than I did; for I was deeply interested in the argument in which we were
engaged, and wished to continue it. But when I explained what Young
wanted, he turned to him at once, and very tenderly as well as very
skilfully dressed his wound; and then bandaged the gash in Rayburn's
forehead, and the cut in Pablo's cheek. Pablo decidedly objected to this
bandaging, for it put a peremptory stop for a while to his playing on
his mouth-organ. For me no surgery was required. Fray Antonio carefully
felt my shoulder while he moved my arm--thereby hurting me most
horribly--and as the result of his investigations he assured me that the
bones were neither broken nor out of place.
Rayburn also examined the maccuahuitl with much interest. "Of course it
is not brass," he said, "and of course it cannot possibly be
phosphor-bronze. But, if such a thing were a metallurgical possibility,
I should say that it was gold--treated in some manner that gives it as
great a hardness as bronze receives when treated with phosphorus, but
with some chemical change wrought in its constitution that gives it also
the tempered quality of steel. Nothing but gold, you see," he added,
"could lie around out-of-doors this way and not get tarnished by
oxidization."
"What's the reason that it's not some queer thing belonging to the folks
we're looking for?" Young asked; and his question expressed a thought
that already had found a lodging in my own mind. For such good-luck as
this would be I was quite willing to concede that Fray Antonio was right
in his unpleasantly positive views in regard to the shape of the Aztec
swords. And what Young said also put me sharply in mind of the graving
on the rock of the King's symbol, that we had found only in the same
moment to lose it again. To this matter I now adverted; and I said some
very unpleasant things about the Indians who had prevented us from
following the trail, that we had sought for so laboriously, when we did
find it at last--and who still, for we doubted not that the main body
was in wait for us lower down the valley, prevented us from returning to
the spot where we had seen the sign and thence systematically continuing
our search.
"If I was you, Professor," said Young as I ceased speaking, "I wouldn't
be so everlastin'ly down on these poor devils of Indians for what
they've done. They killed Dennis, an' that's a pretty bad business; an'
they got away with our two _mozos_, too; an' they've pretty well
battered th' rest of us. But I take it that we've about evened things up
by killin' eighteen of 'em--or six of their crowd dead for each one dead
in ours. I guess we can call that part of th' business about square. But
what I'm gettin' at is, if it hadn't been for the Indians we'd never
have come up this valley; an' so we'd never have struck th' King's
symbol trail at all."
"But what good did it do us to find it, when we could not follow it?" I
asked. "We cannot go back to examine the sign without risking our lives;
and unless we do examine it we cannot know where the next one is, and so
the trail is lost."
"I've just been waitin'," said Young, "t' see if I was th' only man in
this party that God-a-mighty'd given a pair of eyes to. I guess I am.
Suppose you just get up, Professor, an' turn around, an' take a look at
that place where there's a brown mark on th' side of th' rock; an'
suppose th' rest of you look there too. If that isn't th' King's symbol,
just as plain as th' noses in all your faces, I'll eat every dead Indian
in this cañon."
And Young spoke the truth. Just above the cleft whence Pablo had taken
the sword, graven so deeply in the rock that after all the weathering of
centuries it still remained distinct and clear, was identically the same
figure that Fray Francisco in the far past time had represented in his
letter, and that was repeated also on the far more ancient piece of
gold. Above it was cut an arrow that pointed directly up the cañon.
It was a good thing that something came to cheer us just then; for what
with the death of Dennis and of our two poor Indians, and our own hurts,
and the melancholy feeling that must oppress men always--save those of
cruel and hardened natures--when a fight is ended in which they have
spilled freely human blood, we all were oppressed sensibly by a
consuming sadness.
But here was cheer indeed. Not only had we surely found the trail at
last, but we found it leading in precisely the direction that at that
moment we desired to go. For us to return down the valley to the open
country, we knew was full of most signal danger; for the Indians who so
unaccountably had declined to take part in attacking us assuredly were
lying in wait for us by the way. Our only chance to escape them was to
strike into the mountains; and the sign that we now had gave promise
that we should find some sort of a path along which we might go.
