The circumstances under which the following pages come to be printed are somewhat curious and worthy of record. Within the last few years a certain English gentleman, whom we will call Jones, because it was not his name, chanced to be employed as the manager of a mine not far from the Usumacinto River, the upper reaches of which divide the Mexican State of Chiapas from the Republic of Guatemala.

Now life at a mine in Chiapas, though doubtless it has some compensations, does not altogether fulfil a European’s ideal of happiness. To begin with, the work is hard, desperately hard, and though the climate is healthy enough among the mountains, there are valleys where men may die of fever. Of sport, strictly speaking, there is none, for the forests are too dense to hunt in with any comfort, and, if they were not, the swarms of venomous insects of various degree, that haunt them, would make this particular relaxation impossible.

Society also, as we understand it, is conspicuous by its absence, and should a man chance even to be married, he could not well bring his wife into regions that are still very unsettled, across forest paths, through rivers, and along the brinks of precipices, dangerous and impassable enough to strike terror to the heart of the stoutest traveller.

When Mr. Jones had dwelt for a year at the mines of La Concepcion, the fact of his loneliness, and a desire for acquaintances more congenial than the American clerk of the stores and his Indian labourers, came home to him with some force. During the first months of his residence he had attempted to make friends with the owners of some neighbouring fincas or farms. This attempt, however, he soon gave up in disgust, for these men proved to be half-breeds of the lowest class, living in an atmosphere of monotonous vice.

In this emergency, being a person of intelligence, Jones fell back upon intellectual resources, and devoted himself, so far as his time would allow, to the collection of antiquities, and to the study of such of the numerous ruins of pre-Aztec cities and temples as lay within his reach. The longer he pursued these researches, the more did they fascinate his imagination. Therefore, when he chanced to hear that, on the farther side of the mountain, at a hacienda called Santa Cruz, there dwelt an Indian, Don Ignatio by name, the owner of the hacienda, who was reported to have more knowledge of the antiguos, their history and relics, than anybody else in this part of Mexico, he determined to visit him upon the first opportunity.

This, indeed, he would have done before, for Don Ignatio boasted an excellent reputation, had it not been for the length of the journey to his home. Now, however, the difficulty was lessened by an Indian who offered to point out a practicable path over the mountain, which brought the hacienda of Santa Cruz to within a three hours’ ride on mule-back from La Concepcion, in place of the ten hours that were necessary to reach it by the more frequented road. Accordingly, one day in the dry season, when work was slack at the mine, owing to the water having fallen too low to turn the crushing-mill, Jones started. This was on a Saturday, for on the Monday previous he had despatched a runner to Don Ignatio announcing his intended visit, and received in reply a most courteous and well-written letter, begging him to pass the next Sunday at the hacienda, “where any English gentleman would always be most welcome.”

As he approached the hacienda, he was astonished to see the façade of an enormous white stone building of a semi-Moorish style of architecture, having towers and ornamented doorways at either end, and a large dome rising from the centre of its flat roof. Riding through the milpas, or corn-fields, and groves of cocoa and coffee bushes, all in a perfect state of cultivation, which covered many acres on every side of the building, Jones came to the gateway of a large patio, or courtyard, where grew several gigantic ceiba trees, throwing their grateful shade over the mouth of a well. From under these trees an Indian appeared, who evidently had been watching for his arrival, and, taking the horse, informed him, with many salutations, that the Señor Ignatio was at even-song with his people in the chapel yonder, according to his habit, but that the prayers would soon be finished.

Leaving his horse in charge of the Indian, Jones went to the chapel, and, its great doors being open, he entered and sat down. So soon as his eyes became accustomed to the dim light, he perceived that the place was unusually beautiful, both in its proportions and its decorations.

The worshippers also were many—perhaps they numbered three hundred, clearly all of them Indians employed upon the estate; and so intent were they upon their devotions that his entry was not even noticed. To his mind, however, the most curious object in the building was a slab of white marble, let into the wall above the altar, whereon the following inscription was engraved in Spanish, in letters so large that he had no difficulty in reading it:

“Dedicated by Ignatio, the Indian, to the memory of his most beloved friend, James Strickland, an English gentleman, and Maya, Princess of the Heart, his wife, whom first he met upon this spot. Pray for their souls, of your charity, O passer-by.”

While Jones was wondering who this James Strickland, and Maya, Princess of the Heart, might be, and whether it was his host who had set up the tablet to their memory, the priest pronounced his benediction, and the congregation began to leave the church.

The first to pass its doors was an Indian gentleman, whom Jones rightly took to be Don Ignatio himself. He was a man of about sixty years, but one who looked much older than his age, for sorrow, hardship, and suffering had left their marks upon him. In person he was tall and spare, nor did a slight lameness detract from the dignity of his bearing. His dress was very simple and quite innocent of the finery and silver buttons which have so much attraction for the Mexican mind, consisting as it did of a sombrero of Panama straw, with a black ribbon in place of the usual gilt cord, a clean white jacket and shirt, a black tie fastened in a bow, a pair of drab-coloured trousers, and brown boots of European make.

Indeed, the only really remarkable thing about Don Ignatio was his face. Never, thought Jones, had he beheld so beautiful a countenance, or, to be more accurate, one that gave him such assurance of its owner’s absolute goodness and purity of nature. The features were those of a high-bred Indian, thin and delicately cut; the nose aquiline, the cheek-bones and brow prominent, while beneath the latter shone a pair of large and soft black eyes, so tender and trustful in their expression that they seemed almost out of place in the face of a man.

He stood by the door of the chapel, in the light of the setting sun, leaning somewhat heavily on a stick, while the Indians filed past him. Every one of these, man, woman, and child, saluted him with the utmost reverence as they went, some of them, especially the children, kissing his long and finely-shaped hand when they bade him good-night in terms of affection, such as “father,” and called on the Saints to guard him. Jones, watching them, reflected upon the difference of their attitude from that of the crouching servility which centuries of oppression have induced in their race towards any master of white blood, and wondered to what his host’s influence over them was due. It was at this moment that Don Ignatio turned and saw him.

“A thousand pardons, señor,” he said in Spanish, with a shy and singularly engaging smile as he lifted his sombrero, showing his long hair, which, like his pointed beard, was almost white. “You must indeed have thought me rude, but it is my custom at the end of the week’s work to attend worship with the peons—do not press round the noble Inglese, my children—also I did not think that you would arrive before the sun was down.”

“Pray don’t apologise, señor,” answered Jones; “I have been much interested in watching all your servants at their devotions. What a beautiful chapel this is! May I look at it before you shut the doors?”

“Certainly, señor. Like the rest of the house, it is fine. The old monks who designed it two hundred years ago—for this was a great monastery—knew how to build, and labour was forced in those days and cost nothing. Of course I have repaired it a great deal, for those who lived here before me did not trouble about such things.

“You would scarcely think, señor, that in the old days, twenty years ago, this place was a nest of highway robbers, smugglers, and man-slayers, and that these people whom you see to-night, or their fathers, were slaves with no more rights than a dog.

“But so it was. Many a traveller has lost his life in this house or its neighbourhood. I, myself, was nearly murdered here once. Look at the carving of that altarpiece. It is fine, is it not? Those sapote wood columns date from the time of the old monks. Well, I have known Don Pedro Moreno, my predecessor, tie human beings to them in order to brand them with red-hot irons.”

“To whom does that inscription refer?” asked Jones, pointing to the marble slab which has been described.

Don Ignatio’s face grew very sad as he answered:

“It refers, señor, to the greatest friend I ever had, the man who saved my life at the risk of his own when I came by this limp, and one who was dear to me with a love passing the love of woman. But there was a woman who loved him also, an Indian woman too, and he cared for her more than he did for me, as was right, for has not God decreed that a man should leave his friends, yes, his father and mother even, and cleave unto his wife?”

“He married her then?” said Jones, who was growing interested.

“Oh, yes; he married her, and in a strange place and fashion. But it is an old story, señor, and with your permission I will not tell it; even to think of it revives too many painful memories, memories of death and loss, and disappointed ambition, and high hopes unfulfilled. Perhaps, one day, if I have the courage and live long enough, I will write it all down. Indeed, some years ago I made a beginning, but it wearied me, and what I wrote seemed foolishness, so I gave up the task.

“I have lived a rough life, señor, and met with many adventures in it, though, thanks be to God, my last years have been spent in peace. Well, well, it is coming to an end now, and were it not for the thought that my people here may fall into evil hands when I am gone, that would not trouble me.

“But come, señor, you are hungry, and the good father, who has promised to eat with us, must ride to-night to celebrate a mass to-morrow at a village three leagues away, so I have ordered supper early. The porter with your bag arrived safely; it has been placed in your chamber, the Abbot’s room it is called, and if you will follow me I will show you a short path to it from the chapel.”

Then he led the way to a little door in the wall. Unlocking this door, they passed up some narrow stairs, at the head of which was a landing-place with a window, or rather grille, so arranged that, while it was invisible from below, an observer standing there could hear and see all that passed in the chapel.

“This was the place,” said Don Ignatio, “whence the old abbots kept secret watch upon the monks, and it was here that once I saw a sight which I am not likely to forget.”

Then he passed on through several long and intricate passages, till he came to a sitting-room filled with handsome old Spanish furniture.

“Your sleeping-place lies beyond, señor,” he said, opening another door that led into a large and dreary-looking chamber, lighted by heavily-barred windows, of which the sills were not less than ten feet from the ground.

On the walls were frescoes of the Last Judgment, and of scenes inspired by the bloody drama of the Inquisition, grim to look on and somewhat injured by damp, but executed with great power and vivid, if distorted, imagination. Below the centre window, and reaching to within three feet of the floor, was an ancient full-length portrait of one of the abbots of the monastery, life-size and painted in oils upon a panel, representing a man of fierce and evil countenance, over whose tonsured head the Holy Spirit was shown hovering in the shape of a dove. For the rest, the room was well, if lightly, furnished, and boasted the luxury of squares of matting laid upon the brick floor.

“I fear that you will think this but a dismal apartment, señor,” said Don Ignatio, “still it is our guest-chamber; moreover, there is a room attached which I thought might be useful to you to write in, should you wish to do so. The people here say that the place is haunted, but I know you Englishmen do not bother about such things. It is not wonderful, however, that they talk thus, seeing that murders were done in this chamber in the time of Don Pedro Moreno. Indeed, he laid a plot to kill me and my friend here, and, though he did not succeed in that instance, when I came into possession afterwards, I found several skeletons beneath the floor—two of them, I remember, just where the bed stands now—and gave them decent burial.”

Jones, as in honour bound, declared himself to be totally indifferent to representations of tortures of the Inquisition, memories of departed abbots, skeletons of murdered men beneath the floor, ghosts, and hoc genus omne. Still, though he never confessed it to his host, his first night in the abbot’s chamber, owing probably to the strong coffee which he had drunk, was not altogether a pleasant experience. In after days, however, he became well accustomed to the place, and, indeed, preferred it to any other room in the hacienda.

In contrast to the rude and ill-dressed fare with which Jones was fain to satisfy himself at the mine, Don Ignatio’s supper was a feast worthy of Epicurus, especially as it was free from the horrible messes, compounded of oil and the inward parts of animals, that figure so largely in Mexican cookery.

After their meal, cigars and black coffee were handed round, of which the raw materials had been grown on the estate, and never in his life did Jones smoke better tobacco. When the padre—a gentle and well-informed man—had departed, Jones began to speak of the antiquities of the country. Soon he found that his host’s knowledge of the subject had not been exaggerated, seeing that he was even able to decipher hieroglyphic writings of which the key was supposed to be lost, and to give an outline of the history of the races who built the great temples and palaces, whereof so many ruins are to be found in the Palenque district.

“It is sad to think,” said Jones presently, “that nothing in which the breath of life remains is left of all this civilisation. If only the old legend of the Golden City, hidden away somewhere in the unexplored recesses of Central America, were true, I think that I would give ten years of my existence to visit it. It would be a glorious thing to step back into the past, to see a system at work, and mingle with a people of which the world has lost all count and knowledge; for, let the imagination be active as it will, it is practically impossible to reconstruct these things from ruins and traditions. In fact, Don Ignatio, I do not understand how it is that you, who have never seen the antiguos in the flesh, can talk about them so certainly.”

“If I had never seen them, señor,” he answered, quietly, “it would be wonderful. Indeed, you might be justified in setting me down as a teller of tales, but it chances that I have seen the Golden City of fable and its civilisation, and I can assure you that its wonders were far greater than any that have been told of in legend, or even by the Spanish romancers.”

“What!” gasped Jones, “what! Have I been drinking too much of your excellent wine? Am I asleep, or did I hear you say that you, the gentleman sitting before me, with your own eyes had seen the secret city of the Indians?”

“You heard me say so, señor, though I did not in the least expect you to believe me. Indeed, it is because I cannot bear to be thought a liar, that I have never said anything of this story, and for this same reason I shall not repeat it to you, since I do not wish that one whom I hope will become my friend should hold me in contempt.

“In truth I am sorry that I have spoken so freely, but, in support of my veracity, I will beg you to remember that among the huge forests, wildernesses, and sierras of Central America, where no white man has set his foot, and whence the Indians vanished generations since, there is room for many ancient cities. Why, señor, within two hundred miles or less of where we sit to-night, there exist tribes of Lacandones, or unbaptised Indians, who have never seen a white man and who still follow their fathers’ faiths. No, señor, that story shall never be told, at any rate in my lifetime, for I have nothing to show in proof of it, or at least only one thing——”

“What is it?” asked Jones, eagerly.

“You shall see if you wish, señor,” his host answered, and left the room.

Presently he returned with a little leather bag from which he extracted a very curious and beautiful ornament. It was a great emerald, by far the largest that Jones had ever seen, uncut, but highly polished. This stone, which was set in pure gold, obviously had formed the clasp of a belt and could also be used as a seal; for on it, cut in intaglio, was the mask of a solemn and death-like human face surrounded by a hieroglyphic inscription, while on the reverse were other hieroglyphics.

“Can you read this writing?” asked Jones, when he had examined the ornament.

‘Can you read this writing?’

“Yes, señor. The words in front are: ‘O Eyes and Mouth, look on me, plead for me.’ And those on the back: ‘Heart of Heaven, be thou my home.’”

“It is wonderful,” said Jones, restoring the relic with a sigh, for he would have given everything that he had, down to his shoes, to possess it. “And now will you not make an exception in my favour, and tell me the story?”

“I fear that I cannot oblige you, señor,” Don Ignatio answered, shaking his head.

“But,” pleaded Jones, “having revealed so much, it is cruel to hide the rest.”

“Señor,” said his host, “will you take some more coffee? No. Then shall we walk a little on the roof and look at the view; it is pretty by moonlight, and the roofs here are wonderful, all built of solid stone; there is a tradition that the old monks used to dine on them in summer. They have a loop-holed wall round them whence that abbot, whose portrait hangs in your sleeping-chamber, beat back a great attack of the Indians whom his oppression stirred into rebellion.

“To-morrow I shall hope to show you round the lands, which have repaid me well for my twenty years of cultivation. Everybody in Mexico runs after mines, but its soil is the richest mine of all. I knew that, and, seeing the capacities of the place, I sold the other emeralds which went with this clasp—they were fine stones, but unengraved, and therefore of no particular interest—and bought it cheap enough. Now that the country is more settled, and I have planted so much, its value has become great, and will be greater still when all the young cocoa bushes are in full bearing a few years hence.

“There, thanks be to the Saints, the stair is done—of late my back hurts me when I climb up steps. The air is sweet, is it not, señor, and the prospect pleasing? Look, the river shines like silver. Ah! how beautiful is God’s world! It makes me sad to think of leaving it, but doubtless He will provide still finer places for us to work and serve Him in, gardens where sin and grief cannot enter. Surely there is room enough yonder,” and he nodded toward the sky.

This was but the first of many nights that Jones spent under Don Ignatio’s hospitable roof, where, as the months went by, he grew more and more welcome. Soon he conceived a great affection for the grave, sweet-natured, kindly old Indian gentleman, whose mind seemed to be incapable of any evil thought, and whose chief ambitions were to improve his land and do good to all about him, more especially to his Indian servants or peons.

In the beginning of their intimacy they made several expeditions together to inspect ruins in the neighbourhood, and once Don Ignatio came to stay with him at the mine of La Concepcion, where his visit proved of the greatest use to Mr. Jones and the company he served. One of the difficulties in working this particular mine lay in the scarcity of labour. At a word from Don Ignatio this trouble vanished. He sent for a cacique, who lived in the mountains, and spoke to him, and, lo! within a week, fifty stalwart Indians appeared to offer their services at the mine, thus affording one of many instances that came to Jones’s knowledge, of his friend’s extraordinary influence among the natives.

As time went on, however, these excursions ceased, since Don Ignatio’s health grew too feeble to allow him to leave the hacienda.

At length, it was when they had been acquainted for nearly two years, a messenger arrived at the mine one morning, saying that he was instructed by his master, Don Ignatio, to tell the Señor Jones that he lay dying and would be glad to see him. He was to add, however, that if it should be in any way inconvenient, the Señor Jones must not trouble himself to come for so small a matter, as his master had written a letter which would be delivered to him after his death.

Needless to say the Señor Jones travelled across the mountains as fast as the best mule he owned would carry him. On arriving at the hacienda he found Don Ignatio lying in his room, almost paralysed and very weak, but perfectly clear-headed and rejoiced to see him.

“I am about to make my last journey, friend,” he said, “and I am glad, for of late I have suffered a great deal of pain in my back, the result of an ancient injury. Also it is time that a helpless old man should make room for a more active one.” And he looked at his visitor strangely, and smiled.

Jones, whose feelings were touched, made the usual reply as to his having many months to live, but Don Ignatio cut him short.

“Don’t waste time like that, friend,” he said, “but listen. Ever since we knew each other you have been trying to extract from me the story of how I came to visit the city, Heart of the World, and of my friend, James Strickland, whom, thanks be to God, I so soon shall see again.

“Well, I never would tell it to you, though once or twice I nearly did so when I saw how my silence chagrined you, partly because I pride myself upon being able to keep a secret when pressed to reveal it, and also because I am selfish and knew that so soon as you had heard my story, you would cease to interest yourself in a stupid, failing old man, for who is there that cares about the rind when he has sucked the orange?

“Also there were other reasons: for instance, I could not have related that history without displaying unseemly emotion, and I know that you Englishmen despise such exhibitions. Lastly, if I told it at all, I desired to tell it fully and carefully, keeping everything in proportion, and this it would have been difficult to do by word of mouth. Yet I have not wished to disappoint you altogether, and I have wished that some record of the curious things which I have seen in my life should be preserved, though this last desire alone would not have been sufficiently strong to move me to the task which I finished ten days ago, before the paralysis crept into my arm.

“May I trouble you to open that cupboard near the foot of the bed, and to give me the pile of writing that you will find in it. A thousand thanks. Here, señor, in these pages, if you care to take the trouble to read them, is set out an account of how I and my English friend came to visit the Golden City, of what we saw and suffered there, and of some other matters which you may think superfluous, but that are not without their bearing upon the tale. I fear that my skill in writing is small, still perhaps it may serve its turn, and if not, it matters nothing, seeing that you seek the spirit, not the letter, and are not sufficient of a Spanish scholar to be too critical.

“Now take the book and put it away, for the very sight of it wearies me, recalling the hours of labour that I have spent on it. Also I wish to talk of something more important. Tell me, friend, do you propose to stop in this country, or to return to England?”

“Return to England! Why, I should starve where there are no mines to manage. No, I am too poor.”

“Then would you return if you were rich?” asked the dying man anxiously.

“I do not know; it depends. But I think that I have been too long away to go to live in England for good.”

“I am glad to hear that, friend, for I may as well tell you at once that I have made you my heir, so that henceforth you will be a wealthy man as we understand wealth in this country.”

“You have made me your heir!” stammered Jones.

“Yes. Why should I not? I like you well, and know you to be a good and honest man. I have no relations and no friends, and, above all, I am sure that you will deal justly and gently by my people here, for I have watched your bearing towards those who work under you at the mine. Moreover, I have conditions to make which will not be the less binding on you because they are not set out in the will, namely, that you should live here yourself and carry on the work that I have begun, for so long as may be possible, and that, if you are forced to sell the place by any unforeseen circumstance, or to leave it away by testament, you should do so to an Englishman only, and one of whom you know something. Do you accept?”

“Indeed, yes, and I know not how to thank you.”

“Do not thank me at all, thank your own character and honest face which have led me to believe that I can make no better disposal of my property. And now go, for I am tired, but come to see me again to-morrow morning after the priest has left.”

So Jones, who had entered that room possessed of a hard-earned eight hundred a year, departed from it the owner of a property which, before long, became worth as many thousands annually, as any who have visited him at Santa Cruz can testify. Three days later Don Ignatio passed away peacefully, and was laid to his rest in the chapel of the hacienda.

This, then, was how the story of the city, Heart of the World, and of Don Ignatio and his friend, James Strickland, who saw it, came into the hands of him whom we have called Jones.

Here follows a translation of the manuscript.

CHAPTER I.
HOW THE PLOT FAILED

I, Ignatio, the writer of this history, being now a man in my sixty-second year, was born in a village among the mountains that lie between the little towns of Pichaucalco and Tiapa. Of all that district my father was the hereditary cacique, and the Indians there loved him much.

When I was a lad, perhaps nine years old, troubles arose in the country. I never quite understood them, or I may have forgotten the circumstances, for such things were always happening, but I think that they were caused by some tax which the government at Mexico had imposed upon us unjustly. Anyhow, my father, a tall man with fiery eyes, refused to pay a tax, and, after a while, a body of soldiers arrived, mounted upon horses, who shot down a great number of the people, and took away some of the women and children.

Of my father they made a prisoner, and next day they led him out while my mother and I were forced to look on, and sat him by the edge of a hole that they had dug, holding guns to his head and threatening to shoot him unless he would tell them a secret which they were anxious to learn. All he said, however, was that he wished that they would kill him at once, and so free him from the torment of the mosquitoes which hummed around him.

But they did not kill him then, and that night they put him back in a prison, where I was brought to visit him by the padre, Ignatio, his cousin and my godfather. I remember that he was shut up in a dirty place, so hot that it was difficult even to breathe, and that there were some drunken Mexican soldiers outside the door, who now and again threatened to make an end of us Indian dogs.

My godfather, the priest Ignatio, confessed my father in a corner of the cell, and took something from his hand. Then my father called me to him and kissed me, and with his own fingers for a few moments he hung about my neck that thing which the priest had taken from him, only to remove it again and give it to Ignatio for safe-keeping, saying: “See that the boy has it, and its story with it, when he comes of age.”

Now my father kissed me again, blessing me in the name of God, and as he did so great tears ran down his face. Then the priest Ignatio took me away, and I never saw my father any more, for the soldiers shot him next morning, and threw his body into the hole that they had dug to receive it.

After this, my godfather, cousin, and namesake, Ignatio, took me and my mother to the little town of Tiapa, of which he was priest, but she soon died there of a broken heart.

In Tiapa we lived in the best house in the place, for it was built of stone and set upon a bank overhanging a beautiful rushing river with water that was always clear as glass, however much it rained, which river ran a hundred feet or more below the windows.

About Tiapa there is little to say, except that in those days the people were for the most part thieves, and such great sinners that my cousin, the padre, would not shrive some of them, even on their death-beds. There was a church, however, whereof the roof was overgrown with the most beautiful orchids. Also the roads were so bad that, except in the dry season, it was difficult to travel either to or from the town.

Here in this forgotten place I grew up, but not without education, as might have been expected, seeing that my cousin was a good scholar, and did all he could to keep me out of mischief.

When I was about fifteen years of age, of a sudden a desire took hold of me to become a priest. It was in this wise: One Sunday evening I sat in the church at Tiapa, looking now at the sprays of orchid flowers that swung to and fro in the breeze outside the window, and now at the votive pictures on the walls, offerings made by men and women who had called upon their patron saints in the hour of danger and had been rescued by them—here from fire, there from murderers, and here again from drowning; rude and superstitious daubs, but doubtless acceptable to God, who could see in them the piety and gratitude of those that out of their penury had caused them to be painted.

As I sat thus idly, my godfather, the good priest, began to preach. Now, it chanced that two nights before there had been a dreadful murder in Tiapa. Three travellers and a boy, the son of one of them, passing from San Christobel to the coast, stopped to spend the night at a house near our own. With them they brought a mule-load of dollars, the price of the merchandise that they had sold at San Christobel, which some of our fellow-townsmen, half-breeds of wicked life, determined to steal.

Accordingly, to the number of ten, these assassins broke into the house where the travellers lodged, and, meeting with resistance, they cut down the three of them with machetes, and possessed themselves of the silver. Just as they were leaving, one of the thieves perceived the boy hiding beneath a bed, and, dragging him out, they killed him also, lest he should bear witness against them.

Now, those who had done this deed of shame were well known in the town; still none were arrested, for they bribed the officers with part of their booty. But my godfather, seeing some of them present in the church, took for his text the commandment—“Thou shalt do no murder.”

Never have I heard a finer sermon; indeed, before it was finished, two of the men rose and crept from the church conscience-stricken, and when the preacher described the slaughter of the lad whom their wicked hands had of a sudden hurled into eternity, many of the congregation burst into tears.

