The Aztec Treasure-House Part 12

XX.

THE PRIEST CAPTAIN'S SUMMONS.

There was so much meaning in my look as I turned towards Tizoc that I had no need to speak; he knew that I had comprehended the situation, and so answered my look in words.

"Do you wonder that I rejoice over your coming, and over the news which you bring? The will of the G.o.ds no longer is that we shall do the work for which our lord Chaltzantzin destined us; therefore are we free to set aside the custom that he decreed by which our weak ones are condemned to death, and with it the custom, yet more cruel, of our own devising, by which they are saved from death only that they may be made slaves. To my boy neither slavery nor death shall come. Through you the G.o.ds have spoken, and he is saved. And now also is fulfilled the prophecy that of ancient times was spoken, that with the coming into the Valley of Aztlan of a four-footed beast, bearing upon its back a man, the power of the Priest Captain should end."

Much more, doubtless, Tizoc would have said to us, for an exalted emotion stirred him; but at that moment there was the sound of hurrying feet in the outer enclosure, and then Tizoc's secretary came through the narrow entrance into the court-yard, followed closely by a detachment of the guards. The secretary spoke hurriedly to his master, apart from us, and from his excited manner in speaking, and from the anxious look upon his master's face as he listened, we inferred that some very stirring matter was involved in the communication that he brought.

For a few moments Tizoc stood in silence, his head bowed, as though engaged in earnest thought. Then he turned to us and spoke. "The Priest Captain has sent his order that you shall be brought before him," he said, "and that you must go hence without delay." And then he added, taking me aside and speaking in a low voice: "There is great commotion already in the city, for the soldiers have noised abroad the news which you bring. The Council of the Twenty Lords has been called together, and I am told that a messenger from the Council is on his way hither. That my order to take you to the city in such haste, and directly to the Priest Captain, is so stringent, I cannot but think is caused by his desire to get you hence before the messenger from the Council shall arrive. His purpose towards you surely is an evil one; but fear not--you bring a message of freedom and deliverance that has only to be published to raise around you a host of friends. And now we must go."

In a few moments we had quitted Tizoc's house, pa.s.sed out through the fortified gate-way in the heavy wall by which the little plateau on the mountain side was defended; and so, by a broad road that descended sharply, went downward towards the border of the lake. Our order of march was the same as that adopted in bringing us from the Barred Pa.s.s: before us and behind us were detachments of the guards, and Tizoc walked with us. In accordance with his desire, that he expressed to me in a cautious whisper, Pablo rode upon El Sabio's back. There was no need for him to explain his motive in making this suggestion. It was his purpose, evidently, to exhibit the fulfilment of the prophecy as conspicuously as possible, and so to prepare the ground for the sowing of the seeds of revolt.

I had an opportunity now to tell Rayburn and Young of what Tizoc had been speaking at the moment when the summons from the Priest Captain came; and also of the strong personal reason that he had for protecting us, even to the extent of forwarding the outbreak of revolution, in his desire to save from death or slavery the son whom he so well loved.

"I'm not at all surprised to hear that what we've told 'em is going to start a revolution," Rayburn said. "That's just the way I sized the matter up, you know, as soon as I got down to the first facts. If they'd had a decent sort of a fellow at the head of things, they might have worked along so as to take a fresh start without fighting over it. But this Priest Captain chap isn't that kind. He goes in for Boss management and machine politics, I should judge from what the Colonel says, as straight as if he was a New York alderman or the chairman of a State campaign committee in Ohio. No doubt he's got a pretty big crowd back of him; but that kind of a crowd don't amount to much in a fight, when there's any sort of a show for the other side to win. It sort of gets out of the way, and stands around with water on both shoulders, and then, when one side begins to get pretty well on top--it don't matter which--it says that that's the side it's been fighting with all along, and begins to kick the fellows that are down. Where our chance comes in is in having the respectable element, the solid men who pay taxes and have an interest in decent government, to tie to. They may not pay taxes here, but that's the kind I mean. And that kind, when it takes to fighting, fights hard. Then there must be a lot of fathers with crippled children, like the Colonel here, who are down on the Priest Captain the worst kind, and will be only too glad of a chance to go for him; and they can be counted on to stand in with us, and to fight harder than anybody. I'll admit, Professor, that we're in a pretty tight place; but it might be a good deal tighter, and I do honestly believe that we'll get out of it."

