Chapter VI: Part 6

"You set up to be some punkins of an engineer, now don't you?" he said, addressing Rayburn. "But did you ever happen to hear of a bridge that was hung up at one end an' that was operated by swingin' it backward an' forward like a pendulum?"

"No," Rayburn answered, promptly and decisively, "I never did."

"So I thought," Young went on. "Well, you've admitted that in sev'ral things th' man who was in charge of construction on this line could have given you points, an' this swingin' bridge notion is one of 'em. I can't say that I think much of it. It wouldn't do in railroads, for sure; but there is a good deal to be said in favor of it when it helps folks out of such a hole as we're in now--an' if it still is in workin' order, that is just what it's going to do. There it is. Do you catch on?"

We all looked in the direction in which Young pointed, for his gesture was so earnest that even Fray Antonio and Pablo caught the meaning of it, and so saw--pendent from a point far up on the overhang of rock, and but indistinctly showing in the shadow--a great chain that at its lower end was caught in a metal hook set in the face of the cliff at the extreme back of the ledge on which we stood. For my part, I did not at once catch the meaning of Young's words even when I saw the chain, but Rayburn understood it all in a moment.

"By Jove!" he exclaimed, "that _is_ a notion! You grab the end of it and just swing across to the other side!"

Young already had loosened the chain from the hook and was testing its strength by putting his weight on it. At the end of it was a crossbar big enough to get a good grip upon; and this, and the chain itself, were wrought of the bright, hard metal of which we had encountered so many specimens. The upper end was made fast high above us in the out-jut of rock, very nearly over the centre of the cañon; so that no great force was required to carry whoever grasped the crossbar, and so swung out boldly, clear across the chasm to the ledge on the other side. But I confess that the thought of such a passage made me feel a little dizzy and sick; and never did I long to be safely back in my class-room at Ann Arbor as I did just then!

"It seems t' be all right," said Young, "but I guess you may as well take a pull on it with me, Rayburn. There'd be no fun in havin' it fetch away when a man was about half across, an' we may as well make th' thing sure." And then, as the chain still held firm under the double strain, he added, "Well, here goes;" and, so speaking, took a running start and went swinging out over the abyss.

My heart was in my mouth as he leaped forth and shot out from and far below us; but in a moment he rose along the curve that he was traversing and was safely landed on the other side. "It's a boss invention. Workin' it is just as easy as rollin' off a log," he called across to us; and to show how easily the passage was made, he instantly swung himself back again.

Pablo had manifested signs of strong uneasiness while this talk and action were in progress, and in a very anxious tone he now inquired: "But how will it be with the Wise One, señor?"

"Why, gettin' _him_ across will be as easy as open an' shut," Young answered, speaking in English to Rayburn and to me. "We'll just rig him in th' rope slings again, an' make him fast to th' chain, an' give him a good boost to start him, and over he'll go before he fairly knows he's started."

But when we came to apply this brisk statement of the case practically, we found it by no means easy of execution. El Sabio grew restive as we arranged the slings of rope about his body, evidently remembering, fearfully, the strange journey that he had made in the air when we had rigged him in a like manner in order to trice him up to where the stair began; and he grew yet more restive as we fastened the rope slings to the end of the chain. Rayburn had crossed to the other side--passing the chain back by weighting it with a rock--and stood ready to receive El Sabio when he was swung across. But partly owing to a want of skill in our management of him, yet more to his own unruliness--for just as we started him, with a strong push, he clapped down his fore-feet upon the edge of the cliff and so checked his swing outward--he did not swing within reach of Rayburn's hands. And so he came back towards us again, and then out once more towards Rayburn; and so swung slowly and yet more slowly until at last he hung motionless over the very middle of the gulf, with nothing between him and the rocks below but a thousand feet of air. And then El Sabio began to kick with a vigor that set to rattling every link in the chain!

Pablo was cast by this mischance into a veritable frenzy of fright; and we were most seriously frightened also--not only because the destruction of the poor ass was imminent, but because of the danger which menaced ourselves. Our party was divided, and should the chain give way, under stress of El Sabio's kicks and plunges, all possibility of our coming together again was at an end. Rayburn might leave us and go on; and so, perhaps, save his own life. But for the rest of us there would be no hope. Behind us was death by starvation. In front of us was this impassable gulf.

From Pablo, who was quite wild with dreadful anticipations of the parting of the chain and the loss to him forever of his friend, least was to be expected in the strait wherein we were; yet it was from Pablo that our rescue came. With a quick apprehension of the needs of the case, he rove a running-knot in the end of one of the pack-ropes, and with a dexterous cast of this improvised lasso set the loop of it about El Sabio's neck as that unfortunate animal for a moment ceased his strugglings and hung still. And then we all strained on the rope together, and in a minute had El Sabio safely with us again; but in such a state of terror that pity for him wrung our hearts.