I tell this story because it was then for the first time, as I thought of the murdered boy, who some few days before had been as full of life as I was myself, that I came to know what death meant, and to understand that I also must die and depart for ever either into heaven or hell. I shook as the thought struck me, and it seemed to me that I saw Death standing at my elbow, as he stands to-day, and then and there I determined that I would be a priest and do good all my life, in order that I might find peace at the last and escape the fate of the evil.

On the morrow I went into my godfather’s room and told him of my desire. He listened to me attentively, and answered: “I would that it might be so, my son, holding as I do that the things of the world to come outweigh those of this present earth ten thousandfold, but it cannot be, for reasons that you shall learn when you are older. Then, when my trust is ended, you may make your choice, and, if you still wish it, become a priest.”

* * * * * * *

Five more years passed away, during which time I grew strong and active, and skilled in all manly exercises. Also I studied much under the teaching of my godfather, who sent even to Spain to buy me books.

Among these books were many histories of my own race, the Indians, and of their conquest by the Spaniards, all that had been published indeed. Of such histories I never tired, although it maddened me to read of the misfortunes and cruel oppression of my people, who to-day were but a nation of slaves.

At length, on my twentieth birthday, my godfather, who now was grown very old and feeble, called me into his chamber, and, having locked the door, he spoke to me thus:

“My son, the time has come when I must deliver to you the last messages of your beloved father, my cousin and best friend, who was murdered by the soldiers when you were a little child, and tell you of your descent and other matters.

“First, then, you must know that you are of royal and ancient blood, for your forefather in the eleventh degree was none other than Guatemoc, the last of the Aztec emperors, whom the Spaniards murdered, which descent I can prove to you by means of old writings and pedigrees; also it is known and attested among the Indians, who even now do not forget the stock whence sprang their kings.”

“Then by right I am Emperor of Mexico,” I said proudly, for in my folly it seemed a fine thing to be sprung from men who once had worn a crown.

“Alas! my son,” the old priest answered sadly, “in this world might is the only right, and the Spaniards ended that of your forefathers long ago by aid of torture and the noose. Save that it will earn you reverence among the Indians, it is but a barren honour which you inherit with your blood.

“Yet there is one thing that has come down to you from your ancestor, Guatemoc, and the monarchs who ruled before him. Perchance you remember that on the night previous to his death, your father set an amulet upon your neck, and, removing it again, gave it to me to keep. Here is that amulet.”

Then he handed me a trinket made of the half of a heart-shaped emerald, smooth with wear, but unpolished, that, if joined to its missing section, would have been as large as a dove’s egg. This stone was not broken, but cut from the top to the bottom, the line of separation being so cunningly sawn that no man, unless he had one half before him, could imitate the other. The charm was bored through so as to be worn upon a chain, and engraved upon its surface were some strange hieroglyphics and the outline of half a human face.

“What is it?” I asked.

The old priest shrugged his shoulders, and answered:

“A relic which had to do with their wicked heathen magic and rites, I suppose. I know little about it, except that your father told me it was the most valued possession of the Aztec kings, and that the natives believe that when the two halves of this stone come together, the men of white blood will be driven from Central America and an Indian emperor shall rule from sea to sea.”

“And where is the other half, father?”

“How should I know,” he answered testily, “who have no faith in such stories, or in stones with the heads of idols graven upon them? I am a priest, and therefore your father told me little of the matter, since it is not lawful that I should belong to secret societies. Still, some such society exists, and, in virtue of the ownership of that talisman, you will be head of it, as your ancestors were before you, though, so far as I can learn, the honour brought them but little luck.

“I know no more about it, but I will give you letters to a certain Indian who lives in the district of which your father was cacique, and, when you show him the stone, doubtless he will initiate you into its mysteries, though I counsel you to have nothing to do with them.

“Listen, Ignatio, my son, you are a rich man; how rich I cannot tell you, but for many generations your forefathers have hidden up treasure for an object which I must explain, and the gold will be handed over to you by those of your clan in whose keeping it is. It was because of this treasure that your father and your great-grandfather were done to death with many others, since the rumour of it came to the ears of those that ruled in Mexico, who, when they failed to force its secret from them, tormented and killed them in their rage.

“Now, this was the message of your father to you concerning the wealth which he and his ancestors had hidden:

“‘Tell my son, Ignatio, should he live to grow up, that there has never departed from our family the desire to win back the crown that Guatemoc lost, or at least to drive out the accursed Spaniards and their spawn, and to establish an Indian Republic. To this end we have heaped up wealth for generations, that it might serve us when the hour was ripe; and because of this wealth, of which the whisper could not altogether be hid in a land which is full of spies, some of us have come to cruel deaths, as I am about to do to-night.

“‘But I shall die keeping my secret, and when my son grows up others may rule at Mexico, or the matter may have been forgotten: at least the gold will be where I left it. Now, say to my son that it is my hope that he will use it in the cause to further which it has been amassed; that he will devote his life to the humbling of our white masters, and to the uplifting of the race which for centuries they have robbed, murdered, and enslaved.

“‘Nevertheless, say to him that I lay no commands upon him as to these matters, seeing that he must follow his own will about them, for I cannot forget that, from generation to generation, those who went before him have reaped nothing but disaster in their struggle against the white devils, whom, because of the sins and idolatry of our forefathers, it has pleased God to set over us.’

“Those were your father’s words, my son, which he spoke to me in the hour of his murder. And now you will understand why I said that you must wait before you determined to be a priest. If that is still your wish, it can be fulfilled, for your father left it to you to follow whatever life you might desire.”

When he had finished speaking I thought for a while, and answered: “So long as my father’s blood is unavenged I cannot become a priest.”

“It is as I feared,” said the old man with a sigh, “that cursed talisman which lies about your neck has begun its work with you, Ignatio, and you will tread the path that the others trod, perchance to die in blood as they died. Oh! why cannot man be content to leave the righting of wrongs and the destinies of nations in the hands of the Almighty and His angels?”

“Because for good or evil the Almighty chooses men to be His instruments,” I answered.

* * * * * * *

Within a week from this day some Indians came to Tiapa disguised as porters, whose mission it was to lead me to the mountains among which my father had lived, and where his treasure still lay hidden.

Bidding farewell to my godparent, the priest, who wept when he parted from me, I started upon my journey, keeping my destination secret. As it chanced, I never saw him more, for a month later he was seized with some kind of calentura, or fever, and died suddenly. The best thing I can say of him is that, with one exception, there lives no man in heaven above whom I so greatly desire to meet again.

On the third day of my journey we reached a narrow pass in the mountains, beyond which lay an Indian village. Here my guides took me to the house of one Antonio, to whom the padre Ignatio had given me letters, an old man of venerable aspect, who greeted me warmly, and made me known to several caciques who were staying with him, I knew not why.

So soon as we were alone in the house, one of these caciques, after addressing me in words which I could not understand, asked me if I had a “Heart.” To this I replied that I hoped so, whereat they all laughed. Then the man Antonio, coming to me, unbuttoned my shirt, revealing the talisman that had belonged to my father, and at the sight of it the company bowed.

Next the doors were locked, and, sentries having been posted before them, a ceremony began, which even now it is not lawful that I should describe in detail. On this solemn occasion I was first initiated into the mysteries of the Order of the Heart, and afterwards installed as its hereditary chief, thus becoming, while yet a boy, the absolute lord of many thousand men, brethren of our Society, who were scattered far and wide about the land.

On the day after I had taken the final oaths, Antonio handed over to me the treasure that my ancestors hoarded in a secret place, which my father had left in his keeping, and it was a great treasure, amounting to more than a million dollars in value.

Now I was rich, both in men and money, still, following the counsel of Antonio, I abode for a while in the village, receiving those who came from every part of Mexico to visit me as Holder of the Heart, and as first in rank among the fallen peoples of the Indians.

It was during these months that I made the great error of my life. Some three miles from the village where I dwelt, lived two sisters, Indian ladies of noble blood, though poor, one of them a widow, and the other a very beautiful girl, younger than myself. It chanced that, riding past their house upon a certain Sunday evening, when most of the inhabitants of the valley were away at a festa, I heard screams coming from it.

Dismounting from my horse I ran in at the door, which was open, and saw one of the sisters, the widow, lying dead upon the ground, while two bandits, Mexicans, were attacking the younger woman. Drawing my machete, I cut down the first of them before he had time to turn, then I fell upon the second man with such fury that I drove him back against the wall. Seeing that his life was in danger, he called upon me not to kill him for the sake of a low Indian girl, which insult maddened me so that I slew him upon the spot, and caused his body, with that of his companion, to be buried secretly.

It happened that after this the girl whose life I had saved came to dwell in my village, where I saw much of her. So lovely was she and so clever, that soon she won my heart, and the end of it was that, being headstrong and in love, I married her, against the advice of Antonio and others of my brethren of the Order. It would have been better for the Indian people, and perhaps for me also, if I had died before I stood at the altar with this woman, though for a while she was a good wife, and, because of her cleverness, of great service to me at that time.

Now, it must be stated that during all these months I had not been idle. The more I thought on them, the more the wrongs of my countrymen, the real owners of the land, took hold of my mind, till at length they possessed it utterly, and I became an enthusiast and a dreamer. This was the object of my life—to form a great conspiracy, which should bring about a rising of the Indians in every province of Mexico upon a given day; then, when the Spaniards and their bastards, the Spanish Mexicans, had been stamped out, to re-establish the Empire of the Aztecs.

It was a madness, perhaps, but the madness lurked in my blood; my forefathers had suffered from and for it, and I think that it must have come down to us from our ancestor, Guatemoc, the greatest and most unfortunate Indian who ever lived. Where they failed I determined to succeed, and, strange to say, in the end I went near to success.

For years I laboured, travelling to and fro about the land till there was no province where I was not known as the Holder of the Heart, and the chief by blood of the Indian tribes. Everywhere I strove to rouse the people from their sloth, and to win the caciques, or head men, to the cause, and I did not strive in vain. I used my great wealth to buy arms, to gain over the lukewarm with bribes, and in many other ways. When my fortune sank low I gathered more, for without gold nothing could be done. Treasures that were buried in the old days were given up to me as Lord of the Heart by those who had their secret; also many brought me money, each what he could spare, and I hoarded it against the hour of need.

For a year or more I was the greatest power in Mexico, and yet, though hundreds were privy to my plot, it was so well hidden that no whisper of it came to the ears of the Government. At length all was ready, and so carefully were my plans laid that success seemed certain; but the unforeseen happened, and I failed—thus:

That woman whose life I had saved, my own wife whom I loved and trusted, who was bound to my cause and that of her countrymen by every tie human and divine, betrayed me and it. Just before the time fixed for the rising, it was agreed that she should be placed, as one of whom we could be sure, to play the part of a servant in the house of the man who ruled Mexico in those days, that she might spy upon him.

Instead of so doing, she, my wife, fell in love with him. It is easy to guess the rest. One night, but a week before the appointed time, I and some five or six others, the leaders of our party, were seized. My companions were made away with secretly, but I was brought before the great man, who received me alone, holding a pistol in his hand.

“I know all your plans, friend,” he said, “and I congratulate you on them, for they were cleverly managed. I know also that you have a great treasure in gold hidden away——” and he named the sum. “That wife of yours, whom you were fool enough to trust, has told me everything, but she cannot tell me where the money is hidden, for this you withheld from her, which shows that you are not altogether mad.

“Now, friend, I make you a fair offer—hand over this treasure, and you shall go free—of course when the day of vengeance is past and your sheep have found themselves without a shepherd—nor shall you be molested afterwards. Refuse to do so, and you will be brought to trial and die as you deserve.”

“How can you promise for others?” I asked. “You are not the only white man who would have fallen.”

“I can promise for others, first, because I am their master, and, secondly, because nobody but myself knows anything of this matter, since, if I told them, I must also share your wealth with them, and that, friend, I mean to keep. Give it up to me and you may go and plot against my successors and the Government of Mexico as much as pleases you, and take your wife with you for aught I care; for, friend, having earned so comfortable a competence, I propose to leave a land where, as this business proves, people in authority are too apt to have their throats cut. Now choose, and be so good as to stand quite still while you are thinking the matter over, or I may be forced to shoot you.”

“How about my associates?” I asked.

“I believe that three or four of them have been carried off—by typhus—within the last day or two, the prisons here are so unhealthy; but I am sure that if the gold is forthcoming, no more will sicken.”

Then I chose, for I thought to myself that I might get more gold, but I could never get another life, and if I died many must suffer with me and all my hopes for the future of the Indian race would come to naught. Also I knew this villain to be a man of his word, and that what he promised he would fulfil.

Within ten days he had the money, and I was free to begin my life again, nor did any of those who were doomed to perish in it, learn the tale of the plot that had threatened them.

I was free; but what a freedom was this, when I had lost everything save the breath that God placed in my nostrils, and, perhaps, my honour. The great house that I had builded was fallen to the ground, the moneys I had amassed were stolen, the chief of my companions were dead, my credit as a deliverer of the people was gone, and my cause had become hopeless. All these things had come upon me because of a woman, a traitress, whom I had nurtured in my bosom.

At first I was dazed, but when I came to understand I swore a great oath before Heaven that, for her false sake, I would hate and renounce her sex; that, whatever might be the temptation, never again would I look kindly upon women, or have to do with one of them in word, or thought, or deed. That oath, so far as lay in my power, I have kept to this day, and I hope to keep through all eternity.

It may be asked what became of my wife. I do not know. I lifted no hand against her who was flesh of my flesh, but she perished. The story was known. I was forced to tell it to clear myself. After I escaped from the prison I lay ill for many weeks, and when I recovered she was gone. Others had been betrayed besides myself, and doubtless some of them had wreaked fitting vengeance on her. What it was I never asked.

For many years—twenty perhaps—I became a wanderer. Now as before the Indians loved me, and, as Lord of the Heart and their hereditary cacique, in a sense I still was great, although but the shadow of power dwelt with me: the substance had departed, as it departs ever from those who fail. From time to time I strove to rebuild the plot; but, now that I was friendless and without fortune, few would follow me thus far.

So it came about that at length I abandoned the endeavour, and lived as best I could. I fought in three wars, and gained honours therein, and took my share in many adventures, all of which left me as poor as I had entered on them. At times I remembered my desire to become a priest, but now it was over late to study; also my hands were too much soiled with the affairs of the world.

Wearying of the struggle, I went back to my village in the mountains and dwelt there awhile, but this also wearied me, having nothing to do, and I turned my attention to the management of mines.

It was while I was thus employed, as a middle-aged man, that I made the acquaintance of James Strickland, who was destined to accompany me to the city, Heart of the World.

CHAPTER II.
THE SEÑOR STRICKLAND

Two-and-twenty years ago, I, Ignatio, visited a village in the State of Tamaulipas, named Cumarvo, a beautiful place, half-hidden in pine forests amongst the mountains. I came to this hamlet because a friend of mine, one of the brethren of the Order of the Heart, wrote to me saying that there was an Indian in the neighbourhood who had in his possession an ancient Aztec scroll, which, being in picture-writing, neither he nor anyone else could read.

This scroll had descended to the Indian through many generations, and with it a tradition that it told of a very rich gold mine in the mountains whereof the site was lost, which had been closed to save it from the grip of Cortes, by the order of Guatemoc, my forefather, whom the Spaniards murdered—may their souls be accursed!

Now, I had been taught the secret of the picture-writing by old Antonio, my father’s friend, when first I was initiated into the mysteries of the Heart, though it must die with me, for I believe that at this hour there is no other man living who can read it.

This writing the Indian was willing to give up to me as Lord of the Heart, and accordingly, having nothing better to do, I journeyed to Cumarvo to study it. In this matter, as in many others, I was destined to meet with disappointment, however—at any rate for a while; for, on my arrival at the house of my friend, I heard that the Indian had died of a sudden sickness, and that his son could not discover where the scroll was hidden.

Another thing I heard also, namely, that a white man, an Inglese, the first who ever visited these parts, had come to the village about six months before, and was engaged in working some old silver mines on behalf of a company, a task that he found difficult, for the Mexican owners of land in the neighbourhood, being jealous of him and angry because he paid his men a fair wage, were striving to prevent Indians from labouring in his mine.

Now the natives of this place, from Monday morning to Saturday night, were a gentle and industrious people, but they had this fault, that on the Saturday night many of them were accustomed to become drunk on mescal, the spirit that is distilled from the root of the aloe. Then their natures were changed, and fierce quarrels would spring up amongst them, for the most part about women, that ended often enough in bloodshed.

It chanced that such a fray arose on the night of my arrival at Cumarvo. On the morrow I saw the fruits of it as I walked down the little street which was bordered by white, flat-roofed houses and paved with cobble-stones, purposing to attend mass in the lime-washed church, where the bell rang night and day to scare evil spirits back to hell.

In the middle of the street, lying in the shade of a house, were two dead men. A handsome Indian girl, with a sullen and unmoved countenance, was engaged in winding a serape, or blanket, round one of the bodies; but the other lay untended, certain stains upon the clothing revealing the manner of its end. On a doorstep sat a third man, much wounded about the head and face, while the barber of the village, its only doctor, attempted to remove his hair with a pair of blunt scissors, so that he might dress the cuts.

The scene was dreadful, but no one took much notice of it, for Indian life is cheap, and in those days death by violence was even more common in Mexico than it is now. On the opposite side of the street an old woman chaffered with a passer-by about the price of her oranges, while some children with shouts and laughter strove to lasso and drag away a pig that haunted the place; and a girl on her way to mass stepped over the uncovered body which lay so quiet in the shade, and, recognising it as that of a friend, crossed herself as she hurried on.

“What is the cause of this, señor?” I asked of the barber.

“I think that I have the honour of addressing Don Ignatio,” the little man answered, and, lifting his hands from their work, he made a sign showing that he also was a member of our Brotherhood, though a humble one.

“Ah, I thought so,” he went on as I gave the countersign; “we heard that you were going to visit us, and I am glad of it, for I weary of dressing wounds on Sundays, and perhaps you may be able to put a stop to these fights. The woman was the cause of it, of course, señor; these are not the first she has brought to their deaths,” and he nodded at the girl who was wrapping the body in a blanket.

“You see, she was going to marry this man,” and he tapped the Indian whose wounds he was dressing on the shoulder, “but she took up with that one,” pointing to the nearest body, “whereon Number One here, being drunk with mescal, laid wait for Number Two and stabbed him dead. The girl who was with him ran for Number Three yonder, Number Two’s brother, but Number One ambushed him, so he was killed also. Then, hearing the noise, the village guard came up and cut down our friend here with their machetes, but as you see, unfortunately, they did not kill him.”

I heard, and anger took hold of me. Approaching the girl, I said:

“This is your doing, woman! Are you not afraid?”

‘This is your doing, woman! Are you not afraid?’

“What of it?” she answered, sullenly; “can I help it if I am pretty, and men fight for me? Also, who are you who ask me whether I am afraid?”

“Fool!” cried the barber from the doorstep; “do you dare to speak thus to the Lord of the Heart?”

The girl started, and replied:

“Why not? Is he then my lord?”

“Listen, girl!” I said; “others besides these have died through you.”

“How do you know that?” she answered. “But what need to ask? If you are the Lord of the Heart you have the evil eye, and can read secrets without their being discovered to you.”

“It is you that have the evil eye, woman, like many another of your sex!” I said. “Hear me, now: you will leave this place, and you will never return to it, for if you do, you die! Also, remember that if harm should come to any more men on your account, wherever you go I shall know of it, and you will die there!”

“Whoever you are, you are not the Government, and have no right to kill me,” she said, trying to hide the fear which crept into her dark eyes.

“No, woman, I am not the Government; but among our people I am more powerful than the Government. If you do not believe me, ask the doctor yonder, and he will tell you that I should be obeyed, even by people who had never seen me, where a troop of soldiers would be laughed at. If I say that you are to die, you will die in this way or in that, for my curse will be on you. Perhaps you may tumble over a precipice, or you may take a fever, or be drowned in crossing a river, quien sabe!”

“I know, lord, I know,” she whispered, shivering, for now she was frightened. “Do not look so terribly at me; spare me this time for the love of God! I did not mean to do it, but when men put their hearts into a woman’s hand, how can she help squeezing them, especially if she hates men? But I did not hate this one,” and she touched the cheek of the dead Indian caressingly; “I really meant to marry him. It is that fellow whom I hate,” pointing to her wounded lover, “and I hope that he will be shot, else I think that I shall poison him.”

“You will not poison him, woman; and, though he deserves to die, you are worse than he. Now begone, and remember my words!”

Bending down, she touched the corpse’s forehead with her lips, then, rising, said:

“I kiss your feet, Lord of the Heart,” and went away without looking behind her, nor was she seen again in that village.

Then, with a sigh, I also was turning to go, for it saddened me to think that when drink got hold of them, a woman should have the power to change these men, who were my brethren, into savage beasts thirsting for each other’s blood.

“Ah!” I mused, “had it not been for that other woman who destroyed me and my hope, by now I had begun to teach them better.”

At this moment, looking up, I chanced to see a man such as I had never before beheld, standing by my side and gazing at me. Stories are told of how men and women, looking on each other for the first time, in certain cases are filled with a strange passion of love, of which, come what may, they can not again be rid.

Among many misfortunes, thanks be to my guardian angels, this fate has never overtaken me, yet at that moment I felt something that was akin to it—not love, indeed, but a great sense of friendship and sympathy for and with this man, which, mastering me then, is still growing to this hour, though its object has for many years been dead.

Perhaps it was the contrast between us that attracted me so much at first, since human beings are ever drawn towards their opposites in nature and appearance. I, as you, my friend, for whom I write this history, will remember, although you have only known me in my age, am tall, thin, and sallow, like all my race, with a sad expression reflecting the heart within, and melancholy eyes.

Very different were the mind and appearance of James Strickland, the Englishman. He was a fine man, over thirty years of age, short in proportion to his width, though somewhat spare in frame and slender in limb. His features were as clearly cut as those of an ancient god upon a marble wall; his eyes were blue as the sea, and, though just now they were troubled at the sight of death, merry like the eyes of a boy; his curling hair—for he had removed his hat in the presence of the dead—was yellow as mimosa bloom, darkening almost to red in the short beard and about the ears, where the weather had caught it; and beneath his shirt, which was open at the neck, his skin showed white like milk. For the rest, his hands were long and delicate, notwithstanding the hard work of which they bore traces; his glance was quick, and his smile the most pleasant that ever I had seen.

“Your pardon, señor,” said this Inglese, in good Spanish, bowing to me as he spoke, “but unwittingly I have overheard some of your talk with yonder woman, and I cannot understand how it comes about that you, a stranger, have so much authority over her. I wish that you would explain it to me in order that I might learn how to put a stop to such murders. These dead men were two of my best workmen, and I do not know where I shall look to replace them.”

“I cannot explain it, señor,” I answered, returning his bow, “further than to say that I have a certain rank among the Indians, on account of which they reverence me. Still, though I have no right to ask it of a stranger, I pray that you will forget any words of mine which may chance to have reached your ears, since of such authority the Government is jealous.”

“By all means, señor; they are already forgotten. Well, adios, this sight is not so pleasant that I wish to study it,” and replacing his hat upon his head, he passed on.

Although my journey proved to be in vain, seeing that the scroll I came to read had vanished, I lingered in the village of Cumarvo, alleging as the reason of my stay a hope that it might be discovered, but really, as I believe, because I desired to become friendly with this white man.

As it chanced, an opportunity was soon given me to do him a signal service. I have stated that there dwelt men of position in this place, Mexicans who were jealous of the Englishman, and these people stirred up some discontented miners in his employ to make a plot to murder him, saying that, if they did so, they would win a great treasure which he kept hidden in his house.

This plot came to my ears through one of the Brotherhood, and I determined to frustrate it, to which end I collected together twenty good men and true, and, arming them with guns, bade them be silent about the matter, above all to the Inglese, whom I did not wish to alarm.

The plan of the murderers was at the hour of dawn to attack the house where the Señor Strickland slept with four or five servants only, and to put all within its walls to death. Accordingly, about one o’clock on the night fixed, I despatched my men by twos and threes, instructing them to go round the hills at the back of the house, and, creeping into the garden, to hide themselves there among the trees till I appeared.

An hour later I followed them myself without being observed by the spies of the attacking party, for rain fell and the night was very dark. Arriving in the garden, I collected my men, and placed them in ambush under a low wall commanding the street, up which I knew the murderers must come. Here we waited patiently till the cocks crew and the dawn began to break in the east.

Presently we heard a stir in the village beneath, as of men marching, and in the gathering light we saw the murderers creeping stealthily up the street to the number of fifty or more. So great was their fear of the Englishman, that they thought it safer to bring many men to kill him, also each of the villains desired that his neighbour should be a sharer in the crime.

“Will you not wake up the Inglese?” asked the man next to me.

“No,” I answered, “it will be time enough to wake him when the affair is settled. Let none of you fire till I give the word.”

Now, the brigands in the street below,—men without shame,—after waiting a little time for the light to grow stronger, advanced toward the gate, looking like a procession of monks, for the air was chilly and each of them wore his serape wrapped about his head. In their hands they carried rifles and drawn machetes.

Within ten paces of the gate they paused for a minute to consult, and I heard their leader, a Mexican, direct half of them to creep round to the back of the house so as to cut off all escape. Then I whistled, which was the signal agreed upon, at the same time covering the Mexican with my rifle. Almost before the sound had left my lips, there followed a report of twenty guns, and some fifteen or sixteen of the enemy were stretched upon the ground.

