The Aztec Treasure-House 39 – Janvier · Verses Across
Literature · Historical Fiction
The Aztec Treasure-House 39King Chaltzantzin'S Treasure
18
Literature · Historical Fiction
The Aztec Treasure-House 39
King Chaltzantzin'S Treasure
JanvierEnglish
Whether or not Young's story had this good effect upon Rayburn, I am not prepared to say; but it is certain that he slept well that night--his first good night's sleep for many weeks--and that when morning came he was so much stronger and brighter as to fill us with a still more earnest hope that he was well started on the way to recovery.
Young quickly brought in some birds for our breakfast, and when the meal was finished he took me aside and said: "Now, Professor, lets me an' you go back t' that hole an' bring away all there is there that's worth carryin'. It's not much, I guess, but it's better'n nothin'. It just makes me sick t' think of all that gold, that ud 'a' made our everlastin' fortunes if we'd only been able t' pack it along with us. There was millions an' millions there, I s'pose--an' it 'll never do us any more good than if we'd never seen it at all!" and as Young spoke he heaved a very melancholy sigh. "But we may as well grab all we can get," he went on, more cheerfully. "There was a lot o' gold boxes an' jugs in th' room where Mullins is; an' maybe there's somethin' that's worth havin' in all them little pots. Let's go back an' see, anyway. Rayburn's lookin' almost all right this mornin'; and Pablo's got his wits back now, an' can give him anything he wants."
For my own part I did not desire, because of their money value, any of the articles which I had seen in the treasure-chamber; but I did very earnestly long to possess myself of that most curious arbalest, and I desired also to examine carefully--because of the discoveries of great archæological value which I hoped to make--the contents of the gold boxes and vases and earthen jars. Therefore, Rayburn having expressed his entire willingness that we should leave him, I assented readily to Young's proposition; whereupon Young lighted the lantern and we set off.
As we entered again the treasure-chamber there was within me a strong feeling of awe. During our hurried passage through it, the imminent danger in which we were, and then the excitement of the scene in the oratory, and then the joyfulness of our finding a way of escape, had prevented me from realizing how wonderful was the deposit that this room contained; a deposit that certainly had lain there for not less than a thousand years, and that unquestionably was the most perfect surviving trace of the most intelligent and most interesting people that in prehistoric times dwelt upon this continent. Which strange reflections, now that my mind was free to entertain them and to dwell upon them, aroused within me a feeling of such reverent wonder that I hesitated for some moments before I could bring myself to disturb what thus through so long a sweep of ages had remained sacredly inviolate.
But reverence, as he himself would have said, was not Young's strongest hold; in truth, I am persuaded that there was not an atom of it in his entire composition; and as I stood hesitating beside the statue of Chac-Mool he briskly called to me: "Come right along, Professor; there ain't nobody t' stop us now. We've got th' drop, you might say, on th' whole outfit, an' we can do just as we blame please. This looks like a badly kept drug store, don't it?" he went on, "with all these pots an' boxes an' little jars stuck round on th' shelves. Well, here goes t' see what's in 'em: not much o' nothin', I guess; but then it might be di'monds, an' that just would be gay!"
As Young spoke he thrust his hand into one of the earthen jars, and thereby set flying such a cloud of dust that for some seconds his violent sneezing prevented him from examining the small object that he had brought forth from the jar and held in his hand; and when he did examine this object an expression of intense disgust appeared upon his face, and he exclaimed, indignantly, "Why, it's nothin' but a fool arrow-head!"
I could not but laugh at Young as I took the arrow-head from him. For my purposes, this beautifully carved piece of obsidian was far more precious than a diamond would have been; and I tried--quite unsuccessfully, however--to arouse his interest in this proof of the high degree of skill to which the prehistoric races of America had attained in the manipulation of an exceedingly hard yet delicate variety of stone; and I added that not less interesting was the proof thus afforded us of the great value which these same races attached to implements of war.
