Chapter 8

It was brilliantly light when we awoke, for the rays of the just-risen sun were striking strongly into the cave through its entrance-way; and much light came also through a crevice higher up, and through a great hole in the vastly high roof. Viewed in this clearer light, there was a horrible ghastliness about the mummies ranged in their orderly rows, and presided over by the coarsely carved, coarsely conceived stone figure that in life they had worshipped as their god. On this image the sunshine fell full, and we perceived that its position evidently had been chosen carefully, so that the very first ray of light from the rising sun would strike upon it. No doubt, in ancient times, this cave had been a temple as well as a place of sepulchre.

We were well rested by our long and sound sleep; but the pain which was everywhere in our bodies, from our many bruises, and from our wounds, and from the aching stiffness of our muscles, made life for a time almost intolerable. Moreover, the languorous reaction following the undue exaltation that came of our battling and escape was upon us; so that our pain of body was accompanied by a most sombre and melancholy cast of mind. Yet, again, did the more balanced and delicate temperament of Fray Antonio shine out by contrast with our coarser make; for while he also suffered pains of the body, his mind was filled with a serene cheerfulness that found expression in kindly, comforting words, by which our flagging spirits were strengthened and upheld. There was in Fray Antonio's nature, surely, a fund of gentle lovingness the like of which I never knew in any other man.

And, in truth, our plight was such that we stood in much need of comforting. Not only were we sick with our many hurts, but we were also prisoners. By the full light of day we examined carefully the cave, and found no outlet to it; and we examined carefully, also, the walls of the cañon throughout its full length, and made sure that there was no path leading upward whereby a man could go. And escape down the valley was cut off, for the Indians--who knew, no doubt, the manner of place we were caught in--were on guard and watching for us; which fact came sharply to our knowledge with a half-dozen arrows that dropped among us as we went out a little way beyond the mouth of the cañon to see if the way was open to us. Had we been whole, we might have made a dash and fought our way through; but even this poor plan was not possible when our bodies were stiff and sore. Our one comforting thought was that, as we had an abundance of provisions and an ample supply of water, we could hold out for so long a time that the Indians at last would get tired of waiting for us. If they ventured to attack us in the cave, we knew that we could defend ourselves against any number of them successfully. If they simply abandoned the siege, then we would be free without fighting at all. But it was dismal work waiting in that dismal place for one or the other of these two ends to come.

And the fact that the King's symbol had proved a false guide also was a source of deep concern to us. By the full strength of daylight we again examined the graving at the entrance to the cañon, and there was no mistaking the way in which the arrow pointed. And, what was even more perplexing and disheartening, we found the graving repeated at the entrance to the cave, and the arrow pointing directly towards the statue of Chac-Mool. It was impossible that this cave, with mummies only for inhabitants, could be the walled city wherein the reserve force of men and treasure had been hid; and yet here, obviously, was the end of the trail. Of this we convinced ourselves by searching the cave exhaustively for another outlet--even sounding the walls in the hope that we might find a passage that had been artificially concealed. As Rayburn tersely put it, we were no better than so many rats in a trap with terriers waiting for us outside.

X.

THE SWINGING STATUE.

Four more days went by very wearily. Our wounds were healing--for we all were in good condition as the result of our vigorous life in the open air--but they still kept us in constant pain, and so tended to increase our melancholy. Out in the valley, beyond the mouth of the cañon, the Indians maintained their watchful guard. Rayburn tried the experiment of holding a hat and coat out on a pole, standing himself under cover of the rock, and in an instant a pair of arrows went through the dummy; and as one of these came from the right and the other from the left, it was evident that in both directions the valley was picketed.

We were safe enough for the time being, of course. Even should the Indians overcome their superstitious dread and enter the cañon--which was not probable, for they had not even ventured to remove their dead--they could not possibly make a successful attack upon us in the cave. Behind the breastwork that we had built in the narrow entrance, and armed with our repeating rifles and revolvers, we were absolutely secure.

"It's not a bad thing that we're safe," said Young, "an' that we've got plenty of grub an' water, an' even lots of firewood; if we've got t' be shut up here we might as well be comfortable. But what I want is a through ticket for home. This treasure business has gone back on us th' worst kind. That old Fray Francisco had his eye shut up by th' tall talk of th' fellow who pretended to be converted; and th' Cacique just promiscuously lied. That's about the size of it. An' for bein' fools enough to swallow their stuff, here we are, as Rayburn says, like rats in a cage."

There was so much probability in what Young said that I did not attempt to argue with him; yet was I convinced that in what Fray Francisco had written, and still more in what the dying Cacique had said to me, there was a substantial element of truth.