For a moment they wavered, and I thought that the rest of them were going to fly, but this they dared not do, for they knew that they had been seen; therefore they rushed at the wall with a yell, firing as they came. As they climbed over it we met them with pistol shots and machetes, and for a few minutes the affair was sharp, for they were desperate, and outnumbered us.

Still they lost many men in scaling the wall and forcing the gate, and with the exception of fourteen who fled, and were for the most part caught afterwards, the rest of them we finished amongst the flowers and vegetables of the garden. Just as all was over, the Englishman, who was a sound sleeper, appeared yawning, dressed in white, and holding a pistol in his hand.

“What is this noise?” he asked, rubbing his eyes, “and why are you people fighting in my garden? Go away, all of you, or I shall shoot at you.”

“I trust,” I said, bowing, “that the señor will pardon us for disturbing him in his slumber, but this matter could not be settled without some noise. May I offer the señor my serape? The air is chilly, and he will catch cold in that dress.”

“Thank you,” he said, putting on the serape. “And now perhaps you will explain why you come to spoil my garden by making a battle-field of it.”

Then I told him, and was astonished to see that as I went on he grew very angry.

“I suppose that I must thank you, gentlemen, for saving my life,” he said at last, “though I never asked you to do it. But, all the same, I think it shameless that you should have had this fight in my own garden, without giving me the opportunity of sharing it. Caramba! am I a little girl that I should be treated in such a way?” And of a sudden he burst out laughing and shook me by the hand.

That day, when all the trouble was over, and the place had been made tidy, the Señor Strickland sent a man to ask if I would do him the pleasure to dine with him. I accepted, and as we sat smoking after dinner, having talked of the fight till we were tired of it, he spoke thus to me:

“Don Ignatio, I owe you my life, and, believe me, I am grateful, for I do not see why you should have risked so much for a foreign stranger.”

“I did it because I like you, señor,” I answered, “also because it is very pleasant to catch the wicked in their own toils. Those who perished this morning were villains, every one of them. They came in the hope of plunder, for such ‘men without shame’ will murder human beings for five dollars a head; but they were set on by others who hate you because you treat your Indian workmen fairly, and also because they do not wish foreigners here to compete with them, and think that you are but the first bird of the flock. Therefore they thought that it would be good policy to kill you so as to frighten away others who might follow. However, that danger has gone by, and you need have no more fear, for they have learnt a lesson which they will not forget.”

“So much the better then,” he answered, “for I have troubles enough to deal with here, without being bothered to protect my life against such contemptible vermin. And now, Don Ignatio, I hardly like to ask you, and I daresay that you will think the offer beneath contempt, but are you willing to accept an engagement? I am sadly in need of a sub-manager, one who could control the Indians, and to such a man I am prepared to pay a hundred dollars a month; the funds of the company I represent will not allow me to offer more.”

I thought for a while and answered:

“Señor, the money is not enough to tempt me, though it will serve to buy food, lodging, and cigars, but I accept your offer for the same reason that I fought your battles this morning, because I like you, and will gladly do my best to serve you and your interests. Still, I must warn you that, for aught I know, I may have to leave your service at short notice, for my time is not altogether my own. I also am the servant of a great company, señor, and though now I am on leave, as it were, and have been for these many years, I may be required at any moment.”

Thus it was, then, that I entered the service of the Señor James Strickland, or rather of his company, in which I continued for something more than a year, working very hard, for the señor did not spare either me or himself. But as the records of those months of fruitless labour could have little interest for you, my friend, instead of writing of them, I will tell you in few words what was the history of this Englishman as he told it to me.

He was of noble blood, as might be seen in his face, for he had a right to be addressed as “honourable,” which it would seem means more in England than it does here. Nevertheless, his father was a priest of the heretic church and quite poor, though, how this came about, you, being an Englishman, will understand better than I, seeing that in most countries it is the privilege of nobles to enrich themselves at the expense of others of less rank.

At any rate, when James Strickland’s father died, his son, who was then a lad of twenty, found that he possessed in the world no more than five thousand dollars. This sum, being of adventurous mind and sanguine temperament, he invested in a ranch in Texas, where he endured much danger and hardship, and lost all his money.

After this experience, having nothing to live on and no friends, he was obliged to labour with his hands like a peon, and this he did in many ways. He broke horses, he herded cattle; once, even, for two months he sank so low—it makes me angry to write of it—as to be forced to wait upon the guests in an inn at Panama.

Thence he drifted to Nicaragua, and became mixed up in mining ventures, and when first I met him he had been a miner for ten years. Most of this time he spent managing a mine for an American, in the Chontales country, on the frontier of Honduras, where the fever is so bad that few white men can live. Here it was that he learned to speak Spanish and the Indian or Maya tongue. At length, after an attack of fever which nearly killed him, he left Honduras, and came to Mexico, where he accepted the management of this silver mine at Cumarvo. Hitherto it had been worked by a Mexican on behalf of its owners, who dismissed the rogue for stealing the ore and selling it.

This mine, though very rich, was hard to deal with profitably because of the water gathered in it, and all the months that the Señor Strickland had been its captain he was employed in driving a tunnel upwards from a lower level in the cliff, in order to drain the workings. Shortly after I came into his service this tunnel was finished, for now I was able to obtain plenty of labour, which before he had lacked, and we began to bring to bank ore running as high as two hundred ounces to the ton, so that for some months all went well.

Then of a sudden the ore body dipped straight downward, as though it had been bent when hot, and we followed it till the water increased so much that we were unable to carry it out, for in those days there were no steam pumps in Mexico, such as are now used for the drying of mines. First we tried to strike another vein, but without success; then we attempted to pierce a second drainage tunnel at a still lower level, but, after more than three months’ labour, the rock became so hard that we were obliged to abandon the task.

Now there was nothing to be done except to stop work at the tunnel, and report the matter by letter to the owners of the mine, employing ourselves meanwhile in the smelting of such ore as we had stacked. This, indeed, we needed to do in order to pay wages with the silver, seeing that after the first few months the owners ceased to remit us money.

One evening, on returning from the smelting-works to the house, I found the Señor Strickland, his chin resting on his hand and an unlighted cigar in his mouth, seated at a table, on which lay an open letter. All through our misfortunes and heavy labour he had never lost heart, or forgotten to smile and be merry, but now he looked sad as a man who has just buried his mother, and I asked him what evil thing had happened.

“Nothing particular, Ignatio,” he answered; “but listen here.” And he read the letter aloud.

It was from one of the owners of the mine, and this was the purport of it: that the shaft had become choked with water because of the incompetence and neglect of the señor; that they, the owners, hereby dismissed him summarily, refusing to pay him the salary due; and, lastly, that they held him responsible in his own person for such money as they had lost.

“Surely,” I cried in wrath, when he had finished, “this letter was written by a man without shame, and I pray that he may find his grave in the stomachs of hogs and vultures!” for I forgot myself in my indignation against those that could speak thus of the señor, who had slaved day and night in their service, giving himself no rest.

“Do not trouble, Ignatio,” he said, with a little smile, “it is the way of the world. I have failed, and must take the consequences. Had I succeeded, there would have been a different story. Still I think that, if ever I meet this man again, I will kick him for telling lies about me. Do you know, Ignatio, that, with the exception of one thousand dollars which remain to my credit in Mexico, I have spent all my own money that I had saved upon this mine, and of that thousand dollars, eight hundred are due to you for back pay, so, whatever trade I take to next, I shall not begin as a rich man.”

“Be silent, I beg of you, señor,” I answered, “for such words make my ears burn. What! am I also a thief that I should rob you, you who have already been plucked like a fowl for the good of others? Insult me once more by such thoughts and I will never pardon you.”

And I left the house to calm myself by walking among the mountains, little knowing what I should hear before I entered it again.

CHAPTER III.
THE SUMMONS

As I walked down the street of the village I met my friend, with whom I had stayed when first I came to Cumarvo.

“Ah! lord,” he said—for those who are initiated among the Indians give me this title when none are by—“I was seeking you. The scroll has been found.”

“What scroll?”

“That picture-writing about the ancient mine which brought you here. You remember that he who owned the document died, and his son could not discover its whereabouts. Well, yesterday he found it by chance while he was hunting rats in the roof of his house, and brought it to me. Here it is,” and he gave me a roll wrapped in yellow linen.

“Good,” I answered, “I will study it to-night,” and continued my walk, thinking little more about the matter, for my mind was full of other things.

The air was pleasant and the evening fine, so that I did not return to the house till the moon rose. As I passed up the path a man stepped so suddenly from the shelter of a bush in front of me, that I drew my machete, thinking that he meant to do me a mischief.

“Stay your hand, lord,” said the man, saluting me humbly, and at the same time giving the sign of brotherhood. “It is many years since we met, so perchance you may have forgotten me; still, you will remember my name; I am Molas, your foster-brother.”

Then I looked at him in the moonlight and knew him, though time had changed us both, and, putting my arms round him, I embraced him, seeing that he had been faithful when many deserted me, and I loved him as to-day I love his memory.

“What brings you here, Molas?” I asked; “when last I heard of you, you were dwelling far away in Chiapas.”

“A strange matter: Business of the Heart, O Lord of the Heart, which I deemed so pressing that I have journeyed over land and sea to find you. Have you a place where I can speak with you alone?”

“Follow me,” I said, wondering, and led him to my own chamber, where I gave him food and drink, for he was weary with travel.

“Now set out this business,” I said.

“First show me the token, lord. I desire to see it once more for a purpose of my own.”

I rose and closed the shutters of the window, then I bared my breast, revealing the ancient symbol. For a while he gazed upon it, and said, “It is enough. Tell me, lord, what is the saying that has descended with this trinket.”

“The saying is, Molas, that when this half that I wear is reunited with the half that is wanting, then the Indians shall rule again from sea to sea, as they did when the Heart was whole.”

“That is the saying, lord. We learn it in the ritual that is called ‘Opening of the Heart,’ do we not? and in this ritual that half which you wear is named ‘Day’ since it can be seen, and that half which is lost is named ‘Night,’ since, though present, it is not seen, and it is told to us that the ‘Day’ and the ‘Night’ together will make one perfect circle, whereof the centre is named the ‘Heart of Heaven,’ of which these things are the symbol. Is it not so?”

“It is so, Molas.”

“Good. Now listen. That which was lost is found, the half which is named ‘Night’ has appeared in the land, for I have seen it with my eyes, and it is to tell you of it that I have travelled hither.”

“Speak on,” I said.

“Lord, yonder in Chiapas there is a ruined temple that the antiguos built, and to that temple have come a man and a woman, his daughter. The man is old and fierce-eyed, a terrible man, and the girl is beautiful exceedingly. There in the ruins they have dwelt these four months and more, and the man practises the art of medicine, for he is a great doctor, and has wrought many cures, though he takes no money in payment for his skill, but food only.

“Now it chanced, lord, that my wife, whom I married but two years ago, was very sick,—so sick that the village doctor could do nothing for her. Therefore the fame of the old Indian who dwelt in the ruined temple having reached me, I determined to visit him and seek his counsel, or, if possible, to bring him to my home.

“When my wife heard of it, she said it was of no use, as she saw Death sitting at the foot of her bed. Still I kissed her and went, leaving her in charge of the padre of the village and some women, her sisters. With me I took a lock of her hair, and some fowls and eggs as a present to the Lacandone, for they said that, though of our race, this doctor was not a Christian.

“Starting before the dawn I travelled all day by the river and through the forest, till at evening I came to the ruined temple which I knew, and began to climb its broken stair. As I neared the top, a man appeared from beneath the leaning arch that is the gateway of the stair, and stood gazing at the ball of the setting sun. He was an aged man, clad in a linen robe only, very light in colour, with long white beard and hair, a nose hooked like a hawk’s beak, and fierce eyes that seemed to pierce those he looked upon and to read their most secret thoughts.

“‘Greeting, brother,’ he said, speaking in our own tongue, but with a strange accent, and using many words which are unknown to me, ‘What brings you here?’

“Then he looked at me awhile, and asked slowly:

“‘Say, brother, are you sick at heart?’

“Now, lord, when I heard those words whereof you know the meaning, I was so astounded that I almost fell backwards down the ruined stair, but, recovering myself, I tried him with a sign, and lo, he answered it. Then I tried him with the second sign, and the third, and the fourth, and so on up to the twelfth, and he answered them all, though not always as we use them. Then I paused, and he said:

“‘You have passed the door of the Sanctuary, enter, brother, and draw on to the Altar.’

“But I shook my head, for I could not. Next he tried me with various signs and strange words that have to do with the inmost mysteries, but I was not able to answer them, though at times I saw their drift.

“‘You have some knowledge,’ he said, ‘yet you do but stand at the foot of the pyramid, whereas I watch the stars from its crest, warming my hands at the eternal fire.’

“‘None of my order have more, lord,’ I answered, ‘save the very highest.’

“‘Then there are higher in the land?’ he asked eagerly, but started suddenly, and, looking round, went on without waiting for an answer, ‘You are in sorrow, Child of the Heart, and have come from one who was sick to the death; to your business, and perchance we will speak of these matters afterwards.’

“‘First, lord,’ I said, ‘I have brought an offering,’ and I set down the basket at his feet.

“‘Gifts are good between brethren,’ he replied; ‘moreover, in this barren place food is welcome. Come hither, daughter, and take what this stranger brings.’

“As he spoke a lady came forward through the archway, dressed like her father, in a white robe of fine fabric, but somewhat worn. I looked at her, and it is truth, lord, that for the second time I went near to falling, for so great was the loveliness of this girl that my heart turned to water within me. Never before had I seen, or even dreamed of, such beauty in a woman.”

“To your tale, Molas, to your tale. What has the fashion of a woman’s beauty to do with the business of the Heart?” I broke in, angrily.

“I do not know, lord,” he answered; “and yet I think that it has to do with all earthly things.” Then he continued:

“The lady, whose name was Maya, looked at me carelessly, and took the basket. Following her through the archway to the terrace beyond, I set out the matter of my wife’s illness to the doctor—or rather to him who passes as a doctor, and who is named Zibalbay, or Watcher—praying that he would come to the village and minister to her.

“He listened in silence, then took the lock of hair that I had brought with me, and, going to a fire that burned near by, he laid some of the hair upon an ember and watched it as it writhed and shrivelled away.

“‘It would be of little use, brother,’ he said, sadly, ‘seeing that your wife is now dead. I felt her spirit pass us as we talked together in the gateway; still, until I burnt the hair, I did not know whether it was she who went by, or another.’

“Here I may tell you, lord, that, as I found afterwards, my wife departed at that very hour of sunset, though whether the doctor, Zibalbay, guessed that she must die then from the symptoms which I described to him, or whether he has the spirit sight, and saw her, I do not know.

“Still, it seems natural that at that moment of her passing she should come to bid farewell to the husband whom she loved, though I think it is a bad omen for me, and I pray that I may never see that place again. At the least, when I heard him speak thus I did not doubt his truth, for something within me confirmed it, but I hid my face and groaned aloud in the bitterness of my grief.

“Then, taking my hand, Zibalbay, the Watcher, spoke great words to me in a solemn voice that seemed to soothe me as the song of a mother soothes a restless child, for he talked with certainty as one who has knowledge and vision of those who have gone beyond, telling me that this parting was not for long, and that soon I should find her whom I had lost made glorious and folded close to the Heart of Heaven. Then he laid his hand upon my head, and I slept awhile, to wake, sad, indeed, but filled with a strange peace.

“‘Food is ready, my brother,’ said Zibalbay. ‘Eat and rest here this night; to-morrow you can return.’

“Now when we had eaten, Zibalbay spoke to me in the presence of his daughter, who, though a woman, is also of the Order, saying:

“‘You are of our Brotherhood, therefore the words I speak will be repeated to none who are not brethren, for I speak upon the Heart.’

“‘I hear with the Ears, lord,’ I answered.

“‘Listen!’ he went on. ‘I come from far with this maiden, my daughter, and we are not what we seem, but who and what we are now is not the hour to tell. This is the purpose of our coming—to find that which is one, but divided; that which is not lost, but hidden. Perchance, brother, you can point the path to it,’ and he paused and looked at me with his piercing eyes.

“Now, lord, I understood to what his words had reference, for are they not part of the ritual of the service ‘Opening of the Heart?’ Still, because I desired to be sure, and not commit myself, I picked up a piece of burnt wood, and, as though in idleness, bent down, and, by the light of the fire, I drew the half of a heart with a saw-like edge upon the pavement of the chamber where we sat. Then I handed the stick to Zibalbay, who took it and passed it on to his daughter, saying:

“‘I have no skill at such arts; finish it, Maya.’

“She smiled, and, kneeling down, traced the half of a face within the outline that I had drawn, saying:

“‘Is it enough, or do you need the writing also?’

“‘It is enough,’ I answered. ‘Now, lord, what do you desire?’

“‘I desire to know where that which is hidden can be brought to light, and if it dwells in this land, for I have journeyed far to seek it.’

“‘It dwells here,’ I answered, ‘for I have beheld it with my eyes, and he guards it who is its keeper.’

“‘Can you lead me to him, brother?’

“‘No, for I have no such commands; but perhaps I can bring him to you, though I must journey by sea and land to find him—that is, if he wills to come. Say, what message shall I give? That a stranger whom I have met desires to look upon the holy symbol? It will scarcely bring him so far.’

“‘Nay, tell him that the hour is come for “Night” and “Day” to be joined together, that a new sun may shine in a new sky.’

“‘I can tell him this, but will he believe it, seeing that I have no proof? Will he not rather think that some cunning stranger and false brother lays a plot to trap him? Give me proofs, lord, or I do not start upon this errand.’

“‘Will he believe that which you have seen with your eyes?’

“‘He will believe it, for he has trusted me from childhood.’

“‘Then look!’ said the man, and, opening his robe at the neck, he kneeled down in the light of the fire.

“There, lord, upon his breast hung that which has been hidden from our sight since the sons of Quetzal, the god, ruled in the land, the counterpart of the severed symbol which is upon your breast. That is all my story, lord.”

* * * * * * *

Now I, Ignatio, listened amazed, for the thing was marvellous.

“Did the man send me no further message?” I asked.

“None. He said that if you were a true keeper of the mystery you would come to learn his mission from himself, or bring him to you.”

“And did you tell him anything of me and of my history, Molas?”

“Nothing; I had no such command. On the morrow at dawn I left to bury my wife, if she were dead, or to nurse her if she still were sick, saying that so soon as might be I would travel to the city of Mexico to seek out the Keeper of the Heart and give him this tidings, and that within eight weeks or less I trusted to report how I had fared. The old man asked me if I had money, and without waiting to be answered he gave me two handfuls of lumps of moulded gold from a hide bag, whereof each lump was stamped with the symbol of the Heart.”

“Let me see one,” I said.

“Alas! my lord Ignatio, I have none. Not far from the ruined temple where this Zibalbay and his daughter sojourned, is the hacienda of Santa Cruz, and there, as you may have heard, dwell a gang of men under the leadership of one Don Pedro Moreno, who are by profession smugglers, highway robbers, and murderers, though they pretend to earn a living by the cultivation of coffee and cocoa.

“As it chanced, in journeying homewards, I fell into the hands of some of these men. They searched me, and, finding the lumps of gold in my pocket, handed them over to Don Pedro himself, who rode up when he saw that they had the fish in their net. He examined the gold closely, and asked me whence it came. At first I refused to answer, whereupon he said that I should be confined in a dungeon at the hacienda until such time as I chose to speak.

“Then, being mad to get back to my village and learn the fate of my wife, I found my tongue and spoke the truth, saying that the gold was given in exchange for food by an old Indian doctor, who dwelt with his daughter in a ruined temple in the forest.

“‘Mother of Heaven!’ said Don Pedro, ‘I have heard of this man before; but now I know the kind of merchandise in which he trades, I think that I must pay him a visit and learn what mint it was stamped at.’

“Then, having plucked me bare as a fowl for the oven, they let me go without hurt, but often I have sorrowed because, in my hour of haste and need, I told them whence the gold came, since I fear lest I should thus have let loose these villains upon the old wanderer and his daughter, and in that case they may well be murdered before ever you can reach them.”

“Doubtless Heaven will protect them,” I answered, “though you acted foolishly. But tell me, Molas, how did you find me out and come here without money?”

“I had some money at home, lord, and when I had buried my wife I travelled to Frontera on the coast, where I found a ship bound for Vera Cruz, and in her I sailed, giving my service as a sailor, which is a trade that I have followed. From Vera Cruz I made my way to Mexico, and reported myself to the head of the Brotherhood in that city, who, as I expected, was able to give me tidings of you.

“Then I came on to this village, and arrived here to-night, having been a month and two days on my journey. And now, lord, if you can, give me a place to sleep in, since I am weary, who for three days have scarcely shut my eyes. To-morrow you can let me know what answer I must bear to the old man, Zibalbay.”

* * * * * * *

I, Ignatio, sat late that night pondering over these tidings, which filled me with a strange hope. Could it be that my hour of success was at hand after so many years of waiting? If there were truth in prophecies it would seem so, and yet my faith wavered. This traveller, whom Molas had seen, might be a madman, and his symbol might be forged. I could not tell, but at least I would put the matter to the proof, for to-morrow, or so soon as was possible, I would journey down to Chiapas and seek him out.

Thinking thus, I threw myself upon my bed and strove to sleep, but could not. Then, remembering the scroll that my friend had given me, I rose, purposing to change my thoughts in studying it and so win sleep. It was a hard task, but at length I mastered its meaning, and found that it dealt with a mine near Cumarvo, and described the exact position of the mouth of the tunnel.

This mouth, it would appear, had been closed up in the reign of Guatemoc, and the scroll was written by the cacique who had charge of the mine in those days, in order that a record might remain that would enable his descendants to reopen it, should a time come when the Spaniards were driven from the land. That the mine was very rich in free gold was shown by the weights of pure metal stated in this scroll to have been sent year by year to the Court of Montezuma by this cacique, and also by the fact that it was thought worth hiding from the Spaniards.

Early on the morrow I went to the room of the Señor Strickland and spoke to him with a heavy heart.

“Señor,” I said, “you will remember that when I entered your service I told you that I might have to leave it at any moment. Now I am here to say that the time is come, for a messenger has arrived to summon me to the other end of Mexico upon business of which I may not speak, and to-morrow I must start upon the journey.”

“I am sorry to hear it, Ignatio,” he answered, “for you have been a good friend to me. Still, you do well to separate your fortunes from those of an unlucky man.”

“And you, señor, do ill to speak thus to me,” I answered with indignation; “still, I forgive you because I know that at times, when the heart is sore, the mouth utters words that are not meant. Listen, señor, when you have eaten your breakfast, will you take a ride with me?”

“Certainly, if you like. But whither do you wish to ride?”

“To another mine that is, or should be, about two hours on horseback from here, in a valley at the foot of yonder peak. I only heard of it last night, though I came to Cumarvo to seek it, and it would seem that it was very rich in Montezuma’s day.”

“In Montezuma’s day?” he said.

“Yes, it was last worked then, and I propose that if we can find it, and it looks well, that you should ‘denounce’ it for yourself, giving a reward of a few dollars to the Indian from whom I had the information, who is a poor man.”

“But if it is so good, why don’t you denounce it, Ignatio; and how did you come to hear about it after all these years?”

“For two reasons, señor; first, because I wish to do you a service if it is in my humble power, and, secondly, because I cannot look after it and must leave you, though to do so will be a true grief to me, for, if you will permit me to say it, never have I met a man for whom I conceived a greater respect and affection. Perhaps, if I return again, you will give me a share in the profits, so that we may grow rich together. And now I will show you how I came to hear of the mine.” And I fetched the scroll, with the translation that I had made, and read it to him.

He listened eagerly, for, like yourself, Señor Jones, your countryman, James Strickland, loved adventure and all things that have to do with the past of this ancient land.

“Let us go at once,” he said when I had finished. “I will order the horses and a mule with the prospecting kit to be got ready. Shall we take men with us?”

“I think not, señor; the mine is not yet found, and the less talk there is about it the better, for if the matter is noised abroad somebody may be before you in denouncing it. The messenger who came to see me last night is a trusty man, but he is weary with journeying, and rests, so we will go alone.”

An hour later we were riding among the mountains, I having left a message for Molas to say that I should return before dark. The trail which we were following was a difficult one, and ran for some miles along the edge of a precipice till it reached the crest of the range. Indeed, so bad was it in parts, that we were forced to dismount and drive the horses and mule before us, while we followed, clinging to the ferns and creepers on the rocks to keep ourselves from falling.

At length we came to the summit of the range, and turned downwards through a forest of oak and fir trees, heading for a valley that lay at the base of a solitary mountain peak, along which ran a stream. Down this stream we rode a mile or more, since I was searching for a certain pointed rock that was mentioned in the scroll as standing by itself on the slope of a mountain where no trees grew, beneath which should be the glen where in the days of Guatemoc was a great ceiba tree that, so said the writing, overshadowed the mouth of the mine.

Riding uphill through a dense grove of oaks, we came presently to the glen that lay just below the slope whereon stood the tall rock.

“This must be the place,” I said, “but I see no ceiba tree.”

“Doubtless it has fallen and rotted since those days,” answered the Señor Strickland. “Let us tether the horses and search.”

This we did, and the hunt was long, for here grasses and ferns grew thick, but at length I discovered a spot where the trunk of a very ancient tree had decayed in the ground, so that nothing remained except the outline of its circle and some of the larger roots.

