scattered that he only could see the one in which we happened to be, and
he doubtless imagined that the others had gone forward, and that this
one waited to carry off some of our men who yet remained on the wall. He
evidently hoped to be able to cut us off from the rest of our party, and
his eagerness had so communicated itself to his oarsmen that his boat
led the others by nearly a hundred yards. So far as this one boat was
concerned, we felt no alarm, for the moment that it came out through the
wall our whole force was ready to dash upon it; yet we wondered why
Tizoc permitted even a single boat to come out to the attack, when, by
dropping the grating, they all could be penned in so effectually as to
give us the advantage of a long start.
As the boat neared the water-gate the barge-master went back from his
place in the bow to the middle part of it, and there crouched down; and
some soldiers who were standing crouched down also; and almost as the
bow entered the low, narrow passage the oars were unshipped and taken
aboard. So cleverly was the unshipping of the oars managed, and so good
was the steering, that the boat shot into the passage under full speed,
and so came nearly through it before losing head-way. And we who were
nearest to it got our arms in readiness--for we were convinced that in
another minute the barge-master would lay us aboard. But this was not
destined to be, nor were the men in that boat destined ever to do any
more fighting in this world.
All this while Rayburn had stood close by the parapet, bending over it
and intently watching the outside of the water-gate; above which the
heavy metal grating had been hauled up, in the metal grooves that it ran
in, almost to the top of the wall. At the moment that the bow of the
boat showed outside the opening he raised his hand, as though signalling
to Young and Tizoc behind him; and in that same instant we heard the
shrieking of the windlass and the quick clanking of the unwinding
chains, and saw the metal grating rushing down the face of the wall.
With all the force generated by the fall from so great height of so
ponderous a body, the grating came crashing into the boat just
amidships, fairly dividing its heavy timbers and forcing the fragments
of it, together with all the men that it carried, down into the water's
depths. But the barge-master died by a quicker death than drowning. He
still was crouched in the middle of the boat, and the sharp angle of the
lower bar of the grating struck him just on the nape of his neck so
keenly that his head was cut off and seemed of itself to spring forward
and away from him; while the broad flat bar, coming down upon his bowed
shoulders, crushed his body into a mere quivering mass of flesh.
A great yell of delight went up from our boats as this brilliant stroke
so brilliantly was delivered; and an answering cry of triumph--that was
one-third a yell and two-thirds a cheer--came back from Tizoc and the
others on top of the wall. However, they had no time to waste in
shouting over their success, for the remaining boats of the enemy had
come by this time to the pier inside the wall, and it seemed highly
probable that in a minute or two more our three men would be prisoners.
But for all their danger they coolly finished the work that they had in
hand. As they explained to me afterwards, Rayburn stood at the head of
the stair to hold the enemy in check should they come before the work
was finished--and very strong as well as very brave men must the man
have been who would have ventured to attack him as he occupied that
position of overpowering advantage--while the other two cast off from
the windlass the chains by which the water-gate was operated, and
dropped them over the wall into the lake; and as the gate itself was
jammed and wedged fast by the fragments of the boat, this throwing down
of the chains made the raising of it a serious undertaking that well
might require a day or more to accomplish.
As the chains fell with a splash, and we comprehended the thoroughness
of the work that these three were doing, our people burst forth into
yells again; and a perfect roar went up from them when, the gate being
closed and the apparatus for raising it being entirely disabled, Rayburn
sprang from the outer edge of the parapet into the lake, and Tizoc and
Young instantly followed him. In truth, a more gallant feat of arms had
not been essayed, nor carried to a more triumphant conclusion, since the
Roman gate was held by Horatius; and in my admiration of it I shouted
until the muscles of my throat were strained and aching. Our boat
already was near the wall--having pulled in that the soldiers aboard of
it might spear such of the enemy as came up to the surface alive--and we
had the three out of the water and safe among us in very short order;
and then we pulled away towards the other boats with all possible
speed--for the wall now was manned by the enemy, and they were beginning
to make things unpleasantly hot for us with the heavy stones which they
heaved over the parapet, that our boat might be sunk by them, and by a
rapid discharge of darts. Luckily, none of the stones struck us, and
because of the rapid way that we were making, only two of our men were
struck with the darts. So, on the whole, we came out of this encounter
very well; for these two men killed in our boat were all that we lost,
while of the enemy at least forty were drowned or speared. However, we
owed our light escape mainly to the fact that the enemy, having armed
hurriedly, and expecting only to fight with us at close quarters, had
with them neither bows nor slings--but for which fortunate fact it
scarcely is possible that a single man in our boat would have come off
alive.
