strength by putting his weight on it. At the end of it was a crossbar
big enough to get a good grip upon; and this, and the chain itself, were
wrought of the bright, hard metal of which we had encountered so many
specimens. The upper end was made fast high above us in the out-jut of
rock, very nearly over the centre of the cañon; so that no great force
was required to carry whoever grasped the crossbar, and so swung out
boldly, clear across the chasm to the ledge on the other side. But I
confess that the thought of such a passage made me feel a little dizzy
and sick; and never did I long to be safely back in my class-room at Ann
Arbor as I did just then!
"It seems t' be all right," said Young, "but I guess you may as well
take a pull on it with me, Rayburn. There'd be no fun in havin' it fetch
away when a man was about half across, an' we may as well make th' thing
sure." And then, as the chain still held firm under the double strain,
he added, "Well, here goes;" and, so speaking, took a running start and
went swinging out over the abyss.
My heart was in my mouth as he leaped forth and shot out from and far
below us; but in a moment he rose along the curve that he was traversing
and was safely landed on the other side. "It's a boss invention.
Workin' it is just as easy as rollin' off a log," he called across to
us; and to show how easily the passage was made, he instantly swung
himself back again.
Pablo had manifested signs of strong uneasiness while this talk and
action were in progress, and in a very anxious tone he now inquired:
"But how will it be with the Wise One, señor?"
"Why, gettin' _him_ across will be as easy as open an' shut," Young
answered, speaking in English to Rayburn and to me. "We'll just rig him
in th' rope slings again, an' make him fast to th' chain, an' give him a
good boost to start him, and over he'll go before he fairly knows he's
started."
But when we came to apply this brisk statement of the case practically,
we found it by no means easy of execution. El Sabio grew restive as we
arranged the slings of rope about his body, evidently remembering,
fearfully, the strange journey that he had made in the air when we had
rigged him in a like manner in order to trice him up to where the stair
began; and he grew yet more restive as we fastened the rope slings to
the end of the chain. Rayburn had crossed to the other side--passing the
chain back by weighting it with a rock--and stood ready to receive El
Sabio when he was swung across. But partly owing to a want of skill in
our management of him, yet more to his own unruliness--for just as we
started him, with a strong push, he clapped down his fore-feet upon the
edge of the cliff and so checked his swing outward--he did not swing
within reach of Rayburn's hands. And so he came back towards us again,
and then out once more towards Rayburn; and so swung slowly and yet more
slowly until at last he hung motionless over the very middle of the
gulf, with nothing between him and the rocks below but a thousand feet
of air. And then El Sabio began to kick with a vigor that set to
rattling every link in the chain!
Pablo was cast by this mischance into a veritable frenzy of fright; and
we were most seriously frightened also--not only because the destruction
of the poor ass was imminent, but because of the danger which menaced
ourselves. Our party was divided, and should the chain give way, under
stress of El Sabio's kicks and plunges, all possibility of our coming
together again was at an end. Rayburn might leave us and go on; and so,
perhaps, save his own life. But for the rest of us there would be no
hope. Behind us was death by starvation. In front of us was this
impassable gulf.
From Pablo, who was quite wild with dreadful anticipations of the
parting of the chain and the loss to him forever of his friend, least
was to be expected in the strait wherein we were; yet it was from Pablo
that our rescue came. With a quick apprehension of the needs of the
case, he rove a running-knot in the end of one of the pack-ropes, and
with a dexterous cast of this improvised lasso set the loop of it about
El Sabio's neck as that unfortunate animal for a moment ceased his
strugglings and hung still. And then we all strained on the rope
together, and in a minute had El Sabio safely with us again; but in such
a state of terror that pity for him wrung our hearts.
But the limpness which the reaction from such deadly fear threw him into
made handling him easy; and this time, when we launched him forth
(taking the precaution, however, to fasten one end of a rope to the
chain), he went sailing across the full width of the chasm, and Rayburn
in a moment had him landed in safety. The instant that the chain was
loosened Pablo hauled it back, and an instant later swung lightly across
the cañon, and straightway fell to fondling the terrified creature and
comforting him with all manner of tender words. And he so piteously
besought us to give El Sabio one good drink that we passed the water-keg
and the bucket across, and permitted the poor ass to drink half of our
stock of water without debate of the sacrifice. Indeed, this refreshment
was so necessary to him that without it I doubt if he could have gone
on.