Round about these roots we sought desperately for an hour or more, but without avail, till at length my companion grew weary of the sport, and went to pull up a small glossy-leaved palm that he had discovered, purposing to take it home and set it in his garden, for he was a great lover of plants and flowers.

While he was thus engaged, and I toiled amongst the grasses looking for the mouth of the mine, which, as I began to think, was lost forever, suddenly he called out, “Come here, Ignatio. Beneath the roots of this palm is refuse rock that has been broken with hammers. I believe that this must have been the platform in front of the mine. One can see that the ground was flat here.”

I came to him, and together we renewed our search, till at length, by good luck, we discovered a hole immediately beneath a rock, large enough for a man to creep into.

“Was this made by a coyote, or is it the mouth of the mine?” the señor asked.

“That we can only find out by entering it,” I answered. “Doubtless when they shut down the mine, the antiguos would have left some such place as this to ventilate the workings. Bring the pickaxe, señor, and we will soon see.”

For ten minutes or more we laboured, working in soft ground with pick and spade till we bared the side of a tunnel, which I examined.

“There is no need to trouble further,” I said, “this rock has been cut with copper chisels, for here is the green of the copper. Without doubt we have found the mouth of the mine. Now give me the hammer and candles, and bring the leather bag for samples, and we will enter.”

CHAPTER IV.
THE LEGEND OF THE HEART

When I had gone a few paces down the hole, it widened suddenly, so that we were able to stand upright and light our candles. Now there was no doubt that we were in the tunnel of an old mine, a rudely-dug shaft that turned this way and that as it followed the windings of the ore body.

Along this tunnel we went for thirty or forty paces, creeping over the fallen boulders, and twisting ourselves between the brown stalactites that in the course of ages had formed upon the roof and floor, till presently we reached an obstacle that barred our further progress; a huge mass of rock which at some time or other had fallen from the roof of the tunnel and blocked it. I looked at it, and said:

“Now, señor, I think that we shall have to go back. You remember the writing tells us that this mine, although so rich, was unsafe because of the rottenness of the rock. Doubtless they propped it in the old days, but the timbers have decayed long ago.”

“Yes,” he answered, “we can do nothing here without help, and, Ignatio, I don’t like the look of the roof, it is full of cracks.”

As these last words left his lips a piece of stone, the size of a child’s head, fell from above almost at his feet.

“Speak softly,” I whispered, “the ring of your voice is bringing down the roof.”

Then I stooped to pick up the fallen stone, thinking that it might show ore, and, as I did so, my hand touched something sharp, which I lifted and held to the candle. It was the jawbone of a man, yellow with age, and corroded by damp. I showed it to the señor, and, kneeling down, we examined the bed of the tunnel together, and not uselessly, for there we found the remainder of the skull and some fragments of an arm-bone, but the rest of the skeleton lay under the great boulder in front of us.

“He was coming out of the mine when the rock fell upon him, poor fellow,” whispered the señor. “Look here,” and he pointed to a little heap of something that gleamed in the candle-light.

It was free gold, six or seven ounces of it, almost pure, and for the most part in small nuggets, that once were contained in a bag which had long since rotted away.

Doubtless, after the mine was closed, some Aztec, who knew its secret, had made a practice of working there for his own benefit, till one day, as he was coming out, the rock fell upon him and crushed him, leaving his spirit to haunt the place for ever.

“There is no doubt about this mine being rich,” whispered the señor; “but all the same I think that we had better get out of it. I hear odd noises and rumblings which frighten me. Come, Ignatio,” and he turned to lead the way towards the opening.

Two paces farther I saw him strike his ankle against a piece of rock that stood up some six or eight inches from the floor-bed of the tunnel, and the pain of the blow was so sharp that, forgetting where he was, he called out loudly. The next instant there was a curious sound above me as of something being torn, and, lo! I lay upon my face on the rock, and upon me rested a huge mass of stone.

I say that it rested upon me, but this is not altogether true, for, had it been so, that stone would have killed me at once, as a beetle is killed beneath the foot of a man, instead of taking more than two-and-twenty years to do it. The greater part of its weight was borne by the piece of rock against which the señor had struck his leg, a point of the fallen boulder only pressing into my back and grinding me against the ground. Now we were in darkness, for the señor had been knocked down also, and his candle extinguished, and, in the midst of my tortures, it came into my mind that he must be dead.

Presently, however, I heard his voice, saying, “Ignatio; do you live, Ignatio?”

Now I thought for a moment. Even in my pain I remembered that more of the roof would surely give ere long, and that if my friend stayed here he must die with me. Nothing could save me, I was doomed to a slow death beneath the stone; and yet if I told him this I knew that he would not go. Therefore I answered as strongly as I could:

“Fly, señor, I am safe, and do but stay to light a candle. I will follow you.”

“You are lying to me,” he answered; “your voice comes from the level of the floor.” And as he spoke I heard the scratching sound of a match.

So soon as he had found his candle and lit it, he knelt down and looked at me. Then he examined the roof above, and, following his glance with difficulty, I saw that next to the hole whence the boulder had fallen, hung a huge block of stone, that, surrounded by great cracks from which water dropped, trembled like a leaf whenever he moved or spoke.

“For the love of God, fly,” I whispered. “In a few hours it will be over with me, and you cannot help me. I am a dead man, do not stop here to share my fate.”

For a moment he seemed to hesitate, then his courage came back to him, and he answered hoarsely:

“We entered this place together, friend, and we will go out together, or not at all. You must be fixed by the rock and not crushed, or you would not speak of living for hours. Let me look,” and he lay upon his breast and examined the fallen rock by the light of the candle. “Thank God! there is hope,” he said at last, “the boulder rests on the ground and upon the stone against which I struck my leg, for only one point of it is fixed in your back. Do you think that anything is broken, Ignatio?”

“I cannot say, señor, my pain is great, and I am being slowly crushed to death; but I believe that as yet my bones are whole. Fly, I beg of you.”

“I will not,” he answered sullenly, “I am going to roll this rock off you.”

Then, lifting with all his great strength, he strove to move the stone, but without avail, for it was beyond the power of mortal man to stir it, and all the while the black mass trembled above his head.

“I must go for help,” he said, presently.

“Yes, yes, señor,” I answered, “go for help;” for I knew well that before he could return with any, more of the roof would have fallen, shutting me in to perish by inches, or perhaps crushing the life out of me in mercy. Then I remembered, and added:

“Stay a moment before you go; you are noble, I will give you something. Feel here round my neck, there is a little chain—now, draw it over my head—so. You see a token hangs to it; if ever you are in trouble with the Indians, take their chief man apart and show him this, and he will die for you if need be.

“Englishman, by this gift I have made you heir to the empire of the Aztecs in the heart of every Indian, and the master of the great brotherhood of Mexico. Molas, the messenger, will tell you all and bring you to those who can initiate you. Bid him lead you whither he would have led me. Farewell, and God go with you. Tell the Indians how I died, that they may not think that you have murdered me.”

To these words of mine the señor made no answer, but thrust the token into his pocket without looking at it, like one who dreams. Then, taking the candle with him, he crept forward down the tunnel and vanished, and my heart sank as I saw him go, leaving me to my dreadful fate without a word of farewell.

“Doubtless he is too frightened to speak,” I thought, “and it is right that he should fly as quickly as possible to save his life.”

Now, as I was soon to learn, I was doing the señor a bitter wrong in my mind, seeing that he never dreamed of deserting me, but went to find a means of rescue. As he told me afterwards, when he reached the mouth of the tunnel, he could think of no way by which I might be saved, since these mountains were uninhabited, and it would take several hours to bring men from Cumarvo.

Outside the mine he sat himself down to consider what could be done, but no thought came, for it was impossible to use the strength of the horses in that narrow place. Then he sprang up and looked round him in despair. Close to him was a little ravine hollowed by water, and on its very edge grew a small mimosa thorn of which the long roots had been washed almost bare by a flood. He saw it, and an inspiration entered into him. With the help of a lever he might be able to do a feat to which his unaided strength was not equal.

Springing at the little tree, that being of so tough a wood was the best possible for his purpose, he tore it from such root-hold as remained to it. A few strokes with his heavy hunting-knife trimmed off the branches and fibres, and soon he was creeping carefully up the tunnel, dragging the trunk after him. When he had gone some twenty paces he heard another fragment of the roof fall, and, so he said in his story, was minded to fly.

He had but just escaped from a horrible end, the end that generations ago overtook the poor Aztec, and it was awful to brave it again. He knew that his chances of being able to rescue me were few indeed, whereas those that he would perish miserably in the attempt were many. Then he remembered what my sufferings must be if I still lived, and how his own conscience would reproach him in the after years, should he leave me to my fate, and he went on.

Now he could see that the half-detached mass of the roof still hung; it was a smaller fragment which had fallen, one nearer to the entrance. He could see also that I lay in the same position beneath the rock, and he thought that I was dead, because I neither moved nor spoke, though, in fact, I had but swooned under the agony of my suffering.

“Are you dead?” he whispered, and I heard his voice through my sleep, and, lifting my head, looked up at him astonished, for I had never thought to see him again.

“Do I behold a spirit,” I said, “or is it you come back?”

“It is I, Ignatio, and I have brought a lever. Now when I lift, struggle forward if you can.”

Then he placed the trunk of the thorn-tree in what seemed to him the best position, and put all his strength upon it. It was in vain; even so he could not stir the rock.

“Try a little more to the right,” I said, faintly; “there is a better hold.”

He shifted the lever and dragged at it till his muscles cracked, and I felt the stone tremble as its bulk began to rise.

“If you can help ever so little, it will come!” he gasped.

Then in my despair, though the anguish of it nearly killed me, I set my palms upon the ground, and, contracting myself like a snake that is held with a forked stick, thrust upwards with my back, till the point of the stone was raised to the height of eight or ten inches from the ground.

For a moment, and one only, it hung there; next instant the lever slipped, and down it came again. But I had taken my chance, for, clinging to the floor with my fingers, so soon as my back was free, with a quick movement I dragged myself a foot or more forward. Then the point of rock that had been lifted from my spine fell again, but this time it struck the ground between my thighs.

Now he seized me by the arms and tore me free, though I left one of my long boots beneath the stone. I strove to rise, but could not because of the hurt to my back.

“You must carry me, señor,” I said.

He glanced at the mass that trembled above us; then, giving me the candle, he lifted me from the ground like an infant and staggered forward down the tunnel. Perhaps we had gone some seven or eight paces, not more, when there was a dreadful crash behind us. The roof had fallen in, and the spot which we occupied some thirty seconds before was now piled high with rocks.

“On!” I said; “cracks are showing in the stone above us!” and he rushed forward till we found ourselves outside the mine.

Now I bowed my head and returned thanks for my escape; then, lifting it, I looked my preserver in the face and said:

“I swear by the name of God, señor, that He never made a man nobler than yourself!”

The next instant I fell forward and fainted there among the ferns.

* * * * * * *

Ten days had passed since I was carried from the mouth of that accursed mine back to Cumarvo in a litter, and during all this time I had suffered much pain in my back, and been very ill—so ill, indeed, that I was scarcely allowed to speak with anyone. Now, however, I was much better, and one afternoon the Señor Strickland, assisted by my foster-brother Molas, lifted me from my bed into a hammock.

“By the way, Ignatio,” said the señor when Molas had gone, “I never gave you back this charm of yours. What a strange trinket it is!” he added, taking it from his neck; “and what did you mean by your talk in the tunnel about its making me heir to the empire of the Aztecs in the heart of every Indian, and the rest of it? I suppose that you were delirious with pain, and did not know what you were saying.”

“Is the door shut, señor?” I asked; “and are you sure that there is no one on the verandah? Good! Then draw your chair nearer and I will tell you something. I am not certain that I should take this talisman back again, still I will do so for reasons which you shall learn presently.

“Know, señor, that this broken gem is at once the foundation-stone and the secret symbol of a great order, of which, although you have not been initiated into it, you are now one of the lords, seeing that the crowning and vital ceremony of the creation of a Lord of the Heart consists in the hanging of the symbol about his neck for the space of a minute only by myself, who am the chief lord and Keeper of the Heart for life, and you have worn it for ten whole days.

“Before we part I will call a chapter of the order—for even among these mountains we have brethren—and you shall be initiated into its ritual and raised to the rank of a chief lord, as is your right. Meanwhile I will instruct you briefly in its mysteries, as it is my bounden duty to do.

“Understand, señor, that the first duty of the servant of the Heart is silence, and that silence I demand of you. Men have died ere now, señor; yes, they have died on the rack in the dungeons of the Inquisition, and shrivelled as wizards in the fires of the stake, sooner than reveal those things that have been told them upon the faith of the Heart, against which the confessional itself cannot prevail—no, not with the best of Catholics.”

“But suppose that a man should not keep silence, Ignatio, what then?” he asked.

“There is a land, señor,” I answered, “where the most talkative grow dumb, and its borders can be crossed by all, even by the Lords of the Heart, for fearful is the doom of a false brother!”

“You mean that if I repeat anything I may hear, I shall be murdered.”

“Indeed, no, señor; but you may happen to die. I speak on the Heart; do you hear with the Ears?”

“I hear with the Ears,” he answered, catching my meaning.

“Very well, señor, since you have now sworn secrecy to me by the most solemn oath that can pass the lips of man, I will speak to you openly. This is the tale of the Broken Heart, so far as I know it, though how much of it is truth and how much is legend I cannot say:

“You have heard the story of that white man, or god, sometimes called Quetzal by the Indians, and sometimes Cucumatz, who came to these lands in the far past and civilised their peoples? Afterwards he vanished away in a ship, promising that when many generations had passed he would return again.

“When he had gone, the empire which he created fell into the hands of two brothers, whose chief city was either at Palenque or in its neighbourhood, and the citizens of this empire, like we Christians, worshipped one good god, the true God, under the name of the Heart of Heaven, and to Him they offered few sacrifices save those of fruit and flowers. Now one of these brothers married a wife from another country—a daughter of devils, very beautiful and a great witch.

“Soon this woman, as in the story of the wives of Solomon and their lord, drew away the king, her husband, from the true faith to the worship of the gods of her own land, and brought it about that he offered human sacrifice to them. Then there arose a great confusion in that country, and the end of it was that the people divided themselves into two parties, the worshippers of the Heart of Heaven and the worshippers of devils.

“They made war upon each other, till many of their chief men were killed; then they came to an agreement whereby the nation was sundered. Half of it, under that king who had married the woman, marched northwards, and became the fathers of the Aztecs and other tribes; and half, the faithful worshippers of the Heart, remained in the Tobasco country.

“Now from that day forward evil overtook both these peoples, for though the Aztecs flourished for a while, in the end Spaniards despoiled them. The worshippers of the Heart also were driven from their cities by hordes of barbarians who rolled down upon them, and their faith perished, or seemed to perish.”

“But what has this history to do with the charm about your neck, Ignatio?” he asked.

“I will tell you. When Quetzal sailed away from his people, so says the legend, he left the stone, that once he had worn upon his brow, of which this is the half, to be a treasure to the kings who came after him. Also he set this fate upon it: that while the Heart remained unbroken, for so long should the people be one and whole; but if it came about that it was cut or shattered, they should be divided with it, to be no more one people until again the fragments were one stone.

“Now when these king-brethren quarrelled and parted, they sawed the token asunder, as you see, each of them keeping a half, this half being that of him who married the woman. For generations it was worn by his descendants, and upon their death-beds passed on by them to another, or at times taken from their bodies after they were dead.

“There are many stories told about the stone in the old days, and it is certain that he who had it was the real king of the country for the time being. At length it came into the hands of the great Guatemoc, last of the Aztec emperors, who, before the Spaniards hung him, found means to send it to his son, from whom it has come down to me.”

“To you? What have you to do with Guatemoc?”

“I am his lineal descendant, señor, the eleventh in the male line.”

“Then you ought to be Emperor of the Indians if every man had his rights, Ignatio.”

“That is so, señor, but of my own story I will tell you presently. Now of this stone. Through all the ages it has never been lost, and it is known in the land from end to end; he who wears it for his life being called ‘Keeper of the Heart,’ and also ‘Hope of those who wait,’ since it may happen in his day that the two halves will come together again.”

“And what if they do?”

“Then, so says the legend, the Indians will once more be a mighty nation, and drive those who oppress them into the sea, as the wind drives dust.”

Now the señor rose from his chair and walked up and down the room.

“Do you believe all this?” he asked, suddenly.

“Yes,” I answered, “or the greater part of it. Indeed, if what I hear is true, the lost half of the talisman that has been missing for so many generations is in Mexico at this moment, and, so soon as I am well enough, I go to seek him who bears it, and who has come from far to find me. That is why we must part, señor.”

“Where has this man come from?” he asked, eagerly.

“I do not know for certain,” I answered, “but I think that he has come from the sacred city of the Indians, the hidden Golden City which the Spaniards sought for but could not find, though it still exists among the mountains and deserts of the far interior, whither I hope to journey with him.”

“That still exists! Ignatio, you must be mad. It never has existed except in the imagination.”

“You say so, señor, but I think differently. At least, I knew a man whose grandfather had seen it. He, the grandfather, was a native of San Juan Batista, in Tobasco, and when he was young he committed some crime and fled inland to save his life.

“All that befell him I do not know, but at length he found himself wandering by the shores of a great lake, somewhere in or beyond the country that is now known as Guatemala, and, being exhausted, he laid himself down to die there and fell asleep.

“When he awoke, people were standing round him, like the Indians to look at, but very light in colour, and beautifully dressed in white robes, with necklaces of emeralds and feather capes. These people put him on board a great canoe, and took him to a glorious city with a high pyramid in the centre of it, which was named Heart of the World.

“Of this city he saw little, however, for its inhabitants kept him a prisoner, only from time to time he was brought before their king and elders, who sat in a hall filled with images of dead men fashioned in gold, and there was questioned as to the country whence he came, the tribes that dwelt in it, and more especially of the white men who ruled the land.

“In that hall alone, so he said, there were more gold and precious stones than are to be found in all Mexico. When he had nothing more to tell them, the people wished to kill him, fearing lest he should escape and bring upon them the white men who loved gold. The end of it was that he did escape by the help of a woman, who guided him back towards the sea, though she never came there, for she died upon the road.

“Afterwards this man went to live in a little village near Palenque, where he also died, having revealed nothing of what he had seen, since he feared lest the vengeance of the People of the Heart should follow him. When he was dying, he told his son, who told his son, who told the tale to me. Señor, it has been the dream of my life to visit that city, and now at last I think that I have found the clue which will lead me to it.”

“Why do you want to visit it, Ignatio?”

“To understand that, señor, you must know my history.” And I told him of the failure of the great plot and the part that I had played in it, all of which I have already set out, also of the secret hopes and ambitions of my life.

“Señor,” I added, “though I am beaten I am not yet crushed, and I still desire to build up a great Indian empire. I see by your face that you think me foolish. You may be right or I may be right. I may be pursuing truths or dreams, I may be sane and a redeemer, or insane and a fool. What does it matter? I follow the light that runs before me; will-o’-the-wisp or star, it leads to one end, and for me it is the light that I am born to follow. If you believe nothing else, at least believe this, señor, that I do not seek my own good or advancement, but rather that of my people. At the worst, I am not a knave, I am only a fool.”

“But how will you help your cause by visiting this city, supposing it to exist, Ignatio?”

“Thus, señor: these people—among whom without doubt the old man of whom I have spoken, who is named Zibalbay, is a chief or king—are the true stock and head of all the Indian races, and when they learn my plans and whom I am, they will be glad to furnish me with means whereby I can bring them to their former empire.”

“And if they take another view of the matter, Ignatio?”

“Then I fail, that is all, and among so many failures one more will scarcely matter. I am like a swimmer who sees, or thinks that he sees, a single plank that may bear him to safety. Maybe he cannot reach that plank, or, if he reach it, maybe it will sink beneath his weight. At least, he has no other hope.

“Señor, I have no other hope. There in the Golden City is untold wealth, for the man saw it, and without money, great sums of money, I am helpless, therefore I go thither to win the money. The ship has foundered under me, and with it the cargo of my ambitions and the work of my life; so, being desperate, I fall back upon a desperate expedient.

“First, I will seek this man, that the two halves of the Heart may come together, and the prophecy be fulfilled; then, if it may be, I will travel with him to the City, Heart of the World, careless whether I live or die, but determined, if there is need, to die fighting for the fulfilment of the dream of an Indian empire—Christian, regenerated, and stretching from sea to sea—that I have followed all my days.”

“The dream, Ignatio? Perhaps you name it well, yet few have such noble dreams. And now, who goes with you on this journey?”

“Who goes with me? Molas, so far as the temple where the Indian is. After that, if I proceed, no one. Who would accompany a man grown old in failure, whom even those that love him deem a visionary, on such a desperate quest? Why, if I should dare to tell my projects even, men would mock me as children mock an idiot in the street. I go alone, señor, perhaps to die.”

“As regards the dying, Ignatio, of course I can say nothing, since all men must die sooner or later, and the moment and manner of their end is in the hand of Providence. But for the rest you shall not make this journey alone, that is, if you care to have me for a companion, for I will accompany you.”

“You, señor, you. Think what it means: the certainty of every sort of danger, the risk of every kind of death, and at the end, the probability of failure. It is folly, señor.”

“Ignatio,” he answered, “I will be frank with you. Notwithstanding all the prophecies about the wonders that are to follow the reuniting of the Heart, and the messages from the old man in the temple, I think your scheme of building up an Indian empire greater than that which Cortez destroyed, as impracticable as it is grand, since the time has gone by when it could have been done, or perhaps it has not yet returned.

“Before the Indians can rule again, they must forget the bitter lessons and the degradation of ages; in short, they must be educated, Ignatio. Still, if you think otherwise, that is your affair; you can only fail, and there are failures more glorious than most successes. Do you understand me?”

“Perfectly, señor.”

“Very well. And now as regards the search for this Golden City. To me the matter seems very vague, since your hopes of finding it are based upon a traveller’s tale, told by a man who died seventy or eighty years ago, and the chance that a certain person, whom you have not yet seen, has come from there, and is willing to guide you back to it.

“Still, the prospect of hunting for that city pleases me, for I am an adventurer in my heart. If ever we get further than the forest country in Tabasco, where your friend with the token is waiting for you, our search will probably end in the leaving of our bones to decorate some wilderness or mountain top in the unknown regions of Guatemala.

“But what of that? I have no chick or child; my death would matter nothing to any living soul; for years I have worked hard with small results; why should I not follow my natural bent and become an adventurer? I can scarcely do worse than I have done, and I think that the way of life would suit me.

“That mine you showed me is rich enough no doubt, but I have no capital to deal with it, and if I had, my experience of the place was such that I never wish to set foot in it again. In short, I am ready to start for Tabasco, and the Sacred City, and wherever else you like, so soon as you are fit to travel.”

“Do you swear that on the Heart, señor?” I asked.

“By all means; but I should prefer to give you my hand upon it.” And he stretched out his hand, which I took.

“Good. You swear on the Heart, and give me your hand—the oath is perfect. We are comrades henceforth, señor; for my part I ask no better one. I have nothing more to say. I cannot promise that you will find this City, or that, if you find it, it will advantage you. I am an unlucky man, and it is more likely that, by yoking yourself with me, you will bring my misfortunes upon your head. This I swear, however, that I will be a true comrade to you, as you were to me yonder in the mine, and for the rest, the adventure must be its own reward.”

CHAPTER V.
THE BEGINNING OF THE QUEST

Something more than a month from the day when the Señor Strickland and I made our compact to search for the secret city of the Indians, we found ourselves, together with Molas, at Vera Cruz, waiting for a ship to take us to Frontera, where we proposed to disembark. This port we had chosen in preference to Campeche, although the latter was nearer to the ruins where we hoped to find the Indian Zibalbay, because from it we could travel in canoes up the Grijalva and other rivers, unobserved by any save the natives.

Things are changed now in these parts, but in those days the white men who lived thereabouts beyond the circle of the towns were too often robbers, as Molas had found to his cost some few weeks before.

At Vera Cruz we purchased such articles as were necessary to our journey, not many, for we could not be sure of finding means to carry them. Among them were hammocks, three guns that would shoot either ball or shot, with ammunition, as many muzzle-loading Colt’s revolvers, the best that were to be had twenty years ago, some medicines, blankets, boots, and spare clothes.

Also we took with us all the money that we possessed, amounting to something over fifteen hundred dollars in gold, which sum we divided between us, carrying it in belts about our middles. At Vera Cruz, where people are very curious about the business of others, we gave out that the Señor Strickland was one of those strange Englishmen who love to visit old ruins, for which purpose he was travelling to Yucatan; that I, Ignatio, was his guide and companion, and that Molas, my foster-brother, was our servant.

Now we purposed to leave Vera Cruz by a fine American vessel, a sailing ship, that, after touching at the ports along the coast, traded to Havana and New York. As it chanced, the departure of this ship was delayed for a week, so, being pressed for time and fearing lest we should catch the yellow fever that was raging in the town, unhappily for ourselves we took passage in a Mexican boat called the Santa Maria.

She was an old sailing vessel of not more than two hundred and fifty tons burden, that had been converted by her owners into a paddle-wheel steamer, with the result that, except in favourable weather, she could neither sail nor steam with any speed or safety. Her business was to trade with passengers and cargo between Vera Cruz and the ports of Frontera and Campeche.