But the limpness which the reaction from such deadly fear threw him into made handling him easy; and this time, when we launched him forth (taking the precaution, however, to fasten one end of a rope to the chain), he went sailing across the full width of the chasm, and Rayburn in a moment had him landed in safety. The instant that the chain was loosened Pablo hauled it back, and an instant later swung lightly across the cañon, and straightway fell to fondling the terrified creature and comforting him with all manner of tender words. And he so piteously besought us to give El Sabio one good drink that we passed the water-keg and the bucket across, and permitted the poor ass to drink half of our stock of water without debate of the sacrifice. Indeed, this refreshment was so necessary to him that without it I doubt if he could have gone on.

While El Sabio thus gathered courage and strength again, Young swung over to the other side, and we passed our stores across from ledge to ledge--having ropes made fast to the chain, and so steadying each load from the one side while we hauled from the other. This was easy work, and we quickly finished it. When it was ended I braced myself for the flying journey through the air across that gulf so deep that the bottom of it was lost in black shadows, through which the sparkling water faintly gleamed; and my heart so throbbed within me as I took the bar in my hands, with the knowledge that should I lose hold of it death waited for me below in those dark shadows, that my breath came irregularly and I heard a dismal ringing in my ears. Yet I had less to fear than either of the others who had crossed before me, for the ropes still were fast to the chain; and should I not swing far enough I would be helped to safety by my companions. But for shame, I should have made my body fast to the chain by a rope sling, and so have gone across as our stores had gone rather than as a man. But my pride forbade my surrender in this fashion to my fears; and it was a lucky thing for me that it did.

Holding the bar in my hands, I ran briskly across the ledge, and, with a strong kick on the edge of the cliff to give me additional impetus, I went spinning out into space. For an age, as it seemed to me, I sank rapidly; while that horrible feeling possessed me--the like of which people subject to sea-sickness feel as the ship drops away beneath them into the trough of the sea--of falling away from my own stomach. And then, just as my strength seemed to be failing, and my hold on the bar loosing, I perceived that I was rising again; and this put a little fresh heart in me, and I tightened my grip on the bar. Ten seconds, no doubt, was the full extent of the time that my passage consumed; but it seemed to me then, and it seems to me still as I think of it, a long ten years. And a thrill of terror goes through me as I think also of how near I then came to a horrible death; for at the very moment that I reached the farther side of the cañon there was a little tinkling sound in the air above me, and the bar that I held was twitched out of my hands, and then came a loud jingling of metal on rock, and as I turned quickly I saw a gleam of sunlight catch the great chain as it went twisting downward into the black gulf below.

XV.

THE TEMPLE IN THE CLOUDS.

Doubtless the violent strain to which the chain had been subjected by El Sabio's kicking and plunging had loosened the fastenings, centuries old, which held it to the rock; for the chain had not broken, but had come away entire. I sank down on the rock as weak with terror as the poor ass had been; and like him I drank greedily of water, and panted for a while, and at last found my courage coming back to me.

Yet my case was a happy one compared with that of Fray Antonio. Howsoever narrow my escape had been, the fact remained that I had come out from my encounter with Death safe and unharmed; but on Fray Antonio's shoulder we could but dread that Death already had laid his hand. And that he knew how close to him Death was standing we could see by a certain elate and confident air of courage in his bearing, and by the wonderful tenderness and sweetness of his smile. Truly, never did I know a man so ready at all times as this man was to lay down the life that God had given him; holding it but as a trust that might at any moment be called back to the source whence it came. Yet because it was a trust, meant to be put to useful purposes, Fray Antonio valued his life and cared for it. And at this time it was he himself who devised a plan by which it might be saved.

The ropes which were fastened to the chain, being held stoutly on the one side by Fray Antonio and on the other by Young, fortunately had broken as the great weight of the chain suddenly had come upon them, and had broken so close to the knots which held them that nearly the whole of their length remained. The plan that the monk now devised for coming across to us--and a bold heart was required even to think of this daring enterprise--was that with the two ropes fastened about his body at one end, and held by all of us at the other, he should swing down into the chasm and far under the promontory of rock on which we stood, and then that we should haul him up to us. The great difficulty in the way of executing this plan was in getting the line across between us; its great danger lay in the probability--notwithstanding the depth of the recess beneath us--that he would be dashed against the rocks with such force as to kill him outright.

But Young, who usually was ready for any emergency that might arise, roused out a ball of twine that was a part of our stores, and one end of this he made fast to a fragment of rock, and by a strong heave of it landed it safe on the other side; whereafter the rigging of the double rope across was an easy matter.

