The Aztec Treasure-House Part 16

sailin' in, just makes me sick!"

Fray Antonio--whose habit of quiet was such that he rarely sought to take part in the talks that we had in English among ourselves--somewhat surprised me by asking me to translate to him what Young and Rayburn had been saying; and when he had heard it all he was silent for a while, and evidently was engaged in earnest thought. At last, speaking very gravely, he asked us if we greatly feared being thrust out from the valley in case the Council decided to accept the Priest Captain's terms; and without giving us a chance to answer, he bade us remember that we had not at all explored the last valley that we had pa.s.sed through before we entered the canon that ended at the Barred Pa.s.s, and that from it there well might be some outlet through which we could return to the civilized world; and even were we forced to end our days in it, he continued, speaking quickly and urgently, a much worse fate might come to us; for the valley was a bright and beautiful one, as we had seen, and had in it an abundant supply of food. Would living there, he asked, be any worse for us than living where we then were--where we were equally shut in? And even supposing that the war ended in victory for us, and that our allies gave us entire freedom of action, what more could we do than end our days in the Valley of Aztlan, or else go back to that other valley and search for an outlet thence whereby we could get into an open way among the mountains, and so once more to our homes?

And then, still denying us opportunity to answer, he went on to speak of the pain and misery and despairing sorrow that the threatened war would bring; and then, more gently, of the duty that pressed upon us of averting this calamity, that was also a crime, even though to do so we must sacrifice hopes and wishes very dear to our hearts.

"What th' d.i.c.kens is th' Padre drivin' at, anyway?" Young exclaimed; "I don't ketch on at all."

"No more do I," said Rayburn. "It's a first-rate sermon that he's giving us, but I don't see where he means the moral of it to fetch up."

For myself, so closely were Fray Antonio and I bound together by bonds of sympathy, I saw but too plainly what he meant should be the outcome of his discourse; and I was not surprised, therefore--though hearing thus plainly expressed in words what I had been dreading, sent a dull, cold pain into the very depths of my heart--when he unfolded to us the whole of the plan that he had been forming within his mind. What he said was said very simply, and with a loving sorrow for the pain that might come to us through shaping our actions in accordance with his strong desire; and this desire was: that, of our own free-will, we should retire from the valley by the way that we came thither, and so leave the Council free to accept unhesitatingly the Priest Captain's terms.

"And what of yourself?" I asked; for I felt within me a strong conviction that for himself he had in view a very different fate.

He hesitated for a moment before answering me, and his color changed a little; and then an unwonted ruddiness gave animation to his face, and a light of glad and strong resolve shone in his eyes as he replied, in a voice that was very low, and at the same time very clear and firm: "I shall go to the Priest Captain, in Culhuacan!"

"And so go to your death," I said, speaking brokenly, for the pain that his words caused me went through me like a knife-thrust.

"Say, rather," Fray Antonio answered, "that I go to win the life, glorious and eternal, into which neither death nor sin nor sorrow evermore can come!"

XXVIII.

THE SURRENDER OF A LIFE.

Knowing as I did Fray Antonio's resolute nature, and understanding far more clearly than it was possible for the others to understand the heroic impulses which stirred within him, I took no part in the attempt that they then made to oppose the purpose which he had declared. But when they somewhat s.h.i.+fted their position--perceiving how hopeless was their effort to shake by argument his firm resolve--and sought to win him to their way of thinking by consenting to leave the valley if only he would accompany them, then I most earnestly joined my entreaties to theirs. But no more by entreaty than by argument was Fray Antonio to be moved.

And, in truth, there was a logical consistency in what he urged in answer to us that, much though we might resent it, we yet were compelled to respect. He had come with us, he said, for the single purpose of preaching the saving grace of Christianity to heathen souls which otherwise would perish utterly in their idolatry. And this was not a matter wherein he had any right of election, but was a solemn duty that the vows by which he was bound compelled him to fulfil. He was not free, therefore, as we were free, to consider side issues relating to his personal well-being or to mere expediency; his sole endeavor must be to accomplish by the most efficient means the duty wherewith he was charged. It was evident, he urged, that should there be war in the valley the chance for the further spread of Christian doctrine would he scant; for the seed that he had sown, and that already was well rooted in many hearts, would die quickly and be utterly lost in the foul growth of evil pa.s.sions which would spring up rankly amid this b.l.o.o.d.y strife.