“Where for?” asked the agent of the Señor Strickland, as he filled in the tickets.

“Frontera,” he answered. “Your boat stops there, does she not?”

“Oh! certainly, señor,” he said, as he pocketed the dollars, and yet all the while this shameless rogue knew that she had orders to touch at Campeche, which is the furthest port, first, and return to Frontera a week later. But of this more in its place.

That afternoon the Santa Maria, with us on board of her, was piloted out of the harbour of Vera Cruz, and we heard the pilot swearing because she would not answer properly to her helm. Standing by the engines we noticed also that, though they had not been working for more than half an hour, it was found necessary to keep a stream of water in constant play upon the bearings.

The señor asked the reason of this of the man who was mate and engineer of the boat, and he answered, with a shrug, that sand had got into the machinery when she was steaming over the bar of the Grijalva river, but that he thought the bearings, should it please the Saints, would last this voyage, unless they had the bad luck to run into a norther, as you English call el Norte; the fearful gales that in certain seasons of the year sweep over the Gulf of Mexico.

“And if we ‘run into a norther’?” he asked,—whereupon the man made a grimace, crossed himself to avert the omen, and vanished down the stoke-hole.

Now we began to feel sorry that we had not taken passage in the American ship, since of late northers had been frequent, but as, for good or ill, we were on board the Santa Maria, we amused ourselves by studying our fellow-passengers.

Of these there were several on board, perhaps twenty in all, Mexican landowners and officials returning to their haciendas and native towns after a visit to Vera Cruz, or the capital, some of them pleasant companions enough and others not so. Three or four of these gentlemen were accompanied by their wives, but the ladies had already retired to the bunks opening out of the cabin, where, although the sea was quite smooth, they could be heard suffering the pains of sickness.

Among the passengers was one, a man of not more than thirty years of age, who particularly attracted our attention because of the gorgeousness of his dress. In appearance he was large, handsome, and coarse, and he had Indian blood in his veins, as was shown by the darkness of his colour and the thick black eyebrows that gave a truculent expression to his face. While I was wondering who he might be, Molas made a sign to me to come aside, and said:

“You see yonder man with the silver buttons on his coat: he is Don José Moreno, the son of that Don Pedro Moreno who waylaid and robbed me of the nuggets which the old Indian gave me for the cost of my journey to find you. I heard at the time that he was away from the hacienda in Vera Cruz or Mexico, and now doubtless he returns thither. Beware of him, lord, and bid the Englishman to do the same, for, like his father, he is a bad man—” and he told me certain things connected with him and his family.

While Molas was talking, a bell had been rung for dinner, but I waited till he had finished before going down. At the door of the cabin I met the captain, a stout man with a face like a full moon and a bland smile.

“What do you seek, señor?” he asked.

“My dinner, señor,” I answered.

“It shall be sent to you on the deck,” he said, not without confusion. “I do not wish to be rude, señor, but you know that these Mexicans—I am a Spaniard myself and do not care—hate to sit at meat with an Indian, so, if you insist upon coming in, there will be trouble.”

Now I heard, and though the insult was deep, it was one to which I was accustomed, for in this land, which belongs to them and where their fathers ruled, to be an Indian is to be an outcast.

Therefore, not wishing to make a stir, I bowed and turned away. Meanwhile, it seems that the Señor Strickland, missing me in the cabin, asked the captain where I was, saying that perhaps I did not know that the meal was ready.

“If you refer to your servant, the Indian,” said the captain, “I met him at the door and sent him away. Surely the señor knows that we do not sit at table with these people.”

“Captain,” answered the Señor Strickland, “if my friend is an Indian, he is as good a gentleman as you or anybody else in this cabin; moreover he has paid for a first-class fare and has a right to first-class accommodation. I insist upon a seat being provided for him at my side.”

“As you wish,” answered the captain, smiling, for he was a man of peace, “only if he comes there will be trouble.” And he ordered the steward to fetch me.

Now this steward was an Indian who knew my rank. Therefore not wishing to offend me by repeating what had passed, he said simply that the captain sent his compliments and begged that I would come down to dinner. The end of it was that I went, though doubtfully, and, seeing me in the doorway the Señor Strickland called to me in a loud voice, saying:

“You are late for dinner, friend, but I have kept your place here by me. Sit down quickly or the food will be cold.”

I bowed to the company and obeyed, and then the trouble commenced, for all present had heard this talk. As I took my seat the Mexicans began to murmur, and the passenger who was next to me insolently moved his plate and glass away. Now almost opposite to me sat Don José Moreno, that man of whom Molas had told me. As I took my seat he consulted hastily with a neighbour on his right, then, addressing the captain, said in a loud voice:

“There is some mistake; it is not usual that Indian dogs should sit at the same table with gentlemen.”

The captain shrugged his shoulders and answered mildly:

“Perhaps the señor will settle the question with the English señor on my left. To me it does not matter; I am only a poor sailor, and accustomed to every sort of company.”

“Señor Strickland,” said Don José, “be so good as to order your servant to leave the cabin.”

“Señor,” he answered, for his temper was quick, “I will see you in hell before I do so.”

“Caramba,” said the Mexican, laying a hand upon the knife in his belt, “you shall pay for that, Englishman.”

‘You shall pay for that, Englishman.’

“When and how you will, señor. I always pay my debts.”

Then the captain broke in, in a strange way. First he put his hand behind him, and, drawing a large pistol from his pocket, he laid it by his plate.

“Señors, both,” he said in a soft voice and with a gentle smile, “I am loth to interfere in a quarrel of two esteemed passengers, but though I am only a poor sailor, it is my duty to see that there is no bloodshed on board this vessel. Therefore, much as I regret it, I shall be obliged to shoot dead the first man who draws a weapon,” and he cocked the pistol.

Now the Mexican scowled, and the Señor Strickland laughed outright, for it was a curious thing to hear a man with the face of a sheep growl and threaten like a wolf. Meanwhile I had risen, for this insult was more than I could bear.

“Señors,” I said, speaking in Spanish, “as I see that my presence is unwelcome to the majority of those here, I hasten to withdraw myself. But before I go I wish to say something, not by way of boasting, but to justify my friend, the English gentleman, in his action on my behalf. However well-born you may be, my descent is nobler and more ancient than yours, and therefore it should be no shame to you to sit at table with me. Least of all should the Don José Moreno, whose father is a murderer, a highway robber, and a man without shame, and whose mother was a half-bred mestiza slut, dare to be insolent to me who, as any Indian on board this ship can tell you, am a prince among my own people.”

Now every eye was fixed upon Don José. His sallow complexion turned to a whitish green as he listened to my words, and for a moment he sank back in his chair overcome with rage. Then he sprang up, once more gripping at his knife.

“You dog!” he gasped, “let me but come at you and I’ll cut your lying tongue out.”

“You will do nothing of the sort, Don José Moreno,” I answered, fixing my eyes upon his face; “what I have said of your father is true; more, there is a man on board this ship whom, not three months since, he robbed with violence. If the gentlemen your companions would like to hear the story I can tell it to them. For the rest, I am well able to defend myself. Moreover this vessel is manned by Indians who know me, and should any harm come to me or to my friend, the Señor Strickland, I warn you that you will not reach your home alive. Gentlemen, I salute you,” and I bowed and left the cabin.

“Friend, I thank you,” I said to the señor, when he came upon deck after the dinner was ended. “Knowing who I am and seeing how, in common with my race, I am accustomed to be treated by such hounds as these, can you wonder that I am not fond of Mexicans?”

“No, Ignatio,” he answered; “but all the same I advise you to be careful of this Don José. He is not a man to kiss the stick that beats him, and he will make an end of you, and me too for the matter of that, if he can.”

“Do not be afraid, señor,” I answered laughing; “besides the steward and Molas there are twenty Indians on board, most of them belonging to the tribe that dwells beyond Campeche, the finest race in Mexico. Two of these men are associates of the Heart, and all the rest know my rank, and will watch that man day and night so that he can never come near us without finding them ready for him. Only we shall do well to sleep on deck and not below.”

That night we spent, wrapped in our serapes, upon two coils of rope on the forecastle of the Santa Maria, with Molas sleeping close behind us. It was a lovely night and we whiled away the hours in telling tales to each other of our adventures in past years, and in wonderings as to those that lay before us, till at length, fearing nothing, for we knew that our safety was watched over, we fell asleep, to be awakened by the sudden stoppage of the vessel.

The day was on the point of dawn; a beautiful and pearly light lay upon the quiet surface of the sea; above us the stars still shone faintly in the heavens, but to the east the cloud-banks were tinged with pink and violet. We sat up wondering what had happened, and saw the captain, wrapped in a dirty blanket, engaged in earnest conversation with the engineer, who wore a still dirtier shirt, and nothing else. Hearing that something was wrong, the Señor James went to the captain and asked him why we had stopped.

“Because the engines won’t go any more, and there is no wind to sail with,” he answered politely. “But have no fear, my comrade says that he can mend them up. He has nursed them for years and knows their weak points.”

“Certainly there is not much to fear in weather like this,” said the señor, “except delay.”

“Nothing, nothing,” replied the captain, glancing anxiously at a narrow black band of cloud, that lay on the rim of the horizon beneath the fleecy masses in which the lights of dawn were burning.

“Do you think that we are likely to have a norther?” asked the señor in his blunt white man’s way.

“No, no,” exclaimed the captain, crossing himself at the name of that evil power—el Norte, “but quien sabe! God makes the weather, not we poor sailors.” And with another glance at the threatening line of cloud, he hurried away as though to avoid further conversation.

Presently the engines began to work again, though haltingly, like a lame mule, and as the morning drew on the day became clear and the thin black cloud vanished from the horizon. Towards three o’clock in the afternoon Molas, pointing to a low coast-line, and a spot on the sea where the ocean swell showed tipped with white, told us that yonder was the bar of the Grijalva river, and that behind it lay the village of Frontera, our destination.

“Good,” said the señor, “then I think that I will get my things on deck,” and going to his cabin he brought up a sack containing some wraps and food.

“Why do you fetch your baggage?” asked the captain presently, “you may want it to-night.”

“That is why I brought it up,” he answered. “I do not wish to land at Frontera with nothing.”

“Land at Frontera, señor? No one will land at Frontera from this ship for another six or seven days. We pass Frontera and run straight on to Campeche, which, by the blessing of the Saints, we shall reach to-morrow evening.”

“But I have taken tickets for Frontera,” said the señor. “The agent gave them to me, and I insist upon being put on shore there.”

“That is quite right, señor. All being well we shall call at Frontera this day week, and then you can go ashore without extra charge, but before this my orders are to put into no port except Campeche,—that is, unless a norther forces me to do so.”

“May the norther sink you, your ship, your agents, and every thing you have to do with,” answered the señor in so angry a voice, that the Mexican passengers who were listening began to laugh at the Englishman’s discomfiture, though the more thoughtful of them crossed themselves to avert the evil omen.

Then followed a storm, for the señor—whose temper, as I have said, was not of the coolest—raged and swore in no measured terms; the captain shrugged his shoulders and apologised; the passengers smiled; and, seeing that there was no help for the matter, I looked on patiently after the manner of my race. At length the captain fled, wiping his brow and exclaiming:

“What manner of men are these English that they make such a trouble about a little time? Mother of Heaven! why are they always in a hurry? Is not to-morrow as good as to-day—and better?”

That evening we dined together upon deck; for neither of us were in any good mood to descend to the cabin and meet Don José Moreno, of whom we had seen nothing since the previous night. As we were finishing our meal the light faded and the sky grew curiously dark, while suddenly to the north there appeared a rim of cloud similar to that which we had seen upon the horizon at dawn, but now it was of an angry red and glowed like the smoke from a smelting-furnace at night.

“The sky looks very strange, Ignatio,” said the señor to me, and at that moment we heard Molas and an Indian sailor speaking together in brief words.

“El Norte,” said Molas, pointing towards the red rim of light.

“Si, el Norte,” answered the sailor as he went towards the cabin.

Presently the captain hurried up the companion-ladder and studied the horizon, of which the aspect seemed to frighten him. In another minute the mate joined him, appearing from the engine hatch, and the two of them began to converse, or rather to dispute. I was sitting near, unobserved in the darkness, and, so far as I could gather, the mate was in favour of putting the ship about and running for Frontera, from which port we were now distant some forty miles.

On the other hand, the captain said that if they did so and the norther came up, it would catch them before they got there, and wreck them upon the bar of the Grijalva river; but he added that he did not believe there would be any norther, and if by ill-luck it should come, their best course was to stand for the open sea and ride it out.

The mate answered that this would be an excellent plan if the ship were staunch and the engines to be relied on, but he declared loudly that they might as well try to sail a boat with a mast made of cigarettes, as attempt to lie head on to a norther with leaking boilers, worn-out engines, and a strained paddle-wheel.

After this the discussion grew fierce, and as full of oaths as a shark’s mouth with teeth, but in the end the two sailors determined that their safest plan would be to hold on their present course, and, if necessary, round Point Xicalango and take shelter behind Carmen Island, or, if they could, in the mouth of the Usumacinto river. Then they parted, the captain adjuring the mate to say nothing of the state of the weather to the passengers, and above all to that accursed Englishman, who had called this misfortune upon them because he was not put off at Frontera, and whose evil eye brought bad luck.

Another two hours passed without much change, except that the night grew darker and darker, and stiller and yet more still. The Señor Strickland, who had been walking up and down the deck smoking a cigar, came and sat beside me on a coil of rope, and asked me if I thought the norther was coming.

“Yes, it is coming,” I answered, “and I fear that it will sink us, at least so say the Indian sailors.”

“You take the idea of being drowned like a puppy in a sack very coolly, Ignatio. How far are we from Point Xicalango?”

“About twelve miles, I believe, and I take it coolly because there is no use in making an outcry. God will protect us if He chooses, and if He chooses He will drown us. It is childish to struggle against destiny.”

“A true Indian creed, Ignatio,” he answered; “you people sit down and say—‘It is fate, let us accept it’—but one that I and the men of my nation do not believe in. If they had done so, instead of being the first country in the world to-day, England long ago would have ceased to exist, for many a time she has stood face to face with Fate and beaten her. For my part, if I must die, I prefer to die fighting. Tell me, are any of these people to be relied on if it comes to a pinch?”

“The Indian sailors are Campeche men and brave, also they know the coast, and if need be they will do anything that I tell them. For the rest I cannot say, but the captain seems to understand something of his business. Look and listen!”

As I spoke a vivid flash of lightning pierced the heavens above us, followed by a deafening peal of thunder. In its fierce and sudden glare we could see the coast some three or four miles away, and almost ahead of us the bolder outline of Point Xicalango. The water about our ship was dead calm, and slipped past her sides like oil; the smoke in the funnel rose almost straight into the air, where at a certain height it twisted round and round; and a sail that had been hoisted flapped to and fro for lack of wind to draw it.

A mile or so to windward, however, was a different sight, for there came the norther, rushing upon us like a thing alive; in front of it a line of white billows torn from the quiet surface of the sea, and behind it, fretted by little lightnings, a dense wall of black cloud stretching from the face of ocean to the arc of heaven.

Now the captain, who was on deck, saw his danger, for if those billows caught us broadside on we must surely founder. In the strange silence that followed the boom of the thunder, he shouted to the helmsman to bring the ship head on to the sea, and to the sailors to batten down the after-hatch, the only one that remained open, shutting the passengers, except ourselves and Molas, into the cabin.

His orders were obeyed well and quickly, the Santa Maria came round and began to paddle towards the open water and the advancing line of foam. It was terrible to see her, so small a thing, driving on thus into what appeared to be the very jaws of death. Now the unnatural quiet was broken, a low moaning noise thrilled through the air, the waters about the ship’s side began to seethe and hiss, and spray flying ahead of the wind cut our faces like the lash of a whip.

A few more seconds and something white and enormous could be seen looming above our bows, and the sight of it caused the captain, whose face looked pale as death in the gleam of the lightnings, to shriek another order to his crew.

“Lie down and hold on tight to the rope,” I said to the Señor Strickland and Molas, who were beside me, “here comes el Norte, and he brings death for many of us on board this ship.”

CHAPTER VI.
“EL NORTE”

Another moment and el Norte had come in strength. First a sudden rush of wind struck the vessel, causing her to shiver, and with a sharp report rending from its fastenings the jib, which had not been furled. This gust went howling by, and after it rolled the storm.

To us it seemed that the Santa Maria dived head first into a huge wave, a level line of white illumined with lightnings and swept forward by the hurricane, for in an instant a foot of foaming water tore along her deck from stem to stern, sweeping away everything movable upon it, including two Indian sailors. We should have gone with the rest had we not clung with all our strength to the rope coiled about the foremast, but as it was we escaped with a wetting.

For a while the ship stood quite still, and it seemed as though she were being pressed into the deep by the weight of water on her decks, but as this fell from her in cataracts, she rose again and ploughed forward. Fortunately the first burst of the tempest was also the most terrible, and it had not taken her broadside on, for one or two more such waves would have swamped us.

After it had passed shorewards, driven by the hurricane wind, for a little space there was what by comparison might be called a lull, then the Santa Maria met the full weight of the norther. For a while she forged ahead against the shrieking wind and vast succeeding seas, shipping such a quantity of water that presently the captain found it necessary to reduce her engines to half speed, which it was hoped would suffice to give her way without filling her.

Now less water came aboard, but on the other hand, as was soon evident, the vessel began to drift towards the Point Xicalango, and from this moment it became clear that only a miracle could save her. For an hour or more the Santa Maria kept up a gallant and unequal fight, being constantly pressed backwards by the might of the storm, till at length we could see in the glare of the lightning that the breakers of the Point were raging not two hundred paces from her stern. The captain saw them also and made a last effort. Shifting the vessel’s bow a little, so that the seas struck her on the port quarter, he gave the order of “Full steam ahead,” and once more we drove forward.

Before and since that day I have made many voyages across the Gulf of Mexico in all weathers, but never have I met with such an experience as that which followed. The ship plunged and strained and rocked, lifting now her bow and now her stern high above the waves, till it seemed as though she must fall to pieces, while water in tons rushed aboard of her at every dip, which, as she righted herself, streamed through the broken bulwarks.

Slowly, very slowly, we were forging away from the Point and out into the channel which lies between it and Carmen Island, but the effort was too fierce to last. Presently, after a succession of terrible pitchings, one paddle-wheel suddenly ceased to thrash the water, while the other broke to pieces, and a faint cry from below told those on deck that the worn-out machinery had collapsed.

Now we were in the mid-race or channel, through which the boiling current, driven by the fury of the gale and the push of the tide, tore at a speed of fifteen or sixteen knots, carrying the Santa Maria along with it as a chip of wood is carried down a flooded gutter. Twice she whirled right round, for now that her machinery had gone there was no power to keep her head to the waves, and on the second occasion, as she lay broadside to them, a green sea came aboard of her that swept her decks almost clean, taking away with it every boat except the cutter, which fortunately was slung upon davits to starboard and out of its reach.

Crouching under shelter of the mast, again the three of us clung to our rope, nor did we leave go although the water ground us against the deck, covering us for so long that before our heads were clear of it we felt as though our lungs must burst. As it chanced, what remained of the starboard bulwarks was carried away by the rush, allowing the sea to escape, or the ship must have foundered at once. But it had done its work, for the engine-room hatchway and the cabin light were stove in, and the Santa Maria was half full of water.

Before a second sea could strike her, her nose swung round, and in this position she was washed along the race, her deck not standing more than four feet above the level of the waves.

Now from time to time the moon shone out between rifts in the storm clouds, revealing a dreadful scene. Fragments of the little bridge still remained, and to them was lashed the large body of the captain in an upright position, though, as he neither spoke nor stirred, we never learned whether he was only paralysed by terror, or had been killed by a blow from the funnel as it fell.

You will remember, my friend, that he had ordered the passengers to be battened down, and there in the cabin they remained, twenty or more of them, until the hatchways were stove in. Then, with the exception of one or two, who were drowned by the water that poured down upon them, they rushed up the companion, men and women together, for they could no longer stay below, and, shrieking, praying, and blaspheming, clung to fragments of the bulwarks, shrouds of the mast, or anything which they thought could give them protection against the pitiless waves.

Awful were the wails of the women, who, clad only in their night-dresses, now quitted their bunks for the first time since they entered them in the harbour of Vera Cruz. Overcome by fear, and having no knowledge of the dangers of the deep, these poor creatures flung themselves at full length upon the deck, striving to keep a hold of the slippery boards, whence one by one they rolled into the ocean as the vessel lurched, or were carried away by the seas that pooped her.

Some of the men followed them to their watery grave, others, more self-possessed, crept forward, attempting to escape the waves that broke over the stern, but none made any effort to save them, and indeed it would have been impossible so to do.

Among those who crawled forward to where we and some of the Indian sailors were clinging to the rope that was coiled round the stump of the broken foremast, was Don José Moreno. Even in his terror, which was great, this man could still be ferocious, for, recognising the señor, he yelled:

“Ah! maldonado—evil-gifted one—you called down the norther upon us. Well, at least you shall die with the rest,” and, suddenly drawing his long knife, he rose to his knees, and, holding the rope with one hand, attempted to drive it into the señor’s body with the other. Doubtless he would have succeeded in his wickedness had not an Indian boatswain, who was near, bent forward and struck him so sharply on the arm with his clenched fist that the knife flew from his hand. In trying to recover it Don José fell face downwards on the deck, where he lay making no further effort at aggression.

Afterwards the señor told me, such was the horror and confusion of the scene, that, at the time, he scarcely noticed this incident, though every detail came back to him on the morrow, and with it a great wonder that even when death was staring them in the face, the Indians did not forget their promise to watch over our safety.

Meanwhile, swept onward by the tide and gale, the Santa Maria, waterlogged and sinking, rushed swiftly to her doom. Our last hour was upon us, and for a space this knowledge seemed to benumb the mind of the Señor Strickland, who crouched at my side, as the wet and cold had benumbed his body. Nor was this strange, for it seemed terrible to perish thus.

“Can we do nothing?” he said to me at length. “Ask the Indians if there is any hope.”

Putting my face close to the ear of the boatswain, I spoke to him, then shouted back:

“He says that the current is taking us round the point of the island, and if the ship weathers it, we shall come presently into calmer water, where a boat might live, if there is one left and it can be launched. He thinks, however, that we must sink.”

When the señor heard this he hid his face in his hands, and doubtless began to say his prayers, as I did also. Soon, however, we ceased even from that effort, for we were rounding the point and once more the seas were breaking on and over the vessel’s sides.

For a few minutes there was a turmoil that cannot be described; then, although the wind still shrieked overhead, we felt that we were in water which seemed almost calm to us. The ship no longer pitched and rolled, she only rocked as she settled before sinking, while the moon, shining out between the clouds, showed that what had been her bulwarks were not more than two or three feet above the level of the sea.

Six Indians, our three selves, Don José, who seemed to be senseless, and the body of the captain lashed to the broken bridge, alone remained of the crew and passengers of the Santa Maria. The rest had been swept away, but there close to us the cutter still hung upon the davits.

The señor saw it, and I think that he remembered his saying of a few hours before, that he would die fighting; at least he cried:

“The ship is sinking. To the boat, quick!” and, running to the cutter, he climbed into her, as did I, Molas, and the six Indian sailors.

She was full of water almost to the thwarts, which could only be got rid of by pulling out the wooden plug in her bottom.

Happily the boatswain, that same man who had struck the knife from the hand of Don José, knew where to look for this plug, and, being a sailor of courage and resource, he was able to loose it, so that presently the water was pouring from her in a stream thick as a hawser. Meanwhile, urged to it by the hope of escape, the other Indians were employed in getting out the oars, and in loosening the tackles before slipping them altogether when enough water had run out to allow the boat to swim.

“Get the plug back,” said the señor, “the vessel is sinking, you must bale the rest.”

Half a minute more and it was done; then, at a word from the boatswain, the sailors lowered away—they had not far to go—and we were afloat, and, better still, quite clear of the ship.

Scarcely had they brought the head of the cutter round and pulled three or four strokes, when from the deck of the Santa Maria there came the sound of a man’s voice crying for help, and by the light of the moon we discovered the figure of Don José Moreno clinging to the broken bulwarks, that now were almost awash.

“For the love of God, come back to me!” he screamed.

The oarsmen hesitated, but the boatswain said, with an Indian oath:

“Pull on and let the dog drown.”

It seemed as if Don José heard him, at least he raised so piteous a wailing that the señor’s heart, which was always over-tender, was touched by it.

“We cannot desert the man,” he answered, “put back for him.”

“He tried to murder you just now,” shouted the boatswain, “and if we go near the ship, she will take us down with her.”

Then he turned to me and asked, “Do you command us to put back, lord?”

“Since the señor wills it, I command you,” I answered. “We must save the man and take our chance.”

“He commands whom we must obey,” shouted the boatswain again; “put back, my brothers.”

Sullenly, but submissively, the Indians backed water till we lay almost beneath the counter of the vessel, that wallowed in the trough of the swell before she went down. On the deck, clinging to the stays of the mast, stood Don José—his straight oiled hair beat about his face, his gorgeous dress was soaked and disordered.

“Save me!” he yelled hoarsely, “save me!”

“Throw yourself into the sea, señor, and we will pick you up.”

“I dare not,” was the answer, “come aboard and fetch me.”

“Does the señor still wish us to stay?” asked the boatswain, calmly.