Very carefully, testing the knots as he made them, Fray Antonio fastened the double line about his body, beneath his shoulders, and so stood ready on the edge of the chasm; while we four stood holding the line, with all our muscles braced for the strain that would come upon it as he swung downward. For a moment he paused, with his face turned upward while his lips moved. Then he waved his hand, and smiled as he called across to us, "It is as God wills!" and so dropped away from the ledge, and like a flash went down beyond our range of sight.

We felt the jar on the ropes as his body struck against the face of the cliff far below us, and the reflex action as he swung out again, and thereafter the slower motion of the ropes as he swayed back and forth dangling over that black and awful chasm. And as the ropes settled into steadiness we drew him up towards us; yet dreaded, because of the dull weight of it, and because no assuring cry came up to us, that what we lifted was a corpse.

And, in truth, as we raised the body of Fray Antonio over the edge of the cliff it seemed as though this dread were realized; for a great bloody gash was upon his temple, and his limbs were limp and lifeless, and his face was deathly pale. At sight of which there came into my heart a bursting pain, as though some one had stabbed me there; and there were tears in Young's eyes; and Rayburn gave vent to his sorrow in a great curse that was half a groan. As for Pablo, whom no danger could daunt, and who would bear without flinching any hurt of his own, this dreadful sight so moved him that he fainted dead away.

Yet even in the moment that such deep sorrow seemed to be settling down upon us, Fray Antonio slightly moved his lips, and there came forth from them a low faint sigh--whereupon Young jumped up with a shout and relieved his mind by administering to Pablo a hearty kick, which he accompanied with the remark: "You infernal fool of a Greaser Indian, what do you mean by swoundin'? He ain't dead at all!"

As tenderly as I could for the trembling of my hands, I washed away the blood from about the cut and bathed Fray Antonio's pale face, while Rayburn gave him a sup of whiskey from his flask. And then, presently, his eyes opened and energy came into his body once more. In a little while he was on his feet again, and as well as ever, save for the smarting of his cut, and in his head a dizziness and a dull throbbing pain. Just what had happened he could not tell. He knew that he had struck against the rock with his feet, as he had planned to do; but he must have swung around, when the force of the impact had been thus partly broken, and struck his head against some sharp projection, and so have been cut and stunned. But it made no great difference how his hurt had come to him, since it had not proved to be a deadly one; therefore we forbore to question him further concerning it, and sought by quiet talk, that led softly into silence, to take his thoughts away from the peril that he had been in. Indeed, we all were glad to rest quietly where we were for the night, for our bodies were tired and our nerves were racked and strained.

We should have been most thankful for a big potful of coffee, but there was no wood with which we could make a fire. The best that we could do, and there was not much comfort in it, was to chew some coffee grains after we had made a supper upon one of our few remaining tins of meat; and then we rolled ourselves in our blankets and lay down upon the bare rock. And I must say that if anybody had asked me at that moment if archæology was a study that paid for the trouble that it cost, I should have said most unhesitatingly that it was not.

Even sleep, which I greatly needed, and for which I earnestly longed, did not come to me easily; for each time that I seemed to be dropping gently away into unconsciousness I would be roused by the feeling that I was holding fast to the chain again, and so was sliding down the long curve among the shadows, with the great walls of the cañon towering infinitely above me, and with the black depth below. And in my sleep I made again the dreadful passage, and heard the clinking of the chain as it parted, and the rattle of it as it struck the rocks, and felt the grasp of Rayburn as he caught me, just as the bar was twitched out of my hands--and so woke to find Young shaking me, and to hear him say: "There's no earthly sense in your kickin' around that way, Professor; an', anyhow, it's time t' get up. It's just a wonder how these Mexican mornin's put life into a man. Why, there's a freshness in th' air that's goin' t' waste in this cañon that's fit t' make a coffin stand right up on end an' dance a jig!"

Even Fray Antonio, but for the soreness of his hurt, felt strong and well; and we ate another tin of meat--which was much less than we wanted to eat--and so started along the path hewn out of the side of the cliff; and what with the brightness and joyfulness of the morning, we certainly were in much higher spirits than was at all reasonable in the case of men who had had such close companionship with Death so short a time before, and who still stood a very fair chance of dying dismally of starvation. The knowledge that, by the falling of the chain, our retreat had been again cut off did not at all trouble us. Even could we have crossed the cañon, and so have retraced our steps, we could have gone no farther than the valley of the lake; and we could as well die here as there. And we were stayed by the reasonable conviction that the path which we were travelling upon certainly would lead us out of the mountains at last--even if it did not lead us to the hidden city that we sought.