[Illustration: THE LEAP FROM ABOVE THE WATER-GATE]
Dripping wet though they were, I fairly hugged Rayburn and Young when
they were safe aboard with us, as did also Fray Antonio, whose daring
spirit was mightily aroused by witnessing their splendid bravery. And in
giving them hearty words of praise for what they had done--which yet
fell far short of their deserts--I naturally likened them to the Roman
hero. Indeed, I may say that the parallel that I there drew was an apt
one, and in some of its turns was not devoid of grace.
"I can't say, Professor," Young answered, when I had finished, "that I
ever heard o' th' party you refer to, but if this Horace--what did you
say his last name was?--pinched his fingers in th' drawbridge chains as
damnably as I pinched mine in th' chains of that infernal grating, I'll
bet a hat he was sorry that he hadn't run away!" And I truly believe
that Young thought more about his pinched fingers than he did about the
resolute bravery that he had shown in finishing his work upon the wall
in the very face of the advancing enemy.
Being once out of range of the darts, we pulled towards the other boats
leisurely; for now we were entirely safe against pursuit, and were free
to go upon the lake in whatsoever direction we pleased. That some
positive line of action had been determined upon was evident, for the
flotilla already was in motion as we came up in the rear of it--the boat
containing the members of the Council leading--and the order was passed
back to us that we should follow with the rest. From the direction in
which we were heading, Tizoc inferred that we were bound for the only
other considerable town in the valley, that which had grown up around
the shafts leading to the great mine whence the Aztlanecas drew their
supply of gold. There was a very grave look upon his face as he told us
of our probable destination; and presently added that the population of
this town--save the few freemen who were in charge of the workings, and
the large guard of soldiers that always was maintained there--was made
up wholly of Tlahuicos who had been selected from their fellows to be
miners because of their exceptional hardiness and strength.
It was among these men, he went on to tell us speaking in a low, guarded
voice, that the most dangerous of the revolts of the Tlahuicos
invariably had their origin; for the miners were fierce, half-savage
creatures, naturally turbulent and rebellious, and were stirred
constantly to resentful anger because of the life of crushing toil that
they were condemned to lead. So dangerous were they that the only
effective means of keeping them in subjection was to hold the major part
of them continually prisoners underground in the mine, with a guard
stationed at the mouth of each shaft under orders to kill instantly any
man who attempted to come forth from the mine without authority. In
order that their labor, a thing of positive value, might not be lost
through their dying of being thus imprisoned in the bowels of the earth,
they were divided into ten great companies, each one of which, in
regular order, was employed in the surface work under the constant
supervision of a strong guard. Yet even these stern measures were not
wholly effective in preventing mutiny. Many times great revolts had
broken out here that had set all the valley in an uproar, and that had
been crushed only after pitched battles had been fought between the
rebels and the entire military force of the state. The town was a
veritable volcano, Tizoc declared; and because of the dread of it that
universally obtained, by reason of the frequent outbursts there of
lawless violence, it had received the name of Huitzilan: the Town of
War.
And there could be no doubt, he added--while the tones of his voice and
the look upon his face showed how great he believed to be the risk
involved in this line of policy--that in now directing our course
towards the mining town the deliberate purpose of the Council was to
incite these semi-savage, wholly desperate miners to join forces with us
in our rising against the Priest Captain's power.
XXV.