“Listen, you cur,” shouted the señor, “the ship is sinking and will take us with it. At the word ‘three,’ give way, men. Now will you come, or not? One, two——”

“I come,” said the Mexican, and, driven to it by despair, he cast himself into the sea.

With difficulty the señor, assisted by an Indian with a boathook, succeeded in getting hold of him as he was washed past on the swell. I confess that I would have no hand in the affair, since—may I be forgiven the sin—my charity was not true enough to make me wish to save this villain. There, however, the matter rested for the present, as they could not stop to pull him into the boat, for just then the deck of the Santa Maria burst with a rending sound, and she began to go down bodily.

“Row for your lives,” shouted the boatswain, and they rowed, dragging Don José in the wake of the cutter.

Down went the Santa Maria, bow first, making a hollow in the sea that sucked us back towards her. For a moment the issue hung doubtful, for the whirlpool caused by the vanished vessel was strong and almost engulfed us, but in the end the stout arms of the Indians conquered and drew our boat clear.

So soon as this great danger had gone by, the sailors with much labour lifted Don José into the cutter, where he lay gasping but unharmed.

Then arose the question of what we could possibly do to save our lives.

We were lying under the lee of Carmen Island, which sheltered us somewhat from the fury of the norther, and we might either try to land upon this island, or to put about and run for the mouth of the Usumacinto river. There was a third course: to keep the boat’s head to the seas, if that were possible, and let her drift till daylight. In the end this was what we determined to do.

Indeed, while we were discussing the question it was settled for us, for suddenly the rain began to fall in torrents, blotting out such moonlight as there was; and to land in this darkness would have been impossible, even if the nature of the beach allowed of it. Therefore we lay to and gave our thoughts and strength to the task of preventing the waves, which became more and more formidable as we drifted beyond the shelter of the island, from swamping or oversetting us.

It was a great struggle, and had it not been that the heavy rain beat down the seas, we could never have lived till morning. As it was we must have been swamped many times over but for the staunchness of the boat, which, fortunately, was a new one, and the seamanship and ceaseless vigilance of the Indian boatswain who commanded her. For hour after hour he crouched in the bow of the cutter, staring through the sheets of rain and the darkness with his hawk-like eyes, and shouting directions to the crew as he heard or caught sight of a white-crested billow rolling down upon us, that presently would fling us upwards to sink deep into the trough on its further side, sometimes half filling the boat with water, which must be baled out before the next sea overtook us.

Afterwards the señor told me that, knowing it to be the nature of Indians to submit to evil rather than to struggle against it, he wondered how it came about that these men faced the fight so gallantly, instead of throwing down their oars and suffering themselves to be drowned. I also was somewhat astonished till presently the matter was explained, for once, when a larger sea than those that went before had almost filled us, the boatswain called out to his companions:

“Be brave, my brothers, and fear nothing. The Keeper of the Heart is with us, and death will flee him.”

To the señor, however, this comfort seemed cold, since he did not believe that any talisman could save us from the powers of the sky and sea, nor indeed did I. Wet and half frozen as he was, his nerve broken by the terrible scenes that we had witnessed upon the lost ship, and by thoughts of the many who had gone down with her, his spirit, so he told me, failed him at last.

He gave no outward sign of his inward state indeed; he did not follow the example of the Mexican, who lay in the water at the bottom of the boat, groaning, weeping, and confessing his sins, which seemed to be many. Only he sat still and silent and surrendered himself to destiny, till by degrees his forces, mental and bodily, deserted him and he sank into a torpor. It was little wonder, for rarely have shipwrecked men been in a more hopeless position. The blinding rain, the bewildering darkness, the roaring wind and sea, all combined to destroy us while we drifted in our frail craft we knew not whither.

As minute after minute of that endless night went by, our escape seemed to become more impossible, for each took with it something of the strength and mental energy of those who fought so bravely against the doom that overshadowed us. For my part, I was sure that my hour had come, but this did not trouble me overmuch, since my life had not been so happy or successful that I grieved at the thought of losing it. Moreover, ever since I became a man it has been my daily endeavour to prepare my mind for Death, and so to live that I should not have to fear the hour of his coming.

In truth it seems to me that without such preparation the life of any man who thinks must be one long wretchedness, seeing that at the last, strive as he may, fate will overtake him, and that there is no event in our lives which can compare in importance with the inevitable end. We live not to escape from death, but in order that we may die; this is the great issue and object of our existence. Still, Death is terrible, more especially when we are called upon to await him hour after hour amid the horror and turmoil of shipwreck.

Therefore I was very thankful when, having flung my serape about the form of my friend, at length I also was overcome by cold and exhaustion, and after a space of time, in which the present seemed to fade from me, taking with it all fears and hopes of the future, and the past alone possessed me, peopled by the dead, I sank into unconsciousness or swoon.

How long I remained in this merciful state of oblivion I do not know, but I was roused from it by Molas, who shook me and called into my ear with a voice that trembled with cold or joy, or both:

“Awake, awake, we are saved!”

“Saved?” I said, confusedly. “What from?”

“From death in the sea. Look, lord.”

Then with much pain, for the salt spray had congealed upon my face like frost, I opened my eyes to find that the morning was an hour old, and though the skies were still leaden we were no longer at sea, but floated on the waters of a river, whereof the bar roared behind us.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“In the Usumacinto river, thanks be to God!” answered Molas. “We have been driven across the bay in the dark, and at the dawn found ourselves just outside the breakers. Somehow we passed them safely, and there before us is the blessed land.”

I looked at the bank of the river clothed with reeds and grasses, and the noble palm-trees that grew among them. Then I looked at my companions. The Señor Strickland lay as though he were dead beneath the serape that I had thrown over him, his head resting on the thwarts, but the Mexican, Don José, was sitting up in the bottom of the boat and staring wildly at the shore.

As for the Indians, the men to whom we owed our lives, they were utterly worn out. Two of them appeared to have swooned where they sat, and I saw that their hands were bleeding from the friction of the oars. Three others lay gasping beneath the seats, but Molas held the tiller at my side, and the boatswain still sat upright in the bow where he had faced death for so many dreadful hours.

“Say, lord,” he asked, turning his face that was hollow with suspense and suffering, and white with encrusted salt, to speak to me, “can you row? If so, take the oars and pull us to the bank while Molas steers, for our arms will work no more.”

Then I struggled from my seat, and with great efforts, for every movement caused me pain, I pulled the cutter to the bank, and as her bows struck against it, the sun broke through the thinning clouds.

So soon as the boat was made fast, Molas and I lifted the señor from her, and, laying him on the bank, we removed his clothes so that the sun might play upon his limbs, which were blue with cold. As the clouds melted and the warmth increased, I saw the blood begin to creep beneath the whiteness of his skin, which was drawn with the wet and wind, and rejoiced, for now I knew that he did but sleep, and that the tide of life was rising in his veins again, as in my own.

Whilst we sat thus warming ourselves in the sunlight, some Indians appeared belonging to a rancho, or village, half a league away. On learning our misfortunes and who we were, these men hurried home to bring us food, having first pointed out to us a pool of sweet rain-water, of which we stood in great need, for our throats were dry. When they had been gone nearly an hour, the señor awoke and asked for drink, which I gave him in the baling-bowl. Next he inquired where we were and what had happened to us. When I had told him he hid his face in his hands for a while, then lifted it and said:

“I am a fool and a boaster, Ignatio. I said that I would die fighting, and it is these men who have fought and saved my life while I swooned like a child.”

“I did the same, señor,” I answered; “only those who were working at the oars could keep their senses, for labour warmed them somewhat. Come to the river and wash, for now your clothes are dry again,” and throwing the serape over his shoulders, I led him to the water.

As we climbed down the bank we met the boatswain, and the señor said, holding out his hand to him:

“You are a brave man and you have saved all our lives.”

“No, señor, not I,” answered the Indian. “You forget that with us was the Keeper of the Heart, and the Heart that has endured so long, cannot be lost. This we knew, and therefore we laboured on, well assured that our toil would not be in vain.”

“I shall soon begin to believe in that talisman of yours myself, Ignatio,” said the señor shrugging his shoulders; “certainly it did us good service last night.”

Then he washed, and by the time he had dressed himself, women arrived from the rancho bearing with them baskets laden with tortillas or meal cakes, frijole beans, a roast kid, and a bottle of good agua ardiente, the brandy of this country. On these provisions we fell to thankfully, and, before we had finished our meal, the alcalde, or head man of the village, presented himself to pay his respects and to invite us to his house.

Now I whispered to Molas, who had some acquaintance with this man, to take him apart and discover my rank to him, and to learn if perchance he had any tidings of that stranger whom we came to visit, the doctor Zibalbay. He nodded and obeyed, and after a while I rose and followed him behind some trees, where the alcalde, who was of our brotherhood, greeted me with reverence.

“I have news, my lord,” said Molas. “This man says that he has heard of the old Indian and his daughter, and that but this morning one who has travelled down the river told him how some five or six days ago they were both of them seized by Don Pedro Moreno, the father of Don José yonder, and imprisoned at the hacienda of Santa Cruz, where, dead or alive, they remain.”

Now I thought a while, then, sending for the Señor James, I told him what we had learnt.

“But what can this villain want to do with an old Indian and his daughter?” he asked.

“The señor forgets,” said Molas, “that Don Pedro robbed me of the gold which the doctor gave me, and that in my folly I told him from whom it came. Doubtless he thinks to win the secret of the mine whence it was dug, and of the mint where it was stamped with the sign of the Heart. Also there is the daughter, whom some men might value above all the gold in Mexico. Now, lord, I fear that your journey is fruitless, since those who become Don Pedro’s guests are apt to stay with him for ever.”

“That, I think, we must take the risk of,” said the señor.

“Yes,” I answered: “having come so far to find this stranger, we cannot turn back now. At least we have lived through worse dangers than those which await us at Santa Cruz.”

CHAPTER VII.
“THE HACIENDA”

Returning to the place where we had eaten, we found the alcalde talking with the sailors as to their plans. On seeing us the boatswain advanced, and said that, if it was our pleasure, he and his companions proposed to rest for a few days at the neighbouring rancho and then to row the boat along the coast to Campeche, which they hoped in favourable weather to reach in sixty hours, adding that he trusted we would accompany them.

I answered that we wished for no more of the sea at present, and that we intended to pursue our journey to the town of Potrerillo, where we could refit before undertaking an expedition to the ruined cities of Yucatan. The boatswain said it was well, though he was sorry that they could not escort us so far, as it was their duty to report the loss of the ship to its owner, who lived at Campeche.

When we heard this the señor unbuckled the belt of money, which he wore about his waist, and, pouring out half a handful of gold pieces, he begged the boatswain to accept of them for division between himself and his companions. All this while Don José was sitting close to us, watching everything that passed, and I saw his eyes brighten at the sight of the belt of gold.

“You are fortunate to have saved so much,” he said, speaking for the first time. “All that I had has gone down with the ship, yes, three thousand dollars or more.”

“You should have followed our example,” answered the señor; “we divided our cash between the three of us and secured it upon our persons, though perhaps you were wise after all, since such a weight of gold might have been awkward if, like you, we had been called upon to swim. By the way, señor, what are your plans?”

“If you will allow me,” answered the Mexican, “I will walk with you towards Potrerillo, for my home lies on that road. Would you be offended, señor, if, on behalf of my father, I ventured to offer his hospitality to you and your companions?”

“To speak plainly, Don José,” said the señor, “our past experience has not been such as to cause us to desire to have anything more to do with you. May I remind you, putting aside other matters, that last night you attempted to stab me?”

“Señor,” answered the man with every sign of contrition, “if I did this it was because terror and madness possessed me, and most humbly do I beg your pardon for the deed, and for any angry and foolish words that I may have spoken before it. Señor, you saved my life, and my heart is filled with gratitude towards you, who have thus repaid evil with good. I know that you have heard an ill report of my father, and, to speak truth, at times when the liquor is in him, he is a bad and violent old man, yet he has this virtue, that he loves me, his son, and all those who are kind to me. Therefore, in his name and my own, I pray that you will forget the past and accept of our hospitality for some few days, or at least until you have recovered from your fatigue and we can furnish you with arms and horses to help you forward on your journey.”

“Certainly we desire to buy mules and guns,” answered the señor, “and if you think that your father will be able to supply these, we will avail ourselves of your kindness and pass a night or two at his hacienda.”

“Señor, the place is yours and all that it contains,” Don José answered with much courtesy; but as he spoke I saw his eye gleam with an evil fire.

“Doubtless,” I interrupted, “for I understand that Don Pedro Moreno is famed for his hospitality. Still, in accepting it, I venture to ask for a promise of safe-conduct, more especially as, save for our pistols and knives, we are unarmed.”

“Do you wish to insult me, señor?” Don José asked angrily.

“Not in the least, señor, but I find it a little strange that you, who two nights ago refused to sit at meat with ‘a dog of an Indian,’ should now be anxious to receive that same dog into your home.”

“Have I not said that I am sorry for what is past?” he answered, “and can a man do more? Gentlemen, if any evil is attempted towards you in my father’s house, I will answer for it with my life.”

“That is quite sufficient,” broke in the señor, “especially as in such an event we should most certainly hold you to your bond. And now tell me how far is the hacienda from this spot?”

“If we start at once we should reach it at sundown,” he answered, “that is on foot, though it is but three hours’ ride from the house to the mouth of the river.”

“Then let us go,” he said, and ten minutes later we were on the road.

Before we went, however, we bade a warm farewell to the sailors, and also to the alcalde of the village, all of whom were somewhat disturbed on learning that we proposed to sleep at Santa Cruz.

“The place has an evil name,” said the alcalde, “and it is a home of thieves and smugglers—only last week a cargo that never paid duty went up the river. They say that Don Pedro was fathered by the devil in person; may the Saints protect you from him, lord!”

“We have business that takes us to this house, friend,” I answered; “but doubtless it will be easy for you to keep yourself informed of what chances in that neighbourhood, and if we should not appear again within a few days, perhaps it may please you to advise the authorities at Campeche that we are missing.”

“The authorities are afraid of Don Pedro,” answered the alcalde, shaking his head, “also he bribes them so heavily that they grow blind when they look his way. Still I will do the best I can, be sure of that, and as an Inglese is with you, it is possible that I may be able to get help if necessary.”

Our walk that day was long and hot, though we had nothing to carry except the clothes on our backs, all our possessions having been lost in the ship. At noon we halted, and, the heat being great, ate some food that we had brought with us, and slept two hours in the shade, which sleep was most grateful, for we were weary. Then we rose and tramped on, till at length we came within sight of this hacienda, where, though I little guessed it at the time, I was fated to spend so many years of my life.

Walking through a large milpa, or corn field,—that in front of the building which is now planted with coffee-bushes,—we reached the gateway and entered the courtyard, where we were met by many fierce dogs which rushed upon us from all sides. Don José beat back the dogs, that knew him, and, leaving us under the charge of some half-breeds, he entered the house.

After a while he returned again and led us through the passages into the dining-hall, which, as you know, is the largest room in the hacienda, and in former days served as the refectory of the monks. Several lamps were hung upon its walls, for already it grew dark, and by their light we saw five or six people gathered round a long table waiting for supper, which was being laid by Indian girls. Of these men it is sufficient to say that they were of mixed nationality and villainous appearance. Turning from them we looked towards the far end of the chamber, where a hammock was slung from the beams in the roof, in which lay a man whom a handsome girl, also an Indian, was employed in rocking to and fro.

“Come and be introduced to my father, who expects you,” said Don José, leading the way towards the hammock. “Father, here is that brave Englishman who saved my life last night, and with him the Indian gentleman, who—did not wish to save my life. As I told you, I have offered them hospitality on your behalf, feeling sure that they would be welcome here.”

At the sound of his son’s voice Don Pedro awoke, or pretended to awake, from his doze, and bade the girl cease swinging the hammock. Then he sat up and looked at us. He was a short stout man of about sixty years of age,—so short indeed that, although the hammock was slung low, his legs did not touch the floor. Notwithstanding this lack of stature, Don Pedro’s appearance was striking, while his long, carefully brushed white hair gave him a venerable aspect.

Other beauties he had none, however, for his cheeks were flabby and wrinkled, his mouth was cruel and sensuous; and his dull eyes, which were small, half opened, and protected from the glare of the lamps by spectacles of tinted glass, can best be described as horrible, like those of a snake. Looking at him we could well believe that his reputation was not exaggerated, for he bore the stamp of evil on his face. Still he bowed with much courtesy and addressed the señor in Spanish.

“So you are the Englishman who saved my son here from the sinking ship,” he said in a slow, powerful voice, peering at us with his fish-like eyes from beneath the coloured glasses. “He tells me that you rowed back to the side of the foundering vessel merely in order to fetch him. Well, it was a brave deed and one that I should not have dared myself, for I have always found it hard enough to keep my own breath in me without attempting to preserve that of other people. But as I have seen several times, you Englishmen are peculiar in these matters, foolhardy indeed. Señor, I am grateful to you, and this house and all within it is at your disposal and that of your companions,” and he glanced with genuine affection at the coarse beetle-browed man beside him, who was gnawing one end of his moustache and staring at us out of the corners of his eyes.

“Tell me,” he added, “to what do I owe the honour of your presence?”

“To an accident, Don Pedro,” the señor answered. “As it chances, the ruins of this ancient land interest me much, and I was travelling to Palenque with my Indian friend, Don Ignatio, when we were so unfortunate as to be wrecked near your hospitable house. In our dilemma we accepted the invitation of your son to visit you, in the hope that you may be able to sell us some guns and mules.”

“Ruins, Señor Strickland! Decidedly you Englishmen are strange. What pleasure can you find in hunting about among old walls, built by men long dead, unless indeed you seek for treasure there. For my part I hate the name of ruins, for I have always suffered from a presentiment that I should meet my end among them, and that is bad to think of. Bah!”—and he spat upon the floor—“there, it comes upon me again, suddenly as a fit of the ague.”

“Well,” he went on, “you are lucky to have saved your lives and your money, and to-morrow we will see about the things that you desire to buy. Meanwhile, you are travel-stained and doubtless will wish to cleanse yourselves before you eat. José, conduct the señor and his Indian friend, since he is so fond of his company, to their room, the abbot’s chamber. Supper will be served shortly, till then, adios. Girl, go with them,” he added, addressing the woman who had been engaged in swinging the hammock, “water may be wanted and other things.”

The woman bowed and went away, and at the door we found her standing, lamp in hand, to light us down the passage.

Now, Señor Jones, you, for whom I write my history, have so often slept in the abbot’s chamber in this house that it is needless for me to stop to describe it. Except for the furniture, the room is just as it was in those days. Then it was empty save for a few chairs, a rough washing-stand, and two truckle bedsteads of American make, which were placed at a little distance from each other on either side of the picture of the abbot.

“I fear that you will think this a poor place, after the luxury of Mexico, gentlemen,” said Don José, “but it is our guest-chamber, the best that we have.”

“Thank you,” answered the señor, “it will do very well, though perhaps your visitors suffer sometimes from nightmare,” and he glanced at the awful and life-sized picture on the south wall of an Indian being burnt at an auto-da-fé, while devils hanging above his head dragged the soul from his tortured and expiring body.

“Pretty, are they not?” said Don José; “I would have them whitewashed over, but my father likes them. You see all the victims are Indians, there isn’t a white man among them, and the old man never could bear Indians. Well, when you are ready, will you come to supper? You will not lose the way, for you can follow the smell of the food,” and he left the room.

“One moment,” I said addressing the girl, who was about to accompany him, “perhaps you will see that our servant,” and I pointed to Molas, “has some meat brought to him here, since your masters will not wish him to sit at table.”

“Si,” answered the girl, whose name was Luisa, searching my face with her eyes.

By this time Don José was through the door, which the draught pushed to behind him. I watched it close, then a thought struck me, for I remembered that among our Order there are women, associates of the outer circle, and I whispered some words into Luisa’s ear and made a sign with my hand. She started and gave the ancient answer, which is taught even to children, whereto I replied with another sign, that of the Presence of the Heart. “Where?” she asked glancing at each of us in turn.

“Here,” I answered, and, drawing out the symbol, I held it before her eyes.

She saw and made obeisance, and at that moment we heard Don José calling her from the further side of the door.

“I come,” she cried in answer, then added in a whisper: “Lord, you are in danger in this house. I cannot tell you now, but if possible I will return. The wine is safe, but drink no coffee, and do not sleep when you lie down. Search the floor and you will understand the reason. I come, señor! I come!” and she fled from the room.

So soon as the girl was gone, the Señor James went to the door and locked it, then he returned and said:

“What does all this mean, Ignatio?”

I did not answer, but, pushing aside one of the beds, I searched the floor beneath it. It was discoloured in several places. Next I pulled the blankets off the beds and examined the webbing that formed the mattresses, to discover that this also was stained, though slightly, for it had been washed. Then I said:

“Men have died in these beds, señor, and yonder stains were made by their blood. It would seem that the guests of Don Pedro sleep well; first they are drugged, then they are murdered; and it is for this purpose that we have been lured to the house. Well, we expected nothing else.”

“That is a pleasing prospect,” he answered, “we are this man’s guests, surely therefore he will not——” and he drew his hand across his throat.

“Certainly he will, señor, and it is to this end that we have been brought here by Don José. If others have been murdered, it is not likely that we shall escape, since Don Pedro will be sure that an Inglese would not travel without a large sum of money. Moreover, we have a quarrel with the son, and know too much about the father.”

“Again I say that the prospect is a pleasant one,” answered the señor. “On the whole it would have been better to be drowned than to live on to be butchered by those villains in this awful place. What an end!”

“Do not despair,” I answered. “We are warned in time and therefore, I think, shall escape by the help of that girl and the other Indians in the place, since in an hour every one of them will have learned who we are, and be prepared to venture their lives to save us. Also we came for a purpose, knowing our risk. Now let us make ready and go among these men with a bold face; for of this you may be sure, that nothing will be attempted till late at night when they think us sleeping. Have you understood, Molas?”

“Yes,” answered the Indian.

“Then watch here, or in the outer room, till we return, and should the girl come, learn all you can from her as to the whereabouts of the old doctor and his daughter, and other matters, for when she knows you to be of the Order she will speak. Have you been recognised by anyone?”

“I think not, señor. When we entered it was too dark for them to see.”

“Good. Then keep out of their way if possible, do the best you can with the girl, and take note of all that passes. Farewell.”

When we reached the dining-hall, nine of the company were already seated at the table impatient for their food, but Don Pedro was still sitting in his hammock engaged in earnest conversation with his son José. Of those at the table but one was a white man, a lanky, withered-looking person with a broken nose, whose general appearance filled us with disgust. The rest were half-breeds, the refuse of revolutions, villains who had escaped the hand of justice and who lived by robbery and murder.

Looking at these outcasts it became clear to us that, if once we fell into their power, we could expect little mercy at their hands, for they would think no more of butchering us in cold blood than does a sportsman of shooting a deer.

When Don Pedro perceived us, he slid from his hammock to the ground, and, taking the señor by the hand, he said:

“Let me introduce you to my overseer, the Señor Smith, from Texas. He is an American and will be glad to meet one who can speak English, for, notwithstanding much practice, his Spanish is none of the best.”

The señor bowed, and the American desperado spoke to him in English, wearing a grin on his face like that of a wicked dog as he did so, though I do not know what he said. Then Don Pedro conducted his guest to a place of honour at the head of the table, that beside his own seat, while I was led to another table at a little distance, where my meat was served to me alone, since, as an Indian of pure blood, I was not thought fit for the company of these cross-bred curs. Don José having taken his place at the further end of the board with the Americano, the meal began, and an excellent one it was.

Now, in the conversation that ensued I took no part, except when members of the gang called to me to drink wine with them, for they desired to make me drunk; but while I pretended to be occupied with my meat, I thought much and watched more. The talk that passed I set down as I overheard it and as it was reported to me by the señor.

“Try some more of this Burgundy,” said Don Pedro when the dishes had been removed, filling his tumbler for the seventh or eighth time, “it is the right stuff, straight from France, though it never paid duty,” and he winked his leaden eye.

“Your health, señor, and may you live to do many such brave deeds as that of yesterday, when you saved my son from the sea. By the way, do you know that on board the Santa Maria they said that you had the evil eye and brought her to wreck;—yes, and your long-faced companion, the Indian, also?”

“Indeed, I never heard of it before,” answered the señor with a laugh; “but if so, our evil eyes shall not trouble you for long, as we propose to continue our journey to-morrow.”

“Nonsense, friend, nonsense, you don’t suppose that I believe in that sort of rubbish, do you? We say many things that we do not believe just for a joke; thus,” and he raised his voice so that I could hear him at my table, “your companion there—is he not named Ignatio?—told a story to my disadvantage on board the ship, which I am sure that he did not believe,” and suddenly he stared at me and added insolently: “Is it not so, Indian?”

“If you seek my opinion, Don Pedro,” I answered, leaning forward and speaking very clearly, “I say that it is unprofitable to repeat words that are said, or to remember deeds that are done with. If I spoke certain words, or if in the past you did certain deeds, here beneath your hospitable roof is not the place to recall them.”

“Quite so, Indian, quite so, you talk like an oracle, as Montezuma used to talk to Cortes till the Conqueror found a way to teach him plain speaking—a great man, Cortes, he understood how to deal with Indians.” Then he spat upon the floor and, having looked down the table, spoke to the señor in a somewhat anxious voice.