"Oh, come off with your prehistoric races, Professor!" he growled. "A whole car-load o' rubbish like this wouldn't be worth a nickel t' anybody but a scientific crank like you. If this is th' sort o' stuff that that old king o' yours thought was worth hidin', I guess he must 'a' been off his head. But that pot may 'a' got in by mistake. Before I get too much down on him I'll give him another show." With which words, but cautiously, that the dust might not be disturbed, he thrust his hand into another jar, and was mightily resentful upon finding that what he brought forth from it was only the head of a lance. However, the determination to give King Chaltzantzin a chance to prove his sanity, together with the hope that something of real value might be found, led him to continue his investigations, and he presently had examined all the jars ranged on two sides of the room; and his grumbling curses increased constantly in vigor as jar after jar yielded only arrow-heads, and lance-heads, and chisel-shaped pieces of obsidian, that I perceived must have been intended for the making of the cutting edges of the maccahuitl, or Aztec sword; but, for my part, all of these things filled me with the liveliest pleasure as I took them from Young and attentively examined them; for the delicate and perfect workmanship that they exhibited showed them to have been made by a people that had reached the highest development of the Stone Age.
"This business is gettin' worse, instead o' better," Young said, gloomily, as he began his search on the third side of the room by opening one of the small gold boxes. "The stuff in here is nothin' but a mean sort o' wrappin'-paper with pictures on it--like that old map o' yours that got us started on this tomfoolin' treasure-hunt. I s'pose you'll just have a fit over it!" And as I uttered an eager cry of delight, and bent over this casket that contained such inestimable riches, he gave a sniff of contempt, and added: "There, I thought so. You think more o' that rotten old stuff than you would o' gold dollars. Well, there's no accountin' for tastes, and it takes all sorts o' people t' make th' world." But I paid no attention to him as I rapidly glanced over these priceless manuscripts; and then had my cup of happiness filled absolutely to overflowing by the glad discovery that in every one of the gold boxes, of which there were nine in all, treasures of a like sort were stored. In the supplemental volume (in elephant folio) to my Pre-Columbian Conditions on the Continent of North America these wonderful manuscripts are reproduced in fac-simile; and when that great work is published the surpassing value of my discovery will be at once recognized. It is sufficient to say here that these several codices together constituted a complete hieratic chronicle of the Aztec tribes; and that (herein lying the extraordinary value of the collection) the uncertain picture-writing was accompanied by a translation into the ideographic characters of later times, the meaning of which I was enabled, thanks to the instruction that my friend the guardian of the archives had given me, fully to understand. In short, my discovery precisely paralleled that of Boussard; for even as the Rosetta Stone gave the key to Egyptian hieroglyphics, so did this transliteration into intelligible characters make all Aztec picture-writing plain. As the full significance of my discovery burst upon me, my joy and the excitement of my splendid triumph so moved me that my hands trembled as I held these precious manuscripts, and I no longer could see clearly the painted characters because of the tears of happiness which filled my eyes.
Young, however, whose longing was only for material treasure, continued his investigations in anything but a thankful mood. "There ain't no doubt of it now," he said presently in a most melancholy tone. "That old king o' yours must 'a' been just as crazy as a loon. Look here: this thing ain't even a fool arrow-head; it's nothin' but a bit o' green glass! I reckon it's part o' th' bottom of a porter-bottle. Nice sort o' stuff this is t' call treasure, an' t' take such an all-fired lot o' trouble t' hide away! Why, I should jedge that that king must 'a' spent most of his time settin' up nights a-puzzlin' over plans for makin' sure that he was th' very d----dest biggest fool that ever lived!--an' that's just what he was, for sure! It's tough, gettin' left this way; but it wouldn't begin t' be as tough as 't is if 't wasn't for all them car-loads an' car-loads o' gold right clost by us here that we might 'a' got away with as easy as rollin' off a log if we'd only ketched on to this back-door racket in time. An' see here, Professor," he went on in a very earnest tone, "I don't believe there's anybody in there now; why shouldn't we just chance things a little an' go back an' get some of it? We've got our guns; an' even if we do strike a crowd too big for us t' tackle, an' have t' run for it, we won't be no worse off 'an we are now. Come, let's try it on!"
While Young spoke I had been looking closely at the object that so violently had excited his indignation, and instead of replying to him I asked, "Are there any more pieces of that porter-bottle in the jar?"
"It's full of 'em," he answered with a contemptuous brevity.
"And the next?"
"That's full of 'em too. All th' jars on this side o' th' room are full of 'em," he added, as he rapidly thrust his hand into one after another--and so set the dust to flying that we both fell to sneezing as though we would sneeze our heads off. "Oh come along, Professor: what's th' use o' foolin' over this rubbish; let's go for th' stuff that's good for its weight in spot cash every time!"