THE GOLD-MINERS OF HUITZILAN.
As we rounded a mountain spur that extended a long way out into the
lake, a deep bay opened to us; which bay ran close in to the cliffs
whereby the valley was surrounded, and was at no great distance from the
Barred Pass, through which we had made our entry. At the foot of the
bay, built partly upon the level land near the water-side, and partly
upon the steep ascent beyond, was the town of Huitzilan--whereof the
most curious feature that at first was noticeable was a tall chimney,
whence thick black smoke was pouring forth, that rose above a stone
building of great solidity and of a very considerable size.
On archæological grounds, the sight of this chimney greatly astonished
me; and Rayburn, who was a very well-read man in all matters connected
with his profession, was greatly astonished by it also; for the chimney
obviously was a part of extensive reduction-works, and we both knew that
such complete appliances for the smelting of metal, as seemed from this
sign to exist here, were supposed to be the product of a high state of
civilization in comparatively modern times. As for Young, he declared
that the chimney gave him a regular jolt of homesickness; for, excepting
that it was built of stone instead of brick, it might have been, for the
look of it, transplanted hither directly from the region of the Back
Bay. "I s'pose we'll be hearin' th' noon whistle next," he said,
mournfully; and presently he added: "Do you know, Professor, I b'lieve
I'm beginnin' t' see daylight in all this tall talk you say th' Colonel
has been givin' us about th' 'rebellions,' as he calls 'em, that go on
here. He don't mean t' close our eyes up, th' Colonel don't, for he's a
first-class gentleman; but, bein' born an' bred a heathen, he don't know
any better. What he's tryin' t' tell us about, an' can't, because he
don't know th' English for it, is _strikes_. That's what's th' matter.
Miners are bound t' go on strikes. It's their nature, an' they can't
help it. That chimbly gives th' whole thing away. You just tell th'
Colonel that we've got down t' th' hard-pan an' really know what he's
been drivin' at. An' t' think of there bein' strikes in Mexico! I didn't
b'lieve that a Greaser had backbone enough, or ambition enough, t'
strike at anything!"
However, as I had no great amount of faith in Young's theory, I did not
attempt to translate to Tizoc what he had said to me; nor was there any
opportunity for further talk at that time. Already the foremost boats of
the flotilla had made a landing at a well-built pier that extended from
the shore into deep water; and a minute or two later our boat also
pulled in to the pier, and we disembarked. The general view of the town
that I then had showed me that it was closely built over an area rather
more than half a mile square; that the houses for the most part were
mere hovels, of which the largest could not contain more than two small
rooms; and that the few houses of a better sort were within the strong
stone wall by which the reduction-works also were enclosed. At the pier
where we landed a boat was in process of lading with bars of gold for
transport to the Treasure-house in the city; and I thought that I never
had seen anywhere more savage-looking fellows than the almost naked
laborers by whom the work of lading was carried on. Physically these men
were magnificent creatures--tall and well-shaped and vigorous, and the
ease with which they handled the great bars of gold showed how enormous
must be their strength. But so full of venomous hate were the sullen
looks which they cast upon us, and so savage was the effect of their
coarse, dishevelled hair falling down over and partly veiling their
great glittering eyes, whence these angry glances were shot forth at us
like poisoned darts, that I was thankful to see that, all told, there
were not more than a dozen of them, and that three times as many heavily
armed soldiers served as their guard. And looking at these creatures,
who were truly less like men than dangerous wild beasts, I could not
wonder at the grave concern which Tizoc had manifested at thought of the
risk which we ran in taking them for allies. "It's as easy t' start
'em," Young said, when he came to an understanding of the situation, "as
'tis t' start a freight-train down a three per cent. grade. But what I
want to know is, when we want 'em t' stop, how in th' h--ll are we ever
goin' t' set th' brakes?"
