as he watched the orderly manner in which the disciplined ranks moved
out upon the pier and stepped briskly into the boats at the word of
command. "They're as fine a lot of fighters as I ever saw anywhere. Just
look how steadily they stand at a halt, and how sharply they obey
orders, and how well set up they are! I must say I don't see what the
Colonel could have been thinking about when he said that we had a
fighting chance against an army like that. Well, he's paid for his
mistake about as much as a man can pay for anything. It breaks me all up
to think that the Colonel is dead. He was good all the way through. And
I wonder what will become of that little lame boy of his now? They'll
make a Tlahuico of him, I suppose. By Jove! what a mess we've made of
this whole business from first to last!"
My heart was too heavy for me to answer Rayburn save by a nod; for while
he spoke the thought came home to me very bitterly that upon me rested
the responsibility of the black misfortune in which he and Young were
involved; and with this came also a great burst of sorrow as I thought
how still more closely at my door lay Pablo's death--for Rayburn and
Young at least had come into my plans with a reasonable understanding of
the danger to which they exposed themselves; but Pablo, having no such
knowledge, had followed me unquestioningly because of his loving trust
that I would hold him safe from harm. My sorrow concerning Fray Antonio
was keen enough, Heaven knows; but in his case I had the solace of
knowing surely that he had come to his death not because of my urging,
but in pursuance of his own strong desire. There was a little comfort in
the thought that even one of these four lost lives could not be charged
to my account; and yet this reflection seemed only to make my sorrow
heavier as I thought of the woful weight of my responsibility for the
other three.
For nearly two hours we lay there in the bay while the embarkation of
the prisoners and the troops went on--our boat moving farther out from
the pier from time to time as the double line of boats behind it
lengthened. In that sheltered place there was little wind blowing, and
the blazing heat of the sun beating down upon my wounded head gave me so
sharp a pain that I gladly would have died to be rid of it; and I could
see, from the drawn look of their faces, that Young and Rayburn were
suffering not less keenly. We were thankful enough, therefore, when at
last the embarkation was completed--more than half of the army remaining
in Huitzilan to restore order there--and we pulled out from the bay into
the open waters of the lake and were comforted by the light breeze,
which yet brought with it a delicious refreshment, that was blowing
there.
All the bright beauty of that lovely lake was around us, having for its
background the green meadows and the darker green of the forests
hanging above them on the upward slopes, and beyond all the towering
height of the cliffs, which shaded in their colorings from delicate gray
to dark brown, and were touched here and there by patches of black
shadow where some great cleft opened; and yet all that we then thought
of was that across those blue waters, which gleamed golden in the
sunlight, we were going swiftly to a cruel death, and that the cliffs,
whereof the beauty was hateful to us, irrevocably shut us in. Which
gloomy feelings pressed upon us throughout that dismal passage, while
all our oarsmen pulled stoutly together, and we went gliding onward over
the sunlit waters towards the evil fate that we knew was waiting for us
within the dark walls whereby was encircled the city of Culhuacan.
XXXII.
EL SABIO'S DEFIANCE.
While yet we were a long way off from the city, we heard faintly the
yells of triumph with which the watchers above the water-gate gave
notice to those within the walls of the return of the victorious army;
and from all the boats of our flotilla there went up a shrill chorus of
answering yells. Our barge was the first to pass through the water-gate,
out from which we had come so gallantly so short a time before, and
thence went onward across the basin to the very pier that we had
started from with such high hopes to gather the forces for the rebellion
that had come to so sorry an end.
All the water-side was black with the crowd that had gathered to watch
our landing; but, considering that these people were there to welcome a
victorious army, it seemed to me that they were strangely still and
dull. There was, to be sure, no lack of yelling, but it came for the
most part from a company of priests clustered on the pier where we
landed, and from the soldiers and oarsmen in the boats--not from the
townsfolk at large. And when we were marched upward through the
city--following the same street that we had fought our way along when
last we traversed it--I saw in the crowd so many sullen and dejected
faces that it seemed to me there still was in that city a good deal of
material for the making of another mutiny.