“Tell me,” he said, “for your sight is better than mine, how many are there present here to-night?”

“Counting my friend, thirteen,” he answered.

“I thought so,” said our host, with an oath, “and it is too late to mend matters now. Well, may the Saints, and they should be thick about a monastery, avert the omen. I see you think me a fool.”

“Not at all,” he replied; “I am rather superstitious myself and dislike sitting down thirteen to table.”

“So do I, so do I, Señor Strickland. Listen; last time we dined thirteen in this room, there were two travellers here, Americanos, friends of Don Smith, who were trying to open up a trade in these parts. They drank more than was good for them, and the end of it was that in the night they quarrelled and killed each other, yonder in the abbot’s chamber, where you are sleeping,—poor men, poor men! There was trouble about the matter at the time, but Don Smith explained to his countrymen and it came to nothing.”

“Indeed,” answered the señor; “it was strange that two drunken men should kill each other.”

“So I say, señor. In truth for a while I thought that Indians must have got into their rooms and murdered them, but it was proved beyond a doubt that this was not so. Ah! they are a wicked people, the Indians; I have seen much of them and I should know. Now the Government wishes to treat them too well. Our fathers knew better how to deal with them, but luckily the arm of the Government scarcely reaches here, and no whining padres or officials come prying about my house, though once we had some soldiers,” and he cursed at the recollection and drank another glass of Burgundy.

“I tell you that they are a wicked people,” he went on, “the demonios their fathers worshipped still possess them, also they are secret and dangerous; there are Indians now who know where vast treasures are buried, but they will tell nothing.

“Yes,”—and suddenly growing excited under the influence of the strong drink, he leaned over and whispered into his guest’s ear,—“I have one such in the house at this moment, an old Lacandone, that is, an unbaptised Indian, not that I think him any the worse for that, and with him his daughter, a woman more beautiful than the night—perhaps if I go on liking you, Englishman, I will show her to you to-morrow, only then I should have to keep you, for you would never go away. Beautiful! yes, she is beautiful, though a devil at heart. I have not dared to let these little ones see her,” and he winked and nodded towards the villains at the table, “but José is to pay her and her papa a visit to-night, and he won’t mind her tempers, though they frighten me.

“Well, would you believe it? this girl and her old father have the secret of enough treasure to make every man of us here rich as the Queen of England. How do I know that? I know it because I heard it from their own lips, but fill your glass and take a cigar and I will tell you the story.”

CHAPTER VIII.
THE SUPPER AND AFTER

“Listen, señor; if you are interested in old ruins and the Indians, you must have heard tales of races living away in the forest country, where no white man has set his foot, and of their wonderful cities that are said to be full of gold. Many say that these tales are lies, that no such people and no such cities exist, and they say this because nobody has found them; but I, for my part, have always believed there was something in the story, seeing that otherwise it would not have lasted so long.

“Well, a few months back, I heard that a strange old Indian doctor, who was said to have travelled from the far interior, was dwelling somewhere in the forest together with a woman, but where he dwelt exactly I could not learn, nor, indeed, did I trouble myself to do so. About eight weeks ago, however, it happened that an Indian, being asked for the toll, which I charge all passers-by—to recoup me for my expense in making roads, señor—paid it with a little lump of pure gold having a heart stamped on either side of the metal.

“Now, you may not know, though I do, that the heart is a sacred symbol among these Indians, and has been for many generations, for it is to be seen cut upon the walls of their ruins, though what it means only Satan, their master, can tell.

“Therefore, when I saw the lump of gold with the token on it, I asked the Indian whence he had it, and he told me readily enough that it came from this old doctor, who gave it to him in payment for some food. He told me also where I might find him, and went upon his way, but, his heart being full of deceit, he lied as to the place, so that I searched in vain. Well, to shorten a long story, although to this hour I do not know where the Indian was hiding, I set a trap for him and caught him,—ay, and his daughter too.

“It was a simple one, a man in my pay knew another man who visited the doctor in the forest to get medicine from him, but who would not reveal his hiding-place. Still, my servant drew it out of him thus: he sent piteous messages through his friend, begging the doctor to come and save the life of his dying child, which lay in a house near here, and could not be moved.

“The end of it was that the doctor came, and his daughter with him. Yes, they walked at night straight to the snare, into this very house, señor, and only discovered their mistake when they found the doors locked upon them, and that the dying child was none other than your humble servant, Don Pedro Moreno.

“I can tell you, señor, that I laughed till I nearly cried at the sight of their faces, when they found out the trick, though there was nothing to laugh at in them, for the man looked like an old king, and the girl like a queen, quite different from the Indians in these parts; moreover, they wore two such serapes as I had never seen, made of green feathers fastened to a foundation of linen.

“When the old man found himself caged, he asked what it meant and where he was, speaking in a dialect so like the Maya tongue that I could understand him quite well. I told him that he was to be my guest for a while, and with the help of two men who were with me I proceeded to secure him and his daughter in a safe place, whereat he flew into a fearful rage, and cursed all of us most dreadfully, and more especially that man who had betrayed him. So awful were his curses and the vengeance that he conjured upon us from heaven, that my hair stood straight upon my head, and as for the man who lured him here under pretence of visiting his child, it came about that within two days he died of a sudden sickness bred of his own fears. When the second man heard of his companion’s death, he in turn fled from the place, dreading lest a like fate should overtake him, and has been no more heard of.

“Thus it comes about, señor, that I alone know where these birds are caged, though I hope to introduce my son to them to-night, for I dare not trust the others, and wish to keep them in the family, nor will I let any Indians near them.

“Well, when they had calmed down a little, I spoke to my prisoners through a grating, telling them that I wished to know whence they had obtained those lumps of gold stamped with a heart, to which the old man answered that he had no knowledge of any such gold. Now, I was sure that he lied, and took refuge in another trick. The cell where they were shut up is that in which the old monks imprisoned such as were suspected of heresy, and others, and close to it is a secret place—there are many such in this house, señor—where a spy may be hid, and both see and hear all that passes in the cell.

“In this place I ensconced myself, and lay there for hours, with the rats running over me, so anxious was I to get at the truth. In the end I was not disappointed, for they began to talk. A great deal of their conversation I could make nothing of, but at length the girl said, after examining an old gilt crucifix that hung upon the wall:

“‘Look, father, here also they have gold.’

“‘It is gilt, not gold,’ he answered, ‘I know the art of it, though with us it is not practised, except to keep from corruption the spears and arrowheads that fowlers use upon the lake.’ Then he added:

“‘I wonder what that leaden-eyed, greedy-faced white thief would say if he knew that in a single temple we could show him enough of the metal he covets to fill this place five times over from floor to ceiling.’

“‘Hush!’ she said, ‘ears may be listening even in these walls; let us risk nothing, seeing that by seeming to be ignorant alone we can hope to escape.’”

“Well,” asked the señor eagerly, “and what did Zibalbay answer? I think that you said the old man’s name was Zibalbay,” he added, trying to recover the slip.

“Zibalbay! No, I never mentioned that name,” Don Pedro replied suspiciously, and with a sudden change of manner. “He answered nothing at all. Next morning, when I came to question them, the birds had flown. It is a pity, for otherwise I might have asked the old man—if his name is Zibalbay. I suppose that the Indians had let them out, but I could not discover.”

“Why, Don Pedro, you said just now that they were still in the house.”

“Did I? Then I made a mistake, as you did about the name; this wine is strong, it must have gone to my head; sometimes it does—a weakness, and a bad one. It is an odd tale, but there it ended so far as I am concerned. Come, señor, take a cup of coffee, it is good.”

“Thank you, no,” answered the señor, “I never drink coffee at night, it keeps me awake.”

“Still, I beg you to try ours, friend, we grow it ourselves and are proud of its flavour.”

“It is poison to me, I dare not,” he said. “But pray tell me, do the gentlemen whom I have the honour to see at table cultivate your plantations?”

“Yes, yes, they cultivate the coffee and the cocoa, and other things also when they have a mind. I daresay you think them a rough-looking lot, but they are kind-hearted, ah! so kind-hearted; feeble as I am they treat me like a father. Bah! señor, what is the good of hiding the truth from one of your discernment? We do business of all sorts here, but the staple of it is smuggling rather than agriculture.

“The trade is not what it was, those sharks of customs officers down on the coast there want so much to hold their tongues, but still there are a few pickings. In the old times, when they did not ask questions, it was otherwise, for then men of pluck were ready for anything from revolution down to the stringing up of a coach-load of fat merchants, but now is the day of small profits, and we must be thankful for whatever trifles Providence sends us.”

“Such as the two Americans who got drunk and killed each other,” suggested the señor, whose tongue was never of the most cautious.

Instantly Don Pedro’s face changed, the sham geniality born of drink went out of it, and was replaced by a hard and cunning look.

“I am tired, señor,” he said, “as you must be also, and, if you will excuse me, I will light another cigar and take a nap in my hammock. Perhaps you will amuse yourself with the others, señor, till you wish to go to rest.” Then rising, he bowed and walked somewhat unsteadily to the far end of the room.

When Don Pedro had retired to his hammock, whither the Indian girl, Luisa, was summoned to swing him to sleep, I saw his son José and the Texan outcast, Smith, both of whom, like the rest of the company, were more or less drunk, come to the señor and ask him to join in a game of cards. Guessing that their object was to make him show what cash he had about him, he also affected to be in liquor, and replied noisily that he had lost most of his money in the shipwreck, and was, moreover, too full of wine to play.

“Then you must have lost it on the road, friend,” said Don José, “for you forget that you made those sailors a present from a belt of gold which you wore about your middle. However, no gentleman shall be forced to gamble in this house, so come and talk while the others have their little game.”

“Yes, that will be better,” answered the señor, and he staggered to an empty chair, placed not far from the table at which I remained, and was served with spirits and cigars. Here he sat watching the play, which was high, although the counters looked innocent enough,—they were cocoa beans,—and listened to the conversation of the gamblers, in which he joined from time to time.

The talk was not good to hear, for as these wretches grew more drunken, they began to boast of their past exploits in various parts of the country. One man told how he had kidnapped and tortured an Indian who had offended him; another, how he had murdered a woman of whom he was jealous; and the third, of the successful robbing of a coach-load of travellers, and their subsequent butchery by the driving of the coach over the edge of a precipice. All these stories, however, were as milk to brandy compared to those that Don Smith, the Americano, growing confidential in his cups, poured forth one after the other, till the señor, unable to bear them any longer, affected to sink into a tipsy doze.

All this while I sat at the little table where my dinner had been served, saying nothing, for none spoke to me, but within hearing of everything that passed. There I sat quiet, my arms folded on my breast, listening attentively to the tales of outrage, wrong, and murder practised by these wicked ones upon my countrymen.

To them I was only a member of a despised and hated race, admitted to their company on sufferance in order that I might be robbed and murdered in due course, but in my heart I looked on them with loathing and contempt, and felt far above them as the stars, while I watched and wondered how long the great God would suffer his world to be outraged by their presence.

Some such thoughts seemed to strike others of that company, for presently Don Smith called out,—

“Look at that Indian rascal, friend, he is proud as a turkey-cock in springtime: why, he reminds me of the figure of the king in that ruin where we laid up last year waiting for the señora and her party. You remember the señora, don’t you, José? I can hear her squeaks now,”—and he laughed brutally, and added, “Come, king, have a drink.”

“Gracias, señor,” I answered, “I have drunk.”

“Then smoke a cigar, O king.”

“Gracias, señor, I do not smoke to-night.”

“My lord cacique of all the Indians won’t drink and won’t smoke,” said Don Smith, “so we will offer him incense,”—and, taking a plate, he filled it with dry tobacco and cigarette-paper, to which he set fire. Then he placed the plate on the table before me, so that the fumes of the tobacco rose into the air about my head.

“There, now he looks like a real god,” said the Americano, clapping his hands; “I say, José, let us make a sacrifice to him. There is the girl who ran away last week, and whom we caught with the dogs——”

“No, no, comrade,” broke in José, “none of your jokes to-night, you forget that we have a visitor. Not but what I should like to sacrifice this old demonio of an Indian to himself,” he added, in an outburst of drunken fury. “Curse him! he insulted me and my father and mother, yonder on board the ship.”

“And are you going to put up with that from this wooden Indian god? Why, if I were in your place, by now I would have filled him as full of holes as a coffee-roaster, just to let the lies out.”

“That’s what I want to do,” said José, gnashing his teeth, “he has insulted me and threatened me, and ought to pay for it, the black thief,” and, drawing a large knife, he flourished it in my face.

I did not shrink from it; I did not so much as suffer my eyelids to tremble, though the steel flashed within an inch of them, for I knew that if once I showed fear he would strike. Therefore I said calmly:

I did not so much as suffer my eyelids to tremble.

“You are pleased to jest, señor, and your jests are somewhat rude, but I pass them by, for I know that you cannot harm me because I am your guest, and those who kill a guest are not gentlemen, but murderers, which the high-born Don José Moreno could never be.”

“Stick the pig, José,” said Smith, “he is insulting you again. It will save you trouble afterwards.”

Then, as Don José again advanced upon me with the knife, of a sudden the señor sprang up from his chair and stood between us.

“Come, friend,” he said, “a joke is a joke, but you are carrying this too far, according to your custom,” and, seizing the man by the shoulders, he put out all his great strength, and swung him back with such force that, striking against the long table with his thighs, he rolled on to and over it, falling heavily to the ground upon the farther side, whence he rose cursing with rage.

By now, Don Pedro, who had wakened or affected to waken from his sleep, thought that the time had come to interfere.

“Peace, little ones, peace!” he cried sleepily from his hammock. “Remember that the men are guests, and cease brawling. Let them go to bed, it is time for them to go to bed, and they need rest; by to-morrow your differences will be healed up for ever.”

“I take the hint,” said the señor, with forced gaiety. “Come, Ignatio, let us sleep off our host’s good wine. Gentlemen, sweet dreams to you,” and he walked across the hall, followed by myself.

At the door I turned my head and looked back. Every man in the room was watching us intently, and it seemed to me that the drunkenness had passed from their faces, scared away by a sense of some great wickedness about to be worked. Don Smith was whispering into the ear of José, who still held the knife in his hand, but the rest were staring at us as people stare at men passing to the scaffold.

Even Don Pedro, wide awake now, sat up in his hammock and peered with his horny eyes, while the Indian girl, Luisa, her hand upon the cord, watched our departure with some such face as mourners watch the out-bearing of a corpse. All this I noted in a moment as I crossed the threshold and went forward down the passage, and as I went I shivered, for the scene was uncanny and fateful.

Presently we were in the abbot’s chamber, our sleeping-place, and had locked the door behind us. Near the washstand, on which burned a single candle set in the neck of a bottle, sat Molas, his face buried in his hands.

“Have they brought you no supper, that you look so sad?” asked the señor.

“The woman, Luisa, gave me to eat,” he whispered. “Listen, lord, and you, Señor Strickland, our fears are well founded; there is a plot to murder us to-night, of this the woman is sure, for she heard some words pass between Don Pedro and a white man called Smith; also she saw one of the half-breeds fetch spades from the garden and place them in readiness, which spades are to be used in the hollowing of our graves beneath this floor.”

Now when we heard this our hearts sank, for it was terrible to think that we were doomed within a few hours to lie beneath the ground whereon our living feet were resting. Yet, if these assassins were determined upon our slaughter, our fate seemed certain, seeing that we had only knives wherewith to defend ourselves, for, though we had saved the pistols and some powder in a flask, the damp had reached the latter during the shipwreck, so that it could not be relied upon.

“I am afraid that we have been too venturesome in coming here,” I said, “and that unless we can escape at once we must be prepared to pay the price of our folly with our lives.”

“Do not be downcast, lord,” answered Molas, “for you have not heard all the tale. The woman has shown me a means whereby you can save yourselves from death, at any rate for to-night. Come here,” and, leading us across the room, he knelt upon the floor at a spot almost opposite the picture of the abbot, and pressed on a panel in the low wainscoting of cedar wood with which the wall was clothed to a height of about three feet.

The panel slid aside, leaving a space barely large enough for a man to pass. Through this opening we crept one by one, and descended four narrow steps, to find ourselves in a chamber hollowed out of the foundations of the wall, so small that there was only just room for the three of us to stand in it, our heads being some inches above the level of the floor.

And here I may tell you, Señor Jones, that, though I have never shown it to you, this place still exists, as you may discover by searching the wainscoting. For many years I have used it for the safe keeping of papers and valuables. There, by the way, you will find that emerald which I showed you on the first night of our meeting. What the purpose of this chamber was in the time of the abbots I do not know, and perhaps it is as well not to inquire, though they also may have used it to store their wealth.

“How can we save ourselves by crouching here like rats in a drain?” I asked of Molas. “Doubtless the secret of the hiding-place is known to those who live in the house, and they will drag us out and butcher us.”

“The woman Luisa says that it is known to none except herself, lord, for she declares that not two months ago she discovered it for the first time by the accident of the broom with which she was sweeping the floor striking against the springs of the panel. Now let us come out for a while, for it is not yet eleven o’clock, and she says that there will be no danger till after midnight.”

“Has she any plan for our escape?” I asked.

“She has a plan, though she is doubtful of its success. When the murderers have been, and found us gone, they will think either that we are wizards or that we have made our way out of the house, and will search no more till dawn. Meanwhile, if she can, Luisa will return, and, entering the chamber by the secret entrance, will lead us to the chapel, whence she thinks that we may fly into the forest.”

“Where is this secret entrance, Molas?”

“I do not know, lord; she had no time to tell me, but the murderers will come by it. She did tell me, however, that she believes that a man and a woman are imprisoned near the chapel, though she knows nothing of them and never visits the place, because the Indians deem it to be haunted. Doubtless these two are Zibalbay and his daughter, so that if you live to come so far, you may find them there and speak with them.”

“Why do you say ‘if you live,’ Molas?”

“Because I think, lord, that then I shall be already dead; at least, death waits on me.”

“What do you mean?” asked the señor.

“I will tell you. After the woman Luisa had gone I ate the food she brought me and drank some wine. Then I think that I fell asleep, for when I awoke the candle had burned out and I was in darkness. Hastily I turned to search for another candle that I had placed by the bottle, and was about to make fire when something drew my eyes, causing me to look up.

“This was what I saw: at the far end of the chamber, enclosed in a film of such pale light as is given by the glowfly, stood the figure of a man, and that man myself, dressed as I am now. There I stood surrounded by faint fire; and though the face was the face of a dead man, yet the hand was not dead, for it beckoned towards me through the darkness.

“Now I saw, and the cold sweat of fear broke out upon me, so that I could scarcely light the candle which I held. At length, however, it burned brightly, and, holding it over my head, I walked towards the spot where I had seen the shadow, only to find that it was gone.”

“Or in other words, that you had slept off your indigestion,” said the señor. “I congratulate you on getting rid of it so soon.”

“It is easy to mock,” answered Molas, “but that which I have seen, I have seen, and I know that it portends my death. Well, so be it; I am not yet old, but I have lived long enough and now it is time to go. May Heaven have mercy on my sins, and thus let it be.”

After this the señor and I strove to reason him out of his folly, but in vain, nor, in fact, was it altogether a folly, seeing that Molas was doomed to die upon the morrow; though whether the vision that he saw came to warn him of his fate, or was but a dream, it is not for me to say.

Presently we ceased talking of ghosts and omens, for we must look to our own bodies and the necessities of the hour. Some minutes before midnight we extinguished the light, and, creeping one by one through the hole in the panelling, we closed it behind us and took our stand in the little dungeon. Here the darkness was awful, and as the warmth of the wine that we had drunk passed from our veins, fears gathered thick upon us and oppressed our souls. Those hours on the sinking ship had been evil, but what were they compared to this?

Deep as was the silence, yet there were noises in it, strange creaks and flutterings that thrilled our marrows. We prayed till we were weary, then for my part I tried to doze, only to find that at such a time sleep was worse than waking, for my imagination peopled it with visions till it seemed to me that all the painted horrors on the walls of the chamber took life, and enacted themselves before my eyes.

I heard the groaning of the martyrs, and the cruel jeers of those who watched their agony, urged on by the hard-faced abbot, whose picture hung above us. Then the vision changed and I seemed to see the tragedy of the two Americans, of whose fate the señor had told me and whose blood still stained the floor. The darkness opened as it were, and I saw the beds on which they were sleeping heavily, stalwart men in the prime of life.

Then appeared figures standing over them, Don Pedro, Don José, and others, while from the shadows behind peeped the wicked face of their countryman, Don Smith. The bed-clothes were twitched away and once more all was black, but in the darkness I heard a sound of blows and groaning, of the hurrying feet of murderers, and the clinking of bags of money stolen from the dead men. Now the señor touched me and I woke with a start.

“Hark,” he whispered into my ear, “I hear men creeping about the room.”

“For the love of God, be silent,” I answered, gripping his hand.

CHAPTER IX.
THE DUEL

Now we placed our ears against the panelling and listened. First we heard creaks that were loud in the stillness, then soft heavy noises such as are made by a cat when it jumps from a height to the ground, and a gentle rubbing as of stockinged feet upon the floor. After this for some seconds came silence that presently was broken by the clink of steel, and the sound of heavy blows delivered upon a soft substance with swords and knives. The murderers were driving their weapons through the bed-clothes, thinking that we slept beneath them. Next we heard whisperings and muttered oaths, then a voice, Don José’s, said:

“Be careful, the beds are empty.”

Another instant and candles were lit, for their light reached us through small peep-holes in the panel, and by putting our eyes to these we could see what passed in the room. There before us we beheld Don José, Don Smith, and four of their companions, all armed with knives or machetes, while, framed, as it were in the wall, in the place that had been occupied by the picture of the abbot, stood our host, Don Pedro, holding a candle above his head, and glaring with his fish-like eyes into every corner of the room.

“Where are they?” he said. “Where are the wizards? Find them quick and kill them.”

Now the men ran to and fro about the chamber, dragging aside the beds and staring at the pictures on the wall as though they expected to see us there.

“They are gone,” said José at length, “that Indian, Ignatio, has conjured them away. He is a demonio and not a man; I thought it from the first.”

“Impossible!” cried Don Pedro, who was white with rage and fear. “The door has been watched ever since they entered it, and no living thing could force those bars. Search, search, they must be hidden.”

“Search yourself,” answered Don Smith sullenly, “they are not here. Perhaps they discovered the trick of the picture and escaped down the passages to the chapel.”

“It cannot be,” said Don Pedro again, “for just now I was in the chapel and saw no signs of them. We have some traitor among us who has led them from the house; by Heaven, if I find him out——” and he uttered a fearful oath.

“Shall we bring the dogs?” asked José,—and I trembled at his words: “they might smell their footing.”

“Fool, what is the use of dogs in a place where all of you have been tramping?” answered the father. “To-morrow at dawn we will try them outside, for these men must be found and killed, or we are ruined. Already the authorities suspect us because of the disappearance of the two Americanos, and they will send soldiers from Vera Cruz to shoot us down, for without doubt this Inglese is rich and powerful. It is certain that they are not here, but perhaps they are hidden elsewhere in the building. Come, let us search the passages and the roof,” and he vanished into the wall, followed by the others, leaving the chamber as dark and silent as it had been before their coming.

For a while the danger had passed, and we pressed each other’s hands in gratitude, for to speak or even to whisper we did not dare. Ten minutes or more went by, when once again we heard sounds, and a light appeared in the room, borne in the hand of Don Pedro, who was accompanied by his son, Don José.

“They have vanished,” said the old man, “the devil their master knows how. Well, to-morrow we must hunt them out if possible, till then nothing can be done. You were a fool to bring them here, José. Have I not told you that no money should tempt me to have more to do with the death of white men?”

“I did it for revenge, not money,” answered José.

“A nice revenge,” said his father, “a revenge that is likely to cost us all our lives, even in this country. I tell you that, if they are not found to-morrow and silenced, I shall leave this place and travel into the interior, where no law can follow us, for I do not wish to be shot down like a dog.

“Listen, José, bid those rascals to give up the search and go to bed, it is useless. Then do you come quietly to my room, and we will visit the Indian and his daughter. If we are to screw their secret out of them, it must be done to-night, for, like a fool, I told that Englishman the story when the wine was in me, thinking that he would never live to repeat it.”

“Yes, yes, it must be to-night, for to-morrow we may have to fly. But what if the brutes won’t speak, father?”

“We will find means to make them,” answered the old man with a hideous chuckle; “but whether they speak or not, they must be silenced afterwards——” and he drew his hand across his throat, adding, “Come.”

An hour passed while we stood in the hole trembling with excitement, hope, and fear, and then once more we heard footfalls, followed presently by the sound of a voice whispering on the further side of the panel.

“Are you there, lord?” the whisper said. “It is I, Luisa.”

“Yes,” I answered.

Now she touched the spring and opened the panel.

“Listen,” she said, “they have gone to sleep all of them, but before dawn they will be up again to search for you far and wide. Therefore you must do one of two things; lie hid here, perhaps for days, or take your chance of escape at once.”

“How can we escape?” I asked.

“There is but one way, lord, through the chapel. The door into it is locked, but I can show you a place from which the priests used to watch those below, and thence, if you are brave, you can drop to the ground beneath, for the height is not great. Once there, you can escape into the garden through the window over the altar, which is broken, as I have seen from without, though to do so, perhaps, you will have to climb upon each other’s shoulders. Then you must fly as swiftly as you can by the light of the moon, which has risen. The dogs have been gorged and tied up, so, if the Heart is your friend, you may yet go unharmed.”

