that we were in, and the excitement that attended this sudden shifting
of our fortunes, could not prevent me from studying with a lively
curiosity the many evidences of an advanced civilization that I beheld.
The plan of the city, as I had discerned while we were approaching it,
was that of a wide-open fan. From the Treasure-house, on the height in
the centre, twelve broad streets radiated outward, of which three on the
northern side and three on the southern ended against the great
enclosing wall, and six came down through openings in the walls along
the several terraces directly to the water-front. All of these streets
were well paved with large smooth blocks of stone, and were led up the
faces of the terraces by wide and easy stairs. The transverse streets
were true semicircles, starting from and ending at the face of the
cliff, and were carried along the outer edges of the terraces, just
inside their facing walls. Rayburn was even more astonished than I was
by the exactness with which these great semicircles were laid off; for
he apprehended, as I did not, the difficulty attendant upon running a
line in a true and regular curve. But I am not prepared to say that this
work could not have been accomplished by mere rule of thumb. My friend
Bandelier, in the course of his admirable analysis of the ruins at
Mitla, has made clear to me how easy it is to attribute to scientific
knowledge work that is the result only of manual skill. As I have
pointed out in my discussion of this matter in my _Pre-Columbian
Conditions on the Continent of North America_, the plateau at the top of
this range of terraces easily might have been laid off in a true
semicircle by the simple means of a pointed stick at the end of a long
rope; and from the true line thus established the line of the terrace
below it could have been had--and so on down to the lowest terrace of
all.
There could be no doubt, however, that engineering skill of a high
order--howsoever crude might have been the actual method of its
application--was exhibited both in the preparation of the site, and then
in the city's building. On the site alone an almost incredible amount of
labor had been expended; for the rocky promontory--that primitively, as
the result showed, had been broken and irregular--had been so cut away
in some places, and so filled in in others, and the whole of it had been
so carefully trimmed and smoothed, that in the end it became a huge mass
of rock-work, in the regularity of which there was not perceptible the
smallest flaw. And in this preliminary work, as well as in the building
of the houses afterwards, fragments of stone were used of such enormous
size that the moving of them, Rayburn declared, would be wellnigh
impossible even with the most powerful engineering appliances of our own
time. Nor was the use of these huge pieces of stone confined to the
foundations of the houses. Some of them were high above the ground;
indeed, the very largest that we observed--the weight of which Rayburn
estimated at not less than twenty tons--was a single block that made the
entire top course of a high wall.
All of the stone-work was well smoothed and squared; and while the
exteriors of the houses were entirely plain, we could see through the
open door-ways that the interiors of many of them were enriched with
carvings. All were destitute of windows opening upon the street; and
their dull, black walls, and the dull black of the stones with which the
streets were paved, gave a dark and melancholy air to the city that
oppressed us even more heavily when thus seen closely than it had when
we beheld it from afar off. Yet the interior court-yards, so far as we
could tell from the glimpses that we had of them through open door-ways,
were bright with sunshine and gay with flowers; thus showing that the
gloom of these dwellings did not extend beyond their outer walls. I
observed with much interest that the provision for closing the entrances
from the street was not swinging doors of wood, but either metal bars,
such as we had seen in Tizoc's house, or else a metal grating, that was
arranged like a portcullis to slide up and down in a groove; and I
attributed the absence of wooden doors less to a desire for stronger
barriers than to the comparative recentness of the acquisition of the
knowledge of wood-working tools. Here, I thought, was a curious instance
of development along the lines of greatest resistance; for in itself the
invention and the making of a swinging door of wood was a much easier
matter than was the invention and the making of these finely wrought
sliding doors of hardened gold.
As for Young, the sight of all this gold-work quite took his breath
away. "It regularly jolts me, Professor," he said, "t' see th' genuine
stuff, that's good t' make gold dollars out of, slung around this way. A
front door of solid gold is a huckleberry above Jay Gould's biggest
persimmon; an' as t' Solomon, these fellows just lay Solomon out
cold--regularly down th' old man an' sit on him. Why, for just that one
front door of th' big house ahead of us I'd sell out all my shares in
this treasure-hunt, an' be glad t' do it. But I guess I'd have to hire
Samson--who was in that line of business--t' carry it off for me. It
must weigh a solid ton!"