"And so do I," said Young, "'specially now that I know that that burro of Pablo's is part of a prophecy. I always did think that there was style about El Sabio, any way, an' now I know what it comes from. When I was a boy, th' one thing that used t' keep me quiet in church was hearin' our minister read that story about Balaam and _his_ burro; but I never thought then that I'd actually ketch up with a live a.s.s that was in the prophesyin' line of business for itself--or had prophecies made about it, which is pretty much the same thing. T' be sure, this prophecy don't come down t' dots quite as much as I'd like it to; but I s'pose that that's th' way with 'em always--eh, Professor? Th' prophets sort o'

leave things at loose ends on purpose; so's they can run 'wild' on a clear track, without any bother about schedule time or connections."

"Well, our burro lays over Balaam's," Rayburn struck in. "In that case it took the combined arguments of an a.s.s and an angel to convince Balaam that he was off about his location, and was running his lines all wrong; but, unless we count in Pablo, El Sabio is playing a lone hand; and I'm sure that the Colonel's not fooling us about this prophecy business, either. It's rubbish, of course; but that don't matter, so long as the people here swallow it for the genuine thing. Just look at that old fellow there. He's tumbled to it, and he's regularly knocked out."

We were close to the sh.o.r.e of the lake by this time, and as Rayburn spoke we were pa.s.sing a small house, in front of which was gathered a group of Indians. In the midst of the group was a very old man, who with out-stretched arm was pointing towards Pablo and El Sabio, and who at the same time was talking to his companions in grave and earnest tones. There was a look of awe upon his age-worn face, and as we fairly came abreast of him he dropped upon his knees and raised his arms above his head, as though in supplication to some higher power. The action, truly, was a most impressive one; and even more strongly than we were affected by it did it affect those who were cl.u.s.tered around him. In a moment all in the group had fallen upon their knees and had raised their arms upward; and then a low moaning, that presently grew louder and more thrilling, broke forth among them as they gave vent to the feeling of awful dread that was in their hearts.

"That's business, that is," Young said, in tones of great satisfaction.

"Those fellows do believe in th' prophecy, for a fact; and if th' folks once get it fairly into their heads that th' time has come for their rascally Priest Captain t' have an upset, that's a good long start for our side towards upsettin' him. It was just everlastin'ly level-headed in th' Colonel t' make Pablo ride El Sabio, and so regularly cram th'

thing down these critters' throats. I don't know how much of th'

prophecy he believes himself, but he's workin' it for all it's worth, any way. There don't seem t' be any flies worth speakin' of on th'

Colonel--eh, Professor? And I guess that anybody who wants t' get up earlier 'n th' mornin' than he does 'll have to make a start overnight."

By this time the road that we followed had come down to the lake-level, and presently we reached the end of it, which was a well-built pier that extended out from the shelving sh.o.r.e into deep water. Here a boat was in waiting for us--a barge of near forty feet in length, with twenty men to row it, and carrying also a mast, stepped well forward, so rigged as to spread a sail that was a compromise between a lug and a lateen. There was some little talk between the officer in charge of the barge and Tizoc, and then the latter motioned us to go on board. The barge-master gave the order to the guard to follow us, as though the command of the party now had devolved upon him; and it seemed to us, from the close group that the guard made around us in the boat, and from the anxious looks which the barge-master cast upon us, that very strict orders must have been given concerning keeping us closely in ward. Under these circ.u.mstances, it caused us some little wonder that we were permitted to retain our arms, until the thought occurred to me that these people, having no knowledge of such things, did not at all realize that our rifles and revolvers were arms at all. To test which theory I drew one of my pistols--not violently, but as though this were something that I was doing for my own convenience--and so held it in my hands that the muzzle was pointed directly at the heart of the soldier who sat beside me; yet beyond the interest that its odd shape, and the strange metal that it was made of aroused in him, it was evident that the man regarded my action entirely without concern. I drew the attention of Rayburn and Young to what I was doing, and to how evident it was that fire-arms were unknown to this people; and in their ignorance we found much cause for satisfaction.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHECKING YOUNG'S OUTBREAK]