Therefore it was with good heart that we set about getting as far into
the depths of the cañon as possible before night should be wholly upon
us; trusting, in regard to possible pursuit, somewhat to the
superstition of the Indians which so unaccountably yet so obviously had
been aroused, and also to the wholesome dread that they must have of us
upon finding that every one of their companions had been slain. The
bodies of our poor Otomís we placed in a deep fissure in the rock, and
there heaped stones upon them, while Fray Antonio said over them the
briefer office; but the body of Dennis we carried with us, that we might
give him a more tender and reverent burial in gratitude for his brave
struggle to save our lives when he knew that his own life was lost. As
for the eighteen dead Indians--who had invited the death that so
promptly had come to them--we did not bother ourselves about them at
all. We left them to the coyotes.
IX.
THE CAVE OF THE DEAD.
Very dismal was our procession of faintly seen figures moving cautiously
through that wild solitude. At its head went Rayburn, leading his horse,
on which was Dennis's dead body; all of us, being bruised and cut and
bleeding, walked slowly and painfully; and behind us, ghastly forms torn
by bullets and crushed by blows, lay the slain Indians in all manner of
unnatural attitudes, made yet more hideous and fantastical by the
gathering gloom of night. Indeed, night now was so close upon us that
had not the cañon in which we were run east and west, we would have been
for some time past in darkness. As it was, though shut off from the west
by the great range of mountains, a faint light came down into its depths
from the still bright eastern sky, where lingered ruddy reflections of
the sunset: and so we could see to pick our way, along the edge of the
little stream, among the rough masses of rock and trunks of trees which
had fallen from above.
Our march ended sooner than we had counted on. Before we had
accomplished more than half a mile of this rough travelling, there
loomed before us a wall of rock which shut in the end of the cañon, and
which rose as high and as sheer as did the cañon's sides. Our hearts
sank within us, for we perceived that we were in a cul-de-sac; whence
escape was possible only along the way by which we had come--and so to
return, with the Indians still in wait for us, was to walk straight into
the jaws of death. And, further, if our course in this direction was cut
off, it was evident that the King's symbol graved upon the rock at the
entrance of the cañon was a useless and misleading sign.
In the hope that we might find a sharp turn, not to be perceived until
we were close upon it, we pressed on through the dusk until we came to
the very end of the cañon, and the dark wall of rock that barred our way
rose directly above our heads. And then we found, not a turn in the
cañon, but a narrow opening (through which came forth the little stream)
into the body of the mountain itself. Yet we hesitated about entering
this black gap--for who could tell what depths, unseen in that dense
darkness, we might not plunge into headlong?
Much dry pine wood, branches and whole trees, lay about us in the cañon;
and of this apt material Rayburn presently constructed a great torch.
Lighting this in the open cañon was not to be thought of, for while we
felt tolerably certain that the main body of our enemies had not
followed us, we could not be wholly certain that they were not close
upon our heels and ready to open upon us with a volley of arrows and
spears. Rayburn therefore struck a wax-match--with which excellent
article of Mexican manufacture we were supplied plentifully--and with
this to light his way, entered the narrow pass; and in his wake the rest
of us followed. Almost in a moment the walls on each side of us spread
out beyond the reach of the narrow circle of light, and we perceived
that we were come into a cave. But before we could at all discern our
surroundings the match was blown out by a sudden suck of wind setting in
from the entrance, and we were in thick darkness. The air around us was
so sweet and so fresh that we knew that the cave must be large, and with
more than one opening--as, indeed, the suck of wind inward through the
passage by which we entered clearly showed. While Rayburn struck another
match, wherewith to light the torch, we all stood still in our places;
and certain tremors went through our breasts because of the eeriness of
our surroundings.
[Illustration: THE CAVE OF THE DEAD]
When the great torch blazed up, and threw everywhere save towards the
high roof a flood of light, a real and rational fear took possession of
us. The cave was nearly circular, and at its back, directly facing the
entrance, was a roughly hewn mass of stone on which rested a huge stone
figure--identical with the figures in the Mexican National Museum to
which Le Plongeon, the discoverer of one of them, at Chichen-Itza, has
given the name of Chac-Mool. But what filled us with dread was not this
impassive stone image. Our alarm came from a much more natural cause,
as we beheld, squatted on their haunches in long semicircular rows,
facing the great stone idol, more than a hundred Indians. Truly,
considering that our rifles were outside the cave and that we had with
us only our revolvers, our momentary thrill of terror was highly
natural.
