Chapter XVII: Thornless Roses

So the days were flitting by, made happily evanescent by a busy round of planning and purring, a judicious intermixture of lovers’ delights and practical preparation for carrying out our industrial project.

Disliking the vulgar curiosity to which a public marriage would subject us, we decided that our nuptials should be celebrated very quietly at Lena’s home, and immediately afterward we should depart on our very practical wedding tour, or else our rather romantic exploring expedition. All these plans in due time were carried out, and one delightfully fresh June morning found Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Hardman, at your service, steaming westward to revisit on my part the mine discovered by Abner and myself, and having enjoyed the exquisite pleasure of showing Lena through labyrinth and hall, and feasted her eyes upon greater wealth than ever Crœsus dreamed of, and interpreted for her ear the strange story of the picture writing on the wall and tablet, we determined to visit the splendid ruins of Mexico, Central America, and Peru, for I had already formed my theory as to how these two latter countries were peopled, and with my present knowledge of the hieroglyphic records, I felt that I could either dissolve my misty theory with the cold touchstone of fact, or confirm it with hard unanswerable reasons.

In one thought I took great comfort, namely, that Lena need run no such gauntlet of river and mountain, flood and fall, as that which Abner and I had been compelled to do in order to reach our modernized Ophir.

We traveled by rail directly to Leadville, and registered our names at the Occidental Hotel, which stood upon the site of The Starlight Roost, where only a little more than a year before I had found a partial shelter from the elements. Now a splendid edifice of modern pattern and costly workmanship occupied its place, and as I trod the marble floor of the palatial home for weary travelers I was almost in doubt as to my own identity, and as to whether this was really the identical spot occupied by the rough board shanty where I lodged, until I recognized one familiar object in the strange surroundings which was no other than my former landlord of The Starlight Roost, who accosted me in his old familiar, hearty way: “Struck it rich, I hear. Luckiest man in the camp. Read all about your great strike in the Chicago papers. Where’s old Ab? Not planted yet I hope. Oh, glad to hear he’s all right; regular old trump.”

My old employer, too, was hearty in his congratulations on the success of the Abner-Hardman partnership, and expressed a hope neatly turned that the new partnership, with a glance Lena-ward, would prove happy, and rallied me slyly on my secretiveness in leaving camp, but professed now to have found the key to my eccentric actions. I assured him that no such airy motives as he insinuated had influenced my departure from Leadville, and gave him a running description of our experiences after leaving him, in which he was greatly interested. Indeed, I felt that, after all, these rough frontiersmen were more sincere in their friendship and more generous than their more highly polished Eastern brothers.

Many old acquaintances crowded around me at our hotel, and all expressed their satisfaction at my streak of luck, and many a poor, forlorn fellow heaved a sigh of regret for homes left behind at the sight of Lena’s fresh, rosy countenance; hungry for the home-love of mothers, sisters, wives, and sweethearts, all left behind at the touch of the contagion called gold-fever.

I learned from the miners that The Mountain Spring Mine, as we had called our first discovery, and where our unfortunate partner, Riley Cox, had lost his life, had been appropriated by some of the miners and ranchers sent out to chastise the Piutes, who had killed several settlers and prospectors. Abner and I had for some time been supposed to be included among their victims, until the Eastern papers announced our wonderful discovery on the Colorado. Our informants stated also that the very cabin which we had occupied was now inhabited by our successors. Under other circumstances I might have been inclined to dispute the ownership of The Mountain Spring with them, but it was of small importance to me, since we had already secured, and carefully invested, enough gold to satisfy any rational being, and had also the means of replenishing our stock at pleasure; for I had small fear of any interference with our treasure house, as we had, while giving out the main results of our discovery, been careful not to locate our mine or mention the manner of approach to it.

But our discovery of The Mountain Spring had brought us some good results; for the usual rush had followed the news that a rich lead had been struck, and, as if by magic, a branch railroad had been built to the Gunnison country, and southward toward our secret mine, so that we were relieved of making a very long journey by pack train.

