altar no longer was filled with the black shadows that had obscured it
on the previous afternoon; and even the hole into which Young so nearly
had fallen was plainly visible. Taking advantage of the better light,
the lost-freight agent--who certainly had found a fitting berth in that
department of railway service, for such a man for hunting for things,
and for finding them, I never came across--made a more careful
examination of the deeper portion of the recess, and presently he gave a
shout that told of a discovery.
As we gathered around him he pointed in great excitement to a row of
metal pegs, which were fixed in the rock one above the other,
diagonally; and then to the point in the roof of the recess towards
which these pegs tended. Even with the strong light that now aided us
it was some time before I could make out among the black shadows of the
roof a small opening; but the longer that I looked at it the more
distinct it grew.
"We've struck th' trail once more," Young cried. "We've struck it sure.
It don't look promisin', but here it is--for if this ain't th' King's
symbol carved right by th' first of these pegs, then you're all at
liberty t' kick me right smack over th' top of that idol for a d----n
fool! Hurrah!"
Pablo could not understand what Young was saying, but it was easy to
perceive from his gestures the nature of the happy discovery that he had
made. In a tone in which deference and triumph were curiously blended,
Pablo said to me: "Did I not tell you, señor, that a good thing always
happens when El Sabio brays at the rising sun?"
Before Pablo had ended this short but exultant deliverance, Young was
half-way up to the roof of the cave, treading gingerly upon the metal
bolts and testing each one before he trusted his weight to it. In a
couple of minutes he reached the roof and disappeared through the hole;
and almost instantly he called down to us: "We're solid--here's a
regular staircase. Come along!"
We followed him promptly enough; while our hearts thrilled, and all our
bodies trembled, with the gladness that possessed us as we found this
way opening to us from the valley wherein we had thought that surely we
must die. In a little chamber, cut in the rock above the opening into
which the ladder of bolts led us, Young was waiting for us; and from
this chamber a spiral stair-way ascended that was dimly lighted by
crevices cut from it out to the face of the cliff. With Young leading
us, up this we went; at first rapidly, but, later, slowly and wearily,
for it seemed as though the stair would never end. Yet though our bodies
were heavy our spirits were very light; for we knew by the wearisome
length of it that the stair must lead to the very top of the towering
cliffs by which we had believed ourselves to be irrevocably shut in. And
at last there was a gleaming of light above us; and this grew stronger
and stronger until we came out with a shout of joy into the glad
sunlight--and saw far below us the valley that we once more thought
beautiful, now that it no longer held us fast.
In the depth below us we could discern El Sabio, looking no bigger then
a rabbit; and he must have caught the sound of our shouting with those
long ears of his, for there came up to us faintly from him an answering
bray.
"It's pretty hard lines on that jackass," said Young, "leaving him
behind down there. But he might be left in a worse place, after all."
I could perceive that Pablo was stirred by uneasy thoughts of the
separation that now so clearly must take place between him and his dear
friend; and he looked wistfully along the path across the mountain to
the westward--cut and smoothed so that it was an easy path to go on--and
evidently thought how simple a matter it would be for El Sabio to travel
on with us if only once he were up the stair. But he did not speak, and
I hoped that he was nerving himself to bear manfully this sore trial.
For the rest of us, we had but one thought: to get our packs up the
stair-way as quickly as possible--and at its quickest this work would be
slowly and painfully done--and then once more go forward. Just as we
turned to descend again an eagle came sailing slowly towards
us--evidently without fear of us--and Rayburn was so fortunate as to
bring him down with a pistol-shot. We tossed him over the edge of the
cliff; and a famous breakfast we made on him when we returned into the
valley again. I can't say that I would have much stomach for so dirty a
bird now, but I certainly did think that eagle most delicious eating
then.
The hearty meal that we made on him strengthened us mightily, and we
went to work with a will at getting our traps up the stair. With our
pack-ropes we hauled the various articles first into the little room at
the stair-foot, and then toilsomely carried them to the heights above.