Yet it was only momentary. The Indians, undisturbed by our presence and
by the sudden blaze of light, remained unmoved in silent worship of
their god; and Rayburn, the first of us to recover equanimity, set all
our fears to flight as he exclaimed: "These are not the fighting kind.
Every man Jack of 'em is as dead as Julius Cæsar. We've struck an Indian
bone-yard."
Here, then, was the reason why a part of the force that had attacked us
had drawn off when we made our stand at the mouth of the cañon that led
to this home of the dead. Yet when, by the light of the torch, we
examined our silent fellow-tenants of the cave, it did not seem that
they had been placed there in recent times. Indeed, the more that Fray
Antonio and I looked closely at their wrappings and noted the way in
which their mummied forms had been ranged before this idol--that
certainly belonged to a primitive time--the more were we inclined to
believe that this weird sepulchre belonged to the very far back past.
But for the moment it mattered not to us whence these dead forms came:
the essential matter was that while we remained in the cave with them we
were in absolute safety.
"Well," said Young, when we had reached this comforting conclusion,
"since it's a sure thing that we're all right here, I move that we make
ourselves comfortable. Let's bring in th' stock, an' get th' packs off;
an' then we'll build a fire an' eat another supper. Fightin' Indians is
hungry work, an' I feel as if I hadn't had anything to eat for a
week"--which suggestions were so reasonable that we at once proceeded to
act upon them.
It was hard work for us, wounded and sore and tired as we were, to
unfasten the pack-cords; and still harder work to collect the wood for
our fire. But we managed to accomplish it all at last; and most
comforting and refreshing was our supper amid those extraordinary
surroundings. There was even cheerfulness about our meal--and yet over
in the shadows at the back of the cave, touched now and then by a
brighter flash of firelight, lay before the heathen altar of old the
body of our poor Dennis; and close beside us were the long rows of dead
Indians. I sometimes have thought that it was strange that we then had
any heart to eat at all, surrounded by so desolate a company. But there
is that about killing one's fellow-creatures, and being in imminent
peril of being killed one's self, I have found, that blunts for a while
the souls of those who survive and makes them careless of death's awful
mystery. As the fire crackled and blazed, giving out a plentiful warmth
that in that chill place was most grateful to our aching bodies, our
spirits seemed to brighten with its brightness; and when the rich smell
of strong coffee mingled with the smell of stewing meats told that
Young's cooking was nearly ended, we sniffed hungrily and eagerly; and
when we actually fell to upon our meal I remember that we even laughed
over it.
Yet it is but just to Fray Antonio to say that his fine spirit did not
fall to the level of grossness that ours were brought to by what, as it
seems to me, was an instinctive gladness on the part of our fleshly
bodies that, for a while longer, they would not return to the dust
whereof they were made. Through our meal he sat gravely silent, yet with
so sweet and so tender an expression upon his gentle face that in his
silence there was no suggestion of reproof. And when our meal was ended,
and we were for stretching out upon our blankets before the fire and
smoking our pipes comfortably, he reminded us, with no touch of
harshness in his voice, that a last duty was claimed of us by our dead
companion.
And, truly, the funeral ceremonies over Dennis in that strange place of
burial made the most curious ending of a man that ever I saw. In the
fine dry sand wherewith the cave was bedded, directly in front of the
altar on which was the heathen idol, we dug his grave--toilsomely and
with pain, for all of our bodies were hurt and sore. While we labored,
two great torches flared upon the altar, propped against the idol; and
long, flickering rays of light shot out to us across the mummied bodies
of the dead Indians--striking across their gleaming teeth, so that they
seemed to smile at us--from the huge blaze of the fire.