All was novelty and pleasure to Lena, who bore all the hardship of our horseback journey, in the last stage of our journey to Ophir, without a murmur. We were, of course, ostensibly merely honeymooning in the mountains, and when we reached the region of the mine of Ophir we sent our attendants forward several miles to establish a camp, while we proposed to turn aside and view some scenery which I wished to show madam, where we would camp that night, and rejoin our party next day. I had no trouble in locating the stream which Abner and I had known as the underground river, and riding leisurely up its banks, we soon came to its apparent source as it gushed, a full-blown river, from underneath the mountain.

Picketing our horses beside the stream, we proceeded to equip ourselves for the subterranean journey which we began by clambering along the narrow shelf bordering the waters, till we reached the grooved doorway connecting with the floodgate, where the waters were once more turned back from their course, and together we re-explored all the vaulted halls and ample chambers both of the living and the dead. Then, as the final test of Lena’s spirit as a backwoodsman, she fearlessly followed me through the cramped passage beneath the floodgate, to the chamber where reposed enough gold to strike panic to the hearts of those wise men of the earth who aver that gold alone is a fit substance for money, and to start up a school of economists who would speedily prove beyond a peradventure by the letters on a locust’s wing, and the ruddy glow of the wart on the face of the man in the moon, that gold had become so plentiful as to be useless as money, and henceforth would be sought after only by barbarians for nose ornaments, because it did not poison the flesh, or for filling the teeth of more polished natives, because it did not corrode.

However, Lena and I took it more quietly, and she merely expressed her satisfaction that we had so substantial a footing on which to base our benevolent plans. Then as happily as Adam and Eve reveled in the beauteous and delicious products of Eden, we spent the evening hours in the Garden of Ophir, feasting eye and palate upon the semi-tropical fruits, and slept beneath the fragrant boughs as securely as the birds that sought shelter in this oasis of delights set in the midst of barrenness.

Next morning we regaled ourselves again upon the fine-flavored fruits, looked longingly and regretfully toward the perfect little park, as we entered the rock doorway of the mines, and closing it carefully after us, I carefully instructed Lena in the working of the various doors, and the perplexing angles of the various branching passages, that in case anything should happen to cut short the uncertain earthly career of Abner and myself, Lena might not be shut out from her rightful inheritance, and gave to her, as a sort of last will and testament from me, a carefully prepared chart drawn by me at Chicago, of the course of the underground river from its deflection from the Colorado, the mouth of the mine, and a plan of the mines and vaults themselves, so that by its aid, in connection with her knowledge of the place, it formed a complete guide to every apartment; while to the uninstructed it would be as unintelligible as Sanskrit or Modoc.

With Lena’s cheery, ringing laughter at thought of our queer surroundings echoing through the dark uncanny vaults and aisles, where the bones of ancient Israelites moldered, the artfully contrived doorways again shutting in the secrets of Solomon from the world, we return to our horses and the outer world, mount and ride through the bracing mountain air to join our attendants in camp, satisfied with our adventure, and ready to retrace our way to Leadville, whence we intend to travel by rail to San Francisco, and thence by ship to Mexico, to visit the scene of Corinthia’s sorrows and triumphs, to ponder by the ruins of her palace, and reflect upon the folly of human strife, and the wickedness of human jealousy; where I hope to point a sly moral for the benefit of the feminine world in general, and a solemn warning to Lena in particular, to eschew that unreasonable and direful form of hatred toward her sister woman called jealousy.

Having thus, like a wise man, foreseen the evil and hidden myself behind the bulwark of admonition, I shall laugh at the calamity of the simple man who passes on, and is punished.

Our next objective point was reached in due time, partly by rail, partly by steamer, and partly by burro express. Here on Mexican soil we lingered, exploring the ruins of vast buildings devoted to worship, and magnificent palaces and places of pleasure, ruined baths, fragments of cemented aqueducts, all indicating the high degree of perfection in the arts of civilization to which they had attained.

Stupendous piles of masonry, in the form of pyramids, spoke of Egyptian influences. The beautiful adornment of the inner walls of their temples with images of scroll work and basket work seemed but a rehearsal of the story of the building and adorning of Solomon’s temple, and the picture writings on wall and arch, indicating the movements of the planets, the occurrence of eclipses at a precise future date predicted by symbols with the knowledge of astronomy that it involved, and the undoubted proofs of the worship of the sun in a secondary sense, all pointed to Accadian learning and superior mental acumen.