This time we were not taken to the house in which we had met the Priest
Captain, and whence we had been delivered from imprisonment by Tizoc's
gallant rescue of us; but, passing a little beyond this house, we were
led up a broad stair-way to the plateau which crowned the city, and on
which stood the great Treasure-house that also was the temple in which
the Aztlanecas housed their most venerated gods. And I confess that my
delight at seeing closely this building, that until then I had beheld
only from afar off, for a time completely overcame the dread and sorrow
that had oppressed me; and the very strongest desire that stirred within
me just then was for a tape-measure and a pair of compasses and a steel
square, together with the opportunity to fall to work with these several
instruments upon those mighty walls. Indeed, I almost had forgotten that
I was a prisoner, and was like to die soon a very dreadful death, when a
groan that poor Rayburn gave--wrung from him by the pain that he
suffered in being carried up the stairs--recalled me suddenly to a
realizing sense of our situation, and so pressed home upon me the sad
conviction that the science of archæology would gain nothing of all that
I might see or learn during the little while that I should remain alive.
The outer facing of the plateau, like that of the terraces below it, was
a prodigiously heavy wall of squared stones set in cement; and for a
coping this wall had great stones carved in the similitude of serpents'
heads, with mouths wide open, that instantly recalled to my mind the
like enclosure that the Spaniards found surrounding the principal temple
in the city of Tenochtitlan--and I had a sudden strong longing that my
friend Bandelier might be with me at that moment to see how precisely
his very ingenious speculations concerning the snake-wall about the
great Teocalli were here confirmed.
Through a portal formed of two huge blocks of stone carved to represent
two serpents coiled upon themselves, the heads meeting above in a sort
of arch (not a true arch, for each of these serpents was a monolith, and
was supported wholly on its own base), we entered the large enclosure
before the temple. I was surprised to find--for of such a thing among
the ancient Aztecs there is no record--that in the centre of the
enclosure the rock had been hewn away in such a fashion as to create a
vast amphitheatre; and that this was the place where sacrifice was
offered by the priests was shown by the blood-stained altar in the
centre of it, to which fragments of flesh also adhered, whence was
wafted up to us a dreadful stench that instantly racked us with queasy
qualms. Save directly in front of the entrance to the temple, where was
a great stone balcony with a smaller balcony below it, all the sides of
the amphitheatre were cut in steps, which made, also, benches where the
multitude could sit at their ease and behold the bloody work going on in
the pit below them; and so enormous was this rock-hewn cavity that fully
forty thousand people could at once be seated there. Under the balcony
there was visible the entrance to a dark tunnel-like passage, that
evidently communicated with the temple, and a smaller passage, not large
enough for a man to pass through, slanted downward to where it opened on
the terrace below; which last was to drain the blood away, and also to
free the amphitheatre from water in the season of rains.
We held our noses as we skirted this shocking place, and we were glad
enough when we got beyond it and came to the entrance to the temple--a
very noble portal, severely simple, and because of its simplicity the
more majestic, in which, as in the whole of the façade, was manifest the
grave and sombre Egyptian feeling that I had before observed. Through
this we passed into the shadowy interior, lighted by only a few narrow
slits cut in the enormously thick walls, where the lofty roof was
upheld by a wilderness of columns which opened before us seemingly
endless vistas where an eternal twilight reigned. Of interior decoration
there was nothing save a broad and simple panelling upon the walls, and
the great pillars were mere round monoliths without either bases or
capitals.