"If they don't know enough to corral our guns," Young said, "we've got a pretty good-sized piece of dead-wood on 'em. Th' way things are goin', we may have a rumpus a'most any time, I s'pose; and if it does come to a rumpus, they'll be a badly struck lot when we open on 'em. Robinson Crusoe cleaned out a whole outfit of Indians with just an old flint-lock musket; and I should say that we'd simply paralyze this crowd when we all get goin' at once with our revolvers an' Winchesters. Isn't that your idea of it, Rayburn?"

But Rayburn did not answer, for while Young was speaking he had taken out his field-gla.s.s and was examining the city, to within three or four miles of which we now were come. "Well, that _is_ a walled city, and no mistake!" he said, as he lowered the gla.s.s from his eyes. "Take a look, Professor. These people may be easy to fool when it comes to prophecies, but when it comes to engineering and architecture they're sound all the way through. Just look at the straightness of that wall running up the hill, and how exact the alignment is of the two parts above and below that ledge of rocks. They had to get that alignment, you know, by taking fore-sights and back-sights from the top of the ledge; and I must say that for people who haven't got far enough along in civilization to wear trousers, it's an uncommonly pretty piece of work."

As I looked through the gla.s.s I was less impressed by this technical detail, involving the overcoming of engineering difficulties which I did not very thoroughly understand, than I was by the majestic effect produced by the city as a whole, in conjunction with the site on which it was reared. At this point the lake came close up to the vastly high cliffs by which the valley everywhere was girt in, and here jutted out from the cliff a great promontory of rock, whereof the highest part was fully two hundred feet above the lake-level. For the accommodation of the houses which everywhere were built upon it, the sloping face of this promontory had been cut into broad terraces, of which the facings were ma.s.sive walls of stone; and the whole was enclosed by a wall of great height and enormous thickness that swept out in an immense semicircle from the face of the cliff, and thus shut in the terraced promontory and also a considerable area of level land at the base of it between the lowest terrace and the margin of the lake.

On the highest terrace, crowning and dominating the whole, was a majestic building that seemed to be half temple and half fort--a square structure, resting solidly against the face of the cliff, and thence projecting a long way outward to where its facade was flanked by two low, heavy, square towers. Architecturally, this building, unlike any other of which I had knowledge in Mexico, saving only the temple that we had found upon the lonely mountain-top, was pervaded by a distinctly Egyptian sentiment. Its walls sloped inward from their bases, and no trivial nor fretful lines weakened the effect of their ma.s.sive dignity; for the whole of the decoration upon them was a broad panelling that was gained by a combination of heavy pilasters and a heavy cornice; and with the exception of a central entrance, the front was unbroken by openings of any kind. Possessing these characteristics, the building had about it an air of solemnity that bordered closely upon gloom; and the obvious solidity of its construction was such that it seemed destined to last on through all coming ages in defiance of the a.s.saults of time. There was no need for me to question Tizoc; for I knew that what I beheld before me, crowning with sombre grandeur this strange city, girded with such prodigious walls, was the Treasure-house that Chaltzantzin, the Aztec King, had builded in the dim dawning of a most ancient past.

Young took his turn in looking through the gla.s.s, and as he handed it to Fray Antonio he said: "If at any time in th' course o' th' past few weeks, Professor, you've got th' notion from any o' my talk that I thought that dead friend o' yours, th' old monk, was a liar, I want t'

take it all back; and I want t' take back all that I've said about that other dead friend o' yours, th' Cacique, havin' set up a job on us. It's clear enough now that both o' your friends played an entirely square game. They said that there was a walled city, an' there it is; they said that there was a big Treasure-house, an' there _that_ is. They were perfect gentlemen, Professor, and I want t' set myself right on th'

record by sayin' so. If one of 'em hadn't been dead for more than three months, and if th' other one hadn't been dead for more than three hundred years, and if they both were here, I'd knuckle under and ask 'em t' take my hat."