To the archæologists who had been here before me these three classes of ruins had been a puzzle and a perplexity. Facts apparently in direct contradiction to each other, which they strove to reconcile by murmuring Aztec, Toltec, Egyptian. But to me, in the light of the knowledge I had drunk from the tablets, it was as plain and simple as the day; each fragment over which my brother studied, fumed, and sweated in vain endeavor to harmonize them into a whole, came together at the bidding of the Accadian historian, like the separate parts of King Solomon’s temple, where the sound of the hammer was not heard. To me there was no question of Aztec and Toltec.

It was simply Israelitish and Accadian. The blending of the genius of two gifted peoples into a harmonious whole, yet preserving distinctly marked individuality of the two nations.

The bias toward a pyramidal form of building was the natural result of centuries of bondage on the part of Israel in Egypt. Here, too, they gained some knowledge of picture writing, as it is known that Moses was familiar with this form of records, which was taken up, and improved by the Accadians as being in line with their taste for intellectual pursuits, particularly of astronomy.

From my vantage ground of absolute knowledge on the subject, I could see the sublime leadings of Providence in all these changes of the Israelites, which seemed in themselves great hardships, but were, in reality, merely natural steps in the evolution of a learned and polished nation from crude ancestry.

The bondage in Egypt gave them new views upon many subjects. Architecture, astronomy, and in the art of symbol writing, or ideographic writing. Under the tyranny and selfish ambition of the latter years of Solomon’s reign their energies began to yield to oppression, and their powers began to wane. Then came the Babylonian captivity, bringing them into close contact with the superior Accadians from the mountains of Elim, and by intermarriage the infusion of new energy was brought about, and with the thorough blending of their nationalities promised to become the most powerful, the most pious, and the most learned nation of earth.

But before that happy climax was reached, sinister forces arose, as we have seen, and divorced the almost united scions of the two distinct branches, causing blight and disease to attack the fresh, bleeding wound, until it had destroyed the whole tree.

We lingered contentedly by the ruins of proud cities of the past, and feasted amid the world of knowledge unlocked by the golden key of Ophir. Here was a city builded of shining white limestone, whose streets were laid in various-colored cement, reflecting from wall and street the splendor of solar light and diffusing the knowledge of an interesting people to succeeding generations.

Again we walked in the ruined gardens and parks of other cities, where fountains had gurgled forth their liquid music and flowers had lent their charms to the senses where semi-tropical trees had shed their wealth of beauty and fragrance in bloom and verdure.

But above all these sights that charmed us and beguiled the passing moments, one class of objects had power to wholly absorb our interest and fascinate for hours together, at one point, and that which so bewitched us as to render us oblivious of all else beside, was the picture writings we found on the ruins of temple and tomb.

I now had an assistant in my linguistic labors who threatened to become my tutor by her aptness and earnestness in deciphering difficult passages. The language was the same as that which I found upon the walls of Ophir, and on the tablets in the vault, though there were continually occurring new symbols and characters which kept us constantly in the rôle of students; and the information we gained from them rounded out our meagre knowledge gleaned from the tablets until we had the history of the ten tribes from the period of their coming to the shores of the new Canaan, with tolerable clearness, down to the close of the beauteous Corinthia’s reign, where it seemed to break off abruptly as though some great upheaval had interrupted their national life, and brought disaster upon the head of national progress, decay upon the brightness of their proud civilization.

At Palenque we wandered over the remains of a splendid temple of worship that must have resembled the Temple of Solomon very closely. I hired some workmen here, after obtaining leave of the proper authorities, and made extensive excavations around this interesting relic, and was more and more impressed with the resemblance that it bore to the great temple at Jerusalem with its cloisters and courts, sepulchers, and subterranean galleries.

Here again we found the thread of the historian’s narrative and traced it through the same succession of events and incidents, the same abandon of admiration for their Cleopatra of the West, and finally the same abrupt ending of the annals of this people.