While El Sabio thus gathered courage and strength again, Young swung
over to the other side, and we passed our stores across from ledge to
ledge--having ropes made fast to the chain, and so steadying each load
from the one side while we hauled from the other. This was easy work,
and we quickly finished it. When it was ended I braced myself for the
flying journey through the air across that gulf so deep that the bottom
of it was lost in black shadows, through which the sparkling water
faintly gleamed; and my heart so throbbed within me as I took the bar in
my hands, with the knowledge that should I lose hold of it death waited
for me below in those dark shadows, that my breath came irregularly and
I heard a dismal ringing in my ears. Yet I had less to fear than either
of the others who had crossed before me, for the ropes still were fast
to the chain; and should I not swing far enough I would be helped to
safety by my companions. But for shame, I should have made my body fast
to the chain by a rope sling, and so have gone across as our stores had
gone rather than as a man. But my pride forbade my surrender in this
fashion to my fears; and it was a lucky thing for me that it did.
Holding the bar in my hands, I ran briskly across the ledge, and, with a
strong kick on the edge of the cliff to give me additional impetus, I
went spinning out into space. For an age, as it seemed to me, I sank
rapidly; while that horrible feeling possessed me--the like of which
people subject to sea-sickness feel as the ship drops away beneath them
into the trough of the sea--of falling away from my own stomach. And
then, just as my strength seemed to be failing, and my hold on the bar
loosing, I perceived that I was rising again; and this put a little
fresh heart in me, and I tightened my grip on the bar. Ten seconds, no
doubt, was the full extent of the time that my passage consumed; but it
seemed to me then, and it seems to me still as I think of it, a long ten
years. And a thrill of terror goes through me as I think also of how
near I then came to a horrible death; for at the very moment that I
reached the farther side of the cañon there was a little tinkling sound
in the air above me, and the bar that I held was twitched out of my
hands, and then came a loud jingling of metal on rock, and as I turned
quickly I saw a gleam of sunlight catch the great chain as it went
twisting downward into the black gulf below.
XV.
THE TEMPLE IN THE CLOUDS.
Doubtless the violent strain to which the chain had been subjected by El
Sabio's kicking and plunging had loosened the fastenings, centuries old,
which held it to the rock; for the chain had not broken, but had come
away entire. I sank down on the rock as weak with terror as the poor ass
had been; and like him I drank greedily of water, and panted for a
while, and at last found my courage coming back to me.
Yet my case was a happy one compared with that of Fray Antonio.
Howsoever narrow my escape had been, the fact remained that I had come
out from my encounter with Death safe and unharmed; but on Fray
Antonio's shoulder we could but dread that Death already had laid his
hand. And that he knew how close to him Death was standing we could see
by a certain elate and confident air of courage in his bearing, and by
the wonderful tenderness and sweetness of his smile. Truly, never did I
know a man so ready at all times as this man was to lay down the life
that God had given him; holding it but as a trust that might at any
moment be called back to the source whence it came. Yet because it was a
trust, meant to be put to useful purposes, Fray Antonio valued his life
and cared for it. And at this time it was he himself who devised a plan
by which it might be saved.
The ropes which were fastened to the chain, being held stoutly on the
one side by Fray Antonio and on the other by Young, fortunately had
broken as the great weight of the chain suddenly had come upon them, and
had broken so close to the knots which held them that nearly the whole
of their length remained. The plan that the monk now devised for coming
across to us--and a bold heart was required even to think of this daring
enterprise--was that with the two ropes fastened about his body at one
end, and held by all of us at the other, he should swing down into the
chasm and far under the promontory of rock on which we stood, and then
that we should haul him up to us. The great difficulty in the way of
executing this plan was in getting the line across between us; its great
danger lay in the probability--notwithstanding the depth of the recess
beneath us--that he would be dashed against the rocks with such force as
to kill him outright.
