The Aztec Treasure-House 12 – Janvier · Verses Across
Literature · Historical Fiction
The Aztec Treasure-House 12The Submerged City
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Literature · Historical Fiction
The Aztec Treasure-House 12
The Submerged City
JanvierEnglish
A sweet, warm wind blew in our faces as we set off along the cañon; the sun shone joyously upon us, and there was that fresh, tingling quality in the air that is peculiar to regions high above the level of the sea. In spite of the fact that the way behind us was irrevocably barred, and that no matter what dangers were ahead of us we had no option but to face them, our spirits were strong within us, and we went blithely on our way. Young, who was in advance, began to whistle "Yankee Doodle"; and presently, from the rear of our procession, where Pablo walked beside the heavily laden El Sabio, there broke forth a mouth-organ accompaniment to this spirited melody.
The bed of the cañon, through which a little stream ran, fell away before us along a slight down grade; which descent, since we found also a good foot-way beside the stream, made walking comparatively easy notwithstanding our heavy back-loads. Now and then our way would be barred by masses of rock fallen from above, and by whole trees blown down from their insecure roothold on the rocky cliffs; and twice we came to steep descents which would have given us trouble had we not brought along the ropes wherewith our packs had been bound. Shifting El Sabio down these places was our hardest task; but with the ropes, and the intelligent part that he took in the performance, we managed it successfully.
So we went on for half a dozen miles or more through the windings of the cañon, but keeping all the while a sharp lookout ahead--for in the mouth of this end of the cañon, supposing it to open as at the other end upon a grassy valley, we well enough might come upon an Indian camp. And that we had come upon such a camp we felt quite sure when, late in the afternoon, Rayburn signalled us from his advanced position--he having gone to the head of the line in Young's place--to stand still until he should reconnoitre a little. Being thus halted, we unslung our rifles and loosed our pistols in their holsters, so that we might be ready in case fighting suddenly should begin; and Rayburn went on around a turn in the cañon, and for a while we lost sight of him.
Presently he returned and signalled us to join him, but to move cautiously. When we came up with him he led us to the bend in the cañon, and there a broad view opened to us; for the cañon suddenly widened into a great valley, that was everywhere, so far as we could see, surrounded by walls of rock almost perpendicular and vastly high. In the bottom of the valley was a broad expanse of delectably green meadow-land, broken here and there by groves of trees; and in the valley's middle part, reaching from side to side of it, was a lovely lake, whereof the blue was flecked by white reflections of certain little idly drifting clouds: the sight of all which greenness and fair water and broad range of sky--after being for so long a season pent up in rocky fastnesses and wandering over brown, sun-baked plains--fairly brought tears into my eyes because of its fresh and open loveliness. And in the tender feeling that thus stirred my heart, as I could see in the quick glance that he gave me, Fray Antonio also keenly sympathized; for his nature was very open at all times to such gentle influences.
But Rayburn and Young, as was evident from their anxious looks, were thinking only of the dangers which this lovely valley might hold in store for us; for the shore of the lake nearest to us had many houses built upon it, and we could see faintly, for the width of the lake was nearly two miles, that there were other houses upon its farther shore. Standing hidden behind a rock, Rayburn examined the valley carefully through a field-glass for a long while.
"I must say this place beats me," he said at last, as he put the glass down from his eyes. "There's no doubt about there being a town down there; but I can't make out a sign of a single living thing. And what is still queerer, the houses seem to go right down into the lake. If you'll take the glass, Professor, you'll see that a few of them, on this side, stand all right on dry ground; and then, farther down the sloping bank, are a lot in the water; and beyond these there seem to be some roofs just showing above the level of the lake. And as far as I can make out, things are just the same over on the far shore. It looks as if the lake had risen after the town was built."
As I looked through the glass I saw that what Rayburn had said was true; and I observed with much interest that many of the houses were large, and that all seemed to be well built of stone. Their construction reminded me of the buildings which M. Charnay examined at Tula, and I was eager to get down to them and examine them closely. Young and Fray Antonio took the glass, in turn, and as none of us saw any signs of life in the valley, we decided to go on. And we were mightily stimulated in this resolve by finding, just at the end of the cañon, where the sharp descent began, a graving of the King's symbol on the rock, with the arrow pointing directly down the steep path.
"Here's a walled city, for sure," said Young; "and if this is where th' treasure-house is, we won't raise a row because th' folks have gone off an' left it. Just whoop up that burro of yours, Pablo, an' let's be gettin' along. It's a pity we had t' leave th' mules behind. If th' treasure's in silver, we can't get away with much of it with nothin' but El Sabio t' pack it on."