[Illustration: THE TLAHUICOS AND THEIR GUARDS]
Yet, dangerous to ourselves though the use of it must be, our hopes of
success rested mainly upon our ability to control and to employ
effectively this savage material. Fortunately, it was not the whole of
our reliance; and it was our intention to leaven this dangerous lump
with the very considerable number of trained and trustworthy soldiers
that we had available as the substantial nucleus of our fighting force,
and also with the larger body of both slaves and freemen--not regularly
drilled soldiers, to be sure, yet many of them trained in the ways of
war--that we counted upon to join us from among the people at large.
This outline of the plan of action that the Council had determined upon
was exhibited to us by Tizoc during our passage down the lake; and I was
glad to find that Rayburn--for whose judgment I had much respect in
such matters--was disposed to think well of it.
"If I expected to stay here, Professor, after the row was over," he
said, "I mightn't be quite as well satisfied with this plan of theirs
for running things. The war part of the programme is all right. They
won't have any difficulty in getting their Tlahuicos to fight anything
in the way of an army that the Priest Captain shows up with. Fighting is
just what will please them more than anything else. Where the trouble is
going to come in is when the fighting is over and they go in for
reconstruction. It's one thing to make fighters out of this sort of
stuff, but it's quite another thing to make respectable citizens out of
it. That's where the hitch will be. But as we don't intend to settle
down in this valley--unless we find that there's no way out of it--we
needn't bother about that part of the performance at all. That's their
funeral, not ours. So, for my part, the sooner they get their army in
shape, and get the fighting part settled, the better I'll be satisfied."
To do the members of the Council justice, they seemed to be even more
eager than Rayburn was to forward the work that they had in hand. From
the pier they went directly to the enclosure in the centre of the town,
within which was the building ordinarily occupied by the commandant of
the post and by the officials of the civil government; and in this
place, Tizoc informed us, they intended immediately to organize the new
government, and then to proceed with all possible despatch to make
arrangements for placing an army in the field.
In Tizoc's company, but more leisurely, we also went on to the
Citadel--as we found the enclosure about the smelting-works was
called--where comfortable quarters had been provided for us in the same
building wherein the Council was housed. Here we waited, in somewhat
strained idleness, while the Council carried on, in a chamber not far
removed from us, its exciting work of destroying a government that had
endured for more than a thousand years; and we were mightily surprised,
knowing how prodigious was the change that then was being wrought in
ancient institutions, by observing how quietly it all went on. The
murmur of talk that came to us, unchecked by any intervening doors, had
no sound of excitement or of anger or of violent emotion of any sort;
and I could not but hold in admiration the calm, self-contained natures
of these men who thus equably and rationally could deal with such vastly
weighty affairs.
While this great matter--which could end only in wild commotion and
fierce battling--went forward in this quiet way, Tizoc opened to us
much that was of curious interest touching the near-by gold-mine and
they who mined the gold. Of the existence of the mine, he said, the
Aztlanecas had remained ignorant for many generations after their coming
into the valley; and for many more generations but little gold had been
taken from it, because the metal was of no value to his people save for
the making of ornaments. But when the process had been discovered by
which this metal could be hardened, and so made serviceable for all
manner of useful purposes--and this the more because, by the
manufacture that then ensued of tools wherewith the rock could be easily
worked, mining in a large way became possible--the development of the
mine upon a great scale had been begun, and had been continued upon a
constantly increasing scale from that time onward. All the earth beneath
where we then were, he said, was honey-combed with passages which
followed the several veins; and of these there seemed to be no end at
all, for ever as each vein was exhausted another not less rich was
found--and thus it seemed as though all the substructure of that great
mountain range were one huge mass of gold.
What the measures of weight were with which he estimated the annual
output of the mine, I could not clearly understand, but the matter was
made approximately plain to us by his statement that the daily product
of the mine never was less than one of the great bars of gold that we
had seen upon the pier in process of carriage to the Treasure-house; and
that sometimes, when veins of extraordinary richness were encountered,
even so much as four of these bars had been smelted from the ore that
the mine yielded in a single day.
