THE SACRIFICE
By the time we had descended the mountain and had reached the city it
was noon, and going to my quarters I was glad to find an excellent
meal. Having finished eating I threw myself into the hammock and
despite my scarcity of matches and tobacco, indulged in a smoke. Then,
feeling drowsy, I took off my coat, placed it on the floor beside my
hammock and closed my eyes.
I awoke refreshed and reached for my coat only to leap from the
hammock with a cry of alarm. The coat was gone! Quickly I searched the
room, thinking Zip might have placed the garment elsewhere while I
slept, but the place was bare. Zip was nowhere to be seen, and even
the rug on which meals were served had been removed.
Here was a pretty state of affairs. My coat contained my matches,
pipe, tobacco, pocket knife and handkerchief. Without it I was lost,
helpless, incapable of maintaining my prestige of position. Death or
worse hovered over me. My life depended on regaining my precious
garment and its contents. Who could have taken it? What could have
been their object? And instantly the truth flashed upon my mind. It
was that rascally high priest. He had seen me take pipe, tobacco and
matches from my coat pocket. He had watched me narrowly, perhaps had
kept his eyes upon me through some hidden peep-hole or opening, and
had seen me remove my coat, and while I slept had seized it. Or
perhaps he had ordered Zip to secure it for him. It made little
difference which, for if it were in his possession he would have me in
his power. He could order me to smoke and when I failed he could
perform the miracle himself and denounce me as an imposter. My only
hope was to regain my possessions by fair means or foul, and knowing
that every second I delayed increased my peril, I rushed to the ladder
and across the roofs to the throne room.
From beneath me, as I started to descend, came the sounds of the
hissing language in excited tones, and as my head came below the level
of the roof my heart sank. The dark air of the room was heavy with
tobacco smoke!
The next instant my feet were jerked from beneath me, I was seized,
tumbled on the floor, and before I could strike or rise I was bound
hand and foot. Dazed, startled and helpless I glanced about.
Surrounding me were a dozen of the repulsive dwarfs. Gathered about
the sides of the room were crowds of people, and seated upon the
throne, puffing great clouds of smoke from my pipe, a wicked leer upon
his ugly face, and thoroughly enjoying himself, was the priest, while
beside him the king coughed and sneezed and looked very miserable.
All this I took in at a glance. Then I was seized and dragged roughly
before the throne. I fully realized my doom was sealed. I was no
longer a supernatural being to be feared and adored—my treatment
proved that—but merely a prisoner, an ordinary mortal. Oddly enough,
however, I was no longer frightened. My first fears had given place to
anger, and I raged and fumed and prayed that the grinning fiend before
me might be stricken with all the torturing sickness, which usually
follows the beginner’s first smoke.
But apparently he was immune to the effects, and as soon as I was
dragged before the throne he rose, and pointing at me, addressed the
crowd before him. That he was denouncing me as an imposter and at the
same time tremendously increasing his own importance was evident by
his tones, his gestures and the expression on his black face.
Moreover, he had another card to play. Pointing upward and waving his
arm and making quite creditable imitation of an airplane’s exhaust, he
spoke vehemently and then pointed to a man who crouched on the dais.
At first I was at a loss to grasp his meaning, and then, as the
trembling creature beside the throne spoke in frightened tones and
gesticulated vividly, I realized he was the chap I had bumped into
upon my arrival. He had spilled the beans and had informed the old
scarecrow of a priest that I had arrived via the tunnel and not from
the sky.
I felt sure now that my doom was sealed. But there was nothing I could
do or say. There was one chance in a million that I might be escorted
from the valley and turned loose in the tunnel; but that gave me no
comfort, for I knew that hideous certain death awaited me on that
slope covered with the devilish man-eating-trees.
The chances, however, were all in favor of my being tortured and
butchered. Strangely enough my greatest regret, the matter which
troubled me the most and made me curse my carelessness in removing my
coat while I slept, was not that I should be killed—I had faced death
too often for that—but the fact that I would be unable to report the
wonderful discoveries I had made or give my knowledge of the city and
its people to the world. Indeed, my thoughts were so concentrated on
this that I gave little attention to the priest, until he stepped
forward, and, with a nasty grimace, struck me savagely across the
face. Maddened at the blow I lunged forward like a butting ram. My
head struck squarely in the pit of his stomach, and with a gasping
yell he doubled up and fell sprawling on the dais while the pipe flew
from his lips and scattered its contents far and near. Before I could
roll to one side, my guards seized and pulled me across the room.