Pablo did not understand this speech, of course, but he recognized his own name and the name of El Sabio, and Young's gestures helped out the meaning of his words. Therefore Pablo grinned, and "whooped up" El Sabio; and we all set off briskly down the steep decline.
Presently we found our way much easier than we had been led to expect by its rough beginning. As we advanced along it there was ample evidence that the path had been graded and smoothed by the hand of man. In several places it was carried on a terrace supported by a well-laid retaining wall; a deep crevice was spanned by long slabs of stone, so placed as to form a bridge; and where it turned sharply around a high shoulder of rock, the face of the cliff had been quarried away. Yet that this all had been done in a very remote time was shown by the fragments of rock which had fallen into it here and there, and which were blackened by age. "The same fellow who set that statue in place probably was in charge here," was Rayburn's comment, "and he was a first-rate engineer. I wish I knew how he managed to swing those stone slabs over that crevice. There's no room there to set up a derrick, and it would puzzle me to set blocks like that without one."
And Rayburn's admiration for the professional skill of this engineer of a long past age was still further excited when the path came fairly into the valley, and thence was carried downward along the gentle slope towards the lake, by a perfectly even two-per-cent. grade, over a broad way paved smoothly with squared blocks of stone. And Fray Antonio and I were much interested in this work also, for we both perceived the identity of its structure with the paved way that is found on the east coast of Yucatan, and that is continued on the island of Cozumel.
By this paved avenue we entered the city--for, as we presently found, it was entitled to this more dignified name. The first houses that we came to were but small buildings enclosing a single room--such as are found, inhabited by working-people, on the outskirts of any Mexican city at the present day. They were silent and deserted; but they gave, at first sight, the impression of being but momentarily abandoned, for the belongings of their owners still remained in them as though the every-day affairs of life still went on within their walls. In the first that we entered we found an earthen pot still standing on a sort of fireplace, and beside the fireplace a little pile of charcoal. There was a fragment of bone in the pot, and beneath it were some scraps of charcoal which remained unconsumed. It was as though cooking had been going on here but an hour before. Rayburn even put his hand into the ashes to feel if they still were warm. But closer investigation gave us a juster notion of the long lapse of time that must have occurred since any fire had burned upon this hearth. In one corner of the room we found a pile of mats, but on touching these they crumbled into fragments in our hands; and the bone in the pot was so dry and so porous that it was light as cork.
As in this first house that we examined, so was it in all of them. All, at the first glance, seemed to have been but a moment before deserted; but all had signs about them which showed that they had been abandoned for a very long time. In one we found a loom--in construction very like that which the Navajo Indians use at the present day--on which hung, partly completed, a sheer filament that once had been some sort of heavy woollen cloth. In another, a cotton garment was lying carelessly upon a shelf, as though but a moment before cast aside; yet, as I tried to pick it up, it crumbled between my fingers into a fine powder.
Of humanity, the only sign that we found anywhere about this grim and desert place was the dried, shrivelled remnant of a woman that we came upon in an upper room of one of the larger houses farther on. She was lying upon a bed of mats, partly turned upon her side, and one arm was stretched out towards an earthen cup that stood just beyond her reach upon the floor. There was strong pathos in the action of the figure, for it told of the keen thirst of fever--of weakness so extreme that the inch or two between the hand and the cup was a gulf impassable--of a moaning struggle after the water so longed for--and then, at last, of death in that utter and desolate loneliness. And what added to the ghastliness of it all was that a thin ray of sunlight, coming through a crevice in the wall, struck upon the woman's teeth--whence the lips had dried away--and by its gleaming there made on her face a smile.
As we came close to the lake, we perceived, as Rayburn already had discerned by the aid of the glass, that houses, partially submerged, actually rose from the water, and that houses of which only the roofs were visible were farther on. That this whole valley was the crater of an extinct volcano was sufficiently evident; and we could only surmise that in later times some fresh cataclysm of nature had poured suddenly into it a vast body of water, and so had submerged the city that had been builded here. Whatever had brought about the catastrophe, it evidently had come with a most appalling suddenness. Everywhere the condition of the houses showed how hastily they had been abandoned; and the wild hurry of flight was shown still more clearly in the case of the woman--whose surroundings gave evidence that she had been a person of consequence--deserted in her age or infirmity and left lonely to die.