But Young, who usually was ready for any emergency that might arise,
roused out a ball of twine that was a part of our stores, and one end of
this he made fast to a fragment of rock, and by a strong heave of it
landed it safe on the other side; whereafter the rigging of the double
rope across was an easy matter.
Very carefully, testing the knots as he made them, Fray Antonio fastened
the double line about his body, beneath his shoulders, and so stood
ready on the edge of the chasm; while we four stood holding the line,
with all our muscles braced for the strain that would come upon it as
he swung downward. For a moment he paused, with his face turned upward
while his lips moved. Then he waved his hand, and smiled as he called
across to us, "It is as God wills!" and so dropped away from the ledge,
and like a flash went down beyond our range of sight.
We felt the jar on the ropes as his body struck against the face of the
cliff far below us, and the reflex action as he swung out again, and
thereafter the slower motion of the ropes as he swayed back and forth
dangling over that black and awful chasm. And as the ropes settled into
steadiness we drew him up towards us; yet dreaded, because of the dull
weight of it, and because no assuring cry came up to us, that what we
lifted was a corpse.
And, in truth, as we raised the body of Fray Antonio over the edge of
the cliff it seemed as though this dread were realized; for a great
bloody gash was upon his temple, and his limbs were limp and lifeless,
and his face was deathly pale. At sight of which there came into my
heart a bursting pain, as though some one had stabbed me there; and
there were tears in Young's eyes; and Rayburn gave vent to his sorrow in
a great curse that was half a groan. As for Pablo, whom no danger could
daunt, and who would bear without flinching any hurt of his own, this
dreadful sight so moved him that he fainted dead away.
Yet even in the moment that such deep sorrow seemed to be settling down
upon us, Fray Antonio slightly moved his lips, and there came forth from
them a low faint sigh--whereupon Young jumped up with a shout and
relieved his mind by administering to Pablo a hearty kick, which he
accompanied with the remark: "You infernal fool of a Greaser Indian,
what do you mean by swoundin'? He ain't dead at all!"
As tenderly as I could for the trembling of my hands, I washed away the
blood from about the cut and bathed Fray Antonio's pale face, while
Rayburn gave him a sup of whiskey from his flask. And then, presently,
his eyes opened and energy came into his body once more. In a little
while he was on his feet again, and as well as ever, save for the
smarting of his cut, and in his head a dizziness and a dull throbbing
pain. Just what had happened he could not tell. He knew that he had
struck against the rock with his feet, as he had planned to do; but he
must have swung around, when the force of the impact had been thus
partly broken, and struck his head against some sharp projection, and so
have been cut and stunned. But it made no great difference how his hurt
had come to him, since it had not proved to be a deadly one; therefore
we forbore to question him further concerning it, and sought by quiet
talk, that led softly into silence, to take his thoughts away from the
peril that he had been in. Indeed, we all were glad to rest quietly
where we were for the night, for our bodies were tired and our nerves
were racked and strained.
We should have been most thankful for a big potful of coffee, but there
was no wood with which we could make a fire. The best that we could do,
and there was not much comfort in it, was to chew some coffee grains
after we had made a supper upon one of our few remaining tins of meat;
and then we rolled ourselves in our blankets and lay down upon the bare
rock. And I must say that if anybody had asked me at that moment if
archæology was a study that paid for the trouble that it cost, I should
have said most unhesitatingly that it was not.
Even sleep, which I greatly needed, and for which I earnestly longed,
did not come to me easily; for each time that I seemed to be dropping
gently away into unconsciousness I would be roused by the feeling that I
was holding fast to the chain again, and so was sliding down the long
curve among the shadows, with the great walls of the cañon towering
infinitely above me, and with the black depth below. And in my sleep I
made again the dreadful passage, and heard the clinking of the chain as
it parted, and the rattle of it as it struck the rocks, and felt the
grasp of Rayburn as he caught me, just as the bar was twitched out of my
hands--and so woke to find Young shaking me, and to hear him say:
"There's no earthly sense in your kickin' around that way, Professor;
an', anyhow, it's time t' get up. It's just a wonder how these Mexican
mornin's put life into a man. Why, there's a freshness in th' air that's
goin' t' waste in this cañon that's fit t' make a coffin stand right up
on end an' dance a jig!"