For five or six miles we doubled on our course of the day before, going back along the cañon and seeing the path that we had followed a little below us on the other side; then, by a very easy grade, our course began to ascend, and went on rising until the other path was so far below us that it ceased to be distinguishable. Thus we came to within a few hundred feet of the top of the cliffs, when a sudden turn to the left carried us into a narrow cleft in the rock. Here the path was very sharply inclined upward for a little way; and for the remainder of the distance to the top we ascended a long series of rudely cut steps, so steep that our legs fairly cracked under us as we neared the end of them.

But we forgot our weariness as we came out upon the summit at last, and a great view of clouds and mountain peaks burst upon us; the like of which I never have seen approached save by the view out over the Gunnison country from the crest of the Marshall Pass. But here we saw all around us what there is seen only in one direction; for we were on a vastly high, square crest--very like that called the Gigante, which the traveller by the Mexican Central Railroad sees to the left as he nears Silao--and clouds and mountain peaks rose up about us on every side.

But we did not long contemplate this heroic landscape, for a cloud, which almost enveloped us as we finished our ascent of the stair, was swept still farther away by the brisk wind then blowing; so that suddenly a vast building loomed largely through the flying vapor, and in a moment was clear and distinct before our eyes. To find upon this bare mountain-top, among cloud solitudes so profound as these, such overpowering evidence of the labor and strength of man, sent thrilling through our breasts a wonder that was akin to awe. It seemed unreal, impossible, that in such a place such work could be accomplished; and the very tangible reality of it made it seem to me one of those prodigies of man's creation which old stories tell of as having been wrought by a league with the devil and at the cost of a human soul.

Had there been any signs at all of human life about this solemn and majestic building, or upon the mountain-top whereon it stood, the chilling hold that it took upon our imaginations would have been less strong. What wrought upon us was the deadly silence, and the absolute stillness of everything save the drifting clouds. It seemed to us as though we had come out from the living world and our own time into a dead region belonging to a long dead past; and I remembered with a shudder that we had entered this region through that gloomy cavern, where hundreds of the ancient dead were clustered in silent worship about the great silent idol carved in everlasting stone. It seemed as though some evil spell hung over us, that doomed us forever to wander in wild solitudes--which were the more appalling because constantly uprose before us tangible evidence of the strong current of eager human life that had pulsed through them in former times. Young but put into his own rough language the thought that was in all our hearts when he declared, with a great oath, that for the sake of getting safe out of this lonely hole he'd contract to fight Indians three days in every week for the rest of his life, and be glad to do it for the comfort of having somebody around who was alive.

XVI.

AT THE BARRED PASS.

The whole top of the mountain, near a mile square, had been so levelled by nature that little remained to be done for its further smoothing by the hand of man. But the amount of work that had gone into the mere preparation for the building of the great temple was almost incredible. In the centre of the plateau a pyramidal mass of rock near a thousand feet square, of a piece with the mountain itself, had been so shaped and hewn that it rose in three great terraces to the square apex on which the temple stood. These terraces slanted upward, surrounding the pyramid by a continuously ascending way that had its beginning and its ending in the centre of the eastern front--so that, allowing for the diminishing size of the pyramid, the distance by this way from the bottom to the top of it was more than a mile and a half.

"It just took a slow-goin', lazy heathen Greaser t' think out a thing like this," Young observed as we went up the path. "Now, if th' Congregationalists that I was brought up among had put a church on a place like this--an' they wouldn't have been likely t' be fools enough t' do anything of th' sort--they'd 'a' had a set of steps runnin' smack from th' bottom t' th' top, an' folks would have got up in no time. It's just th' Greaser fashion all over t' spend a hundred years or so in makin' a path five miles long around a hill about as high as th' Boston State-house, so's they can get up it easy an' save their wind. But I wish they'd put in drinkin' fountains along th' road. I'm as thirsty as a salt cod--an' there's so precious little water left in th' keg that I'm afraid t' begin at it for fear of suckin' it all up."

"Drinking fountains?" Rayburn, who was a little in advance, called back to us. "Well, so they did. Come along and drink as much as you want to."

"Cut that, Rayburn," Young answered. "I'm too dead in earnest about my being thirsty to stand any foolin'."

"I'm not fooling"--we had caught up with him by this time--"look for yourself."

To which Young's only reply was to spring forward eagerly and drink a long deep draught from a stone basin beside the path into which trickled a tiny stream from above. Finding water in this unlikely place was as great a surprise as it was a joy to us; for we all longed for it, yet dared not drink freely because our supply was nearly gone. It was touching to hear the long sigh of happiness that El Sabio gave when at last he lifted his dripping snout out of the basin; and then to see the look that he gave Pablo, as though to thank him for so blessedly plentiful a drink. In truth, the Wise One had not tasted a drop of water for nearly twenty-four hours--not since his perilous passage of the cañon--and his throat, and his poor little inside generally, must have been very dry.