But if the war could be averted, not only would these people be spared the misery that war must bring upon them, and the crime also of slaying each other, but their hearts would remain open to the gentle doctrine that he had taught; and his willingness--should such sacrifice be necessary--to yield his life that peace might be preserved, would force upon them strongly the conviction, tending thus to their own strengthening, of his faithful trust in the creed which he avowed. And it well might happen, he said, that such grace would be given him that even within the very stronghold of the heathen faith he might win souls to the purer faith which it was his glorious privilege to preach and still remain unharmed; in proof of which possibility he cited the case of the blessed St. Januarius, whom the lions refused to devour. But whatever might be the outcome of thus yielding himself into the Priest Captain's hands, his duty was so clear, he declared firmly, that no evasion of it was possible. And what he purposed doing, he said, finally, was but what countless of his brethren had done in the course of the six centuries since the founding in a.s.sisi of the Order to which they and he belonged--and precisely was it what was done by the glorious proto-martyr of Mexico, San Felipe de Jesus, who boldly carried the Christian faith among the heathen, and so died for that faith upon the cross in j.a.pan.

Rayburn was far from willing to yield to this line of argument; yet he understood it, as I did also, and perceived that it was the only logical outcome of the only premises which Fray Antonio would recognize. Young, on the other hand, did not in the least understand it, and Fray Antonio's reasoning simply threw him into a rage.

"It's all d----n nonsense," he said, "for th' Padre t' talk about his duty towards a set o' critters like th' Priest Captain's crowd. What's th' life o' that whole outfit worth compared t' one life like his? He might just as well sit down an' chop his own head off as go in among those fellows; an' he knows it, too. I never heard o' th' man he's talkin' about who didn't get eat up by th' lions--somebody in th' show business, I s'pose--but if he thinks there'll he anything worth speakin'

of left of him two hours after he gets back into that city, he's makin'

a pretty d--n big mistake. Oh, I say, Professor, we've _got_ t' stop this. Th' Padre's off his head, that's all there is to it; an' we've got t' look after him till he braces up an' gets sensible again. I'll do anything reasonable that he wants, but I'll be d----d if I'm goin' t'

stand by doin' nothin' while he cuts his own throat!"

Young was quite ready, I am sure, to resort to the radical measure of clapping Fray Antonio into a strait-jacket; and had the opportunity arisen for bringing their difference of opinion to a practical issue I am confident that we should have witnessed an exceedingly curious conflict, in which heroic self-devotion would have struggled with a rough but very honest love. And that Fray Antonio antic.i.p.ated such a conflict was shown by his taking effective measures to render it impossible. During the remainder of that day he steadfastly refused to discuss the matter further; not harshly, but by s.h.i.+fting away into other channels our earnest talk. Only at night, before we lay down to sleep, of his own motion he turned once more to the matter; and when he briefly had exhibited to us again the motives which urged him forward upon a way so perilous, he begged that we would not think ill of his insisting upon traversing our wishes, but that once more we would clasp hands with him in sign of our forgiveness and continued love.

So tender was the mood that came upon us with his gentle words that none of us well could answer him; and this he understood as in turn we took his hand and strove to utter that which was in our hearts, and only could say huskily a word or two, of which the meaning was conveyed for the most part by the sorrow and the longing that were in our tones.

Young's natural instincts were wholly opposed to any display of the softer emotions, and for shame of the weakness that in this case he could not help but show, his face and neck flushed red, and he declared that he had the toothache. And then, as a vent for his overwrought feelings--of all things in the world--he fell to cursing the Superintendent of the Old Colony Railroad: on the ground that but for this functionary, who most unjustifiably had discharged him, he never would have come to Mexico at all!

For my own part, I was well convinced that Fray Antonio meant then to say good-bye to us; and for a long while, as I lay awake that night, my thoughts went backward over the time that we had been companions together, and so dwelt upon the faithfulness of his friends.h.i.+p, and upon his gallant bearing in all times of peril, and upon the pure and perfect holiness which characterized his every act and word. Into the future I dared not let my thoughts wander, for I could foresee no outcome to the purpose which he had planned so resolutely but a dreary sorrow that would rest heavily upon me through all the remainder of my days. And at last, worn out by my own grief, I fell into a troubled sleep.

The faint gray light of early morning shone dimly in the room as Rayburn awakened me by shaking my arm; and the first words which he spoke to me were, "The Padre is not here!"

As I roused myself fully, and sat up and looked into his face, I saw by the look that he gave me how fully he shared the dread that was in my heart. Young still was sleeping, and we waited to rouse him until we should make sure that what we feared must be the truth really was true.