Saving only that this work did not blister my hands, it was worse than
the building of the raft had been; and all of us, using in climbing and
in descending the stair certain muscles which normally are not brought
often into play, found our legs so stiff and sore for the next day or
two that walking gave us very lively pain.
It was as this heavy work went slowly forward that Pablo said to me,
speaking in an insinuating and deprecating tone: "Up a stair such as
this is, señior, the Wise One would bound like a deer."
I did not call in question Pablo's simile, for I knew that the boy's
heart must be very sad. Laying my hand kindly upon his shoulder, I
answered in a way to show that I was truly sorry for him: "The Wise One
will lead a happy life, Pablo, in this beautiful valley--where nothing
can do him harm, and where he will have an abundance of water and of
rich fresh grass. Up the stair no doubt he could climb, for he knows
wonderfully well how to use those dainty little feet of his; but even
the Wise One could not climb up the ladder of metal bolts. Therefore
must thou strengthen thy heart against the bitterness of this parting
from him; for even if thou wouldst stay behind with him it is not
possible--for thou canst not live, like the Wise One, on water and
grass."
"But he is so little and so light an ass, señor," Pablo urged, "that
surely, all of us pulling together, we could pull him up by the ropes,
even as the other things have been pulled up; surely, surely, señor,
that would be an easy thing for four men to do--and I also can pull at
the ropes, señor, almost as well as any man."
It did not seem to me that even all of us pulling together could sway El
Sabio up a hundred feet through the air; but Pablo was so pitiful in his
entreaties, and seemed so resolutely bent upon remaining behind in the
valley and dying there with his dear friend rather than go on without
him, that I opened the matter to Rayburn and joined my plea to Pablo's
that this curious effort should be made. And in addition to the
sentimental reason for taking the ass with us, I pointed out to
Rayburn--as, indeed, he understood without my telling him--how
practically valuable El Sabio was to us in helping us to bear our heavy
loads. Rayburn thought with me that the dead lift of so considerable a
weight to such a height, without tackle of any sort to help us, was
impossible. But Young, who had an inventive strain in his composition,
was of the opinion that he could set up such rough tackle as would
answer our purpose; upon understanding which, Pablo at once embraced El
Sabio and danced for joy.
Young was, I think, the handiest man I ever knew. He had a natural
genius for mechanics; and in the many years of his railroad life he had
gained a knowledge of all manner of expedients by which the work of
complicated machinery could be accomplished by very simple means. "When
you have a freight smash-up right in the middle of the section," he
said, "with nobody to help you inside of forty miles, and the express
due to come bouncing down on you inside of two hours, you've just _got_
to get things out of the way whether you've got anything to do it with
or not. If I had the equipment of a first-class freight-cab here I'd
yank that burro up inside of twenty minutes; and if I don't do it,
anyway, inside of two hours I'll promise to eat him."
I did not translate the whole of this speech to Pablo, for talk even in
fun about eating El Sabio was rather a delicate matter, considering how
close a shave that worthy animal had had to being eaten in dead earnest;
but I did tell him that the Señor Young felt sure that he could swing El
Sabio up through the air to where the stair began. And with Pablo--who
also could use his hands well--most willingly helping, Young contrived
in a surprisingly short time to make a rough windlass, that was
effective enough for the work to be done with it, and to pull it up bit
by bit into the chamber in the rock and there fit it together over the
hole. El Sabio, being brought into the recess behind the idol, regarded
us all with a doubting expression that even Pablo's repeated assurances
that we meant well by him could not change into a look of trustfulness.
Pablo declared, however, that in his heart of hearts the Wise One knew
that we all were his friends, and that even though we should hurt him a
little he would understand that it was for his good. And the conduct of
the ass during the exceedingly bad half-hour that he then went through
seemed fully to bear out Pablo's words. Around his small body, with
stays running forward around his neck and aft to his tail, we rigged
looped ropes--which ropes were gathered together above his back and
there made fast to the line that was pendent from the windlass above.