XXI.

THE WALLED CITY OF CULHUACAN.

Our use in turn of the field-gla.s.s was a mysterious performance that aroused keenly the barge-master's curiosity. I heard him ask Tizoc for an explanation of it; and Tizoc, who also was much interested, referred his question to me. Had I been dealing with Tizoc alone I should have tried to make the matter clear to him; but in the case of the barge-master, whose feeling towards us, I was convinced, was anything but friendly, I thought it wiser to be less frank. Therefore, covering the action with a negligent motion of my hand, I screwed the gla.s.ses close together, so that in looking through them there was to be seen only a ma.s.s of indistinct objects looming up in a blurred cloud of light, and so handed them to him. Naturally, neither he nor Tizoc arrived at any very satisfactory conclusion in regard to the real use of them; and from their talk it was evident that they conceived the ceremony in which we had engaged in turn so earnestly to be in the nature of a prayer to our G.o.ds. Fray Antonio was both shocked and pained by their taking this view of the matter, and was for making a true explanation to them; but at my urgent request he held his peace. Yet it was evident that he brooded over the matter in his mind, and so was led to earnest thoughts of the mission that had brought him hither into the Valley of Aztlan. Therefore was I not surprised--though I certainly was alarmed by the thought of what might be its consequences--when presently, in low and gentle tones, he began to speak to those about him of the free and glorious Christian faith, which in all ways was more excellent than the cruel idolatry in which they were bound. Naturally, he was not permitted long to speak in this strain, for the barge-master speedily ordered him in most peremptory tones to keep silence; which order doubtless would have been still more quickly given had not the officer been fairly surprised by Fray Antonio's temerity into momentary forgetfulness of the dangerous outcome of this gentle talk. And Fray Antonio, knowing the value of the word in season that is dropped to fructify in soil ready for it, did not attempt argument with the barge-master--by which the thoughts of those who listened would have been diverted from the hopeful promise of a better faith that he had offered to them--but obeyed the order meekly and so held his peace. That what he had spoken had taken hold upon the hearts of some at least among his hearers I was well a.s.sured by their grave look of thoughtfulness, and especially did Tizoc seem to be deeply moved; but--as I supposed for fear of the barge-master--there was no open comment upon what had pa.s.sed.

By this time, the barge being all the while urged rapidly forward by the steady strokes of the twenty oarsmen, the city rose so broadly and so openly before us that we could see the whole of it distinctly with our naked eyes. And what at this nearer view seemed most impressive about it was its gloominess; that was due not less to the prison-like effect of its heavily built houses and its ma.s.sive walls than to the dull blackness of the stone whereof these same were made. Nowhere was there sparkle, or glitter, or bright color, or brightness of any sort to be seen; and it seemed to me, as I gazed upon this sombre stronghold, that dwelling always within it well enough might wear a man's heart out with a consuming melancholy begotten of its cold and cheerless tones.

That it was indeed a stronghold was the more apparent to us the nearer that we came to it. The plan of it was that of a great fan, spread open upon the hillside, and extending also across the broad sweep of level land between the base of the promontory and the lake. The promontory had been so cut and shaped that its gentle slope had been transformed into six broad semicircular terraces, above the highest of which was a semicircular plateau of very considerable size, on which stood the Treasure-house, that also was the great temple. Along the face of each terrace, and around the face also of the plateau, a heavy defensive wall rose to a height of twenty feet or more; and from the base of the crowning plateau, thence accessible by a single broad flight of stairs--being led through openings in the rampart walls of the terraces, and down each terrace face by means of stair-ways--twelve streets descended, of which the central six ended at the water-side and the remainder against the great outer wall. It was this outer line of strong defence that gave the city--which otherwise would have corresponded curiously closely with the fortified city of Quetzaltepec, described by the Mexican chronicler Tezozomoc--its most distinctive characteristic. Such a vastly thick wall, for the great length of it, as this was I never have seen in any other place; and so solid was the building of it that it would have been proof against any ordinary train of siege artillery. For defence against a foe whose only missile weapons would be javelins and slings and bows, this great wall made the city absolutely impregnable. And that the protection that it gave might be still more complete--and also, as Tizoc explained to us, that in the case of siege the water supply might be a.s.sured, together with a supply of fish for food--the wall was carried out into the lake so far as to enclose a basin of more than four acres in extent; within which, should an enemy gain access to the valley, all the boats upon the lake could be brought together and held in safety. And finally, the one entrance to the city was by way of a tunnel-like ca.n.a.l cut in the wall thus rising from the water; the outer end of which ca.n.a.l was closed in ordinary times by a heavy grating, while in war time the inner end also could be closed by means of great metal bars.