Even Fray Antonio, but for the soreness of his hurt, felt strong and
well; and we ate another tin of meat--which was much less than we
wanted to eat--and so started along the path hewn out of the side of the
cliff; and what with the brightness and joyfulness of the morning, we
certainly were in much higher spirits than was at all reasonable in the
case of men who had had such close companionship with Death so short a
time before, and who still stood a very fair chance of dying dismally of
starvation. The knowledge that, by the falling of the chain, our retreat
had been again cut off did not at all trouble us. Even could we have
crossed the cañon, and so have retraced our steps, we could have gone no
farther than the valley of the lake; and we could as well die here as
there. And we were stayed by the reasonable conviction that the path
which we were travelling upon certainly would lead us out of the
mountains at last--even if it did not lead us to the hidden city that we
sought.
For five or six miles we doubled on our course of the day before, going
back along the cañon and seeing the path that we had followed a little
below us on the other side; then, by a very easy grade, our course began
to ascend, and went on rising until the other path was so far below us
that it ceased to be distinguishable. Thus we came to within a few
hundred feet of the top of the cliffs, when a sudden turn to the left
carried us into a narrow cleft in the rock. Here the path was very
sharply inclined upward for a little way; and for the remainder of the
distance to the top we ascended a long series of rudely cut steps, so
steep that our legs fairly cracked under us as we neared the end of
them.
But we forgot our weariness as we came out upon the summit at last, and
a great view of clouds and mountain peaks burst upon us; the like of
which I never have seen approached save by the view out over the
Gunnison country from the crest of the Marshall Pass. But here we saw
all around us what there is seen only in one direction; for we were on a
vastly high, square crest--very like that called the Gigante, which the
traveller by the Mexican Central Railroad sees to the left as he nears
Silao--and clouds and mountain peaks rose up about us on every side.
But we did not long contemplate this heroic landscape, for a cloud,
which almost enveloped us as we finished our ascent of the stair, was
swept still farther away by the brisk wind then blowing; so that
suddenly a vast building loomed largely through the flying vapor, and in
a moment was clear and distinct before our eyes. To find upon this bare
mountain-top, among cloud solitudes so profound as these, such
overpowering evidence of the labor and strength of man, sent thrilling
through our breasts a wonder that was akin to awe. It seemed unreal,
impossible, that in such a place such work could be accomplished; and
the very tangible reality of it made it seem to me one of those
prodigies of man's creation which old stories tell of as having been
wrought by a league with the devil and at the cost of a human soul.
Had there been any signs at all of human life about this solemn and
majestic building, or upon the mountain-top whereon it stood, the
chilling hold that it took upon our imaginations would have been less
strong. What wrought upon us was the deadly silence, and the absolute
stillness of everything save the drifting clouds. It seemed to us as
though we had come out from the living world and our own time into a
dead region belonging to a long dead past; and I remembered with a
shudder that we had entered this region through that gloomy cavern,
where hundreds of the ancient dead were clustered in silent worship
about the great silent idol carved in everlasting stone. It seemed as
though some evil spell hung over us, that doomed us forever to wander in
wild solitudes--which were the more appalling because constantly uprose
before us tangible evidence of the strong current of eager human life
that had pulsed through them in former times. Young but put into his own
rough language the thought that was in all our hearts when he declared,
with a great oath, that for the sake of getting safe out of this lonely
hole he'd contract to fight Indians three days in every week for the
rest of his life, and be glad to do it for the comfort of having
somebody around who was alive.
XVI.
AT THE BARRED PASS.
The whole top of the mountain, near a mile square, had been so levelled
by nature that little remained to be done for its further smoothing by
the hand of man. But the amount of work that had gone into the mere
preparation for the building of the great temple was almost incredible.
In the centre of the plateau a pyramidal mass of rock near a thousand
feet square, of a piece with the mountain itself, had been so shaped and
hewn that it rose in three great terraces to the square apex on which
the temple stood. These terraces slanted upward, surrounding the pyramid
by a continuously ascending way that had its beginning and its ending in
the centre of the eastern front--so that, allowing for the diminishing
size of the pyramid, the distance by this way from the bottom to the top
of it was more than a mile and a half.