From our stores Fray Antonio took out a little salt, and from the clear
spring that bubbled up within the cave a cup of water, which elements
he blessed and mingled as the rites of his Church prescribed; and with
the water thus consecrated he sprinkled the body lying before the
heathen altar, while his strong, sweet voice chanted the _De Profundis_
so that all the cave rang with the rich melody of the holy strain, and
our own breasts were thrilled by it. Gently we bore the body of poor
Dennis from its resting-place before the altar to its last resting-place
in the grave that we had dug there, while Fray Antonio said the
_Miserere_; and as with our pack-ropes we lowered the body into the
earth, the priest sang the _Benedictus_, with its promise of a better
life to come; and then a prayer ended all, and we filled in the grave.
"I'm Congregational, myself," Young said, when our work was finished;
"at least I was brought up that way; an' I'm down on th' Scarlet Woman
from first t' last. But I go in for lettin' folks believe what they've
got a mind to; an' when it comes t' buryin' 'em it's only square t'
give 'em th' sort of send-off that they'd really like. For a Catholic, I
guess Dennis was a pretty good one; an' I must say I think it would 'a'
done him good to see th' way we've given him a first-class funeral, just
in th' shape he'd 'a' fixed things up for himself. But I guess what
we've been at would have everlastin'ly shook up these dead fellows here,
if they could have come t' life for about five minutes while it was
goin' on!"
There was an element of grim humor in this suggestion of Young's that
tickled my fancy; and it was, indeed, allowing for the quaintness of his
phrasing of it, but an expression of my own thoughts. But my reflection
was upon the curious incongruity of it all, and upon the way in which
religious faiths supplant each other; even as the different races of men
who formulate them and believe in them supplant each other upon the face
of the earth. Together in this same cave were now the dead of two faiths
and two races. Who could tell what dead of other faiths and races yet
unborn would lie here also before the end of time should come?
When all was ended we were glad enough to lie down to give our battered
bodies rest in sleep. We felt sure that no attack would be made upon us;
yet we rolled some fragments of rock into the narrow entrance to the
cave, arranging them in such a way that they would fall with a crash
should any attempt be made to move them from outside. And, this
precaution having been taken, we lay down upon our blankets thankfully,
and never troubled ourselves to keep any watch at all.
It was brilliantly light when we awoke, for the rays of the just-risen
sun were striking strongly into the cave through its entrance-way; and
much light came also through a crevice higher up, and through a great
hole in the vastly high roof. Viewed in this clearer light, there was a
horrible ghastliness about the mummies ranged in their orderly rows, and
presided over by the coarsely carved, coarsely conceived stone figure
that in life they had worshipped as their god. On this image the
sunshine fell full, and we perceived that its position evidently had
been chosen carefully, so that the very first ray of light from the
rising sun would strike upon it. No doubt, in ancient times, this cave
had been a temple as well as a place of sepulchre.
We were well rested by our long and sound sleep; but the pain which was
everywhere in our bodies, from our many bruises, and from our wounds,
and from the aching stiffness of our muscles, made life for a time
almost intolerable. Moreover, the languorous reaction following the
undue exaltation that came of our battling and escape was upon us; so
that our pain of body was accompanied by a most sombre and melancholy
cast of mind. Yet, again, did the more balanced and delicate temperament
of Fray Antonio shine out by contrast with our coarser make; for while
he also suffered pains of the body, his mind was filled with a serene
cheerfulness that found expression in kindly, comforting words, by which
our flagging spirits were strengthened and upheld. There was in Fray
Antonio's nature, surely, a fund of gentle lovingness the like of which
I never knew in any other man.
And, in truth, our plight was such that we stood in much need of
comforting. Not only were we sick with our many hurts, but we were also
prisoners. By the full light of day we examined carefully the cave, and
found no outlet to it; and we examined carefully, also, the walls of the
cañon throughout its full length, and made sure that there was no path
leading upward whereby a man could go. And escape down the valley was
cut off, for the Indians--who knew, no doubt, the manner of place we
were caught in--were on guard and watching for us; which fact came
sharply to our knowledge with a half-dozen arrows that dropped among us
as we went out a little way beyond the mouth of the cañon to see if the
way was open to us. Had we been whole, we might have made a dash and
fought our way through; but even this poor plan was not possible when
our bodies were stiff and sore. Our one comforting thought was that, as
we had an abundance of provisions and an ample supply of water, we could
hold out for so long a time that the Indians at last would get tired of
waiting for us. If they ventured to attack us in the cave, we knew that
we could defend ourselves against any number of them successfully. If
they simply abandoned the siege, then we would be free without fighting
at all. But it was dismal work waiting in that dismal place for one or
the other of these two ends to come.