It was towards this entrance that the barge that carried us was heading.

Presently we reached it, and the grating was raised for our admission by means of chains which were operated from the top of the wall. So low and so narrow was the pa.s.sage that our heads were within a few inches of the huge slabs of stone of which its roof was formed; and the rowers had need to unstep the mast and then to lay their oars inboard, while they brought the barge through by pus.h.i.+ng with their hands against the roof and sides. The ca.n.a.l was fully forty feet long, and thus the enormous thickness of the wall was made apparent to us. It truly was, as I observed to Rayburn, a work that well might be attributed to the Cyclops.

"I never met a live Cyclop, Professor," Rayburn answered, "and I don't believe that these fellows ever did either; but it bothers me to know how they managed to do work like this without a steam-derrick. If we get out of here with whole skins and our hair on our heads, I hope it won't be until I've had a chance to talk to some of their engineers, and so get down to the facts."

A moment later we emerged from the tunnel through the wall, and so entered the enclosed basin that extended along the whole of the city's front. Within the basin were lying many canoes, and also boats of a larger sort that carried oars and that were rigged with a sort of lug-sail; but these all kept away from us, even as all the boats which we had seen during our pa.s.sage of the lake had given us a wide berth.

That our barge--one of those employed exclusively in the Priest Captain's service--was thus shunned was due, as I found later, to the wholesome dread in which the special servitors of the temple and of its head universally were held; for these very frequently abused the authority acquired through their semi-sacerdotal functions by using it as a cloak to cover acts of purely personal oppression, while at all times they were feared as the executors of their master's wrath. There was, indeed (though I did not mention this fact to Fray Antonio), a curiously close resemblance between the officials of this cla.s.s and the familiars of the Inquisition, both in the duties which they performed and in the fear and hatred which they everywhere inspired.

But even dread of entanglement with the Priest Captain's servants could not restrain the curiosity of the crowd that pressed towards us on the broad pier upon which we disembarked. It was evident that this crowd was not made up of the common folk of the city, and also that it was moved by a purpose far higher than that of a mere idle longing to see something that was strange. From their dress, and still more from the beauty of their ornaments and the elegance of the arms which many of them carried, it was obvious that for the most part these men were citizens of the highest rank; and this fact was still further attested by the dignity of their demeanor and by the reverent age to which the majority of them had attained. So far from manifesting any vulgar excitement, the crowd maintained an absolute silence; and with this an exterior air of calm that was the more impressive because the eager, almost awe-struck expression upon every face showed how strong was the emotion that thus strongly was restrained. But when El Sabio, after much coaxing, crossed the gang-plank between the boat and the pier, and so came to where he could be seen of all plainly, there was a curious low sound in the air as though all at once every man in the crowd had heaved a sigh; and the sound swelled into a loud murmur as Pablo, in obedience to a quick order that I gave him in Spanish, briskly mounted upon the a.s.s's back. In this murmur only one word was intelligible, and that I caught again and again: the prophecy!

