; and there was
about him a certain limpness that told of many broken bones. He turned
his head at the sound of my footsteps, but it was plain that the blood
flowing into his eyes had blinded him, and that he could not see me. He
made a feeble motion to clear his eyes, but dropped his partly raised
arm suddenly and with a moan of pain. I recognized him at a glance. He
was the Cacique, the chief, and also, as I had shrewdly guessed, the
priest of the village--the very last person whom I would have desired to
meet in that place.
"Ah, thou art come to me at last, Benito!" he said, speaking in a low
and broken voice. "I have been praying to our gods that they would send
thee to me--for my death has come, and it is needful that the one secret
still hidden from thee, my successor, should be told. I was on the
altar's top, and thence I fell."
I perceived in what the Cacique said that there was hope for me. He
could not see me, and he evidently believed that I was the second chief
of the village, Benito--an Indian who had talked much with me, and the
tones of whose voice I knew well. Doubtless my clumsy attempt to
simulate the Indian's speech would have been detected quickly under
other circumstances, but the Cacique believed that no other man could
have come to him in that place; and his whole body was wrung with
torturing pains, and he was in the very article of death. And so it was,
my prudence leading me to speak few and simple words, and my good-luck
still standing by me, he never guessed whose hands in his last moments
ministered to him.
As I raised his head a little and rested it upon my knee, he spoke
again, very feebly and brokenly: "On my breast is the bag of skin. In
it is the Priest-Captain's token, and the paper that shows the way to
where the stronghold of our race remains. Only with me abides this
secret, for I am of the ancient house, as thou art also, whence sprung
of old our priests and kings. Only when the sign that I have told thee
of--but telling thee not its meaning--comes from heaven, is the token to
be sent, and with it the call for aid. Once, as thou knowest, that sign
came, and the messenger, our own ancestor, departed. But there was anger
then against us among the gods, and they suffered not his message to be
delivered, and he himself was slain. Yet was the token preserved to
us, and yet again the sign from heaven will come. And then--thou
knowest--" But here a shiver of pain went through him, and his speech
gave place to agonizing moans. When he spoke again his words were but a
whisper. "Lay me--in front of--the altar," he said. "Now is the end."
"But the sign? What is it? And where is the stronghold?" I cried
eagerly; forgetting in the intense excitement of this strange disclosure
my need for reticence, and forgetting even to disguise my voice. But my
imprudence cost me nothing. Even as I spoke another shiver went through
the Cacique's body; and as there came from his lips, thereafter forever
to be silent, a sound, half moan, half gasp, his soul went out from him,
and he was at rest.