Part 32

There was no mistaking the thrill of movement that ran through the multitude as these words were spoken. I drew a long breath of thankfulness, for I felt that Fray Antonio was saved, and that in another instant my ears would be nigh burst by the thunderous roar of all those thousands--won to him by his own most moving eloquence, and by sight of the miracle whereby his deliverance had been wrought--that he should be set free.

And in this instant--in the very moment that this sigh escaped me, while yet the pause lasted before that great shout came--the Priest Captain sprang from, his seat above us into the balcony where we prisoners stood guarded, on downward into the arena below, and thence upon the Stone of Sacrifice--all with a demoniac agility most horrible to look upon in one of his withered age--and there, with a fierce thrust of a spear that he had caught from a soldier's hand in passing, he pierced Fray Antonio between the shoulders straight through the heart; and the monk, still grasping in his hands his crucifix, fell face downward upon the Stone of Sacrifice, and lay there dead!

Then Itzacoatl, standing with one foot upon the monk's dead body, and grasping still the spear that he had planted in that noble heart, cried out, triumphantly, "Behold the victory and the vengeance of our Aztec gods!"

And the multitude, swayed backward from the very threshold of the Christian faith, shouted together in one mighty voice, "Victory and vengeance for our gods!"

XXXV.

THE TREASURE-CHAMBER.

Close in the wake of that great thunder-crash there burst upon us so mighty a flood of rain that it seemed as though the lightning had riven solid walls asunder within the thick black mass of overhanging vapour, and so had let loose upon us the waters of a lake. In a moment the whole pit of the amphitheatre was awash, knee-deep, and before those who were standing there could flounder to the steps leading upward they were buried to their waists--and this although the water was pouring out through the vent provided for it with such violence that we could hear the rush and gurgle of it above the dashing and roaring of the falling rain. And all the dark mass of cloud above us was aflame continuously with blinding flashes of red lightning, while a continuous crash of splitting peals of thunder rang through the shattered air.

Doubtless this storm was our salvation. That the Priest Captain's intention, even from the first, had been to kill us also, and so make his victory complete, I do not for a moment doubt; but he was too shrewd to waste upon a few terrified spectators an exhibition that would carry with it a salutary demonstration of his power; and with the bursting of the flood upon us, the crowd that filled the amphitheatre had begun a tumultuous flight to the temple; going thither partly for shelter, and partly being awe-struck by what had passed before them and by the tremendous fury of the storm, that they might find safety in the abiding-place of their gods.

Therefore, the order was given hurriedly that we should be taken back to our prison; in obedience to which command our guards led us through the temple--where they had difficulty in forcing a way for us through the dense throng that had gathered within its walls--and thence to the Treasure-house beyond; and they were in such haste to be quit of us, that they also might seek safety in the temple, that they scarce waited to close the grating behind us before they sped away.

So overwhelming was the grief that had fallen upon us that for some moments we stood as though stunned where the guards had left us; and, for myself, my one regret was that the chance of the storm, by saving me yet a little while longer alive, had lost to me the happiness of dying in the same hour with the friend whom I had so strongly loved. I think that this thought was in Young's heart also, as he stood there silent beside me, the blood so drawn away from his face that a dull yellow pallor overspread his bronzed skin, while his breath came short and hard. As for the boy Pablo, his whole being was shattered. He sank down on the rock at our feet, and seemed to be moaning his very life out in long quivering sobs.

But presently, as our minds grew steadier, the thought of Rayburn came to us; and the strain upon our heart-strings was relaxed a little by remembering that our lives still were worth holding fast to in order that we might minister to his needs. Yet when we came again into the room where he lay, it seemed at first as though he also was lost to us; for even in that faint light we saw that his face was a deadly white, and when we spoke to him he neither spoke nor moved. But, happily, our dread that he had died in that gloomy solitude was not realized; for as I laid my hand upon his bare breast I felt his heart feebly beating, and at the touch of my hand he sighed a little, and then slowly opened his eyes.