When we came out on the top of the pyramid at last, which at that moment was wrapped in clouds almost as dense as London fog, we perceived the ingenious plan that had been adopted in order to secure water plentifully on this mountain-top. By careful scoring of the rock with many little channels, all leading to a cistern that seemed to be of great dimensions, the warm vapor of the clouds as it condensed into water on touching the chill stone surface was captured and safely stored away. And from the overflow of the cistern the fountain below was fed.

But we did not stop to examine very carefully into this matter, so eager were we to press on to the temple close before us. This stood upon a terraced platform, cut from the living rock, and was a perfectly plain structure--with walls slightly receding inward as they rose, and wholly destitute of ornamentation. For its majestic effect it depended upon its great size and upon its admirable proportions; and being built of the dark rock of which the mountain was formed, and having about it much of the sombre feeling that characterizes Egyptian architecture, it had an air of great solemnity and gloom.

In silence we ascended the short flight of steps that led to the broad, doorless entrance--the only opening through the massive walls--and so came into the vast shadowy hall that these great walls enclosed. From front to back of this hall extended many rows of stone pillars--like the single row found in the great chamber among the ruins of Mitla--and by these were upheld the huge slabs of stone of which the roof was made. Far away from where we stood, down at the end of a long vista of pillars, was a stone altar on which was carved in stone a colossal figure of the god Chac-Mool. Looking back through the open entrance, I saw a break in the mountain peaks to the eastward; and so perceived that the first rays of the rising sun must needs enter here and strike full upon the disk that was poised in the figure's hands. As Pablo caught sight of the great idol recumbent there, a momentary shudder went through him and he made certain motions with his hand before his eyes that were strange to me.

As we drew near to the altar we found that in front of it was a sacrificial stone, still darkly stained where blood had flowed upon it; and beneath the stone neck-yoke, still resting there, was a withered remnant of human vertebræ. There was something very ghastly in finding--preserved by the very stone that had held him down while life was let out of him--this mere scrap of the last human victim who had perished here. As in the desolate valley, so also on this desolate mountain-top, the only proof that human life ever had been here was found in proof of human death.

Save that our curiosity was gratified, and the blessing of the water which we found, our ascent of the great pyramid and our examination of the temple bore no fruit. Young, who still seemed to think that tilting up and disclosing secret passages was an attribute of all statues of the god Chac-Mool, was here again convinced that his generalization from a single case was not a sound one. In a serious way--that in itself would have been laughable but for the gloom of our surroundings--he climbed upon the altar and sat first on the head of the god, and then on his feet, and even tried the effect of seating himself upon the stone disk that the god upheld above his navel. But through all of these experiments the stone figure remained solidly immovable.

"I guess there was only one o' that tippin' kind," Young said, at last, "an' he sort o' flocked by himself. Let's get out of here, anyway. If this ever was the Aztec bank that we're lookin' for, there must have been a prehistoric run on it that cleaned it out. They must have done that sort o' thing in old times, eh, Professor? But it don't make much difference to us now what they did or what they didn't; an' we'd better fill up with water an' get out--that is, if there is any way of gettin' out except along the way we came. There's no good in goin' back that way. It would be better t' settle down here an' starve comfortably without wearin' out shoe-leather doin' it. But I don't mean t' do that until I've had a look all around th' top of this god-forsaken mountain, an' made sure that there's only one way down."

My own thoughts had been dwelling on the possibility that Young's words expressed; for at this definite point to which we had come, the path that we had come by very reasonably might end--so leaving us in this lonely region among the clouds to die slowly for lack of food. And there was a certain fitness in our having made our way so far among the dead only ourselves to die that added sombre fancies to our environment of sombre realities. Yet there was a heartiness in Young's resolutely expressed determination to search for a way out of our difficulties before at all yielding to them that insensibly cheered me. His words had a plucky ring to them; and bravery is as catching as is fear.

Our empty water-kegs were at the bottom of the pyramid, and when we reached the fountain on our downward way we waited there while Pablo went on with El Sabio and fetched them up to us. There was at least solid comfort in knowing, as we went on downward with the kegs all filled, that, whatever other death might come to us, at least we could not die of thirst. At the bottom of the pyramid we left Fray Antonio and Pablo, with El Sabio and the packs, and the three of us set out to explore the three sides of the mountain-top that were unknown to us in search of a downward path. A heavy mass of clouds had drifted over the mountain again, so thick that at a rod away all was white mist around us; and the light was growing faint, for the day had come nearly to an end. Indeed, had we been upon the lower levels of the earth night would have been already upon us.