By this time we had mounted all of the terraces, and the house towards
which Young pointed as he spoke was built directly beneath the crowning
plateau on which the great temple stood. It was the largest and by far
the most elegant house that we yet had seen, and the sliding grating of
gold that closed the entrance was unusually heavy, and very beautifully
wrought. Sentinels were stationed here, wearing the same uniform as that
of the soldiers who formed our guard; and this further indication of the
importance of the building gave us the impression that it was the
dwelling of some great dignitary. Close by the portal we were halted,
while the commander of our guard spoke through the grating to some one
inside. A moment later the grating was slowly raised, and we were
marched through the narrow entrance, and so along a short passage-way
into a long, narrow chamber that obviously was a guard-room; for spears
and javelins were ranged in orderly fashion upon racks, and swords and
shields and bows and quivers of arrows were hung upon the walls. Here we
were halted again; and while we stood silent together, wondering what
might be in store for us in this place, we heard the heavy grating
behind us close with a dull clang.
XXII.
THE OUTBREAK OF REVOLUTION.
So dismal was this sound, and so many were the dismal possibilities that
it suggested, that as I heard it a cold chill went down into my heart;
and I was glad enough that we at once were led forth from the
guard-room, and that in consideration of matters of immediate moment my
mind was diverted from dwelling drearily upon a future that seemed full
of gloom.
For all the brilliant blaze of sunlight that brightened the large
court-yard into which we were conducted, there was about it curious
coldness and cheerlessness. As in the case of all the other houses which
we had observed, the stone-work of the walls and of the pavement was a
dull black; but here there were no flowers, nor bright-colored hangings
over the inner doors, nor brightness of any sort or kind. The carving of
the stone was extraordinarily rich, to be sure; but the bass-reliefs
which covered the walls were wholly of a gloomy sort--being for the most
part representations of the slaughter of men in sacrifice, and the
tearing of hearts out--so that the eight of them made me shiver,
notwithstanding the warmth of the sun. From the centre of the court-yard
a broad stair-way ascended to the plateau above on which the temple
stood; and this direct way of communicating with it led me to the
conclusion that the building was a dependency of the temple, and that
very likely the higher members of the priesthood were housed here.
However, little time was given for looking around us, for our guard
hurried us--El Sabio following close at Pablo's heels--across the
court-yard to a door-way at its farther side, before which hung in heavy
folds a curtain of some sort of thick black cloth. Across this entrance
the guard was drawn up in orderly ranks behind us; and then the
barge-master, who had preserved absolute silence towards us since our
march through the city began, held aside the curtain and silently
motioned to us to enter.
From the bright sunshine we passed at a step into a chamber so shadowy
that we involuntarily stopped on the threshold, in order that our eyes
might become accustomed to the semi-darkness before we advanced. The
only light that entered it came through two narrow slits in the thick
wall above the portal that we had just passed; and the glimmer diffused
by the thin rays thus admitted was in great part absorbed by the black
draperies with which everywhere the room was hung. As our eyes adjusted
themselves to these gloomy conditions we perceived that we were in a
hall of great size; and presently we were able to distinguish objects
clearly enough to see that at the far end of it was a raised dais,
having a sort of throne upon it; but not until, being urged forward by
the officer, we had traversed more than half the length of the hall did
we discern upon the throne the shadowy figure of a man.
Being come close to the dais, the officer halted us by a gesture; but no
word was spoken, and for several minutes we stood in the semi-darkness
of that strange place in absolute silence. For myself, I must confess
that I was somewhat awed by my surroundings, and by the impassive
silence and stillness that the dimly seen figure upon the throne
maintained, and I am sure that Fray Antonio's imaginative nature was
similarly impressed; as for Pablo, I distinctly heard his teeth
chattering in the dark. But neither Rayburn nor Young, as the latter
would have expressed it, awed easily, and it was Rayburn who presently
spoke.