As we entered this, to them, most sacred place a hush fell upon our
escort, and even I felt something of that reverent awe that is inspired
by any building which has been sanctified by the worship of multitudes
within it through countless years. But that Young did not at all share
this feeling with me was made manifest by his observing, after taking a
long look around him: "Well, this wouldn't answer for a Congregational
church, anyway. There ain't a pew in th' whole place, an' here in broad
daylight you couldn't see a hymn-book if you tried. I wonder what they'd
say, Professor, to a bid for puttin' in a dynamo for 'em an' lightin'
this dark old hole with electricity? An' it 'u'd take off a lot o' this
chill an' dampness if they'd have a steam-heater put in at th' same
time. It's enough t' give all hands rheumatism th' way cold creeps
strike up your legs." But at this point Young's observations were cut
short peremptorily by the hand that one of the guards laid across his
mouth; which hint that it was desirable for him to keep silence was
quite unmistakable.
This decided repression of Young's chattering, no doubt, was the more
vigorous because we now were approaching the farther end of the temple,
where loomed before us amid the shadows a great idol, set upon an
altar-like throne. This figure, fully ten feet high, was a strange
medley of grotesque and hideous carvings that yet in its entirety was
like a man; and so cruel and so ferocious was the general air of it that
it well might inspire a very lively terror in simple souls. The most
striking feature of the figure was a dismal skull, that was outheld from
the region of the waist by two great hands placed there arbitrarily and
without any relation to the figure's arms; and for a crest--repeating
the motive of the gate-way--it had two serpents' heads, the bodies
pertaining to which were twisted and involved about the whole mass. For
eyes this evil thing had large and gleaming green stones--being, in
truth, emeralds, though I did not at that time recognize them as
such--and golden serpents, very beautifully wrought, were twisted about
it, and a collar of golden hearts was hung around its neck over a sort
of apron of shining green feathers; and feathers of a like sort rose
above the heads of the serpents in a thick plume; and over every part of
the figure were scattered glittering objects--emeralds, and disks of
gold, and scraps of mother-o'-pearl, and fragments of obsidian--whence
shone through the heavy shadows faint, shimmering points of light. In
one of its out-stretched hands the figure held a bow, and in the other a
bunch of arrows; but even without these unmistakable attributes I should
have known from the skull and from the serpents' heads that this fierce
and hideous idol represented the god Huitzilopochtli: the first
divinity, and throughout the whole time that their bloody religion
endured, the principal divinity, that the ancient Mexicans adored.
Young did not venture to speak aloud again, but he turned to me with a
long sigh and whispered, earnestly, "That certainly is, Professor, the
very d----dest thing I ever saw!"
As I knew, it was in keeping with the Aztec customs that prisoners taken
in war thus should be brought first of all before the god
Huitzilopochtli, that they and their captors together might do him
reverence; therefore, I was not surprised when a priest came forth from
behind the altar and bade us prostrate ourselves in adoration of the
idol. As this order was given, all the Aztlanecas with us bowed
themselves to the floor; but Young, who did not understand the order,
and I, who felt my gorge rising at the thought of thus humbling myself,
remained erect. However, we did not continue through many seconds in
that position; for a couple of soldiers instantly laid hands upon each
of us, and by shoving our shoulders sharply forward, and at the same
moment kicking our legs from under us, they summarily laid us face
downward at full length upon the floor. As for Rayburn, they seemed to
be satisfied with his recumbent position upon the stretcher; at any
rate, they suffered him to remain as he was.
While I lay prone, quivering with rage at the double indignity of being
thus roughly handled, and of being compelled even in form to worship a
disgusting idol, I heard an odd little pattering upon the stone floor,
and then something cold and clammy was thrust against my hand, and at
the same instant I heard close beside me a curious snuffling noise; and
while a glad doubt, that I scarce ventured to give way to, was rising
within me, the clammy thing was taken away from my hand, and there
straightway rang out through the gloomy silence of the temple a
thunderous braying that seemed fairly to shake the walls. There was no
mistaking the voice of the friend who with this triumphant blast
welcomed me; and as I heard it there came into my heart a sudden glow of
hope that Pablo, and that even Fray Antonio also, might still be alive.