Together we went out quietly into the court-yard and so to the main entrance of the building, where a guard was stationed. But this man was asleep; and when I wakened him, and questioned him as to whether the monk had gone forth, he could give me no answer. Therefore we went on to the gate of the Citadel--which gate, being a vastly heavy grating, raised and lowered by chains, was not usually closed even at night--in the hope that there we might gain some certain knowledge. And here also we found all of the half-dozen men on guard slumbering, saving only one man, who seemed to have been aroused by the sound of our footsteps, and who raised himself on one elbow and looked at us with a sleepy curiosity.

[Ill.u.s.tration: IN THE GATE-WAY OF THE CITADEL]

Even the urgency of the quest that we were upon did not suffice to distract our attention from the peril that we all were in because of the slumbering of these sentries. "If this is a specimen of the way all the watches are kept," Rayburn said, angrily, "we stand a pretty good chance of being murdered in our beds. It all comes of trying to make soldiers out of savages. These Tlahuicos will fight well enough, I never doubted that, but to put such men on guard is simple idiocy. They have been slaves all their lives, and they haven't the least notion in the world of personal responsibility. It's a lucky thing that we have found out their methods, for I shall give the Colonel a talking to about putting on guard some of his own men who can be trusted. It's clear that these fellows cannot tell us anything. We'd better keep on down to the landing; if the Padre has gone"--there was a sudden break in Rayburn's voice as he said these words--"it's pretty certain that he has gone by water, and we may come across somebody down there who happened to be awake and saw him start."

There were slight signs of wakefulness beginning to show themselves as we went down towards the water-side; a few doors already were open; here and there thin threads of smoke curled upward through the still air; around a fountain a half-dozen women were cl.u.s.tered, drawing water in great earthen pots, and chattering together softly in half-drowsy talk.

At the pier, however, we found some people who really were wide-awake: fishermen just returned with a boat-load of fish that they had caught in the lake. And these, when I questioned them, in a moment resolved all of our troubled doubts into a sad certainty. Only an hour before, as they lay out on the lake, a canoe had pa.s.sed them paddled by a single Indian, and in the canoe they had plainly recognized Fray Antonio. It was impossible that they should be mistaken, they declared, for the habit which the monk wore made him very plainly recognizable; and they had observed him with a particular care, for they had been greatly surprised by perceiving that the canoe was heading directly for "the great city"--by which name all save the priests were accustomed to speak of Culhuacan.

Neither Rayburn nor I spoke, as we walked back together through the town to the Citadel. Our hearts were altogether too full for words. Even I, who had been in part prepared for Fray Antonio's departure by the tenor of his speech with us the night before, had not antic.i.p.ated his going from us so suddenly to what surely must be his death; and to Rayburn his departure came with the startling force of a heavy and unexpected blow.

Young was awake when we returned, and was in much anxiety concerning us; for our custom at all times was to hold closely together, and he knew that something out of the common must have happened to make us break through this very necessary rule; and his fears were further aroused when he perceived the sad gravity of our faces, and that Fray Antonio was not in our company. Yet, though thus prepared to learn that evil of some sort had overtaken us, he was not at all prepared to learn how great that evil was. When, therefore, we told him of what we had discovered, which gave absolute a.s.surance that Fray Antonio had carried out his purpose of surrendering himself into the Priest Captain's hands, Young stared at us for a moment in a dazed sort of way, as though by no means grasping the meaning which our words conveyed. And then the whole meaning of them seemed to come to him suddenly, and he burst forth into such a raving volley of curses that it seemed as though he were fairly maddened by his ungoverned rage.

I envied Young, as I am sure Rayburn did also, the relief that must come to him with this rough but frank and natural expression of his bitter grief. For ourselves, we stood sad and silent, yet with our hearts almost breaking within us, as we thought how small was the chance that ever in this world should we see the face of Fray Antonio again.

XXIX.

THE a.s.sAULT IN THE NIGHT.

Neither the Council, in its irresolute parleyings, nor Fray Antonio, in his resolute action, had at all considered certain factors which they themselves had interjected into the problem that they then were dealing with from such widely different stand-points and in such widely different ways. The Council, at a stroke, had transformed the Tlahuicos into soldiers, and had given the promise that in reward for their faithfulness and valor these slaves thenceforward should be freemen.

Fray Antonio had preached to all those a.s.sembled at Huitzilan a creed that had taken strong hold upon many hearts, and that especially had won the hearts of those of the long-oppressed servile cla.s.s--to whom its doctrine of equality seemed to hold out an absolute a.s.surance that their life of slavery was at an end.