"This fellow in the big chair would be a good hand at private
theatricals. He's got a first-rate notion of stage effect. Hadn't I
better stick a pin in him and wake him up?"
"There's no good in stickin' pins into _him_," said Young, in a tone of
great contempt. "What's the matter with him is, he's not real at
all--he's stuffed!"
There was something so absurdly incongruous in these comments that they
acted instantly upon my overstrained nerves, and I burst into a laugh,
in which the other two immediately joined. Evidently, this was not at
all the effect that this carefully arranged reception was intended to
have upon us; for the seated figure started suddenly and uttered an
angry exclamation, and at the same time gave a quick order to the
officer.
"I take it all back," said Young; "he ain't stuffed. I guess he was only
asleep."
As Young spoke there was a slight rustle of draperies, and in a moment
the curtains which had veiled four great windows in the four sides of
the hall were pulled aside, and the darkness vanished in a sudden blaze
of light. While we shaded our eyes for some seconds, Rayburn said, with
great decision: "This settles it. He must have been in the show business
all his life."
But the man whom we now saw clearly did not look like a showman. He was
a very old man, lean and shrivelled; his brown skin so wrinkled that his
face looked like some sort of curiously withered nut. Yet there was a
wonderful sinewiness about him, and a most extraordinary brightness in
his eyes. His face was of the strong, heavy type that is found in the
figures carved on the ruins in Yucatan; a much stronger type than I have
observed anywhere among the Mexican Indians of the present day. His
dress was a long, flowing robe of white cotton cloth, caught over his
left shoulder with a broad gold clasp, and richly embroidered with
shining green feathers; and shining green feathers were bound into his
hair and rose above his head in a tall plume. His sandal-moccasins (for
the covering of his feet was between these two) repeated the sacred
combination of colors, green and white; and on his breast, falling from
his neck, were several richly wrought gold chains. Even apart from his
stately surroundings, his dress--and especially the shining green
feathers which were so conspicuous a part of it--would have informed me
that this man was a priest of very exalted rank; and the conditions of
our presentation to him assured me that he was none other than the
Priest Captain, Itzacoatl. And I may add that if ever a high dignitary
of a heathen religion was in a rage, Itzacoatl was in a rage at that
particular moment. Young's comment lacked reverence, but it was to the
point: "Well, he _has_ got his back up, for sure!"
With an alertness that was astonishing in one of his years, Itzacoatl
rose quietly from the throne; and as he pointed to us with a commanding
gesture, he asked, sharply, why we had been allowed to retain our arms,
and ordered them to be taken away from us; which order troubled us
greatly, and also occasioned us a very lively surprise. As for the
barge-master, he evidently was vastly puzzled by it; for, according to
his notions, we were not armed. He did not venture to reply, but his
uncertainty was to the duty that was expected of him was apparent in his
hopeless look of entire bewilderment. It seemed to me that for a moment
the Priest Captain was slightly confused, as though he recognized the
incongruity between his own knowledge in this matter and his officer's
ignorance; and in explaining his order he took occasion to refer to the
superior knowledge with which he was endowed by the gods. Fray Antonio
and I glanced at each other doubtingly as he spoke, for this explanation
struck us as being decidedly forced. The gods of the ancient Mexicans
pre-eminently were war gods; but they certainly were not likely to have
any very extended knowledge of Winchester rifles and self-cocking
revolvers.
However, when the officer comprehended what was required of him, he was
prompt enough in his actions. Without any ceremony at all he laid hands
on Young's rifle, that was hanging by its strap on his shoulder, and
endeavored to take it away from him. This was a line of action that the
Lost-freight Agent by no means was inclined to submit to. Without any
assistance he unslung the rifle, cocked it as he jumped back half a
dozen steps, and then raised it to his shoulder, with his finger on the
trigger and the muzzle fairly levelled at the officer's heart. "Shall I
down him?" he asked.