"Those bars don't weigh an ounce less than two hundred pounds apiece,"
Rayburn said, when I had translated to him what Tizoc had told me. "That
makes the output of the mine not less than three tons a month, and, in a
rough way, a ton of gold is worth just about half a million of dollars.
If the Colonel isn't mixed in his figures, and if you've translated him
straight, Professor, these fellows are taking out somewheres in the
neighborhood of twenty millions a year."
Young gave a long whistle. "Great Scott!" he exclaimed, "that just is an
all-fired big pile of money t' be wasted on a lot of barelegged heathen
critters like these, who don't know th' Ten Commandments by sight, an'
who've never even heard of a cocktail! D' you know what I'm goin' t' do,
Rayburn, when I realize on this investment? I'm goin' t' buy th' Old
Colony Railroad, just for th' sake of bein' able t' bounce th'
Superintendent. He bounced me after that freight smash-up--and it wasn't
my fault that th' operator got mixed an' gave me th' wrong orders--and
I'll give him a taste o' th' same kind. Won't it just paralyze him when
he gets his orders t' quit, signed 'Seth Young, President,' an' finds
out it's th' same old Seth Young who used t' run Thirty-two on th' Fall
River division?"
"Hadn't you better let him down easy by telegraphing him right now to
begin to look out for a new place?" Rayburn asked. "We'll wait for you
here, while you step over to the Western Union office"--which cool
comment upon Young's enthusiastic discounting of a bright future brought
the gloomy present so clearly before his mind that his castle-building
ended suddenly, and he lapsed into silence.
But great though our wonder was at the prodigious quantity of precious
metal that this mine yielded in each year, and amazed though we were by
thought of the vast store of treasure that the valley now must hold, I,
for my part, felt a far deeper interest in what Tizoc went on to tell
us concerning the men by whose toil the treasure had been accumulated.
And, truly, so bitter and so dreary was the life of the Tlahuicos who
were forced to labor here unceasingly, and through so long a period had
they been thus cruelly dealt with, that it seemed to me there must rest
upon all the Valley of Aztlan a heavy curse that only some signal act of
expiation could remove. And the coincidence struck me as most curious
that here among the Aztecs, wrought by themselves upon the men of their
own race, should be found identically the same cruelties which the
Spaniards practised upon the Indians whom they enslaved as miners in New
Mexico: whereof came that fierce outburst of revolt two hundred years
ago, when the Pueblos ravaged with sword and flame the whole valley of
the Rio Grande from Taos to the Pass of the North.
There was small ground for wonder that the Tlahuicos, thus crushed by
over-heavy labor, and dealt with as though they were not men, but fierce
and dangerous brutes, should cherish at all times in their breasts a
sullen fire of mutiny; nor that on every occasion at all favorable to
their purposes there should spring forth from the glowing embers of
their hatred a vivid and consuming flame. Only by the strength and the
vigilance of the guard that constantly was maintained over them was
their tendency to rebellion held in check; and even the guards could not
prevent frequent outbreaks--which ended only in the cruel slaughter of
all concerned in them--so passionately eager was the longing of these
desperate creatures for revenge.
Only once, a vastly long while past, Tizoc said, had success attended an
effort on the part of the Tlahuicos to release themselves from their
cruel slavery, and that they then eluded the vigilance of their masters
was due to their employment of strategy against force. The whole matter,
he continued, was now but a half-remembered tradition, yet the main
details of it were clear. In that far-back time a vein of extraordinary
richness had been followed for a very long distance in the direction of
the Barred Pass; and, as the event proved, the gallery was carried
beyond the bars, passing far beneath them, and so went onward, steadily
rising, until an outlet was had into the cañon. That the secret of this
outlet might be kept among the men who had opened it, these slew the
guard that watched over them and thrust his body out into the cañon,
thus most effectually placing it beyond the reach of the search that
would be made for it; and the opening that they had made they closed
carefully, and continued a little way onward into the rock the gallery
in which they were working: so that the superintendent of the mine might
see clearly (what, indeed, was the truth) that the vein of ore had been
followed to its end.