But Pablo was no more than fairly seated upon El Sabio's back than the officer in command of our guard took him roughly by the shoulders and s.n.a.t.c.hed him thence to the ground again; which act led Tizoc and me to a quick exchange of startled glances, for it showed very plainly that the Priest Captain--to whom the messenger telling of our coming into the valley had been sent before any of these people had seen Pablo mounted upon El Sabio's back--had antic.i.p.ated this sign of the fulfilment of the prophecy and had given orders to prevent it. Luckily, the celerity with which Pablo had executed my quick order to mount had saved the day for us; and even more than saved it, for as we pa.s.sed through the crowd, on our way from the water-side into the city, I caught here and there fragments of comment upon what had just pa.s.sed which showed that not only was the sign told of in the prophecy recognized, but that the effort on the part of the officer to neutralize it was understood.

But before our going into the city there was a stirring conflict of authority concerning us between the temporal and the spiritual powers.

We were no more than fairly landed, indeed, when an officer addressed the barge-master, who continued in charge of our party, and gave him a formal order to bring the strangers directly before the Council of the Twenty Lords. And to this the barge-master replied that he already was under orders to bring the prisoners, immediately upon their landing, before the Priest Captain--and there was something both curious and ominous, it struck me, in the marked manner in which the term "strangers" was employed by one of these men and the term "prisoners" by the other.

At this juncture we had further proof of the foresight of the Priest Captain, and of the determined stand that he was prepared to make rather than to suffer the miscarriage of big plans. While the barge-master and the messenger from the Council still were engaged in hot talk as to which of the two conflicting orders should be recognised, there was the sound of tramping feet and of arms clanking; and then a body of fully one hundred soldiers came quickly from behind a house that was near by the water-side and swept down on a double-quick to where we were standing at the end of the pier. The crowd, jostled aside to make way for the pa.s.sage of the soldiers, evidently regarded them with astonishment; and this astonishment rapidly changed to anger as the purpose that brought them thither was made plain. In a moment they had closed in around us, separating us from the Council's messenger and from Tizoc; the barge-master placed himself at the head of them, and in sharp, quick tones gave the order to march; and the whole force, with ourselves in the centre of it, went off the pier at a round pace, and thence along a street that led towards the city's heart. Evidently acting under orders, the men broke their platoons and closed in around us; and I was well convinced that this unsoldierly marching was adopted to the end that El Sabio might not be seen.

Fray Antonio agreed with me that the Priest Captain was carrying matters with a dangerously high hand in thus opposing the will of the Council with armed force. This act of his, if Tizoc had correctly represented to us the excited condition of popular feeling, was quite sufficient in itself to stir into violent activity the slumbering fires of mutiny. But whether the revolt that we now believed must surely come would come in time to be of service to ourselves, we could not but look upon as a very open question.

"If this old scoundrel is as sharp as he seems to be," Rayburn said, "and if he keeps things up in the way he's begun, it's about all day with us. His play should be to get rid of us as quick as he can manage it; and I should judge, from the cards that he's put down, that that's precisely the way he means to manage the game. It's not much comfort to us to know that after he's cleaned us out somebody else will rake his pile."

As we talked, we went on rapidly through the city; and even the danger that we were in, and the excitement that attended this sudden s.h.i.+fting of our fortunes, could not prevent me from studying with a lively curiosity the many evidences of an advanced civilization that I beheld.

The plan of the city, as I had discerned while we were approaching it, was that of a wide-open fan. From the Treasure-house, on the height in the centre, twelve broad streets radiated outward, of which three on the northern side and three on the southern ended against the great enclosing wall, and six came down through openings in the walls along the several terraces directly to the water-front. All of these streets were well paved with large smooth blocks of stone, and were led up the faces of the terraces by wide and easy stairs. The transverse streets were true semicircles, starting from and ending at the face of the cliff, and were carried along the outer edges of the terraces, just inside their facing walls. Rayburn was even more astonished than I was by the exactness with which these great semicircles were laid off; for he apprehended, as I did not, the difficulty attendant upon running a line in a true and regular curve. But I am not prepared to say that this work could not have been accomplished by mere rule of thumb. My friend Bandelier, in the course of his admirable a.n.a.lysis of the ruins at Mitla, has made clear to me how easy it is to attribute to scientific knowledge work that is the result only of manual skill. As I have pointed out in my discussion of this matter in my _Pre-Columbian Conditions on the Continent of North America_, the plateau at the top of this range of terraces easily might have been laid off in a true semicircle by the simple means of a pointed stick at the end of a long rope; and from the true line thus established the line of the terrace below it could have been had--and so on down to the lowest terrace of all.