Finding that nobody replied to him, for all of us were sore at heart and so disposed to silence, Young turned to the statue of Chac-Mool and proceeded to abuse it vigorously, on the ground that it was an idolatrous product of the Aztec race that was at the root of all our troubles. For, as he truly said, had there been no Aztecs to begin with, our departure on a wild-goose chase after an Aztec treasure-house would have been an impossibility. His attention having been thus fixed upon the idol, his habit of investigation got the better of his ill-will towards it, and he mounted the altar to examine it more closely--continuing the while to address it in language that was eminently unparliamentary.

"A pretty-looking sort a specimen _you_ are!" he said, in a tone of vast contempt. "But you're about what I'd expect folks like that friend of th' Professor's, th' Cacique, t' worship. It takes a low sort of a heathen, even in his blindness, t' bow down to a stone like you--with your twisted head, an' your stubby legs, an' your little fryin'-pan over your stomach. Why, where I come from they wouldn't have you even for a stone settee in a park. No, you're not fit even t' sit on--unless, maybe, it's on th' flat top of your crooked head;" and by way of testing this possibility, Young seated himself on the head of Chac-Mool.

And then a very extraordinary thing happened. The idol, and the great slab of stone on which it rested and of which it was a part, slowly moved; the head sinking, and the other end of the slab, on which the legs were carved, rising in the air! Young sprang up with a cry as he felt the stone sinking beneath him; and the figure, relieved of his weight, settled back into its former position with a slight jar. In a moment that the slab was in the air there had come from under it a gleam of light.

In the excitement wrought by this strange accident our hurts were forgotten; and we eagerly clambered upon the altar to investigate the matter further, while hope and wonder thrilled our hearts.

"Now, then, Young," said Rayburn, "try it again. It looks as though this idol wasn't all the blackguard things you've been calling it, by a long shot."

"No, I'll be hanged if I'll try it again," Young answered. "Try it yourself, if you want to. How do I know what's goin' t' happen with a stone thing that goes tippin' around that way? I don't mind sayin' that I'm a good deal jolted, an' don't feel like foolin' with it any more. Try it yourself, if you want to, I say."

"All right," Rayburn answered. "You and the Professor stand here where you can grab me if anything goes wrong. It looks to me as though there was a chance for us of some sort here, and I mean to see what it is."

Young and I stood on each side of Rayburn and held him by the arms as he seated himself on the idol's head. Borne down by his weight, the head slowly sank, the whole fore-end of the stone slab falling away into the rock, and the after-end correspondingly rising and disclosing a squared opening, through which came a strong burst of light. When the head was down to the level of the rock, and the slab stood up at an angle of nearly fifty degrees, the movement ceased. Looking into the opening we saw a flight of a dozen stone steps. On the bottom step the sun shone brightly, and in our faces blew a draught of fresh, sweet air. On the rock, beside the stair-way was carved the King's symbol, with the arrow pointing downward.

"Hurrah!" cried Young. "Here's a way out--an' it looks as if that old monk an' th' Cacique weren't such a pair of blasted liars after all!"

Rayburn jumped up to have a look with the rest of us; but before he could see anything the statue had fallen into place again and the opening was closed. "No matter, we know how to work it, now," he said. "We must prop it up somehow; that's all. I want to have a look at this thing. There's some mighty good engineering shown in the way the centre of gravity of that stone has been calculated; and there's a good mechanism in the way it's hung. Here she goes again. Just chock it with a bit of rock when I swing it open."

"Well, what I'm interested in," said Young, "is findin' out what sort of a place it'll get us into. It looks to me as if we might be goin' to strike the treasure right smack here."

Much the same notion was in all of our heads by this time, and we were full of eagerness--the statue having been swung again, and propped in place with a fragment of rock--as we went down the little stair. But what we found was only a continuation of the cañon--as though, by some curious freak of nature, the thin walls of rock enclosing the cave had been left thus in the very middle of it. Rayburn drew our attention to the fact that we were on the crest of a divide, for a spring that bubbled up here flowed away from us; and this also was a cheering sign that the cañon had an outlet. How far away the outlet might be we could not tell; for the cañon, half a mile or so from where we stood, bent sharply to the right. But being thus assured that a way of some sort out of our prison was open to us, we turned to examine the work of the skilled mechanics who in some far past time had set this swinging statue in its place. From below, the simple apparatus, that yet for its fitting required so high a grade of scientific knowledge, was plainly disclosed to us. Into the great slab of stone, presumably running through it from side to side, was set a round bar of metal--the same bright metal of which the sword was made--more than a foot in diameter; and this worked in two concave metal sockets in much the same manner that the sockets of a gun-carriage hold the trunnions of a gun. What struck Rayburn as especially remarkable was the trueness to a circle of both the sockets and the bar; both showing, as he declared, that they had been worked upon a lathe. And he was puzzled, as in the case of the sword, as to the composition of the metal that thus defied oxidization through long periods of time. "Gold is the only thing that fills the bill," he said; "but a bar of gold, even of that size, would bend double under such a strain. I'd give ten dollars for a chance to analyze it--for there's a bigger fortune in putting a metal like that on the market than there is in finding this treasure that we're hunting for: especially if it turns out that there isn't any treasure to find."