When, therefore, the terms which the Priest Captain offered were spread abroad through the town, and through the camp close beside the town in which the army lay--being there in readiness instantly to occupy the Citadel should the enemy appear--a very lively anger was aroused because such terms should even be listened to. For what the Priest Captain demanded was that the apostle of the new religion should be relinquished to him to be slain as a sacrifice to the Aztec G.o.ds, and that once more the Tlahuicos should be thrust back into slavery; while what he conceded--in that it affected only the higher cla.s.ses--made the lot of the Tlahuicos but the more unjustly cruel and hard to bear.

And those who resented the delay on the part of the Council in sending back the Priest Captain's envoy with a sharp denial, presently went on from hot words to violent deeds; being directly led from mutinous talk to mutinous action by the knowledge that the Council had so far accepted the offered terms as to send Fray Antonio to the great city to be slain--for not one among them could be led for a moment to believe, so impossible from their stand-point did such an act appear, that the monk truly had gone thither of his own free-will.

Practically, the whole army was involved in the movement that then took place; for even its officers, while not of the servile cla.s.s, dreaded the punishment that their revolt might bring upon them, and so preferred to take the chances of the war rather than to yield themselves to be dealt with as the Priest Captain might dispose. Therefore it was, on the day that Fray Antonio departed from us, that all the soldiers together marched in from their camp and ma.s.sed themselves compactly about the Council Chamber within the Citadel, and then with loud cries demanded that the envoy should be sent back to the great city with an absolute refusal of the offered terms. Thus was there created a rebellion within a rebellion; and one that the Council was powerless to put down, for the reason that practically the whole of the force which it had created to serve against the enemy was now risen against its own authority with a most masterful strength.

In the case that thus was presented there was no opportunity to temporize. The fierce, wild creatures of whom soldiers suddenly had been made stood there before the Council Chamber, shouting and waving their spears angrily and clas.h.i.+ng together their arms. And so they continued, without one moment of quiet, until their will was obeyed. Through the savage and tumultuous throng the envoy was led forth--his looks showing plainly his very natural expectation that his life would be let out of him amid that ferocious company--and so down to the water-side; and thence was sent back again to Culhuacan with the firm a.s.surance--which message of defiance the soldiers themselves dictated--that the terms offered by the Priest Captain would be accepted only when all the Tlahuicos then risen together in arms against him had been slain!

"Bully for th' Tlahuicos!" cried Young, as I translated to him these ringing words. "Just tell 'em, Professor, that I've volunteered for three years or th' war, an' that they can count on me t' keep up a full head o' steam as long as there's any fightin' t' be done. Accordin' t'

my notions, now that th' Padre's over there in th' city--t' say nothin'

o' what we owe 'em on Pablo's account--th' row can't begin one minute too soon. These Tlahuicos are th' boys for me! Didn't I tell you that n.o.body could stop 'em when they once got fairly started? They're a tough lot; but they're just everlastin' rustlers--an' their style suits me right now all th' way down t' th' ground floor!"

The sharp excitement attendant upon this vigorous action gave place, as the day wore on, to a dull heavy pain as our thoughts dwelt upon the fate that Fray Antonio had gone forth to meet, and upon our present powerlessness to defend him in any way against it. Although the envoy had been sent back, and war was now resolutely determined upon, the situation remained unchanged in so far as concerned the necessity of our waiting for the Priest Captain to take the initiative. To attack that great walled city was so hopeless a task that even the Tlahuicos--flushed though they were by their victory over the Council--did not venture to propose it; for they knew, as we all did, that our only chance of carrying the enemy's stronghold lay in first defeating its garrison in a battle in the open field. Yet this dull inaction of waiting was a scarce of grave danger to us, in that it tended to wear out the spirits of our men and to make them still more careless of their guard. What Rayburn and I had seen that morning had shown how little trust could be placed in them, in so far as the soldierly attribute of watchfulness was concerned; and Tizoc, with whom we conferred in regard to this important matter, had little to say that we found comforting. Being himself a thorough soldier, he perceived the danger to which the unsoldierly lack of vigilance on the part of the Tlahuicos exposed our camp; but the situation was such that he was powerless to take effective measures for our protection. The few regular troops in our little army were not enough to do sentry duty everywhere, and the best that could be done would be to dispose them at the points most open to attack--"And then trust to luck," Rayburn put in, rather bitterly, "that the enemy will be polite enough to try to surprise only the part of the camp where the sentries are awake!"