"Don't shoot!" Rayburn cried, quickly; and in obedience to this order
Young slowly dropped the rifle from his shoulder, yet held it ready for
action in his hands. The perfect calmness of the officer through this
exciting episode afforded the most convincing proof that fire-arms were
wholly unknown to him. And the conduct of the Priest Captain afforded
equally convincing proof that he not only understood the nature of
fire-arms, but that he was very much afraid of them; for, at the moment
that Young made his offensive demonstration, he very precipitately
sheltered himself by crouching behind the throne.
"Don't shoot!" Rayburn repeated. "We may have a chance to pull through
if we don't rile these follows; but if we go killing any of them now
it's all day with us, for sure. We'd better let 'em have our guns; but
there's something mighty odd in their having found out all of a sudden
what a gun is."
Very reluctantly Young surrendered his rifle to the officer, who looked
at it contemptuously, as though he considered it but a poor sort of
weapon in case real fighting was to be done. In turn, the rest of us
gave up our rifles also; and we were mightily pleased because the
officer did not attempt to take our revolvers away from us. But in this
our satisfaction was short-lived, for the Priest Captain quickly ordered
the officer to relieve us of them, and of our cartridge-belts as well;
nor was it until we had been thus entirely disarmed that he arose from
his undignified position and resumed his seat upon the throne.
While the disagreeable process of disarming us was going on I spoke to
Fray Antonio of the curious possibilities suggested by the knowledge of
fire-arms which the Priest Captain, alone among all the Aztlanecas, so
obviously possessed; and he, in reply, bade me remember what Tizoc had
told us of the use that Itzacoatl made of wax-matches in lighting the
sacred fire. "Can it possibly be, then, that he is in communication with
the outside world?" I exclaimed.
As I uttered these words I glanced at Itzacoatl, and the expression on
his face was that of one who listens intently, and who is greatly
enraged by what he hears. At the same moment Rayburn cried: "That man
understands Spanish. He is listening to you."
Doubtless, some sort of an explanation would have followed this strange
discovery, for that we had made it was very obvious, but at that moment
a man--seemingly, from his dress, a priest of high rank--came into the
hall hurriedly, and very earnestly delivered a communication to
Itzacoatl in low, excited tones. That the substance of this
communication was highly disagreeable to him was shown by his manner of
receiving it; and for a moment he slightly hesitated, as though very
grave consequences might attend upon the decision that he then made. But
it was for a moment only that he stood in doubt. Then he called the
barge-master to him, and gave some order in a low voice; and then,
accompanied by the priest, went out rapidly from the hall.
Evidently in obedience to the order that he had received, the
barge-master bade us follow him, and so led us into the court-yard
again. Young proposed, since we had only this one man to deal with, that
we should make short work of him, and so get back our arms--which
remained where he had placed them in a pile beside the throne. But
Rayburn's more prudent counsel overcame this tempting proposition. As he
pointed out, the promptness with which the curtains had been pulled back
showed that attendants of some sort were close at hand; and, in addition
to these, we knew that the guard of soldiers was just outside of the
entrance to the hall. It was certain, therefore, that we could not
regain our arms without immediately using them in very active fighting;
and no matter how well we fought, under these conditions we must
certainly be defeated in the end. All of which was so just and so
reasonable that Young could not in anywise gainsay its propriety; but he
was in a very ill humor at being restrained from the pleasure of having
it out with them, as he grumblingly declared; and as we passed out into
the court-yard he relieved his mind by swearing most vigorously.
For my part, even the peril that we were in did not suffice to distract
my mind from curious consideration of the strange state of affairs that
existed among the folk dwelling in this hidden valley if our surmise in
regard to the Priest Captain's knowledge of the outer matches, his
acquaintance with fire-arms, and his knowledge of the Spanish tongue.
The implication was unavoidable that this extraordinary man actually had
a more or less complete knowledge of the powers and appliances of the
nineteenth century, and that he was using his nineteenth century
knowledge to maintain his supremacy over a people whose civilization was
about on a par with that of European communities of a thousand years
ago. From the stand-point of the ethnologist, a more interesting
situation than the one time developed could not possibly be devised.