Now I spoke to the señor, saying:

“Although the woman does not know it, I think it likely that we shall find company in this chapel, seeing that the Indian and his daughter are imprisoned there, where Don Pedro and José have gone to visit them. The risk is great, shall we take it?”

“Yes,” answered the señor after a moment’s thought, “for it is better to take a risk than to perish by inches in this hole of starvation, or perhaps to be discovered and murdered in cold blood. Also we have travelled far and undergone much to find this Indian, and if we lose our chance of doing so, we may get no other.”

“What do you say, Molas?” I asked.

“I say that the words of the señor are wise, also that it matters little to me what we do, since whether I turn to left or right death waits me on my path.”

Now one by one we climbed through the false panel, and by the light of the moon Luisa led us across the chamber to the spot between the beds, where hangs the picture of the abbot, which picture, that is painted on a slab of wood, proved to be only a cunningly devised door constructed to swing upon a pivot.

Placing her knee on the threshold of the secret door, Luisa scrambled into the passage beyond. When the rest of us stood by her side, she closed the panel, and, bidding us cling to one another and be silent, she took me by the hand and guided us through some passages till at length she whispered:

“Be cautious now, for we come to the place whence you must drop into the chapel, and there is a stairway to your right.”

We passed the stairway and turned a corner, Luisa still leading.

Next instant she staggered back into my arms, murmuring, “Mother of Heaven! the ghosts! the ghosts!” Indeed, had I not held her she would have fled. Still grasping her hand, I pushed forward to find myself standing in a small recess—the one I showed you, Señor Jones—that was placed about ten feet above the floor of the chapel, and, like other places in this house, so arranged that the abbot or monk in authority, without being seen himself, could see and hear all that passed beneath him.

Of one thing I am sure, that during all the generations that are gone no monk watching here ever saw a stranger sight than that which met my eyes. The chancel of the chapel was lit up by shafts of brilliant moonlight that poured through the broken window, and by a lamp which stood upon the stone altar. Within the circle of strong light thrown by this lamp were four people, namely, Don Pedro, his son Don José, an old Indian, and a girl.

On either side of the altar then, as now, rose two carven pillars of sapote wood, the tops of which were fashioned into the figures of angels, and to these columns the old Indian and the woman were tied, one to each column, their hands being joined together at the back of the pillars in such a manner as to render them absolutely helpless. My eyes rested first upon the woman, who was nearest to me, and seeing her, even as she was then, dishevelled, worn with pain and hunger, her proud face distorted by agony of mind and impotent rage, I no longer wondered that both Molas and Don Pedro had raved about her beauty.

She was an Indian, but such an Indian as I had never known before, for in colour she was almost white, and her dark and waving hair hung in masses to her knees. Her face was oval and small-featured, and in it shone a pair of wonderful dark-blue eyes, while the clinging white robe she wore revealed the loveliness of her tall and delicate shape.

Bad as was the girl’s plight, that of the old man her father, who was none other than the Zibalbay we had come to seek, seemed even worse. As Molas had described him, he was thin and very tall, with white hair and beard, wild and hawk-like eyes, and aquiline features, nor had Don Pedro spoken more than the truth when he said that he looked like a king. His robe had been torn from him, leaving him half naked, and on his forehead, breast, and arms were blood and bruises which clearly had been caused by a riding-whip that lay broken at his feet.

It was not difficult to guess who had broken it, for in front of the old man, breathing heavily and wiping the perspiration from his brow, stood Don José.

“This mule won’t stir,” he said to his father in Spanish; “ask the girl, it must wake her up to see the old man knocked about.”

Then Don Pedro slipped off the altar rail upon which he had been seated, and, advancing to the woman, he peered at her with his leaden eyes:

“My dear,” he said to her in the Maya language, “this sight must grieve you. Put an end to it then by telling us of that place where so much gold is hidden.”

“As with my last breath, daughter,” broke in Zibalbay, “I command you to say nothing, no, not if you see them murder me by inches before your eyes.”

“Silence, you dog,” said Don José, striking him across the lips with his hand.

“Oh! that I were free to avenge you!” gasped the girl as she strained and tore at the ropes which held her.

‘Oh! that I were free to avenge you!’

“Don’t be in a hurry, my love,” sneered Don José, “wait a while and you will have yourself to avenge as well as your father. If he won’t speak I think we can find a way to make you talk, only I do not want to be rough with you unless I am forced to it. You are too pretty, much too pretty.”

The girl shivered, gasping with fear and hate, and was silent.

“What shall we try him with now?” he went on, addressing Don Pedro; “hot steel or cold? Make up your mind, for I am growing tired. Well, if you won’t, just hand me that machete, will you? Now, friend,” he said, addressing the Indian, “for the last time I ask you to tell us where is that temple full of gold, of which you spoke to your daughter in my father’s hearing?”

“There is no such place, white man,” he answered sullenly.

“Indeed, friend! Then will you explain where you found those little ingots, which we captured from the Indian who had been visiting you, and whence came this machete?” and he pointed to the weapon in his hand.

It was a sword of great beauty, as I could see even from where we stood, made not of steel, but of hardened copper, and having for a handle a female figure with outstretched arms fashioned in solid gold.

“The machete was given to me by a friend,” said the Indian, “I do not know where he got it.”

“Really,” answered José with a brutal laugh, “perhaps you will remember presently. Here, father, warm the point of the machete in the lamp, will you, while I tell our guest how we are going to serve him and his daughter.”

Don Pedro nodded, and, taking the sword, he held the tip of it over the flame, while José bending forward whispered into the Indian’s ear, pointing from time to time to the girl, who, overcome with faintness or horror, had sunk to the ground, where she was huddled in a heap half hidden by the masses of her hair.

“Are you white men then devils?” said the old man at length, with a groan that seemed to burst from the bottom of his heart, “and is there no law or justice among you?”

“Not at all, friend,” answered José, “we are good fellows enough, but times are hard and we must live. As for the rest, we don’t trouble over much about law in these parts, and I never heard that unbaptised Indian dogs have any right to justice. Now, once more, will you guide us to the place whence that gold came, leaving your daughter here as hostage for our safety?”

“Never!” cried the Indian, “better that we two should perish a hundred times, than that the ancient secrets of my people should pass to such as you.”

“So you have secrets after all! Father, is the sword hot?” asked José.

“One minute more, son,” said the old man, quietly turning the point in the flame.

This was the scene that we witnessed, and these were the words that astonished our ears.

“It is time to interfere,” muttered the señor, and, placing his hand upon the rail, he prepared to drop into the church.

Now a thought struck me, and I drew him back to the passage.

“Perhaps the door is open,” I said.

“Are you going in there?” asked the girl Luisa.

“Certainly,” I replied; “we must rescue these people, or die with them.”

“Then, señors, farewell, I have done all I can for you, and now the saints must be your guide, for if I am seen they will kill me, and I have a child for whose sake I desire to live. Again, farewell,” and she glided away like a shadow.

We crept forward down the stair. At the foot of it was a little door, which, as we had hoped, stood ajar. For a moment we consulted together, then we crawled on through the gloom towards the ring of light about the altar. Now José had the heated sword in his hand.

“Look up, my dear, look up,” he said to the girl, patting her on the cheek. “I am about to baptize your excellent father according to the rites of the Christian religion, by marking him with a cross upon the forehead,” and he advanced the glowing point of the sword towards the Indian’s face.

At that instant Molas pinned him from behind, causing him to drop the weapon, while I did the same office by Don Pedro, holding him so that, struggle as he might, he could not stir.

“Make a sound, either of you, and you are dead,” said the señor, picking up the machete and placing its hot point against José’s breast, where it slowly burnt its way through his clothes.

“What are we to do with these men?” he asked.

“Kill them as they would have killed us,” answered Molas; “or, if you fear the task, cut loose the old man yonder and let him avenge his own and his daughter’s wrongs.”

“What say you, Ignatio?”

“I seek no man’s blood, but for our own safety it is well that these wretches should die. Away with them!”

Now Don Pedro began to bleat inarticulately in his terror, and that hero, José, burst into tears and pleaded for his life, writhing with pain the while, for the point of the sword scorched him.

“You are an English gentleman,” he groaned, “you cannot butcher a helpless man as though he were an ox.”

“As you tried to butcher us in the chamber yonder,—us, who saved your life,” answered the señor. “Still, you are right, I cannot do it because, as you say, I am a gentleman. Molas, loose this dog, and if he tries to run, put your knife through him. José Moreno, you have a sword by your side, and I hold one in my hand; I will not murder you, but we have a quarrel, and we will settle it here and now.”

“You are mad, señor,” I said, “to risk your life thus, I myself will kill him rather than it should be so.”

“Will you fight if I loose you, José Moreno?” he asked, making me no answer, “or will you be killed where you stand?”

“I will fight,” he replied.

“Good. Let him free, Molas, and be ready with your knife.”

“I command you,” I began, but already the man was loose and the señor stood waiting for him, his back to the door, and grasping the Indian machete handled with the golden woman.

Now José glanced round as though he sought a means of escape, but there was none, for in front was the machete and behind was the knife of Molas. For some seconds—ten perhaps—they stood facing each other in the ring of the lamp-light, whilst the moonbeams played faintly about their heads. We watched in utter silence, the Indian girl shaking the long hair from her face, and leaning forward as far as her bonds would allow, that she might see this battle to the death between him who had insulted and tormented her, and the noble-looking white man who had appeared out of the gloom to bring her deliverance.

It was a strange scene, for the contrast of light and darkness, or of good and evil, is not greater than was that of these two men, and what made it stranger were the place and hour. Behind them was the half-lit emptiness of the deserted chapel, before them stood the holy crucifix and the desecrated altar of God, and beneath their feet lay the bones of the forgotten dead, whose spirits mayhap were watching them from the shadows as earnestly as did our living eyes. Yes, that midnight scene of death and vengeance enacted in the House of Peace was very strange, and even now it thrills my blood to think of it.

From the moment that I saw them fronting each other, my fears for the issue vanished. Victory was written on the calm features of the señor, and more especially in his large blue eyes, that of a sudden had grown stern as those of an avenging angel, while the face of José told only of baffled fury struggling with bottomless despair. He was about to die, and the terror of approaching death unnerved him.

Still it was he who struck the first, for, stepping forward, he aimed a desperate blow at the señor’s head, who, springing aside, avoided it, and in return ran him through the left arm. With a cry of pain, the Mexican sprang back, followed by the señor, at whom he cut from time to time, but without result, for every blow was parried.

Now they were within the altar rails, and now his back was against one of the carved pillars of sapote wood,—that to which the girl was tied. Further he could not fly, but stayed there, laying about him wildly, so that the woman at the other side of the pillar crouched upon the ground to avoid the sweep of his sword.

Then the end came, for the señor, who was waiting his chance, drew suddenly within reach, only to step back so that the furious blow aimed at his head struck with a ringing sound upon the marble floor, where the mark of it may yet be seen. Before Don José, whose arm was numbed by the shock, could lift the sword again, the señor ran in, and for the second time thrust with all his strength. But now the aim was truer, for his machete pierced the Mexican through the heart, so that he fell down and died there upon the altar step.

Now I must tell of my own folly that went near to bringing us all to death. You will remember that I was holding Don Pedro, and how it came about I know not, but in my joy and agitation I slacked my grip, so that with a sudden twist he was able to tear himself from my hands, and in a twinkling of an eye was gone.

I bounded after him, but too late, for as I reached the door it was slammed in my face, nor could I open it, for on the chapel side were neither key nor handle.

“Fly,” I cried, rushing back to the altar, “he has escaped, and will presently be here with the rest.”

The señor had seen, and already was engaged in severing with his sword the rope that bound the girl, while Molas cut loose her father. Now I leapt upon the altar—may the sacrilege be forgiven to my need—and, springing at the stonework of the broken window, I made shift to pull myself up with the help of Molas pushing from below. Seated upon the window ledge I leaned down, and catching the Indian Zibalbay by the wrists, for he was too stiff to leap, with great efforts I dragged him to me, and bade him drop without fear to the ground, which was not more than ten feet below us. Next came his daughter, then the Señor, and last of all, Molas, so that within three minutes from the escape of Don Pedro we stood unhurt outside the chapel among the bushes of a garden.

“Where to now?” I asked, for the place was strange to me.

The girl, Maya, looked round her, then she glanced up at the heavens.

“Follow me,” she said, “I know a way,” and started down the garden at a run.

Presently we came to a wall the height of a man, beyond which was a thick hedge of aloes. Over the wall we climbed, and through the aloes we burst a path, not without doing ourselves some hurt,—for the thorns were sharp,—to find ourselves in a milpa or corn-field. Here the girl stopped, again searching the stars, and at that moment we heard sounds of shouting, and, looking back, saw lights moving to and fro in the hacienda.

“We must go forward or perish,” I said, “Don Pedro has aroused his men.”

Then she dashed into the milpa, and we followed her. There was no path, and the cornstalks, that stood high above us, caught our feet and shook the dew in showers upon our heads, till our clothes were filled with water like a sponge. Still we struggled on, one following the other, for fifteen minutes or more, till at length we were clear of the cultivated land and standing on the borders of the forest.

“Halt,” I said, “where do we run to? The road lies to the right, and by following it we may reach a town.”

“To be arrested as murderers,” broke in the señor. “You forget that José Moreno is dead at my hands, and his father will swear our lives away, or that at the best we shall be thrown into prison. No, no, we must hide in the bush.”

“Sirs,” said the old Indian, speaking for the first time, “I know a secret place in the forest, an ancient and ruined building, where we may take refuge for a while if we can reach it. But first I ask, who are you?”

“You should know me, Zibalbay,” said Molas, “seeing that I am the messenger whom you sent to search for him that you desire to find, the Lord and Keeper of the Heart,” and he pointed to me.

“Are you that man?” asked the Indian.

“I am,” I answered, “and I have suffered much to find you, but now is no time for talk; guide us to this hiding-place of yours, for our danger is great.”

Then once more the girl took the lead, and we plunged forward into the forest, often stumbling and falling in the darkness, till the dawn broke in the east, and the shoutings of our pursuers died away.

CHAPTER X.
HOW MOLAS DIED

For some few minutes we rested to recover our breath, then we started forward again. In front went the girl, Maya, our guide, whom the señor led by the hand, while behind followed Zibalbay supported by Molas and myself. At first these two had run as quickly as the rest of us, but now all the fatigues and terrors that they had undergone took hold of them, so that from time to time they were forced to stop to rest. This was little to be wondered at, indeed, seeing that during five days they had eaten no solid food, for it had been Don Pedro’s purpose to starve their secret out of them. Doubtless he would have succeeded in this design, or in doing them to death, had it not been for a quantity of a certain preparation of the cuca leaf, mixed with pounded meat and other ingredients, which they carried with them. Zibalbay had the secret of this Indian food, and by the help of it he and his daughter had journeyed far across unpeopled wastes, for so wonderful are its properties that a piece no larger than a bullet will serve to stay a man’s stomach for twenty-four hours, even when his power is taxed by work or travel. On this nutriment they had sustained themselves to the amazement of their captor, who could not discover whence they drew their strength; still it is a stimulant rather than a food, and so great was their craving to fill themselves, that as they ran they plucked cobs of the Indian corn and devoured them.

Our path lay through a tropical forest so dense that, even when the sun shone, the gloom was that of twilight. Many sorts of huge and uncouth trees grew in it, whereof the boughs were starred with orchids and hung with trailing ferns, or in places with long festoons of grey Spanish moss that gave them a very strange and unnatural appearance. Up these trees climbed creepers, some of them thicker than a man’s thigh, and beneath them the ground was clothed with soft-wooded bush, or with vast brakes of a plant that in Mexico attains a height of from ten to twelve feet, which the señor told me is cultivated in English gardens under the name of Indian Shot. Slowly and with much toil we forced a path through this mass of vegetation. Now we were creeping over the rotten trunks of fallen and fern-encumbered trees, now foot by foot we must make our way between the stout stems of the Indian Shot, and now our clothes were caught and our flesh was torn by the hook-like thorns and brambles, or our feet tripped in the roots of climbing plants. No breath of air penetrated that measureless thicket, whereof the stagnant atmosphere, laden with the decay of ages, choked and almost overpowered us, causing the sweat to start from every pore. Above us, hiding the sky, hung masses of deep green foliage, beneath which we struggled on in the solemn gloom and the silence that was broken only from time to time by the grunting of an ape, or by a distant crash, as some great tree, after centuries of life, fell with a noise like thunder to the earth from whence it sprang.

This forest that seemed so destitute of life was peopled by millions of insects, all of them venomous. Garrapatas, tiny grey flies, wood-wasps, and ants black and red, tormented us with their bites and stings till we groaned aloud in misery, then, remembering our danger, pushed on again.

Thus two hours and more passed, till, reaching a little stream that ran through a ravine in the forest, we paused to drink and to cool our fevered feet and hands. Zibalbay sank exhausted upon the bank, where I brought him water in my sombrero, while his daughter sat herself down on a stone in the stream, suffering it to flow over her feet and ankles, that by now were swollen with ant-bites and bleeding from the cuts of thorns and grasses. Presently she looked up, and, seeing the señor, who stood upon the bank talking to me, she invited him with a motion of her hand to seat himself beside her.

“What is your name, white man?” she asked.

“James Strickland, lady.”

“James Strickland,” she repeated with some difficulty, “I thank you, James Strickland, for rescuing my father from torment and me from insult; and because of that deed, I, Maya of the Heart, whom many have served, am your servant for ever.”

“You should thank my friend, Don Ignatio,” he said, pointing to me.

For a few moments she looked at me searchingly, then replied, “I thank him also, but you I thank the most, for your hand rid me of that hateful man and saved us.”

“It is early to return thanks, lady,” he said; “we are not out of danger yet.”

“I have little fear now that we have escaped from that dreadful house,” she answered almost indifferently, “since our hiding-place is at hand. Also how can they find us in this forest? Hark! what was that?”

As she spoke a faint and distant sound fell upon our ears,—such a sound as might have been made by a bell struck far away at night.

“That is how they will find us,” he said, springing to his feet. “Do you hear, Ignatio? The dogs have hit our trail. Which way does our road run now, lady?”

“Along the banks of the stream.”

“Then we must go forward in the water,” said the señor, “it is our only chance, for the hounds cannot track us there.”

Now we began to scramble down the bed of the stream as fast as the boulders and the weariness of Zibalbay would allow. Fortunately it was not a broad river, nor very deep, still sometimes we could scarcely stand in the rapids, and twice, not daring to set foot upon the bank, we were forced to swim the length of the pools, which we did in terror fearing lest they should be haunted by alligators. For something over an hour we followed the stream thus, till suddenly Maya halted, saying that if we would gain the building where they had dwelt, we must leave the water and plunge into the forest. By now we were exhausted,—indeed, unless he were carried, the old Indian, Zibalbay, could not have gone another mile; so, notwithstanding the danger of setting foot upon the land, on learning that the place was near and that food was to be found in it, we hesitated no longer, but once more began to thread the bush. Not more than three hundred paces from the banks of the river we came upon a high mound densely overgrown with trees, between the boles of which appeared masses of cut stone.

“This is the place,” gasped Zibalbay. “Look, yonder above us are the walls of the temple, and here is the stairway that led to it,” and he pointed to a long flight of crumbling stone steps, almost hidden in ferns and bushes, which stretched from the base of the pyramid to the ancient Indian fane on its crest. Up these steps we went with caution, for the climb was dangerous, Molas carrying Zibalbay upon his broad back, since so weary was he that the old Indian could mount them in no other fashion.

This staircase was built in three flights, the top flight, now almost entirely broken away, emerging on what once had been a broad and splendid terrace, but to-day was a chaos of stonework, in the crevices of which grew bushes and even large trees. Over the head of the stairway still stood a colossal arch sculptured with the figures of gods and beasts. This arch was in the last stage of decay,—indeed the crown of it, a mass of masonry that must have weighed between one and two hundred tons, had been nearly separated from its supports by the action of time and rain, aided perhaps by a shock of earthquake, and hung threateningly over the top steps of the stair. In truth so slight were the attachments which remained between it and its supporting side columns and buttresses, that at first sight it seemed as though it must fall at once. A closer examination showed, however, that it was held in place by three or four great roots, which, springing from trees that grew upon the crown of the arch, in the course of years had thrust themselves deep into the crevices of the masonry of the massive pillars, and through their foundations into the soil beneath. Beyond the arch, on the further side of the terrace, rose the ruined temple, a long single-storied building with a flat roof whereon grew many shrubs and palms.

Passing through the central doorway of this temple, Maya led us into a chamber decorated everywhere with serpents carved in stone, which had been occupied, and recently, for it was clean, and upon the floor were ashes and bits of burnt wood. In the corner also lay a little pile of articles covered over with a serape that Maya hastened to remove, revealing amongst other things an earthen cooking-pot, a copper axe of similar workmanship to the machete with which the señor had killed Don José, two curiously fashioned blow-pipes with a supply of poisoned darts, and, lastly, bags containing dried flesh, beans, and cuca paste.

“All is safe,” she said; “now let us eat that we may be strong to meet danger.”

While we were filling ourselves thankfully with the dried meat, the señor spoke to me, saying he hoped that our pursuit had been abandoned.

“You can know little of these men to speak thus,” I answered; “they must hunt us down for their own sakes, also Don Pedro will certainly seek to avenge the blood of his son. Our only hope is that the water will baffle the hounds, or that, if they strike the place where we left it, the heat of the day may have killed our scent. But I fear that this will not be so, since the ground is damp beneath the trees.”

“Then what do you propose to do?” he asked. “Start on again, or stop here?”

“Señor, we must stop here because we cannot travel farther, unless you would abandon the old man and his daughter. Moreover in the forest it would be easy to overwhelm us, but this place is hard to climb, and here at least we may die fighting. Let us make ready for the worst, señor.”

“How are we to make ready,” he asked, “when we have nothing to fight with except machetes and Indian blow-pipes? The powder in the pistol flasks is damp and the caps will miss fire, so that if we are attacked our death is certain.”

“It seems so,” I answered, “yet if it pleases God we may live. Yonder lie stones in plenty; let us pile them up beneath the archway, perhaps we can kill some of our foes by rolling them down the steps.”

This we did, then, while Maya watched us. At length the task was finished, and as we turned to leave the heaps of stones, of a sudden we heard a dog baying down by the river, followed by a sound of men and horses forcing a path through the bush. For a while we stared at each other in silence, then Molas said, “They are coming.”

“If so I wish they would come quickly,” answered the señor.

“Why, White Man? Are you afraid?” asked Maya.

“Yes, very much,” he answered, with a little laugh, “for the odds are heavy, and probably we shall soon be killed, that is, all the men among us will be killed. Does not the prospect frighten you?”

“Why should it,” she answered, with a shrug and a smile, “seeing that if it comes to the worst, I shall be killed also and spared a long journey home?”

“How can you be sure of that, Lady?”

“So,” she answered, holding a tiny blow-pipe dart before his eyes. “If I prick myself with this here—” and she touched the large vein in her neck, “in one minute I shall be asleep, and in two I shall be dead.”

“I understand; but you talk of death very easily for one so young and beautiful.”

“If so, señor, it is because I have not found life too soft, nor”—she added with a sigh—“do I know what destiny awaits me in the future; but I do know that when we sleep upon the Heart of Heaven, we shall find peace if nothing more.”

“I hope so,” said the señor. “Look, here they come,” and as he spoke a party of seven or eight men, three of them riding on mules, appeared at the foot of the mound, and, dismounting, picketed their animals to trees.

“Now for it,” said the señor, rising and shaking himself like a dog that leaves the water. “I wonder how many of us will be left alive when this sun sets.”

As he spoke one of the men reached the foot of the stairway holding a great hound in a leash. For a moment the dog sniffed the stones, then, lifting his head, he bayed aloud, whereat the band shouted, for they knew that they had trapped us. Still for a while they did not advance, but, gathering themselves in a knot, they consulted together earnestly. We looked at each other in despair, for truly our case was desperate. Fly we could not, and we had no arms wherewith to fight, therefore it seemed certain that within some few minutes we must lose our lives at the hands of these murderers, if indeed they chose to kill us outright in mercy. The señor hid his face in his hands for awhile, then he looked up and said,

“Can we bargain with them, Ignatio?”

“Impossible,” I answered, “what have we to give that they cannot take?”

“Then there is nothing for it except to die as bravely as we may,” he answered. “This is the end of our search for the Golden City. The quest has not been a lucky one, Ignatio.”

Now the old Indian, Zibalbay, who was crouched upon the ground beside us, spoke for the first time, saying,

“Friends, why do you not fly? Doubtless you can find a path down the further side of the pyramid, and in the forest you may hide from these men.”

“How can we fly,” answered the señor, “when you have no strength to walk a step?”

“I am old and ready to die,” he answered; “leave me here, and be sure that when the time comes I shall know how to slip through the grasp of these villains. My daughter, go you with them. You have the holy symbol, and should you escape and prove this stranger to be the man whom we seek, lead him to our home that things may befall as they are fated.”

“Peace, my father,” said Maya, throwing her arms about his neck, “together we will live or perish. These señors may go if it pleases them, but here I stay with you.”

Heart of the World

HEART OF THE WORLD

DEDICATION.

CONTENTS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.