A summer of genuine pleasure passed away and found us still lingering to enjoy the feast of intellect spiced by “gentle dalliance” with connubial love and Platonic affinity.

All our efforts failed to wring any further information from the unfeeling brick and stone, and we were obliged at last to conclude that the finis of Ophir’s history, as a people, had been written, perhaps in blood and violence, possibly by pestilence, hardly by gradual decline and decay, else why should the historians break off so suddenly and so completely. One other field still lured us on to delve in its rich stores of antiquities in the hope that the thread of the narrative might be resumed. A country more intensely interesting if possible than that of Ophir, namely Peru, the land of the Incas, of fabulous wealth pounced upon by the pitiless and mercenary Spaniards, while they butchered mercilessly whoever stood between them and their coveted booty.

Our journey to Peru involved the necessity of an ocean voyage which was a pleasant incident in our wedding tour, except that during a severe gale encountered by our ship we seemed to have the honey of our bridal moon somewhat mixed with bile, menacing the stability of our gastric institutions, and almost shaking the constancy of our purpose to continue in the flesh any longer.

Arrived at Cuzco, we were struck at once with the similarity of the ruins to those of Ophir, and our zeal was as fierce, and our appetites for hieroglyphics as unsatisfied, as ever.

At first we found apparently a large addition to the system of picture writing in vogue at Ophir, but a few days’ hard work and brain-splitting comparisons showed us that it was in reality two distinct systems, and was inscribed upon two systems of architecture as distinct as the language themselves.

The new element, or as we learned, the new language, was doubtless that of the aboriginal dwellers in Peru, before the coming of the Incas, and its study, therefore, nothing to our present purpose.

Ignoring it then we began again to make some progress in deciphering the writings of the worshipers of the sun. Strangely familiar too were the ornamental scrolls and vases with which the inner walls of the temples of worship were decorated. The gold and silver vessels were seemingly as common in the palaces of Cuzco as are those of the commonest china with us.

Surrounding these palaces were the ruins of costly and exquisitely artistic gardens, containing once, no doubt, the most beautiful natural flowers, and to bridge over the chasm between their ephemeral yearly stay, art had mingled with the living plants imitations in gold and silver so perfect in form, and so just in proportion, as to excite the sense of smell in expectation of the accompanying fragrance, and deceive the eye and provoke the sense of touch to substantiate the evidence of the other sense only to expose the clever deception upon nature.

Spanish historians have recorded the glories of the temple at Cuzco, dedicated to the worship of the sun, with its image of the sun upon the inner wall opposite the eastern portal of the temple, where the first rays of its prototype might kiss into life at morning, and reflect its dazzling rays throughout the temple flooding it with glory.

It remained for us to unearth the golden image that had figured so conspicuously in the Spanish revelries and excesses under Pizarro.

A Peruvian legend runs, that during the night following the possession of Cuzco by the invaders, the cavaliers gave themselves up to unbridled license and bacchanalian rioting and plundering, securing many rich trophies of gold and silver from the public places of worship. One of the troopers had obtained possession of this now famous image of the sun, a human face with golden rays, in imitation of the sun’s rays, emanating in all directions from it.

His elation at his sudden good fortune took the form of a desire to double his store of gold at gaming; so he staked it and lost it. Half-crazed with grief and strong drink he swore vengeance on his lucky opponent and stealthily followed him through the darkened street at midnight, ran him through with his poniard, regained possession of his treasure, and his comrade’s portion also, and fled. But now that he had recovered his prize, he was in sore perplexity to know how to retain it, and escape the wrath of his commander, should his crime be discovered; for however meritorious it might be to slay an innocent, defenseless Peruvian, it might be a bad night’s job for him to deprive Pizarro of one of his adventurous followers when his force was already so small, and the need of more plunderers so great. At last he bethought him of a device by which he hoped to escape with both his head and his golden image.