"Wait till we see what is in these gold vases over here," I answered, turning as I spoke to the side of the room that as yet we had not examined.
"What's th' good?" he asked, sulkily. But he lifted down one of the vases, and with his thumb and finger brought forth from it a little round black ball. "Worse an' worse," he said, as he handed the ball to me. "We've got down t' what looks like lumps o' shoemaker's wax now. That's about th' sickest lookin' thing t' call itself treasure I ever did see!"
It did not seem to me probable that the little ball was shoemaker's wax; but in order to settle this point experimentally I cut into it with my penknife. Under the gummy exterior I found a layer of cotton-wool, and enclosed in this a hard substance about the size of a hazel-nut. While I was making this examination, Young investigated into the contents of the remaining vases--which themselves were exceedingly interesting, being made of hammered gold and most curiously engraved.
"They're no good," he said, "except I s'pose th' mugs must be worth somethin'. Shoemaker's wax in 'em all! It's worse 'an th' porter-bottles--for what's th' use o' shoemaker's wax t' folks who don't rightly know what a shoe is? Come along, I say, Professor, an' let's have a whack at them piles o' gold. If we don't tackle 'em we might just as well never have come on this treasure-hunt at all. Some o' the stuff in here's worth havin'--th' gold mugs an' boxes, an' that old gold bow-gun that you're so busted about--but what does th' whole of it amount to, anyway, when you come t' divide it up among four men an' a jackass? I guess even th' jackass ud turn up his nose at it if he knowed what a lot more there was that was t' be had just for grabbin' it an' packin' it along. It's somethin', I s'pose, that we've pulled through without losin' our hair; but we have pulled through all right, an' now we want t' make this business pay; an' unless we go for that gold this business won't 'a' paid worth a cuss--an' instead o' comin' out on top we'll be left th' very worst kind!"
As Young was delivered of this dismal remonstrance I handed him the small object that I had extracted from the pitch-coated ball. "Before you make up your mind that we are likely to be 'left,' as you term it, suppose you look at this," I said.
He held out his hand carelessly; but as he saw what I had placed in it his expression suddenly changed, and he burst forth excitedly: "Great Scott! where did this come from? Why--why, Professor, it looks like it was a pearl; but if 't truly is one it's about th' bustin'est biggest one that Godamighty ever made! Do you truly size it up for a pearl yourself?"
"Most assuredly," I answered. "And it is a fair assumption, I think, that there is a pearl in each one of all these little pitch-covered balls. As to what you called bits of green glass, they are neither more nor less than extraordinarily fine emeralds; I should say that the smallest of them must be worth more dollars than you could carry at a single load. Of course, all the emeralds and pearls together are not worth a single one of these manuscripts"--here Young gave a sceptical grunt--"but in the way of vulgar material riches I am confident that the value of what is in these jars is greater than that of all the gold together that we saw in the Valley of Aztlan. Without a shadow of doubt, you and I at this moment are standing in the midst of the most enormous treasure that ever has been brought together since the world was made!"
"Honest Injun, Professor?"
"Certainly," I answered; "and if this is your notion of getting 'left' on a treasure-hunt," I continued, "it assuredly is not mine."
"Left?" Young repeated after me, while his eyes ranged exultantly over the rows of jars in which this vast wealth was contained. "Well, I should smile! I take it all back about that old king bein' crazy. He was just as level-headed as George Washington an' Dan'l Webster rolled into one. These pots full of arrow-heads an' such stuff was only one of his little jokes, showin' that he must 'a' been a good-natured, comical old cuss, th' kind I always did like, anyway. Left? Not much we ain't left! We've just everlastin'ly got there with all four feet to onct! Professor, shake!"
EPILOGUE.
Throughout my whole life I have been saddened, as each well-defined section of it has come to an end, by the thought that during the period that has then slipped away from me forever I have wasted more opportunities than I have improved. As I write these final lines, therefore, I feel a sorrowful regret, which, in a way, is akin to the regret that weighed upon me when Young and I, having carried into the cave the contents of the treasure-chamber, removed the prop wherewith was upheld the swinging statue, and so suffered to fall into place again that ponderous mass of stone. From below, where we were, lifting it was impossible; and by heaping fragments of rock under the forward end of it we presently made it equally immovable from above. Thus for outlet or for inlet that way was irrevocable barred; and as I write now I know that I am not less irrevocable severing myself from one portion of my past. For, says the Persian poet, "A finished book is a sealed casket. To it nothing can be added. From it nothing can be taken away. Therefore should we pray to Allah that its contents may be good."