And this hope was destined to be immediately and most joyfully realized,
for as we rose to our feet again I saw the lad standing, with El Sabio
beside him, not a dozen feet away from me; and a little beyond them was
the monk, his face all lighted up with a bright look of happiness and
love. And seeing these three once more standing alive and well before me
was the most amazing and also the very gladdest sight that ever met my
eyes.
It was a sore trial to me that I could not immediately hold converse
with Pablo and with Fray Antonio, and so come to know through what
adventures they had passed, and by what miracles their lives had been
saved; but the ceremony in which our captors were engaged was but half
completed, and the better to assure our orderly conduct during its
continuance we were kept asunder in the procession that then was
formed--the object of which procession, as my knowledge of the Aztec
customs led me rightly to infer, was that the ceremonial of triumph
might be ended by leading us thrice around the sacrificial stone. And in
truth I dreaded less the fate which this leading us about the altar of
sacrifice implied was in store for us than I did the close association,
made necessary by the ceremony, with the direful stench which that vile
altar exhaled.
At the edge of the amphitheatre, where already the evil odor was almost
overpowering, the soldiers who had charge of us relinquished us--as it
seemed to me, most thankfully--to a company of the temple priests;
whereof the chief was a round, fat little man, whose shortness of legs
very obviously was accompanied by a corresponding shortness of wind. He
was, in truth, a most hopelessly undignified little personage; yet he
did his best to assume a look of dignity as he waddled down the steps in
advance of us, and he manfully endeavored to conceal the difficulties
encountered by his short fat legs in the course of this descent. And I
was glad enough that we had his absurd performances to distract our
minds a little from the dismalness of our surroundings, and especially
from the queasiness that again beset our stomachs as our noses were
assailed more and more violently by that most evil smell. The priests, I
observed, had cotton stuffed in their nostrils; but for us there was
nothing for it but to hold our noses tightly with our hands.
El Sabio, who had a most generous and broadly open nose, and who was not
blest with hands to hold it fast with, grew restive as the first whiff
struck him; which resulted less, I suppose, from the intrinsic vileness
of the smell than from the fact that he, in common with all peace-loving
animals, had aroused in him an instinctive terror by the odor of blood.
Pablo's voice, and Pablo's touch, possibly might have soothed and
quieted him; but the efforts which the priests who were leading him made
to restrain him only served the more to terrify him, and so to increase
his violence. And the priests, who now for a considerable time had seen
him daily, and had known him only as the most gentle and biddable of
creatures, were mightily astonished, and evidently were terrified, by
this sudden outbreak of a fierce temper that most reasonably took them
entirely by surprise. Partly by pulling at the rope that they had about
his neck, and partly by such pushes as they dared to give him while he
was momentarily at rest, they succeeded in forcing him down the steps;
and so at last into the large circular space at the bottom of the
amphitheatre, in the midst of which stood the stone of sacrifice and
where the smell of blood was overpoweringly strong. But by the time that
this victory was won El Sabio had ceased to be a quiet orderly donkey,
accustomed to conform to the usages of human society, and had become a
veritable crazy creature, inflamed by the madness of fear and rage.
[Illustration: EL SABIO'S DEFIANCE]
By some miracle--a very happy miracle for those whom the poor ass most
naturally regarded as his tormentors--El Sabio's nimble heels had until
this moment lashed the air harmlessly; but just as the last step
downward was accomplished he let out both of his hind-legs together, and
with such precision that both of his hoofs struck a remarkably tall
priest who had taken a very active part in persecuting him. The blow was
landed fairly on the tall priest's stomach, and instantly the two long
halves of that priest shut together like a jack-knife, and he fell to
the ground with a gasp that told how thoroughly the wind was knocked out
of him. Doubtless this outburst of violence served but to increase El
Sabio's terror, for he straightway gave so strong a plunge that he
fairly broke away from the men who were holding him; and then he bent
all his energies to working such destruction as never was worked by one
single ass since the very beginning of the world!