From time to time, as this operation was going forward, El Sabio turned
his head upon one shoulder or the other and gazed with a wistful
expression at what we were doing to him; and the slow shake that he gave
his head, whereby his great ears were set to wagging mournfully, as he
finished each of these inspections, betrayed the grave wonder that was
within him as to what it all could mean, together with a not unnatural
apprehension of what might be its ultimate outcome.
By a good chance, the effect upon the Wise One of finding the solid
earth drop suddenly from beneath his feet--when at last all was in
readiness, and Young and Rayburn began to hoist away at the
windlass--was to render him quite rigid with terror; and there was a
most agonized look upon his face as he went sailing up through the air.
Pablo, standing below with me, that we might steady the ass with a
guy-rope during his ascent, addressed to him all manner of tender and
comforting words; but for once the Wise One seemed to be insensible to
his master's voice. Neither with his eyes nor his ears did he respond;
and he well enough might have been taken for a dead ass going
heavenward, but for the sharp twitchings of his tail. And when at last
he was safely within the upper chamber, he fairly fell down upon the
rocky floor of it in sheer exhaustion begot of fright. It was not until
we had passed up a bucket of water to him, whereof he drank the very
last drop, and had been soothed by Pablo's fondling of him and by
Pablo's gentle words, that his broken spirit revived. And so limp and
weak was he that it was a long while before we could in conscience urge
him to ascend the stair. When at last he set himself to this
undertaking, he was far from accomplishing it in the bounding and
deer-like manner that Pablo had promised for him; but he certainly did
at last get to the top--which was all that was required of him--and
there drank gratefully the bucketful of water that Pablo had carried up
that great height for his comforting when his toilsome climbing should
end. And Pablo went down into the valley once more that night in order
to bring back to his friend a hearty supper of rich grass.
[Illustration: EL SABIO'S PREDICAMENT]
By the time that all this hard work was accomplished the day was nearly
at an end; and even had there been light for us to see our way by we
were too tired to go on--for every bone and muscle in our bodies was
weary and sore. Therefore we made our camp for the night on the flat
expanse of rock where the stair ended; and we were thankful that enough
of the eagle remained to us for our supper--and, indeed, we made our
breakfast on him also, for he was a prodigiously large bird. Very
different were our feelings as we wrapped ourselves in our blankets and
settled ourselves to sleep on that open mountain-top--with the path
clear before us, and with the cheering hope in our hearts that among the
mountains we should find a plenty of wild creatures suitable for
food--from the dull despairing languor that had possessed us as we sank
to sleep the night before. And with our joy was also a reverent
thankfulness--that was more strongly stimulated by certain words which
Fray Antonio spoke ere we lay down to rest--that our deliverance was
accomplished from that death-stricken valley wherein we ourselves so
surely had expected that we must die.
XIV.
THE HANGING CHAIN.
By the winding way which we followed along the mountain-top (and that
this was the way we wished to follow the King's symbol and the pointing
arrow plainly showed), we came presently close beside the rift in the
cliffs through which the waters of the upper lake had been discharged
upon the city in the valley below and so had buried it. And here we made
a very surprising discovery--which was no less than that the great rift
in the rocks through which the water had been let loose was not, as we
had supposed, the result of some fierce convulsion of nature, but very
plainly was the fiercer work of man. Along the face of the opening
whence the water had poured forth the rock was grooved, showing that
drill-holes had been made, close together, from the edge of the cliff
backward to the lake that once had filled all the valley now lying bare
and empty before us; and with the field-glass we could see that there
was a like channelling of the rock upon the farther side of the break.
And all doubt in our minds in regard to this matter was removed by our
finding a vastly long drill--made of the bright, hard metal that we now
were familiar with, yet could not at all understand its
composition--lying close beside the chasm upon the bare rock.