Making my way along the edge of the precipice, where the plateau broke sheer off, was ticklish work; and half humorous, half melancholy thoughts went through my mind touching the absurdity of an ex-professor of Topical Linguistics in the University of Michigan being thus employed in path-hunting upon a lonely mountain-top in Mexico. Truly, adversity brings us strange bedfellows; but far stranger are the straits into which a man comes who takes up with the study of archæology at first-hand. But my path-hunting was without result, for nowhere along the edge of the plateau was there a break fit for the descent of any creature save such as had wings. At the end of near an hour the clouds once more lifted; and then I saw Rayburn coming towards me, but with a serious look upon his face that told that he also had been unsuccessful in his search.

"It has rather a bad look, Professor," he said, briefly, when I had told him that along all the face of the mountain that I had examined the rock went down sheer. He filled his pipe and lighted it, and we walked back to the base of the pyramid in silence, while he smoked. Young had not returned; but presently we heard a shout that had so hopeful a sound in it as to start us both to our feet and forth to meet him.

"Have you found a way down?" Rayburn called, as he came nearer to us.

"You bet I have," he called back; "and, what's more, I've seen somethin' to eat."

"_Seen_ something!" Rayburn answered, as he joined us. "Why the dickens didn't you _get_ it?"

"Well, because it was better'n a mile away from me. It looked like a mountain sheep, as well as I could make out; but there it was for sure; an' thinkin' how good that critter will taste roasted has given me a regular twistin' pain all through my empty inside! But th' point is that down on that side o' th' mountain there's game; I saw birds, too, but I couldn't make out what they were; an', somehow, it looks different down there. It don't look like these d--n dead places we've been prowlin' through for more'n a coon's age. It looks as if God remembered it, an' it was _alive_! Why, th' very smell that came up had somethin' good about it; an' there was a different taste to th' air. I tell you, Rayburn, I didn't know what a lonely an' mis'rable an' lost chump sort of a way I was in until I looked over there into that place where th' whole business ain't run by dead folks. An' what's more, Professor, that's the trail for us; for, right where it starts down, there's th' King's symbol an' th' arrow, all reg'lar, blazed on th' rock."

"Is the trail good enough to make a start on now?" Rayburn asked; "we won't have more than half an hour more light, but I'd give a lot to get off this mountain before dark, and every foot down that we go we'll be that much warmer. We'd stand a pretty fair chance of freezing up here to-night without any fire."

"Th' trail's all right for a good half-mile, anyway," Young answered; "an' I guess it's good all th' way. It's pretty much th' same as th' one we come up by, an' that's good enough, where it don't jump cañons, t' go along in th' dark; but we must rustle if we mean t' do much by daylight."

We were back at the pyramid by this time, and we found Fray Antonio very willing to be off with us that we might try to get well down the mountain before night set in; for at that great elevation the quick beating of his heart added very sensibly to the throbbing pain of his wound. Therefore we lost no time in getting our packs upon our backs, and upon the back of El Sabio, and briskly started downward; and the keen cold that came into the air, as the sun sunk away behind the mountain peaks at last, warned us that it was safer to take the risks of a descent almost in darkness than to stay for the night upon that bleak mountain-top without a fire.

In twenty minutes we perceived a comforting change in the temperature; and at the end of an hour--during the last half of which we walked slowly and cautiously through the fast-thickening darkness--there was enough warmth in the air about us to make camping for the night endurable. But we still were at a great elevation, and the thin air was bitingly keen, and all the more so because of the scant meal that we had to comfort us and to put strength into us before we wrapped ourselves in our blankets for sleep.

"What's a mis'rable two pounds of corned-beef among five of us," Young exclaimed, in a tone of angry contempt, "when every man in th' lot is hungry enough t' eat th' whole of it, an' th' tin box it comes in, an' then go huntin' for a square meal? An' t' think o' that sheep I saw! I say, Rayburn, did you ever eat a roast fore-shoulder of mutton, with onions an' potatoes baked under it, an' a thick gra--"

"If you don't hold your jaw about things like that," Rayburn struck in, "I'll murder you!"--and there was such fierceness in his voice, and he truly was such a savage fellow when his anger was up, that Young was half frightened by his outburst, and so was silent. I must say that I wish that he had altogether held his tongue; for, somehow, the smell of mutton and onions and potatoes, all cooking together, was so strong in my nostrils, and this smell so set to yearning my very hollow inside, that it was a long while before I could sleep at all; and when I did sleep, it was to be pursued by dreams of painful hungriness which were but too surely founded in painful fact. Certainly, it was very indiscreet in Young, to say the least of it, to make a remark of that nature at that untoward time.