Despite my plight and the fate in store for me I laughed loudly and
heartily as I saw the priest with hands pressed to stomach, eyes
rolling wildly and a sickly greenish pallor on his face. The blow plus
the tobacco had done its work. I had evened up the score a bit at any
rate.
The next moment I was hauled through a low doorway hidden by
draperies, and, bumping like a bag of meal over the rough stones, was
pitched into an inky black cell. Bruised, scratched and bleeding I lay
there unable to move or see while the occasional sounds of shuffling
footsteps, or rather handsteps, told me a guard was close at hand. For
hour after hour I lay motionless, expecting each minute that I would
be dragged out to torture or death and wondering dully what form it
would take, until at last—numb, exhausted and worn out, I lost
consciousness.
I was brought to my senses by being seized and jerked to a sitting
posture, and found the cell illuminated by a spluttering torch, while
two of the men supported my shoulders and a third held a gourd of
water to my lips. My throat was parched and the liquid was most
welcome, and a moment later, a fourth man appeared with food. It was
evident that the priest had no intention of letting me die of thirst
or starvation, and I wondered why he should be so solicitous of my
comfort if I were doomed to an early death.
As soon as I had eaten, the guards withdrew, taking the torch, and I
was once more left in stygian blackness with my thoughts. I wondered
whether it were day or night, but I had no means of judging. It had
been the middle of the afternoon when I had missed my coat, and,
reasoning that the food served was probably the evening meal, I
decided that it was now about sundown. In that case I should probably
be put out of the way the next morning. That would be a full
twenty-four hours before Hazen was due and I wondered what he would
think when he saw no sign of me in the valley—whether he would surmise
that I had not reached the city and had been killed by the Kunas, and
what he would report to my friends in Colon.
But Colon, friends and Hazen seemed very far away as I thought of them
there in that black hole awaiting death at the hands of the strange
black dwarfs and, as far as any aid they could give me was concerned,
I might as well have been in Mars.
My thoughts were interrupted by my guards reappearing with the torch.
Lifting me to my feet they loosened the bonds about my legs and urged
me through a small doorway, where I was compelled to bend low to pass,
and along a winding, narrow, low-ceilinged stone tunnel. That I was on
my way to my execution I was sure, and vague thoughts of selling my
life dearly and of overpowering my puny guards crossed my mind. But I
dismissed such ideas as useless, for even were I to succeed I would be
no better off. There were thousands of the tiny men in the city, it
was impossible to escape from the valley unseen, and I had not the
least idea where the underground passage led. To attempt to escape
meant certain death, and there still remained a faint chance, a dim
hope that I might yet be spared and merely deported. So, ducking my
head and with stooping shoulders, I picked my way along the tunnel by
the fitful glare of the flaming torch.
For what seemed miles the way led on and I began to think that the
entrance was outside the valley and that I was being led to freedom,
when a glimmer of light showed ahead, the floor sloped upward, and, an
instant later, I emerged in the open air.
For a moment my eyes were blinded by the light after the darkness of
the passage and I could not grasp where I was. I had thought it
evening, but my first glance told me it was early morning and I knew
the night had passed and another day had come. Then, as I looked about
at my surroundings and it dawned upon me where I was, a shudder of
horror, a chill of deadly fear swept over me. I was on the summit of
the pyramid. The sacrificial altar was within three paces. Beside it
stood the fiendish priest and his assistants, and gathered upon the
green plain were hordes of people with faces upturned towards me. I
was about to be sacrificed, to be bound fast to the blood-stained
awful stone, to have my still-beating heart torn from my living body!
Anything were preferable to that and with a sudden bound I strove to
gain the altar’s edge and hurl myself to certain death. But to no
avail. Two of the dwarfs held me fast by the cord which fastened my
wrists and I was jerked back to fall heavily upon the stones. Before I
could struggle up, four of the priest’s assistants sprang forward and,
grasping me by legs and shoulders, lifted me and tossed me upon the
stinking sacrificial stone. I was helpless, and instantly my ankles
were tied fast to the metal staples, the bonds of my wrists were
severed, my arms were drawn apart and securely lashed to other
staples, the stone collar was placed about my neck forcing my head far
back and I was ready for the glowering priest to wreak his awful
vengeance.