"It just took a slow-goin', lazy heathen Greaser t' think out a thing
like this," Young observed as we went up the path. "Now, if th'
Congregationalists that I was brought up among had put a church on a
place like this--an' they wouldn't have been likely t' be fools enough
t' do anything of th' sort--they'd 'a' had a set of steps runnin' smack
from th' bottom t' th' top, an' folks would have got up in no time. It's
just th' Greaser fashion all over t' spend a hundred years or so in
makin' a path five miles long around a hill about as high as th' Boston
State-house, so's they can get up it easy an' save their wind. But I
wish they'd put in drinkin' fountains along th' road. I'm as thirsty as
a salt cod--an' there's so precious little water left in th' keg that
I'm afraid t' begin at it for fear of suckin' it all up."
"Drinking fountains?" Rayburn, who was a little in advance, called back
to us. "Well, so they did. Come along and drink as much as you want to."
"Cut that, Rayburn," Young answered. "I'm too dead in earnest about my
being thirsty to stand any foolin'."
"I'm not fooling"--we had caught up with him by this time--"look for
yourself."
To which Young's only reply was to spring forward eagerly and drink a
long deep draught from a stone basin beside the path into which trickled
a tiny stream from above. Finding water in this unlikely place was as
great a surprise as it was a joy to us; for we all longed for it, yet
dared not drink freely because our supply was nearly gone. It was
touching to hear the long sigh of happiness that El Sabio gave when at
last he lifted his dripping snout out of the basin; and then to see the
look that he gave Pablo, as though to thank him for so blessedly
plentiful a drink. In truth, the Wise One had not tasted a drop of water
for nearly twenty-four hours--not since his perilous passage of the
cañon--and his throat, and his poor little inside generally, must have
been very dry.
When we came out on the top of the pyramid at last, which at that moment
was wrapped in clouds almost as dense as London fog, we perceived the
ingenious plan that had been adopted in order to secure water
plentifully on this mountain-top. By careful scoring of the rock with
many little channels, all leading to a cistern that seemed to be of
great dimensions, the warm vapor of the clouds as it condensed into
water on touching the chill stone surface was captured and safely stored
away. And from the overflow of the cistern the fountain below was fed.
But we did not stop to examine very carefully into this matter, so eager
were we to press on to the temple close before us. This stood upon a
terraced platform, cut from the living rock, and was a perfectly plain
structure--with walls slightly receding inward as they rose, and wholly
destitute of ornamentation. For its majestic effect it depended upon its
great size and upon its admirable proportions; and being built of the
dark rock of which the mountain was formed, and having about it much of
the sombre feeling that characterizes Egyptian architecture, it had an
air of great solemnity and gloom.
In silence we ascended the short flight of steps that led to the broad,
doorless entrance--the only opening through the massive walls--and so
came into the vast shadowy hall that these great walls enclosed. From
front to back of this hall extended many rows of stone pillars--like the
single row found in the great chamber among the ruins of Mitla--and by
these were upheld the huge slabs of stone of which the roof was made.
Far away from where we stood, down at the end of a long vista of
pillars, was a stone altar on which was carved in stone a colossal
figure of the god Chac-Mool. Looking back through the open entrance, I
saw a break in the mountain peaks to the eastward; and so perceived that
the first rays of the rising sun must needs enter here and strike full
upon the disk that was poised in the figure's hands. As Pablo caught
sight of the great idol recumbent there, a momentary shudder went
through him and he made certain motions with his hand before his eyes
that were strange to me.
As we drew near to the altar we found that in front of it was a
sacrificial stone, still darkly stained where blood had flowed upon it;
and beneath the stone neck-yoke, still resting there, was a withered
remnant of human vertebræ. There was something very ghastly in
finding--preserved by the very stone that had held him down while life
was let out of him--this mere scrap of the last human victim who had
perished here. As in the desolate valley, so also on this desolate
mountain-top, the only proof that human life ever had been here was
found in proof of human death.