"Now, don't you go t' runnin' down that treasure," Young struck in. "Just now treasure stock is up. Me an' that idol have just boomed th' market. I'm sorry I called Jack Mullins, or whatever his name is, such a lot of cuss-word names. I take 'em all back. He isn't just th' sort of an idol that I'd pick out t' worship myself, at least not as a steady thing; but there are good points about him--especially th' way he tips up. I always did like an idol that tipped up. He's done th' square thing by us in gettin' us out all right from th' worst sort of a hole; an' I guess th' best thing we can do is t' yank our traps out of that cave an' get started again. Why, for all we know, th' treasure may be right around that corner."

There was no doubt as to the soundness of Young's suggestion in regard to resuming our march; but the very serious fact confronted us that we now must do our marching on foot. To get the horses and mules down through the narrow opening was simply impossible, and there was nothing for us but to leave them behind. Rayburn looked very grave over this phase of the matter, for leaving the mules meant also that we must leave the greater part of our ammunition and stores. That these things would be abundantly safe in the cave, for any length of time, was not to the purpose; the essential matter was that we would be deprived of them. It was hard, too, to think that our animals would fall into the hands of the Indians--for our only course with them must be to turn them loose in the cañon, whence they certainly would go out in search of pasture into the valley, and so be captured; but it was still harder to think that we must go ourselves on foot and with a scant outfit of supplies.

It was not very cheerfully, therefore, that we went back into the cave and began to sort out from our packs the articles which would be absolutely necessary to our preservation in the rough work among the mountains that probably was before us; and our shoulders already ached a little in anticipation of the heavy loads which they must bear.

It was while we were thus engaged that Pablo begged that I would step aside with him for a moment that he might speak to my ear alone. I saw that there were tears upon his cheeks, and as he spoke he scarcely could restrain his sobs.

"Señor," he said, "you know El Sabio?"

"Surely, Pablo."

"You know, señor, that he is a very small ass."

"It is true."

"And you know--you know, señor, how very tenderly we love each other. Since I came away from my father and my mother, in Guadalajara, and from my little brother and sister there, El Sabio is everything in the world to me, señor. I--I cannot leave him, señor. I should die if we were parted; and El Sabio would die also. And you say that you have perceived that he is a very small ass. Do not ask me to leave him, señor."

"But we cannot take him with us, Pablo. What would you have?"

"That is it, señor; truly, I think that we can take him with us. You see, he is so little; and it is quite wonderful through how small a place El Sabio can crawl. He can creep like a kitten, señor, and he can make himself into a very little bunch. And so I think that he can--if we help him, you know, señor--and speak to him so that he will not be alarmed, and will try to do his very best to make a small bunch of himself--I think that we can get him down through the hole, and so take him with us. But if we cannot, señor, then--you must forgive me, señor--I love him so very dearly, you know--then I will stay with him here. It would be better so than that El Sabio should think I no longer loved him. And he would think that, señor, were I to go with you and leave him here among these dreadful dead gentlemen alone."

It had not occurred to any of us that El Sabio might be condensed sufficiently to go through the narrow way; but if he truly were the collapsable donkey that Pablo declared him to be, we had a good deal to be thankful for. He was a sturdy little creature, and his small back could bear easily twice as much as any two of ours. With his assistance we certainly would be able to carry with us all of our ammunition and arms--of which defensive stuff we could not well afford to spare the smallest part.

And El Sabio, after Pablo had made a long explanation of the case to him, and had told him precisely what we expected him to do--to all of which he listened gravely and with an astonishing air of comprehending what was said to him--seemed to enter into the spirit of the situation, and to try his very best to meet its requirements. It is a puzzle to me to this day how El Sabio managed to shrink himself so that we got him through that narrow hole; but he certainly did manage it--and then went down the stone stair-way backward, as though he had been trained to be a trick donkey from his youth up. When the feat was accomplished, and he stood safely out in the cañon, the expressions of love, and of congratulation upon his cleverness, which Pablo lavished upon him were enough to have turned completely a less serious-minded donkey's head.