Young's face wore a melancholy expression as we stood upon the shore of the lake, and looked out across it towards the faintly seen western shore. "If this is th' place we're huntin' for," he said, "I guess our treasure stock is pretty badly watered, unless somebody's had th' sense t' keep th' treasure dry over on th' other side. We'd better move over there, I reckon, an' take a look for it, especially as we've got t' go that way anyhow in order t' get out. There ought t' be some sort of a path around th' lake, between th' edge of th' water and th' cliffs."
But when we came to examine into this matter we found that there was no path at all. On each side of the valley the walls of rock rose directly from the water, sharp and sheer.
"Well," said Rayburn, when we had finished our inspection, "we've got to get across somehow. I guess we'll have to sail in, the first thing to-morrow morning, and build a raft. These pine-trees down here by the water will cut easy and float well, and there's some comfort in that, anyway. But what I'm after right now is my supper."
Pablo already had started a fire, having first unpacked El Sabio, that he might refresh himself by rolling on the soft, green grass and by eating his fill of it, and Young presently had some ham fried and some coffee boiled. We had counted upon having fresh meat for supper that night, for there was everything in the look of the valley to promise that we would find game there; but, so far, not a four-footed thing nor a bird had we seen, nor even signs of fish in the lake.
In the morning we got out the axes and went to work at the building of the raft; and, notwithstanding what Rayburn had said in regard to the ease of cutting them, I must confess that for my part I found the cutting of pine-trees very wearying and painful. My hands were blistered by it, and the muscles of my back were made extremely sore by it for several days. Indeed, the construction of a raft big enough to float us all, and our heavy packs, and El Sabio, was a serious undertaking. We spent two days and a half over it, and I never in my life was more thankful for anything than I was when at last that wretched raft was done. As Young observed, as he regarded our finished work critically, there was no style about it--for it was only a lot of rough logs, of which the upper and lower layers ran fore and aft and the middle layer transversely, the whole bound together by our pack-ropes--but it was large enough for our purposes, and it was solid and strong.
In the late afternoon we carried our belongings on board of it, and Pablo succeeded by dint of much entreaty in inducing El Sabio to board it also, and we pushed off from shore. For driving the clumsy thing forward we had made four rough paddles, which well enough served our purposes, for there was no current whatever in the lake and the air was still.
As we went onward we discovered how considerable the city was that here lay submerged. Through the perfectly clear water we could see to a great depth, and beneath us in every direction were paved streets, lined with houses well built of stone. Near the centre of the valley the size of the houses greatly increased, and the fashion of their building was more stately; and fronting upon a great open square in the very centre of the city was a building of such extraordinary size that we took it to be the palace of a king; but here the water was so deep that we could make out but faintly the looming far below us of its mighty walls. Never have I been more pained than I then was; for in that place I found myself close to making discoveries of surpassing archæological value, and yet I was as completely cut off from them as though they had no existence.
Just beyond the palace, as we went onward, our raft almost touched the roof of a noble building that stood upon the top of a vast pyramidal mound, the base of which we could see but dimly far down through the waters of the lake. This, evidently, had been the chief temple of the city; and as we passed over it and came to its eastern side, we had ghastly and certain proof of the terrible suddenness with which the city had been overwhelmed. On the broad terrace before the temple was the sacrificial stone, and upon this dark mass we saw distinctly the gleaming of human bones; and as we peered down into the water we perceived that all the terrace was strewn thickly with human bones also, showing that when the rush of water came many thousands of human beings had here perished miserably. For a little while, no doubt, all the surface of the water round about where we were had been dotted thickly with the bodies of the drowned which had floated upward; and then, one by one, they had sunk again to the place where death first found them--where their flesh wasted away from them until only their gleaming bones remained.
I pictured to myself the dreadful scene that once had passed, down there below us, where now was only the calm serenity of ancient death: the great crowd collected to witness the sacrifice, and then the sudden coming of the waters--possibly so quickly that the victim, held down by the neck-yoke upon the sacrificial stone, was drowned ere there was time to slay him. This great mound would be the last of all to be covered, and the wretched people gathered there must have seen their city disappear beneath the waters before death came to them. No doubt they thought themselves safe in that high place, made sacred by the presence of their gods. And when the water did reach them, what a writhing and struggling there must have been for a little while; what a crushing of the weak by the strong in mad efforts to gain even a moment's safety upon some higher standing-place! And then, at last, the water rose triumphant in its swelling majesty over all--and beneath its placid surface were hid the silenced terrors of all that commotion of mortal agony, whereof the outcome was the peaceful and eternal calm of death.