Having first carefully concealed his booty, and in doing so, as he found to his sorrow, “builded better than he knew,” he dragged the lifeless body of his victim to the latticed doorway of one of the vaults beneath the temple, where a number of the submissive Peruvians were confined as hostages for the delivering of an immense treasure promised the cruel Spaniard as the price of their liberty when captured; the cavaliers being thus able to carry on in a smaller way a business as diabolical as that of Pizarro toward Atahualpa, the ruling Inca, whom Pizarro murdered in cold blood after he had paid the ransom of a room full of gold as high as Atahualpa could reach, according to the terms of a solemn agreement between the guileless Inca and the fiendish Spaniard.

The cavalier then slipped his bloody poniard through the bars into the cell of the prisoners, and then running breathless with haste and simulated fright to Pizarro, called on him for vengeance against the treacherous Peruvians, saying that as he and his comrade stood just outside the bars of the vault where their prisoners were confined, proposing terms of liberation, one of the Peruvians crept up to the bars, screened by his mates, and reaching through the lattice, snatched his own poniard from its scabbard and plunged it into the heart of his comrade, who chanced at that moment to move a little nearer the door.

Such an outrage could not of course be overlooked by Pizarro, the pious soldier of the cross, so he promptly ordered that every one of the prisoners should be burned at the stake forthwith, and our cavalier was commissioned to carry out the righteous sentence, which he did with great alacrity, not one of the poor fellows living to see the morning light.

But whether it is possible that some twinges of remorse could have entered a heart so cold and pitiless as the cavalier had shown his to be, and so disturbed his mind as to impair his memory, or whether, as seems more in keeping with his revealed character of miser, murderer, and conspirator, his over-anxiety to secrete it safely got the better of him, will never be known; but certain it is, so the legend goes, that when Pizarro had accomplished all his nefarious work of ruin and bloodshed upon a happy and innocent people, and prepared to move his forces toward the seacoast, that our cavalier could not find the place where he had hidden the image of the sun, and after searching earnestly for several hours unsuccessfully, he became frantic, and raved and routed up and down the street in the region of the great temple, uttering imprecations too horrible to repeat, and tearing his hair for very fury.

At last he was seen to take a little powder from his pocket, and in a few moments his raidings and ravings, his lurid profanity, and his all-devouring cruelty and greed, were things of the past forever with him, for he died as the fool dieth, by his own hand.

And to-day the Peruvians say that the spot which he profaned is haunted by his restless spirit, that at every phase of the moon corresponding with that of the night when he died, his ghost walks and talks, searches and gesticulates in vain endeavor to find the lost treasure. While some venturous spirits declared that they had approached near enough to the airy being to distinguish the haggard, grief-stricken features of his distorted countenance, and to plainly mark him in the act of tearing his hair in impotent ghostly rage that the object of his search still eluded his grasp and kept the worn and disquieted spirit ever in a ceaseless round of fruitless wanderings.

Some of the more timorous ones aver that when the wind moans dismally through the trees and avenues, they can hear his mournful sighs as he wanders wearily up and down from midnight until dawn begins to flush the east, and when the tempest rages wildly, they even believe that they can distinguish the sound of his voice in wild blasphemy, and blood-curdling oaths borne on the wings of the blast.

Perhaps you and I can understand partly why they never hear his voice in calm, fair weather; but the traditions and superstitions of these people are as deeply rooted in their lives as other, and perhaps as unreasonable ones, dear reader, are inseparably fixed in our beings in this highly favored land that we all love so well.

A great shout went up from my workmen when, in one of the vaults beneath the old temple, they unearthed the famous image, perfect yet in every particular, and wrapped carefully in the tattered remains of a Spanish cloak.

None of the trophies brought away from Peru as the result of my labors in antiquarian fields can compare in value with this one in my estimation, and as I look at its burnished countenance, seeming to beam forth peace and good will, it typifies to me that hapless people who perished in such numbers at the hands of the foreign hordes of adventurers and gold-seekers, while those who were spared were reduced to straits so pitiable that they had reason to weep, not for their slaughtered friends, but for themselves, because of the miseries that had come like a clap of thunder from a serene sky upon their lives.

They were a happy example of a people working and planning in common for the common good, and their contented, happy national and individual life shamed the boasted civilization of Europe, so that a Spanish writer while attempting to describe the condition of comfort, plenty, and even luxury, of their surroundings, disclaimed the power to make a comparison that would convey a just idea of the people to his countrymen at home, from the fact that there was nothing in all the range of his knowledge to which it was comparable.