And the fact that the King's symbol had proved a false guide also was a
source of deep concern to us. By the full strength of daylight we again
examined the graving at the entrance to the cañon, and there was no
mistaking the way in which the arrow pointed. And, what was even more
perplexing and disheartening, we found the graving repeated at the
entrance to the cave, and the arrow pointing directly towards the statue
of Chac-Mool. It was impossible that this cave, with mummies only for
inhabitants, could be the walled city wherein the reserve force of men
and treasure had been hid; and yet here, obviously, was the end of the
trail. Of this we convinced ourselves by searching the cave exhaustively
for another outlet--even sounding the walls in the hope that we might
find a passage that had been artificially concealed. As Rayburn tersely
put it, we were no better than so many rats in a trap with terriers
waiting for us outside.
X.
THE SWINGING STATUE.
Four more days went by very wearily. Our wounds were healing--for we all
were in good condition as the result of our vigorous life in the open
air--but they still kept us in constant pain, and so tended to increase
our melancholy. Out in the valley, beyond the mouth of the cañon, the
Indians maintained their watchful guard. Rayburn tried the experiment of
holding a hat and coat out on a pole, standing himself under cover of
the rock, and in an instant a pair of arrows went through the dummy; and
as one of these came from the right and the other from the left, it was
evident that in both directions the valley was picketed.
We were safe enough for the time being, of course. Even should the
Indians overcome their superstitious dread and enter the cañon--which
was not probable, for they had not even ventured to remove their
dead--they could not possibly make a successful attack upon us in the
cave. Behind the breastwork that we had built in the narrow entrance,
and armed with our repeating rifles and revolvers, we were absolutely
secure.
"It's not a bad thing that we're safe," said Young, "an' that we've got
plenty of grub an' water, an' even lots of firewood; if we've got t' be
shut up here we might as well be comfortable. But what I want is a
through ticket for home. This treasure business has gone back on us th'
worst kind. That old Fray Francisco had his eye shut up by th' tall talk
of th' fellow who pretended to be converted; and th' Cacique just
promiscuously lied. That's about the size of it. An' for bein' fools
enough to swallow their stuff, here we are, as Rayburn says, like rats
in a cage."
There was so much probability in what Young said that I did not attempt
to argue with him; yet was I convinced that in what Fray Francisco had
written, and still more in what the dying Cacique had said to me, there
was a substantial element of truth.
Finding that nobody replied to him, for all of us were sore at heart and
so disposed to silence, Young turned to the statue of Chac-Mool and
proceeded to abuse it vigorously, on the ground that it was an
idolatrous product of the Aztec race that was at the root of all our
troubles. For, as he truly said, had there been no Aztecs to begin with,
our departure on a wild-goose chase after an Aztec treasure-house would
have been an impossibility. His attention having been thus fixed upon
the idol, his habit of investigation got the better of his ill-will
towards it, and he mounted the altar to examine it more
closely--continuing the while to address it in language that was
eminently unparliamentary.
"A pretty-looking sort a specimen _you_ are!" he said, in a tone of
vast contempt. "But you're about what I'd expect folks like that friend
of th' Professor's, th' Cacique, t' worship. It takes a low sort of a
heathen, even in his blindness, t' bow down to a stone like you--with
your twisted head, an' your stubby legs, an' your little fryin'-pan over
your stomach. Why, where I come from they wouldn't have you even for a
stone settee in a park. No, you're not fit even t' sit on--unless,
maybe, it's on th' flat top of your crooked head;" and by way of testing
this possibility, Young seated himself on the head of Chac-Mool.
And then a very extraordinary thing happened. The idol, and the great
slab of stone on which it rested and of which it was a part, slowly
moved; the head sinking, and the other end of the slab, on which the
legs were carved, rising in the air! Young sprang up with a cry as he
felt the stone sinking beneath him; and the figure, relieved of his
weight, settled back into its former position with a slight jar. In a
moment that the slab was in the air there had come from under it a gleam
of light.