Fortunately for our own safety--for El Sabio was in no condition to
discriminate between friends and foes--we still were at some distance
from the bottom of the amphitheatre when this outbreak occurred; the
greater part of the priests having preceded us, and El Sabio having been
led in the van of the prisoners. It was wholly upon the priests,
therefore, that his mad rage was expended, and the way that he "got in
his work," as Young expressed it, on these enemies of his and ours was a
joyful wonder to behold. Being closely penned in--for the way whence
they had entered the amphitheatre was barred by the crowd of which we
were a part, and the entrance to the subterranean passage leading to the
temple was closed--the priests had no chance to escape from the furious
creature save by clambering up the smooth wall, fully eight feet high,
by which was enclosed the circular space that immediately surrounded the
altar. Even an agile man, going at it quietly, would have found a little
difficulty in executing this gymnastic feat, that required for its
accomplishment sheer lifting of the body until a leg could be thrown
over the top of the wall; and as these priests, for the most part, had
grown fat and sluggish in their sacred calling, they were wellnigh
incapacitated from performing it. Furthermore, El Sabio manifested what
had the appearance of being a most diabolical ingenuity--yet that, no
doubt, was no more than chance--in delivering flying kicks against the
legs of these dangling creatures; wherefrom such keen pain resulted that
they instantly let loose their hold, and came tumbling to the ground.
So far as we were concerned--our sympathies being wholly on the side of
the ass--this astonishing spectacle remained a broad farce until the
very end; but it presently became to the men engaged in it a very
serious tragedy. As he made his wild charges, El Sabio galloped backward
and forward again and again over the bodies of his prostrate enemies; in
the course of which gallopings his sharp little hoofs cut their naked
flesh savagely, and now and then, when he happened to land a kick fairly
against a man's body, we could see, from the sinking in of the fellow's
ribs and the gush of blood that burst from his nostrils, that the ass
had delivered a death-blow.
As for the noise that attended this most extraordinary performance,
words can but faintly describe it. From the men directly engaged with El
Sabio came yells of fear and shouts for assistance and cries of anger,
beneath all of which was a dull undertone of groans; the crowd around us
and higher up behind us gave vent to a shrill roar of shouts and yells
that seemed to be partly in the nature of advice, and partly the result
of that instinct which prompts all barbarians to yell whenever anybody
else yells, on general principles. Pablo interpolated a most despairing
note in the way of beseeching cries of "B-u-r-r-r-o! B-u-r-r-r-o!"
whereby he sought to allay El Sabio's frenzy, and so to save him from
the direful fate that well might be expected to overtake him in
recompense of his direful deeds; and Young fairly tossed his battered
Derby hat up into the air as he shouted: "Go it, El Sabio! Give it to
'em, my boy! Ten t' one against th' fat priest! Three cheers for th'
jackass! Hip-hip-hurrah!" In short, it seemed as though Bedlam had
broken loose among us, and as though all of us together were going mad.
What with dodging behind his fellows, and keeping clear of El Sabio's
frantic charges by the display of an agility that I would not have given
him credit for, the little fat priest managed to preserve his small
round body unharmed until all of his companions had either escaped over
the wall or had been, as Young put it, knocked out by El Sabio's heels.
Once or twice he had made a dash for the passage-way in which we were
standing, but the lower end of this was choked with the dozen or more
badly wounded wretches who had crawled thither in their efforts to
escape; and these the priests in front of us, being but cowardly
creatures, had made no effort to succor or to lift away, for the reason
that so long as this barrier remained they themselves were safe from El
Sabio's fury.
Having, therefore, no longer any one to hide behind, the fat little
priest evidently realized that his only hope of salvation lay in making
an effort, truly heroic in one of his height and girth and woful
shortness of wind, to clamber up the face of the wall; and to this
wellnigh impossible task he most resolutely set himself. It was only by
jumping that he was able to get a grip over the top of the wall; yet
when this grip was gained he could get no farther on his way to
deliverance, and so he hung dangling there, his face to the wall,
jerking his short fat legs about spasmodically, and wasting in most
piercing yells what little there was in him of wind.