What I most longed for was the establishment of such friendly relations
with Itzacoatl that I could carry out a systematized series of
scientific investigations among the Aztlanecas before the impending
crash of discovery came; and my keenest regret at that moment was caused
by the conviction that the incapacity of Itzacoatl to understand the
value of scientific inquiry into such curious ethnologic facts would
result in his mere vulgar killing of me, whereby a precious store of
knowledge would be withheld from the world at large.
As we came out into the court-yard we heard the sound of voices, which
seemed to be raised in angry altercation, coming from the direction of
the main entrance, with which there was also a slight clinking sound as
of arms being got in readiness; and, much farther away, the sound
seemingly coming from distant quarter of the city, the tapping of a
drum. When we first had crossed the court-yard it had been entirely
deserted; but now many priests and soldiers were standing in groups
about it, and more were coming down the stair from the temple; and all
of these men had a look of eager alertness, as though some decisive
event were imminent in which they expected to have a part. But we had
only a moment in which to observe all this, for we were hurried away
towards the corner of the building that was most remote from the street,
and here, before I well could understand what was being done with me, I
was thrust so suddenly and so violently through a narrow door-way that I
fell heavily upon the floor. Before I could regain my feet Young had
tumbled down on top of me, and then the others tumbled on top of us
both--they having been in the same rude fashion injected into the
apartment; and while we thus were lying in a heap together--my own body,
being undermost, having the breath wellnigh squeezed out of it--we heard
the rattle of metal upon stone as the door-way was quickly closed with
heavy bars.
We struggled to our feet in wellnigh total darkness--for outside the
bars a curtain had been dropped that shut off almost wholly the light of
day--and I am confident that no one room ever contained two angrier
people than Rayburn and Young were then; for their very strength and
hardihood made them the more ragingly resent being thus tumbled about as
though they were bales or boxes rather than men. Rayburn's language was
not open to the charge of weakness; but the words in which Young gave
vent to his feelings were so startlingly vigorous that even a Wyoming
cow-boy would have been surprised by them; yet I must confess that at
the moment--so greatly was my own anger aroused--I thought his
observations exceedingly appropriate to the occasion that called them
forth, and I even was disposed to envy him the command of a technical
vocabulary that enabled him to express so adequately his righteous
wrath. However, I was for once well pleased that Fray Antonio did not
understand English.
But our anger quickly was swallowed up in anxious grief as we
discovered, when our eyes had become somewhat accustomed to the very
faint light, that only we four were in the room together; and a great
dread fell upon us because of the imminent peril to Pablo which this
separation of him from the rest of us implied. Assuredly there was
strong reason why he should be an especial object of Itzacoatl's fear
and hatred. He and El Sabio together were the visible sign which told
that the prophecy touching the Priest Captain's downfall was about to be
fulfilled; and, more than this, Pablo's simple statement of the
condition of affairs among the modern Mexicans--showing that the crisis
in their fate that Chaltzantzin had foretold, and for which he had so
well prepared, long since had come and gone--would be far more
convincing to the masses of the Aztlanecas than would be any exhibition
of these same facts that we could make to them; for we were aliens among
them, while Pablo was of their own race and class. That we all were like
to be done to death by this barbarous theocrat we did not for a moment
doubt; but it was plain enough that every motive of self-interest must
prompt him to put Pablo and the poor ass most summarily out of the way.
And as the logic of these facts irresistibly presented itself in my mind
a keen and heavy sorrow overcame me, for I could not shirk the
conviction that, whoever might strike the blow that killed him, I myself
was the cause of this poor boy's death. Fray Antonio could not see my
face in that shadowy prison, yet his fine nature divined the pain that I
suffered and the cause of it, and he sought to comfort me with his
sympathy. He did not speak, but he came close beside me and tenderly
laid his hand upon my shoulder; and his loving touch, telling of his
sorrow for me and with me, did bring a little cheer into my heavy heart.