The record that I am now ending was begun partly that I might find in the writing of it relief from the more serious work in which I have been engaged, and partly because I perceived that I could properly include in a personal narrative many matters which were too trivial or too entirely personal to be incorporated into my extended scientific treatise, but which, I was persuaded, were of a sufficient interest to be preserved. But I certainly should not have finished this history of our adventures nearly so expeditiously had not Rayburn and Young taken a very lively interest in it, and pressed me constantly to bring it to an end.
"You see, Professor," said Young, "I don't want t' say anything against that big book you're writin'. I don't doubt that in its way it'll be a daisy; but you know yourself there won't be more'n about three cranks in th' whole o' God's universe who'll ever read more'n about ten lines of it; an' that's why I want you t' rush ahead with th' little book--that stands some chance o' bein' read outside o' lunatic asylums--so's folks'll know what a powerful queer time we've had. Don't be too cussed particular t' say just where that valley is--for, while it's not likely, we might want t' take a fightin' crowd along an' dynamite our way back there some day after more cash; but, exceptin' that, just give 'em th' cold facts. I reckon they'll make some folks open their eyes."
From times to time, as my narrative has grown beneath my hand, I have read aloud to my fellow-adventurers what I have written, and have received from them suggestions in accordance with which it has been corrected or amended in its several parts; and it is but just to add, in this connection, that in every case where I have referred (as it seems to me now in words not nearly strong enough) to the loyalty to our common interests, and to the splendid bravery which Rayburn and Young constantly exhibited throughout that trying time, I have been compelled to exert the whole of my authority over them in order to win their grumbling permission that my words might stand. Even Pablo--for the love that there was between this boy and me was far too strong to permit me to leave him behind in Mexico, and we are like to live together as long as we live at all--has taken issue with me concerning what I have written of his steadfast faithfulness and courage; and this on the ground that he could not possibly be anything but faithful to those whom he loved, and that it is only natural for a man to fight for his own life, and for the lives of his friends. In thus applying the word hombre to himself Pablo spoke a little doubtfully, as though he feared that I might question his right to it; yet did he roll it so relishingly under his tongue, and so well had he proved his manliness, that I suffered it to pass.
In point of fact, the only member of our party who has accepted my just tribute of praise with entire equanimity has been El Sabio. It was Pablo's notion, of course, that El Sabio should hear what I had written about him. "Not the whole of it, you know, señor," the boy said, earnestly; "for some of what you have written--while I know that it is true, and therefore must be told--would hurt his tender heart. It was not his fault--the angel!--that he gave us so much trouble when we swung him across the cañon; and to tell him that there was even a thought of eating him, while we were in that dreadful valley where every one was dead, assuredly would turn him gray before his time. No; we will hide all such unpleasant parts of the book from him; but we will read to him what you have said concerning his beauty and his wisdom--and, surely, you might have said of those a great deal more; and also about his gallant fight with the priests, when, all alone, he slew so many of them with his heels. And it would have been fairer to El Sabio, señor," Pablo added, a little reproachfully, as we walked out together to the paddock in which the ass, grown to be very fat, was living a life of most royal ease, "had you told in the book how well he served us in bringing all the treasure, in many weary journeys, out through that dismal cave; and also how carefully he carried the Señor Rayburn down that steep mountain-side, and so to the little town beside the railway, and never hurt his wound."
However, El Sabio did not seem to notice these omissions from my narrative, though he certainly did exhibit a most curious air of interest and understanding as I read to him those laudatory portions of it which Pablo desired that he should hear. According to Pablo's understanding of his language, he even thanked me for speaking well of him; for when the reading was ended he thrust his nose far forward, laid his long ears back upon his neck, planted his little legs firmly, and as he erected in triumph his scrag of a tail, he uttered a most thunderous bray. "And now, Wise One," Pablo said, tenderly, as he infolded the head of the ass in his arms and hugged it to his breast, "thou knowest that we not only love thee for thy goodness and thy wisdom, but that we also honor thee for thy noble deeds."