Stepping close to the altar he drew a glittering obsidian knife—and
even in my terrible predicament I noted this, and realized that he was
adhering strictly to Aztec customs—and, raising his arms, he began a
wailing, blood-curdling chant. Up from the thousands of throats below
came the chanting chorus, rising and falling like a great wave of
sound. How long I wondered, would this keep on? How much longer must
this agony, this torture of suspense be borne? Why did he not strike
his stone dagger into my chest and have it over with?
And then, from some dormant cell in my brain, came the answer. I was
to be sacrificed to the sun god, and I remembered that, according to
the Aztec religion, the blow could not be struck until the rising sun
cast its rays upon the victim’s chest above the heart. The priest was
awaiting that moment. He was delaying until the sun, still behind the
crater’s rim, should throw its first rays upon me.
How long would it be? How many minutes must pass before the fatal
finger of light pointed to my heart? With a mighty effort I turned my
head slightly towards the east. Above the rugged mountain edge was a
blaze of light. Even as I looked with aching eyes a golden beam shot
across the valley and flashed blindingly into my face. It was now only
a matter of seconds. The priest raised his knife aloft. The chant from
the multitude ceased and over city and valley fell an ominous, awful
silence. Upon the sacrificial knife the sun gleamed brilliantly,
transforming the glass-like stone to burnished gold. With his free
hand the priest tore open my shirt and bared my bosom. I felt that the
end had come. I closed my eyes. And then, at the very instant when the
knife was about to sweep down, faint and far away, like the humming of
a giant bee, I caught a sound. It was unmistakable unlike anything
else in all the world—the exhaust of an airplane’s engines!
And my straining ears were not the only ones that heard that note.
Over the priest’s face swept a look of deadly fear. The poised knife
was slowly lowered. He turned trembling towards the west and from the
waiting throng below rose a mighty sigh of terror.
A new hope sprang up in my breast. Was it Hazen? He was not due until
the next day and it might be only some army plane that would pass far
to one side of the valley. No, the sound was increasing, the plane was
approaching. But even were it Hazen would it help me any? Would he see
my plight and descend or would he fly too far above the city to note
what was taking place? For a space my life was saved. The fear of that
giant, roaring bird would prevent the sacrifice. The priest feared he
had made a mistake, that I _was_ a god, that, from the sky, vengeance
would swoop upon him and his people for the contemplated butchery. But
if the plane passed? Or would his dread of it be greater than his fear
of defying the sun god by failing in the sacrifice?
Now the roar of the motor sounded directly overhead and the next
moment I glimpsed the plane speeding across the blue morning sky. Then
it was gone. The exhaust grew fainter and fainter. All hope was lost.
Whoever it was had flown on, all unsuspecting the awful fate of a
fellow man upon that sunlit pyramid.
And now the priest was again towering over me. Once more he raised his
knife. I could feel the warm sun heating upon my throat and shoulders.
I could feel it creeping slowly but surely downward. The knife
quivered in the impatient hand of the priest, I saw his muscles tense
themselves for the blow, I caught the grim smile that flitted across
his face as he prepared to strike.
An instant more and my palpitating heart would be held aloft for all
to see.
But the blow never fell. With a deafening roar, that drowned the
mighty shout of terror from the people, the airplane swooped like an
eagle from the sky and clove the air within a hundred feet of the
altar. With a gurgling cry the priest flung himself face down, and his
knife fell clattering with the sound of broken glass upon the stones.
Was it Hazen? Would he see me? Would he alight? Was I saved?
The answer was a thunderous, fear maddened cry from below, a swishing
whirr as of a gale of wind and a dark shadow sweeping over me.
And then my overwrought senses, my frazzled nerves could stand no more
and all went black before my eyes.
Dimly consciousness came back. I heard the sounds of rushing feet, the
panting labored breaths of men, sharp, half uttered exclamations and
grunting noises. Then a shrill scream of mortal terror and a deep
drawn sigh of relief. Above my wondering eyes a figure suddenly
loomed. A weird uncanny figure with strangely smooth and rounded head
and great goggling, glassy eyes. With a jerk the stone collar was
lifted from my strained neck and as full consciousness came back I
gasped. It was Hazen! By some miracle he was ahead of time!
From somewhere, muffled behind that grotesque mask, came a hoarse: “My
God, are you hurt?”
Before I could speak the bonds were slashed from my ankles and wrists.
A strong arm raised me and pulled me from the slab.
“For God’s sake, hurry!” cried Hazen, as half supporting me he rushed
toward the altar stairs. “I’ve got ’em buffaloed for a minute, but the
Lord alone knows how long it’ll hold ’em.”