"There has been the devil's own work here!" said Rayburn, as he fully
took in this extraordinary situation. "Whoever did this must have spent
months over it, perhaps years, working with such tools as these. They
evidently went at it systematically, with the deliberate intention of
drowning the whole crowd down below. From an engineering stand-point I
must say that it's a good piece of work. See how cleverly they've picked
out this particular spot, where the wall of rock went down almost
perpendicularly into the lake, and so got the full value of the thrust
of the water when their cuts were finished. If I'm not mistaken, there
was a third line of drill-holes sunk in the middle of the mass that they
meant to cut loose. That's the way I should have done it: then there
would have been a little giving in the centre that would have helped to
loosen the sides. But what a lot of incarnate devils they must have been
to go at such a job!"
Truly, there was something chilling to the blood in the thought of the
slow labor of them who had toiled here, day after day and month after
month, until their ghastly purpose was accomplished, and they had slain
a whole city without striking a single honest blow. Such vengeance upon
an enemy as here was taken never had its equal for cold, malignant
cruelty since the world began. Down in the valley below we had seen
gleaming beneath the calm surface of the lake the bones of the thousands
who had perished when this diabolical work was completed, and the waters
bounded forth, shining and sparkling in the sunlight, on their mission
of death. And whoever let them loose must have stood just where we now
were standing; and at sight of what came of their long labor there must
have been such joy as no hell could adequately punish in their black
hearts.
Our bodies shuddered as we turned and left the scene of this tremendous
tragedy; that was the more appalling to us because of the profound
mystery in which was buried everything related to it save the fact that
it had been.
For a long distance our way went onward beside the bare, deep valley
that had been the basin of the lake, and so the thought of the horror
which had been wrought so devilishly with its innocent waters lingered
gloomily in our minds. Involuntarily we associated the unknown people of
a long past time who had perpetrated this hideous wholesale murder with
the people for whom we now were searching, and an uncertain dread filled
our souls as to what might be our own fate should we end by finding what
we sought. From the tender mercies of a race in which stealthy craft and
cold, malignant cruelty evidently were such conspicuous characteristics,
little was to be expected. Therefore, it was in a sombre mood, and with
but little talk among us, that we went forward upon our way.
The path that we followed showed the same care in the making of it that
we had found in the path leading down from the cañon into the valley
where the drowned city was. Throughout the length of it, by carrying it
skilfully along the windings of the mountain-sides, an equable, easy
grade was maintained; where it led across open spaces the loose stones
had been cleared away and stood heaped along each side of it; where it
skirted precipices the solid rock had been cut out in order to give a
wider and a surer foothold; and here and there in its course crevices
which traversed it were bridged with great slabs of stone. Rayburn was
lost in admiration of the engineering skill that was shown in its
construction, and declared that a very little extra work put on it would
fit it for the laying of a line of rails.
The valley on our right, in which the lake had been, narrowed as we
advanced; and as the path that we followed had a steadily rising grade
(according to Rayburn's estimate, of a trifle more than three per
cent.), the bottom of it fell away rapidly. As we reached what had been,
as we found, the foot of the lake, we discovered fresh evidence of the
enormous amount of labor that had been expended in order to make its
waters an effective engine of destruction. Far in the depths beneath us,
extending across the whole width of the valley--but here the valley had
so narrowed that it was less a valley than a cañon--we saw a high and
vastly broad stone wall. It was then that we perceived fully the whole
of the devilish design, and realized the years that must have been given
to its execution. By the building of the wall the level of the lake had
been raised fully three hundred feet, and so a head of water had been
obtained strong enough to thrust out the mass of rock that had been
loosened by drilling through its centre and at its sides. It would have
been possible, also, for the rock that was to be broken away to be
greatly thinned by quarrying its open face while the water was rising
slowly after the great dam was built. Clearly, the whole work had been
planned with a calm, diabolical ingenuity that assured with absolute
certainty the accomplishment of the horrible purpose that those who
labored at it had in view. It seemed impossible, but for the proof that
we here had of it, that human hearts could have in them enough of purely
devilish cruelty to spend years in thus working out to perfection so
hideous a vengeance; and to me it seemed all the more dreadful because
of the time that had passed since this most evil deed was done.