Rayburn's fancy was mightily tickled by this performance in which El Sabio and Pablo and I had engaged--though Young evidently thought it but another proof of the addled state of my brains--when I told about it that evening as we all sat smoking comfortably in my library before the open fire. This was to be our last meeting for some time to come; for Rayburn was to start the next day for Idaho to look after some mining matters, and Young suddenly had decided that he would accompany him. In truth, Young was rather at a loss to know what to do with himself; for his plan for buying the Old Colony Railroad, in order to be in a position to discharge its superintendent, had been abandoned. "I'd like t' do it, of course," he said. "Bouncin' that chump th' same way that he bounced me would do me a lot o' good; but I've made up my mind it wouldn't be th' square thing t' do, considerin' that if he hadn't bounced me I'd still be foolin' round on top o' freight-cars, in all sorts o' weather, handlin' brakes. So I've let up on him, an' he can stay. What I want now is t' do some good with this all-fired big pile o' money that I've got. That's one reason why I'm goin' out with Rayburn t' Idaho. Right straight along from here t' Boisé City I mean t' set up drinks for every railroader I meet. That'll be doin' good, for sure."
Rayburn and I laughed a little at this odd method for benefiting humanity that Young had got hold of; and then Rayburn's face grew grave as he said: "Well, we're doing a little good, I suppose, in putting that old church in Morelia in good shape. I'm glad you thought of that, Professor. I don't suppose that anything we could have done would have pleased the Padre more than to have that church, that he loved so much, made as handsome as money can make it all the way through."
"Yes," Young added, "an' I guess th' Professor's head was level in havin' all th' new stuff that we've put in it made t' look like 't was about two hundred years old. I did kick at that at first, I'll allow. What I wanted t' do was t' build a first-class new church, with a rattlin' tall steeple, an' steam heat, an' electric lights, an' an organ big enough t' bust the roof off every time she was played. But th' Padre was as keen as th' Professor, a'most, for old-fashioned things; an' so I guess we've done that job just about as he'd 'a' done it himself. It makes me feel queer, though, puttin' up money on a Catholic church that way; an' when I was tellin' an old aunt o' mine, down t' Milton, about it, she just riz up an' rared. An' she didn't feel a bit better when I told her that if I thought it ud please th' Padre t' have me do it, I'd go smack off t' Rome an' shake hands with th' Pope. And I truly would do that very same thing," Young continued, earnestly, while his voice trembled a little, "for this side o' heaven I never expect t' meet anybody that's so near t' bein' a first-class angel as th' Padre was. An' when I think how he saved our mis'rable lives for us, as he surely did, by givin' away his own--that was worth more'n all of ours put together, an' ten times over--I don't care a continental what his religious politics was; an' I'll punch th' head of anybody who don't say that he was th' pluckiest an' th' best man that ever lived!"
Pablo had caught the word Padre in Young's talk, and as the lad looked up from the corner in which he was sitting, I saw that his eyes were full of tears; Rayburn's eyes also had an odd glistening look about them as he turned away suddenly, and emptied the ashes from his pipe into the fire; and I know that I could not see very clearly just then, as very tender, yet very poignant memories surged suddenly into my heart.
And when the others left me--as they did presently, for we could not fall again into commonplace talk--I bade Pablo be off to bed, and so sat there for a while alone. What I had planned to do that night was to revise an address that I was shortly to deliver before the Archæological Institute; but the pen that I had taken into my hand lay idle there, while my thoughts went backward through the channels of the past.
In that still season of darkness I seemed to live again through all the time that Fray Antonio and I had been together--from the moment when I first caught sight of him, as he knelt before the crucifix in the sacristy, to my last sad look at the dead body whence his soul had sped back again to God.
As my thoughts dwelt upon this most loving and most tender companionship, the like of which for perfectness I am confident was never known, and then upon the cruel violence that brought it to an end, so searching a pain went through my soul that I knew that either it must cease or I must die of it in a very little while. And then was borne in upon me the strong conviction--and so has it since been always, when thus my thoughts have been engaged--that because of my very love for Fray Antonio must I rejoice that he had died so savage a death; believing confidently that what he prayed for when first I found him in the Christian church of San Francisco was, in truth, that very crown of martyrdom that God granted to him when at last I lost him in the heathen city of Colhuacan. And with the pressing in upon me thus strangely of this strange thought, it seemed as though he himself said again to me, "I go to win the life, glorious and eternal, into which neither death nor sin nor sorrow evermore can come."