Such of our stores as we were compelled to leave behind us, including our saddles, and the pack-saddles, and all the heavier portion of our camp equipage, we heaped in one corner of the cave and piled rocks over; and then we turned our poor horses and the mules loose in the cañon, feeling certain that their instinct would lead them out to the valley in search of food. It went to our hearts to know that these good beasts of ours were doomed to hard service under Indian masters to the end of their days.

All being thus in readiness for our advance, we went down the stair-way beneath the swinging statue, and from beneath pulled out the piece of rock which propped up the great mass of stone. With a heavy jar it fell and closed the passage-way, and we prepared to start. Just then Fray Antonio remembered that he had left on a ledge in the cave--that we had used as a shelf for the storage of various small matters during our sojourn there--a little volume that he dearly loved: the _Meditations of Thomas à Kempis_. He was full of remorse for his forgetfulness, and did not ask that we should turn back to get his book for him; yet his distress over the loss of it was so evident that we had not the heart to go on.

"It will take only ten minutes to go back," said Rayburn, and as he spoke he ran up the stair-way and set his shoulders to sway up the stone. In a moment he called: "Just come here, Young, and help, will you? It don't work as easily from this side." But even with Young's help the stone did not move. Then the rest of us joined these two, and all five of us together pushed with all our strength--and the stone did not yield by so much as the breadth of a hair! And then rather a queer look came into Rayburn's face, and he said: "I think that I understand what is the matter. The point of leverage falls beyond the edge of the hole. From where we have a chance to push, we are working against the whole weight of the stone. We might as well try to lift the mountain itself!" And then he added, "I guess we'd better give this thing up and start."

Very curious feelings were in our breasts as we picked up our packs and set off along the cañon; for we knew that by that way only could we go, and that, no matter what was ahead of us, our retreat was cut off.

XI.

THE SUBMERGED CITY.

A sweet, warm wind blew in our faces as we set off along the cañon; the sun shone joyously upon us, and there was that fresh, tingling quality in the air that is peculiar to regions high above the level of the sea. In spite of the fact that the way behind us was irrevocably barred, and that no matter what dangers were ahead of us we had no option but to face them, our spirits were strong within us, and we went blithely on our way. Young, who was in advance, began to whistle "Yankee Doodle"; and presently, from the rear of our procession, where Pablo walked beside the heavily laden El Sabio, there broke forth a mouth-organ accompaniment to this spirited melody.

The bed of the cañon, through which a little stream ran, fell away before us along a slight down grade; which descent, since we found also a good foot-way beside the stream, made walking comparatively easy notwithstanding our heavy back-loads. Now and then our way would be barred by masses of rock fallen from above, and by whole trees blown down from their insecure roothold on the rocky cliffs; and twice we came to steep descents which would have given us trouble had we not brought along the ropes wherewith our packs had been bound. Shifting El Sabio down these places was our hardest task; but with the ropes, and the intelligent part that he took in the performance, we managed it successfully.

So we went on for half a dozen miles or more through the windings of the cañon, but keeping all the while a sharp lookout ahead--for in the mouth of this end of the cañon, supposing it to open as at the other end upon a grassy valley, we well enough might come upon an Indian camp. And that we had come upon such a camp we felt quite sure when, late in the afternoon, Rayburn signalled us from his advanced position--he having gone to the head of the line in Young's place--to stand still until he should reconnoitre a little. Being thus halted, we unslung our rifles and loosed our pistols in their holsters, so that we might be ready in case fighting suddenly should begin; and Rayburn went on around a turn in the cañon, and for a while we lost sight of him.

Presently he returned and signalled us to join him, but to move cautiously. When we came up with him he led us to the bend in the cañon, and there a broad view opened to us; for the cañon suddenly widened into a great valley, that was everywhere, so far as we could see, surrounded by walls of rock almost perpendicular and vastly high. In the bottom of the valley was a broad expanse of delectably green meadow-land, broken here and there by groves of trees; and in the valley's middle part, reaching from side to side of it, was a lovely lake, whereof the blue was flecked by white reflections of certain little idly drifting clouds: the sight of all which greenness and fair water and broad range of sky--after being for so long a season pent up in rocky fastnesses and wandering over brown, sun-baked plains--fairly brought tears into my eyes because of its fresh and open loveliness. And in the tender feeling that thus stirred my heart, as I could see in the quick glance that he gave me, Fray Antonio also keenly sympathized; for his nature was very open at all times to such gentle influences.

But Rayburn and Young, as was evident from their anxious looks, were thinking only of the dangers which this lovely valley might hold in store for us; for the shore of the lake nearest to us had many houses built upon it, and we could see faintly, for the width of the lake was nearly two miles, that there were other houses upon its farther shore. Standing hidden behind a rock, Rayburn examined the valley carefully through a field-glass for a long while.