Centuries had vanished, and the slayers--living out the few years of
their lifetime--had perished from off the earth as utterly as had the
slain; yet here the whole proof of the great crime that had been wrought
lived on in enduring stone that was like to last until the very end of
the world should come. Thus had these sinners left behind them, raised
by their own hands, a monument telling of their sin; which sin had not
even the redeeming quality of passionateness, but was slow and subtle
and cruelly cold.
We were glad to turn from sight of this place and press onward into the
cañon, for such the valley now had become; and we found in the dark
shadows which enveloped us in this deep cleft between the mountains a
sombreness in keeping with the feelings in our hearts. So high above us
towered the cliffs that at their top they seemed almost to meet, showing
between them only a narrow ribbon of bright blue sky, and below us the
chasm went down sheer for a thousand feet; a gloomy depth that our eyes
could not have penetrated had there not gleamed at the bottom of it the
foam and sparkle of a little stream. Here the path was hewn almost
continuously out of the solid rock; and we could see that a like path
was cut in the rock on the other side. That so prodigious a piece of
work should be thus duplicated seemed to us a very astonishing waste of
energy; for even Young did not have much faith in his own suggestion
that two prehistoric railway companies had secured rights of way along
the opposite sides of the cañon, and had begun the building there of
rival lines.
But the matter was explained, presently, by our finding that this other
path was but a doubling of the path that we were on. As we rounded a
turn in the cañon we came suddenly to a broad natural ledge in the rock,
over which hung a great projection of the cliff so that the sky above
was hid from us. Here our path went off into the air, and began again on
the other side of the vastly deep chasm, a good sixty feet away. "Rather
long for a jump," was Rayburn's curt comment as we pulled up on the edge
of the precipice and looked at each other blankly. Yet it was evident
that those who had made with such great expense of toil and time these
path-ways on the opposite sides of the cañon had crossed in some way
from the one to the other at this point, and the only surmise that
seemed to fit the facts of the case was that there had been stretched
across the chasm a swinging bridge of _lianas_--such as still are to be
found spanning streams in the hot lands of Mexico--and that in the
course of ages this had rotted entirely away. But as this bridge, if
ever there had been one here, was absolutely gone, we found ourselves in
as shrewdly strait a place as men well could be in. To go ahead was as
clearly impossible as was the hopelessness of turning back upon our
path. At the most, we could only return to the valley out of which we
had climbed with such thankfulness; and rather than go back to die of
starvation in that place, so beautiful and so desolate, there was not
one of us but would have chosen to end all quickly by springing into
the gulf above which we stood.
But while we thus stood in dreary contemplation of the miserable
prospect before us, Young, as his habit was, was spying about him
sharply, and so spied out a way of deliverance for us. The announcement
of his discovery was made in a very characteristic way.
"You set up to be some punkins of an engineer, now don't you?" he said,
addressing Rayburn. "But did you ever happen to hear of a bridge that
was hung up at one end an' that was operated by swingin' it backward an'
forward like a pendulum?"
"No," Rayburn answered, promptly and decisively, "I never did."
"So I thought," Young went on. "Well, you've admitted that in sev'ral
things th' man who was in charge of construction on this line could have
given you points, an' this swingin' bridge notion is one of 'em. I can't
say that I think much of it. It wouldn't do in railroads, for sure; but
there is a good deal to be said in favor of it when it helps folks out
of such a hole as we're in now--an' if it still is in workin' order,
that is just what it's going to do. There it is. Do you catch on?"
We all looked in the direction in which Young pointed, for his gesture
was so earnest that even Fray Antonio and Pablo caught the meaning of
it, and so saw--pendent from a point far up on the overhang of rock, and
but indistinctly showing in the shadow--a great chain that at its lower
end was caught in a metal hook set in the face of the cliff at the
extreme back of the ledge on which we stood. For my part, I did not at
once catch the meaning of Young's words even when I saw the chain, but
Rayburn understood it all in a moment.
"By Jove!" he exclaimed, "that _is_ a notion! You grab the end of it and
just swing across to the other side!"