However, that was the last day that we suffered for want of food. I was awakened in the very early morning by the sound of a rifle-shot, and sprang to my feet, brandishing my revolver, with a confused belief in my sleepy mind that we were attacked by Indians again; and, truly, my first feeling was one of pleasure at the thought of meeting, even in deadly combat, with men who were alive.

"It's all right, Professor," Rayburn said. "We're not fighting anybody. But I've killed a mountain sheep, and if we only can get him we'll have a solid breakfast, even if we have to eat him raw. He was over on that point of rock, and he's tumbled down clear into the valley, and the sooner we get down there and hunt for him the better."

In the bright light of the early morning we could see below us a glad little valley, in which trees and grass grew, and in the centre of which was a tiny lake. But what gave us most joy was seeing birds flying over the face of the water, and half a dozen mountain sheep scampering away at the sound of Rayburn's shot. Truly, the sight of these live creatures was the most cheery that ever came to my eyes; and as I beheld them, and realized that at last we had emerged from the dreary, death-stricken region in which as it seemed to me we had spent years, a great wave of happiness rolled in upon and filled my heart. As it was with me, so was it with the others: who gave sighs of gladness as thus they found themselves no longer wanderers among the chill shades of ancient death, but once more moving in the warm living world.

The path, cut out along the mountain-side, went downward by a sharper grade than that by which we had ascended; and we descended it joyfully at a swinging trot, with a new life in us that made us break out into lively talk and laughter that set the echoes to ringing. And presently, in a very jerky fashion because of his rapid motion, Pablo piped away on his mouth-organ with "Yankee Doodle"--and this was the first time that he had had the heart to play upon his beloved "instrumentito" since our passage of the lake beneath which lay the city of the dead.

In an hour we came fairly down into that bright and lovely valley, where was the sweet sound of birds calling to each other, and the glad sight of these live creatures flying through the air. As for the sheep that Rayburn had killed, he was knocked pretty well into a jelly by his half-mile or so of tumble down the mountain-side. But we were not disposed to be over-fastidious, and we quickly had his ribs roasting over a brisk fire: that yet was not so brisk as was our hunger, for we began to eat before the meat was much more than warmed through. When our ravening appetite was appeased a little, Young got out the coffee-pot and set to making coffee. And then, with meat well cooked and coffee in abundance, we made such a meal as can be made only by half-starved men who suddenly have come forth from the dark shadows of threatening death into the glad sunshine of safety. Of what further perils might be in store for us we neither cared nor thought. Our one strong feeling was the purely animal joy bred of deliverance from gloom and danger, and the packing of our bellies with hearty food.

When, at last, our huge meal was ended, we settled back upon our blankets, and fell to smoking. Presently Rayburn gave a prodigious yawn and laid aside his pipe. "I think I'll take a nap," he said. I saw that Young already was nodding and that Pablo had sunk down into slumber; while El Sabio, who had come even closer to starving than we had come, most thankfully rummaged among the rich grass. My eyes were heavy, and I stretched myself out on my blankets, with the warm sunshine comforting my stiffened body, and presently sunk softly into delicious sleep.

I partly woke a few minutes later, as Fray Antonio rose, thinking that we all were lost in slumber, and walked a little apart from us. He alone had made a meal in reasonable moderation, and I saw now that he had gone aside to pray. For a moment the thought stirred in me that I would join him in what I knew was his thanksgiving for our deliverance; but sleep had too strong a hold upon me, and my body slowly fell back upon the blankets and my eyes slowly closed, carrying into my slumber the sight on which they last had rested: the monk kneeling upon the grass beside a great gray rock, with clasped hands and face turned upward, pouring his soul out in grateful prayer.

It was well on in the afternoon when we all woke again; and Young's first remark was that it must be about supper-time. Rayburn fell in with this notion promptly, and so did I myself--rather to my astonishment, for it seemed unreasonable that after such a stuffing I should desire to eat so soon again. But we did make a supper almost as hearty as our breakfast had been, and in a little while wrapped ourselves in our blankets, with our feet towards the heaped-up fire, and went off once more to sleep, and slept through until sunrise of the following day. In truth, the mental strain, bred of our gloomy surroundings and of the dread of starvation that had possessed us, had taxed our physical strength more severely than our mountain climbing and our lack of nourishment. The great amount of strong food that we ate, and our long slumber, showed nature's demand upon us that our waste of tissue should be made good.

When we woke again on the second morning, we all were fresh and strong and eager to press onward. There was little left of the sheep to carry with us; but Rayburn shot half a dozen birds, some species of duck, as we skirted the lake in our passage across the valley, so there was no fear that we should lack for food. At its western end the valley narrowed into a cañon. There was no choice of paths, for this was the sole outlet, and we were assured that we were on the right path by finding the King's symbol and the pointing arrow carved upon the rook. The cañon descended very rapidly, and by noon we were so far below the level of the Mexican plateau that the air had a tropical warmth in it; and so warm was the night--for all the afternoon we continued to descend--that we had no need for blankets when we settled ourselves for sleep.

