Produced by Al Haines
[Illustration: Cover art]
[Frontispiece: "This is a terrible piece of work." Page 185.]
THE LOST GOLD OF
THE MONTEZUMAS
A STORY OF THE ALAMO
BY
WILLIAM O. STODDARD
AUTHOR OF "CHUMLEY'S POST," "CROWDED OUT O' CROFIELD," "THE TALKING
LEAVES," ETC.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
_CHARLES H. STEPHENS_
PHILADELPHIA
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1898
COPYRIGHT, 1897,
BY
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
The Gods of the Montezumas
CHAPTER II.
The Alamo Fort
CHAPTER III.
The Dream of the New Empire
CHAPTER IV.
The Race for the Chaparral
CHAPTER V.
Among the Bushes
CHAPTER VI.
The Old Cash-Box
CHAPTER VII.
The Escape of the Rangers
CHAPTER VIII.
The Camp at the Spring
CHAPTER IX.
The Skirmish in the Night
CHAPTER X.
A Baffled Pursuit
CHAPTER XI.
The Charge of the Lancers
CHAPTER XII.
The Horse-Thieves and the Stampede
CHAPTER XIII.
The Last of Tetzcatl
CHAPTER XIV.
The Perilous Path
CHAPTER XV.
The Return of the Gold Hunters
CHAPTER XVI.
The Army of Santa Anna
CHAPTER XVII.
The First Shot
CHAPTER XVIII.
Crockett's Alarm Gun
CHAPTER XIX.
The Reinforcement
CHAPTER XX.
Nearing the End
ILLUSTRATIONS
"This is a terrible piece of work" . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece._
"Good! Tetzcatl go to the Alamo"
"Heap dollar," remarked Red Wolf
"Ugh!" screeched the Comanche at the end of a terrific minute, and
he sank into the grass
In rode the very airy captain of lancers
A dark, stern, terrible shape half rose from a couch
CHAPTER I.
THE GODS OF THE MONTEZUMAS.
It was a gloomy place. It would have been dark but for a heap of
blazing wood upon a rock at one side. That is, it looked like a rock
at first sight, but upon a closer inspection it proved to be a cube of
well-fitted, although roughly finished, masonry. It was about six feet
square, and there were three stone steps leading up in front.
Behind this altar-like structure a vast wall of the natural rock, a
dark limestone, had been sculptured into the shape of a colossal and
exceedingly ugly human face,--as if the head of a stone giant were half
sunken in that side of what was evidently an immense cave.
There were men in the cave, but no women were to be seen. Several of
the men were standing near the altar, and one of them was putting fuel
upon the fire. The only garment worn by any of them was a ragged
blanket, the Mexican _serape_. In the middle of the blanket was a
hole, and when the wearer's head was thrust through this he was in full
dress.
There was no present need for carrying weapons, but arms of all
sorts--lances, swords, bows and sheaves of arrows--were strewn in
careless heaps along the base of the wall. Besides these, and
remarkable for their shapes and sizes, there were a number of curiously
carved and ornamented clubs. All the men visible were old and
emaciated. They were wrinkled, grimy, dark, with long, black-gray
hair, and coal-black, beady eyes. Withal, there was about them a
listless, unoccupied, purposeless air, as if they were only half alive.
They seemed to see well enough in that lurid half light, and they
wandered hither and thither, now and then exchanging a few words in
some harsh and guttural dialect that seemed to have no dividing pauses
between its interminable words.
Nevertheless, this was not the only tongue with which they were
familiar, for one of the men at the altar turned to those who were near
him and spoke to them in Spanish.
"The gods have spoken loudly," he said. "They have been long without
service. They are hungry. Tetzcatl will go. He will find if the
Americans are strong enough to strike the Spaniards in Texas. He will
bring them to serve the gods in the valley of the old kings. He will
stir up the Comanches and the Lipans. The Apaches in the west are
already busy. The gods will be quiet if he can arouse for them the
enemies of Spain."