There could be no doubt, however, that engineering skill of a high order--howsoever crude might have been the actual method of its application--was exhibited both in the preparation of the site, and then in the city's building. On the site alone an almost incredible amount of labor had been expended; for the rocky promontory--that primitively, as the result showed, had been broken and irregular--had been so cut away in some places, and so filled in in others, and the whole of it had been so carefully trimmed and smoothed, that in the end it became a huge ma.s.s of rock-work, in the regularity of which there was not perceptible the smallest flaw. And in this preliminary work, as well as in the building of the houses afterwards, fragments of stone were used of such enormous size that the moving of them, Rayburn declared, would be wellnigh impossible even with the most powerful engineering appliances of our own time. Nor was the use of these huge pieces of stone confined to the foundations of the houses. Some of them were high above the ground; indeed, the very largest that we observed--the weight of which Rayburn estimated at not less than twenty tons--was a single block that made the entire top course of a high wall.

All of the stone-work was well smoothed and squared; and while the exteriors of the houses were entirely plain, we could see through the open door-ways that the interiors of many of them were enriched with carvings. All were dest.i.tute of windows opening upon the street; and their dull, black walls, and the dull black of the stones with which the streets were paved, gave a dark and melancholy air to the city that oppressed us even more heavily when thus seen closely than it had when we beheld it from afar off. Yet the interior court-yards, so far as we could tell from the glimpses that we had of them through open door-ways, were bright with suns.h.i.+ne and gay with flowers; thus showing that the gloom of these dwellings did not extend beyond their outer walls. I observed with much interest that the provision for closing the entrances from the street was not swinging doors of wood, but either metal bars, such as we had seen in Tizoc's house, or else a metal grating, that was arranged like a portcullis to slide up and down in a groove; and I attributed the absence of wooden doors less to a desire for stronger barriers than to the comparative recentness of the acquisition of the knowledge of wood-working tools. Here, I thought, was a curious instance of development along the lines of greatest resistance; for in itself the invention and the making of a swinging door of wood was a much easier matter than was the invention and the making of these finely wrought sliding doors of hardened gold.

As for Young, the sight of all this gold-work quite took his breath away. "It regularly jolts me, Professor," he said, "t' see th' genuine stuff, that's good t' make gold dollars out of, slung around this way. A front door of solid gold is a huckleberry above Jay Gould's biggest persimmon; an' as t' Solomon, these fellows just lay Solomon out cold--regularly down th' old man an' sit on him. Why, for just that one front door of th' big house ahead of us I'd sell out all my shares in this treasure-hunt, an' be glad t' do it. But I guess I'd have to hire Samson--who was in that line of business--t' carry it off for me. It must weigh a solid ton!"

By this time we had mounted all of the terraces, and the house towards which Young pointed as he spoke was built directly beneath the crowning plateau on which the great temple stood. It was the largest and by far the most elegant house that we yet had seen, and the sliding grating of gold that closed the entrance was unusually heavy, and very beautifully wrought. Sentinels were stationed here, wearing the same uniform as that of the soldiers who formed our guard; and this further indication of the importance of the building gave us the impression that it was the dwelling of some great dignitary. Close by the portal we were halted, while the commander of our guard spoke through the grating to some one inside. A moment later the grating was slowly raised, and we were marched through the narrow entrance, and so along a short pa.s.sage-way into a long, narrow chamber that obviously was a guard-room; for spears and javelins were ranged in orderly fas.h.i.+on upon racks, and swords and s.h.i.+elds and bows and quivers of arrows were hung upon the walls. Here we were halted again; and while we stood silent together, wondering what might be in store for us in this place, we heard the heavy grating behind us close with a dull clang.

XXII.