Rayburn was of the opinion that we were close upon the Tierra Caliente, the hot lands of the coast; and when we resumed our march in the morning he went on in advance of the rest of us, that he might maintain a cautious outlook. If he were right in his conjecture as to our whereabouts, we might at any moment come upon hostile Indians. It was towards noon that he came softly back to us and bade us lay down our packs and advance silently with him, carrying only our arms. "There's something queer ahead; and I thought that I heard voices," he explained. "But there must be no shooting unless we are shot at. Some of these Indians are friendly, and we don't want to start a row with them if they are willing not to row with us."

The cañon was very narrow at this point, and high above us its walls drew so closely together that the shadows about us were deep. As we rounded a bend in it, the rock closed above our heads in a great arch, so that we were in a sort of natural tunnel; at the far end of which was a bright spot showing that a wide and sunny open space was beyond. But over this opening were bars which cut sharply against the light, as though a gigantic spider had spun there a massive web; and as we drew nearer to this curious barrier we saw beyond it a broad and glorious valley, rich with all manner of luxuriant tropical growth and flooded everywhere with the warm light of the sun.

We approached the strange barrier cautiously, and our wonder at it was increased as we found that it was made of the bright metal of which we had found so many specimens; and still more we wondered as we found that the bars were fastened on the side from which we approached, so that we could remove them easily, while from the side of the valley they presented an impassable barrier. In strong excitement we drew out the metal pins which dropped into slots cut in the rock and so held the bars fast, and in a few minutes we had cleared the way for our advance. Just as we were making ready to pass through the opening we heard the sound of voices; and as we quickly drew back into the shadows two men sprang up suddenly before us, and cried in wonder as they saw that the lower bars across the opening were gone. Yet the expression upon their faces was not that of anger; rather did they seem to be stirred by a strong feeling of joy with which was also awe. Both men were accoutred in the fashion which the pictured records show was usual with the Aztec warriors, and one of them--as was indicated by his head-dress and by the metal corselet that he wore--was a chief; and they challenged us sharply, yet with gladness in their tones, in the Aztec tongue.

So sudden and so ringing was this challenge, and so startling was the uprising of the men before us, that as we sprang back into the shadow we instinctively stood ready with our arms. But Fray Antonio, not having any intent to join in the fight, was cooler than the rest of us, and instantly perceived that fighting was not necessary. Therefore he it was who first spoke to these strangers; and his first word to them was, "Friends!"

Then the watchmen, for such they seemed to be, spoke eagerly together for a moment, and pressed to the opening to look upon us; yet seeing us but dimly because of the dark shadows which surrounded us. Pablo was closest to them, and I marvelled to see how like them he was in look and in air. Him they first caught sight of, and as they saw him they both turned from the opening, and, as though calling to some one at a distance, gave both together a great glad shout. Instantly, at some little distance, the cry was repeated; and so again farther on and yet farther, with ever more voices joining in it; so that it swelled and strengthened into a great roar of rejoicing that seemed to sweep over the whole of the valley before us, and to fill it everywhere with tumultuous sounds of joy.

As though the duty that they were charged with had been thus accomplished, the men turned again to us, and he of the higher rank, speaking the Aztec language, yet with turns and changes in that tongue which were strange to me, eagerly called to us:

"Come forth to us! Come forth to us!" he cried. "Now is the prophecy of old fulfilled and the watch rewarded that our people have maintained from generation to generation through twenty cycles here at the grated way! Come forth to us, our brothers--who bring the promised message from our lord and king!"

I turned to Fray Antonio as these words were spoken, and I saw in his face that which made me confident in my own glad conviction that here at last was the secret place for which so long, and through such perils, we had sought. Here indeed had we found the hidden people of whom the dying Cacique had spoken and of whom the monk's letter had told; the strong contingent of the ancient Aztec tribe that ages since the wise King Chaltzantzin had saved apart, that when their strength was needed they might come forth to ward their weaker brethren against conquest by a foreign foe. And the great happiness begotten of this glad discovery filled all my body with a throbbing joy.

Yet as we went out through the opening that we had made between the bars, and the watchers saw us fairly in the sunlight, they sprang back as though in alarm. Rayburn met this demonstration promptly by making the peace-sign--raising aloft the right arm--that is common to all North American Indians; and after a moment of hesitation the chief answered to this in kind. So there was peace between us as we advanced; but it seemed to me that their regard of us now had in it more of wonder and less of awe.

XVII.

OF OUR COMING INTO THE VALLEY OF AZTLAN.