Partly that we might see for ourselves how our pickets were disposed, but more that by action of any sort we might divert our thoughts from the sorrow that was gnawing at our hearts, we walked out together in the late afternoon to the rocky heights of the promontory that on the western side of the town extended far into the lake. From a military stand-point this position was of great importance to us, inasmuch as bowmen or slingmen gaining access to it could command a considerable part of the town, and even could annoy very seriously the garrison of the Citadel; and it also was of value to us as a place of lookout whence an attacking party coming by way of the lake from the city could be perceived while yet it was a long way off.

We were surprised, therefore, when we had come well out upon the promontory, that no sentinel challenged us; but our surprise vanished a moment or two later as we perceived one of our men curled up comfortably against a sunny rook and apparently sound asleep. However, as we got close to the man it was clear to us that his sleep was one that he never would waken from, for a pool of blood stained the rock beside him, and an arrow was shot fairly through his heart. We made but a short stop beside this fellow--who plainly had been shot in his sleep, and so deserved the fate that had overtaken him--and then went forward anxiously that we might see how the other sentinels stationed hereabouts had fared. The result of our quest was as bad as it could be; for in one place or another among the rocks we found all five of the men who had been posted upon the promontory, and all of them were dead. Three more of them certainly had been shot while asleep or wholly off their guard, as was shown by the easy att.i.tudes in which we found them sitting or lying among the rocks. The fifth had not been instantly killed; as we inferred from finding a broken arrow sticking in his left arm, and some signs of a struggle about where he lay, and a great split in his skull, as from a sword stroke, that finally had let the life out of him. It struck us as strange that this man had not aroused the camp with his shouts; but his post was at the extreme end of the promontory, so that he must have called very loudly in order to be heard; and it was possible that in the suddenness of his danger he never thought to call at all. However, the important matter, so far as we were concerned, was that these five sentinels had been slain close beside the town and in broad daylight, and that but for the chance of our coming out upon the promontory the most important of our outposts would have remained unguarded until the night relief should have come on. It was Rayburn's theory that the plan of the enemy was to place his own men on the vacant posts--trusting to the reasonable certainty that in the dusk of evening one naked Indian would look much like another--and so despatch the relief, one by one, as the guard was changed.

Of those of the enemy who had accomplished this piece of work so skilfully we could see no sign--unless it were a boat that we dimly saw a long way off on the lake, and that presently wholly disappeared in a bank of haze; and despite the hot suns.h.i.+ne basking upon us a chill went through me at thought of the stealthy daring and truly devilish cunning of the men who thus could do their evil work in the full light of day, and close to the encampment of an army, and yet could get safely away without leaving a trace of their presence save the dead bodies of their foes.

Having made sure by carefully searching among the rocks throughout the length of the promontory that none of the enemy was hidden there, we hastened back to the town to tell what we had come upon, and to provide for mounting fresh sentinels in the place of those who had been relieved by death. We had expected that the news which we brought would stir up a great commotion; and we were not a little troubled, therefore, knowing how serious the matter was in its exhibition of the carelessness of our guards, by finding that only Tizoc and a few other tried soldiers were more than lightly discomposed by what we had to tell. The general feeling seemed to be--inasmuch as our lucky discovery had dispelled the danger--that there was no need to worry about a calamity which had not occurred; and what after all was the most essential consideration--the constant danger that threatened us by reason of the criminal laxity of the watch maintained by our pickets--practically was lost sight of.

Apparently neither the Council nor the higher officers of the army had the power to remedy this dangerous condition of affairs. At no time had any very strong authority been exercised over the Tlahuicos--for all the orders which until now had been given to them had been directed only towards urging them along a way that they were glad enough to follow of their own accord--and since their a.s.sertion of their will that morning, what little control had restrained their waywardness seemed to have been wholly lost.

However, as there was a chance in it of fighting, and as fighting was what they longed for earnestly, our unruly soldiers were willing enough that a strong detachment should be placed in ambush on the promontory, to the end that the force which the enemy probably would land there that night might be summarily dealt with. And the better to carry out our plan of a counter-surprise the dead sentinels were left where we found them. Tizoc was given the command of the ambushed force, and he willingly granted our request that we might accompany him; which request was prompted by the desire that we fully shared with the Tlahuicos to get at close quarters with the enemy, and also by the conviction that in Tizoc's company--though in his company we were like to have hot fighting and plenty of it--we would have better chances of safety than anywhere else in all our camp.

For this expedition we put on for the first time our armor of quilted cotton cloth; and the look of these garments certainly did justify Young's comments upon them. "It's a pity we can't get photographed now,"