But I had a more serious task to perform in Cuzco than merely trophy-hunting. I had a deep conviction borne in upon my mind that here was the missing link in the chain of evidence that was to answer the question so often asked, but never heretofore answered in the world. What was the fate of the ten tribes, and in what far off land have they found a home to become changed by climatic adoption, and the great law of evolution that forbids stagnation in nature, and decrees that man shall progress either forward or backward?

While humbly mindful of my human weakness, I yet take a very human pride in the fact that it was reserved for Lena and myself, of all the millions of mortals who have trodden this earth in the centuries that are already numbered by decades since the Babylonian captivity, to answer that question intelligently and finally.

A story more fascinating than those of Arabian Nights or fairies, the tale of real beings of flesh and blood with all our own ambitions and hopes and desires is here written legibly and unmistakably when once the tangled thread of narrative is unwound.

The story of the engrafting of the Inca scion upon the Peruvian stock, under circumstances that proved the identity of the Incas as a remnant of the people of Ophir, is very complete and satisfactory.

The coming of the first Inca among the people of Peru with his golden wedge and mysterious religion, which he claimed to have received directly from heaven, and to have come himself directly from the sun, is clearly explained by the picture writings of Ophir and Peru.

The wedge was an ever present symbol about the altars and temples in Mexico, until it became gradually an object of worship among the Hebrews and Elimites alike. Should circumstances permit, perhaps I shall some day write the sequel to the story of Ophir, and detail the circumstances under which Corinthia’s kingdom was rent asunder after her reign was finished, and how all that were left of the Israelites wandered to the southward, and amalgamated with the Peruvians, and again grew to be powerful and prosperous, only to be swallowed by the bloodthirsty Spaniards. The happy circles of friends that were broken and shattered by avarice, and the mournfully romantic story of Atahualpa, the reigning Inca when Pizarro came, and the grief and despair of his young sweetheart who was bereaved, and who narrowly escaped a fate worse than bereavement or death.

But now we must turn our faces homeward again, for we have work to do for humanity there. Richly laden with the trophies of our sojourn among the moldering ruins of the past, we re-embark for our own shores and, favored by wind and tide, we stand in due time upon our native soil once more, and in a few hours’ travel overland we annihilate the stretch of miles that lies between us and home.

The first familiar face to greet us as we alight from the comfortable parlor on wheels, is that of our picturesque disciple of the red shirt, Abner, who greets us with his old hearty good will and makes us feel that it is good to be among friends again. He is quickly followed by my revered uncle and Lena’s parents, who escort us in triumph to our own quarters. Age seemed to have toyed with our relatives very gently, and as for Abner, he appeared still to be engaged in the pleasant task of growing younger, and in the art of enjoying himself every hour of the day.

Leaving our friends to enjoy the calm afternoon of life, with reason sitting serenely enthroned to guide their bark to the haven, and the fiercer passions that warp human judgment cooled, and the prejudices of youth somewhat modified by universal benevolence born of experience among men, we soon begin active preparations for carrying out our great industrial co-operative plan to stimulate honest industry, and curb, in some measure, the tendency of wealth to encroach upon the sacred rights of poverty, and relieve poverty from the necessity of truckling to wealth.

To our surprise and gratification we learned on our return that several of the wealthiest manufacturers of Chicago and New York had expressed a desire to adopt our plan extensively, and only awaited our experiment to prove its practicability. We now have our plan in operation; it has been thoroughly tested, and it has been successful beyond our highest hopes.

Not only that, but it is being adopted all over our country, and we hope to live to see a time when it will be in universal use throughout the world. It has gone far toward furnishing a solution of the difficult problem of harmonizing labor and capital; and, as Abner and I smoke our evening cigar together, we feel that we toiled in the mountains, ventured amid the perils of Indian warfare, and tempted the dangerous current not wholly in vain.

THE END.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

- Clear typos and wrong punctuation were corrected.

- New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the
public domain.

- Some inconsistent hyphenated words have been normalized.

- Text between _underscores_ represents italics.