Rapidly as my numbed limbs would permit I rushed down the sloping,
spiral way. Half carried by Hazen I raced across the few yards of
grass between the base of the pyramid and the plane, and as I did so I
caught a fleeting glimpse of a huddled, shapeless, bloodly bundle of
green and white. It was all that remained of the priest whom Hazen had
hurled from the altar top!
The next moment I was in the plane and Hazen was twirling the
propeller. There was a roar as the motor started. Hazen leaped like an
acrobat to his seat and slowly the machine moved across the plain.
Everywhere the people were prostrate, but as the machine started
forward one after another glanced up. Ere we had traveled a score of
yards the creatures were rising and with frightful screams were
scattering from our pathway. It was impossible to avoid them. With
sickening shocks the whirring propeller struck one after another.
Blood spattered our faces and becrimsoned the windshield and the
wings. But uninjured the plane gathered headway; the uneven bumping
over the ground ceased; we were traveling smoothly, lifting from the
earth.
Then with a strange wild roar the people rushed for us. Racing on
their hands they came. Rocks and missiles whizzed about us. An arrow
whirred by my head and struck quivering in a strut. But now we were
rising rapidly. We were looking down upon the maddened hosts, their
arrows and sling-flung stones were striking the under surface of the
fuselage and wings. We were safe at last. A moment more and we would
be above the crater rim.
A sudden exclamation from Hazen startled me. I glanced up. Straight
ahead rose the precipitous mountain side above the quarry. To clear it
we must ascend far more rapidly than we were doing.
“Must have splintered the blades!” jerked out Hazen. “She’s not making
it. Can’t swing her. Rudder’s jammed. Heave out everything you can
find. Hurry or we’ll smash!”
Before us loomed the ragged, rocky wall. We were rushing to our doom
at lightning speed. At Hazen’s words I grasped whatever I could find
and tossed it over the side. A box of provisions, a roll of tools, a
leather jacket, a thermos bottle, canteens, an automatic pistol and a
cartridge belt all went. I glanced up. We were rising faster. A few
pounds more overboard, a few feet higher and we would be clear. Was
there anything else I could throw out? Frantically I searched. I saw a
canlike object resting on a frame. Spare gasoline I decided, but fuel
was of no value now. With an effort I dragged it out. I lifted it and
hurled it over.
With a sudden jerk the plane sprung upward. There was a terrific
muffled roar from below and with barely a yard to spare we rose above
the crater rim.
“Lord, you must have dropped that old bomb!” cried Hazen. “The
concussion jarred the rudder free.”
I glanced over the side. Far beneath, a cloud of smoke and dust was
drifting slowly aside exposing the aqueduct, broken, smashed and in
ruins. From the opening in the mountain side a mighty stream of water
was roaring in a rushing, tearing torrent. The bomb had landed
squarely in the quarry. The aqueduct had fallen, the shock had let
loose the gates of the lake and the whole vast crater reservoir was
pouring in a mighty flood across the valley.
In a wide arc Hazen swung the plane about. “Poor devils!” he muttered
as we soared above the doomed city.
Already the green plain was shimmering with the glint of water. We
could see the frantic, frenzied people running and scrambling up their
ladders. Again we wheeled and circled far above them and now only the
roof tops of the houses were above the flood. Presently these too sank
from sight and above the sunlit waters only the sacrificial stone
remained.
“It’s all over!” exclaimed Hazen, and heading northward we sped beyond
the encircling mountain sides.
Beneath us now was forest, and with a shudder I recognized it as that
death-dealing, nightmare grove of cannibal trees. Fascinated I gazed
down and suddenly from the mountain side behind us burst a frothing
yellow torrent. The pressure of the flood had been too great. The
overwhelming waters had forced the stone door of the tunnel by which I
had entered that incredible valley. Before my wondering eyes the
devastating deluge swept down the slope. I saw the monstrous trees
shiver and sway and crash before the irresistible force. They gave way
and like matchsticks went tossing, tumbling, bobbing down the
hillside.
Higher and higher we rose. The water-filled crater was now but a
silvery lake. The slope up which I had fought and raced from the
ravenous, blood-sucking trees was bare, red earth scarred deep by the
plunging stream that flowed over it. Far to the west gleamed the blue
Pacific. Like a vast map Darien was spread below us. Northward we
sped. Before us was civilization. Behind us death and destruction. The
man-eating trees were a thing of the past. The lost city was lost
forever.
(The End)
[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the December 1926 issue
of Amazing Stories magazine.]