For a moment the dark figures stood as still as so many statues, and
then a sepulchral voice arose among them.
"The men of the North will not come," it said. "The Texans cannot
defend their own towns from the locusts of Santa Anna. The Comanches
and the Lipans are scalping each other. The Apaches have been beaten
by Bravo's lancers. All white men need to be hired or they will not
fight. We have nothing wherewith to hire them."
A hoarse and mocking laugh burst from the lips of Tetzcatl. "Hire
them? Pay them?" he said. "No! But hunters can bait wolves. If the
trap is rightly set, the wolves will never reach the bait. They will
but fall into the pit they are lured to. Come! Let us look at the
fire that was kindled for Guatamoczin. The Spaniards perished in the
mountains when they came to hunt for the hidden treasures of the
Montezumas."
Slowly, as if their withered limbs almost refused to carry them, the
weird, dingy, ghastly figures followed him deeper into the cave, and
each took with him a blazing pine-knot for a torch. Not one of them
appeared to be aroused, as yet, to any especial interest, nor did they
talk as they went. Tetzcatl, however, led the way with a vigor of
movement that was in startling contrast to the listlessness of his dark
companions.
There was no door to unlock, there were no bars to remove, at the end
of their silent march. The distance travelled may have been a hundred
paces. On either side, as they went, were stalagmites of glittering
white, answering to the pointed stalactites which depended from the
vaulted cave-roof above. It was a scene the like of which can be found
in many another limestone formation the world over. There was nothing
exceptional about it, only that the specimens presented were numerous
and finely formed.
The torches flared in the strong currents of air which ventilated the
cavern, and their smoky light was reflected brilliantly from all the
irregular, alabaster surfaces.
The sculptured head of the great idol over the altar; the carefully
maintained fire; the presence of the aged keepers, whether they were to
be called priests of the shrine or only worshippers, were the
distinguishing features of the place.
On went Tetzcatl until he reached a spot where the side walls
approached each other, with a space of about thirty feet between them.
Here he paused and waited until the others, with several who had not
before made their appearance, arrived and stood beside him.
"There!" he said, loudly, pointing with outstretched hand.
"Guatamoczin turned to ashes upon the coals of the Spanish furnace,
because he refused to reveal this to their greed. Know you not that
even now, if the Spaniards did but suspect, there would shortly be an
army among the mountain passes? Aye! If the Americans believed that
this were here, their thousands would be pouring southward. All Europe
would come. Here is the god that they worship, but the secret of its
presence has been guarded from them by the old gods of Mexico."
"What good?" asked a cracked voice near him. "It cannot be used to buy
Texans. It must remain where it is until the gods come up."
"Aye! So!" shrieked Tetzcatl. "We will keep their secret chamber
until they come. But the wolf does but need to smell the bait,--not to
eat it. He will come, if he has only the scent. If the Texans were
stirred to hunt for the gold they will never find, they would but
gather offerings for the long hunger of those who dwell below."
"Hark!" responded the other speaker. "If they ask for it, it must go
to them. Much has been paid them already. Hark!"
Before them, in regularly arranged rows, were a number of stacks of
what seemed to be bars of metal, showing here and there dull gleams of
yellow. The ingots were not large, but their aggregate weight and
value would be enormous, if they were gold.
Opposite, across the passage, were other and larger stacks of ingots,
but these presented no yellow surfaces. Black rather than white was
the prevailing tint of what Tetzcatl had declared to be silver bullion.
Not all of the gold had been smelted and cast, for there were small
heaps of nuggets, such as come from rich placer washings.
Tetzcatl had stepped forward, lifting his torch and peering into the
gloom. Only a step or two beyond him, the floor of the cave was cut
off, sharply, by one of the breaks or "faults" common to all rock
formations, the token of some old-time upheaval or depression. The
rugged level began again a few yards farther on, but there was no
bridge across the yawning chasm which separated the corresponding
edges. Three or four heavy planks which lay near indicated a possible
means of crossing, if need should be, but no hand was laid upon them
now.
The dismal-looking companions were all leaning forward in listening
attitudes, intent upon a roaring, booming sound that came up from the
chasm.
"They are calling," said Tetzcatl. "But we have none to give them.
Well did I say that I must go."
"It is too loud!" exclaimed the watcher, who had followed him most
closely. "They have called my name!"
Tetzcatl turned quickly, but he addressed yet another of the old men by
a long, many-syllabled, vibrating invocation, and added to it, in
Spanish,--
"Wilt thou go down to the gods, or shall he take thy place?"
"He is gone!" was the quick but entirely unexcited rejoinder.
Tetzcatl whirled again toward the gulf, but the rock-floor at his left
was vacant. The withered old devotee had not hesitated for a moment,
but had plunged down headlong.
During a number of slow seconds no word was uttered, and all the while
the booming roar from below diminished in volume until it nearly died
away.
"The gods are satisfied," said Tetzcatl.
So seemed to think and say his associates, and they turned away to walk
slowly toward the altar, as if nothing noteworthy or unusual had
occurred.
It is not always easy to give satisfactory explanations of the sounds
which are to be heard, more or less intermittently, among the chasms
and recesses of great caves. The flow of subterranean waters, the rush
of air-currents, the effects of echoes, and many other agencies have
been taken into account. As for Tetzcatl and his friends, they had but
formed and expressed an idea which was anciently universal. This voice
from the deep was but one of the oracles which have been so reverenced
by the primitive heathenisms of many nations.
As for the treasure, from whatever placers it had been gathered, its
presence in such a place required no explanation. The Aztec kings had
but exhibited commonplace prudence in choosing for it so secure a
hiding.
The cave was not at all more mysterious than might be the underground
vault of a great city bank or a United States Sub-Treasury. It was as
safe even from burglary, if the vault-entrance was well guarded.
More than a score of the grisly, blanketed shapes were now gathered at
the altar. Its fire was blazing high, and shed its red, wavering
radiance upon their faces, while Tetzcatl stood upon the lower of the
steps and addressed them. He spoke altogether in their own tongue, and
they listened without reply or comment.
When at last he ceased speaking, they all sat down upon the rock-floor,
and not one of them turned his head while their exceptionally vigorous
and active leader strode swiftly away in the direction opposite to the
chasm and the treasure.
It was an ascent, gradual at first and then more rapid, until his walk
became a climb and there were broken ridges to surmount at intervals.
Before long he reached a ragged wall of rock, where the great hall of
the cave abruptly ended. Farther progress would have been shut off but
for a narrow cleft at the left, into which he turned. This still led
upward until it became little better than a burrow. He was compelled
to stoop first, and then to go, for several yards, on all-fours. Then
there was an increasing sunlight, and he stood erect amid a tangled
copse of vines and bushes.
Above him arose a craggy mountain-side. Below him, a thousand feet,
was a wooded valley through which a narrow river ran. Along the
mountain-side, not far below where he stood, there wound a plainly
marked pathway. With a quickness that was cat-like, he descended to
this path, and, as he reached it, he looked back toward the now
perfectly concealed burrow he had emerged from.
"He has gone down to the gods!" he exclaimed, aloud. "He must have
Spaniards to follow him. Tetzcatl will bring upon them the scalpers of
the plains and the riflemen of the North. He will lure the Texans with
the gold they will never find. Ha! They will gather none of the
treasures of the Montezumas, unless the gods come up to tell them of
the sands in the secret watercourses beyond the mountains and toward
the sunset. Huitzilopochtli covered the gold gullies when the
Spaniards came."
He had a foundation of fact for his declaration. Up to that hour no
search had succeeded in accounting for the quantities of yellow metal
captured by Cortez, or for the larger deposits declared to have been
hidden from him by the obstinate chiefs whom he had slain for refusing
to tell.