"He's only swounded," Young cried, joyfully. "It's th' smotherin' shut-upness o' this forlorn hole he's lyin' in. There's a little more air out in th' big room. Just grab t'other end o' th' stretcher, Professor, an' we'll yank him out there--nobody's likely t' come in t' stop us while this storm lasts. An'--an' we must be careful how we talk, Professor, y' know," he added, in a lower tone, as we raised the stretcher. "It won't do for him t' know about--about it now." There was a break in Young's voice as he spoke, and I could feel by the momentary quiver of the stretcher that a shiver went through him as he thought of that "it," about which we must for a time hold our peace.

Young bore the forward end of the stretcher, and as we came into the oratory I felt him start as he exclaimed, "What th' devil's broke loose here?"

The darkness of the storm outside shrouded the oratory in a dusky twilight; but even through the shadows which lay thick about us we could see that there had been within this chamber some outbreak of extraordinary and tremendous violence; for the image of the god Huitzilopochtli had been cast down and broken into fragments, and just behind where it had stood there was a dark rift in the gold-plating of the walls, where several plates had been wrenched bodily away.

A strong odor of sulphur hung heavily in the air, and, as I perceived it, the whole matter was plain to me. But Young sniffed at this odor suspiciously when we had brought the stretcher gently to rest upon the floor, and in a startled voice exclaimed, "Th' devil has been bustin' around in here for sure, an' he's left his regular home-made stink for a give-away!" and as he spoke there was manifest a decided bristling of his fringe of hair.

I could not help smiling at this quaint proof of the shattered condition of Young's nerves--for, under ordinary circumstances, he was the very last man in the world to place faith in things supernatural--but I answered him promptly: "Then the devil did a stroke of honest business at the same time, for all this is the work of the same thunder-bolt, or of a part of it, that killed that Indian. Didn't you hear the rocks flying from the cliff where it struck?"

"That's just what I was goin' t' say myself," Young replied, a little awkwardly. "An' that's what's the matter with Rayburn, an' made him swound away. How d' you find yourself now, old man?" he went on--rather glad to change the subject, I fancied--as Rayburn, at sound of his own name, moved a little.

"I feel queer," Rayburn answered. "Sort of numb and dizzy. Where's the Padre?"

"An' it's not much blame to you that you do feel queer," Young replied, hurriedly. "This last thing you've taken it into your fool head t' do is bein' busted all t' bits by a stroke o' lightnin'. Most folks would 'a' been satisfied with havin' their legs pretty much sliced off by Injuns--but reasonableness ain't your strongest hold, Rayburn; an' I guess it never was."

Rayburn smile faintly as Young spoke, but instead of attempting to answer him--being still numbed by the heavy shock that he had received--he settled his head back upon the rolled-up coat that served him for a pillow, and languidly closed his eyes. Whereupon Young, seeing that there was nothing further that we could do for his comfort, betook himself--as his bent at all times was when any strange matter presented itself, and in this case with the half-crazed eagerness with which those upon whom a great sorrow has fallen seek instinctively to engage their minds with any trifling matter that will change the current of their thoughts--to investigating carefully the work of destruction that the thunder-bolt had wrought: examining the fragments of the idol, and the loosened plates of gold and the place on the wall whence these last had been wrenched away; which examination was the easier because the storm-cloud was leaving us--though the almost continuous loud rolling of the thunder still stunned our ears--and a stronger light came in through the opening in the roof.

I seated myself beside Rayburn and paid no attention to what Young was doing; for my brooding sorrow was like a slow fire consuming me--as the tragedy that I had but just witnessed, and the infinite pathos that there was in seeing Rayburn thus miserably dying, overwhelmed me with a desolate despair. Even when Young called to me, in a tone so eager and so penetrating that at any other time I should have been startled into quick action by his words, I did not rouse myself to answer him; though, in a dull way, I knew that he would not thus have spoken unless some matter of great moment had aroused the full energy of his mind.

"Professor! I say, Professor!" he repeated: "Get right up and come here. Don't sit there like a chuckle-headed chump. Get up, I tell you. Here's some sort of a show for us. Here's what looks like a way out o' this God-forsaken hole!"

As I heard these words I did get up, and in a hurry, and so joined Young where he was kneeling on the floor close beside the rear wall of the oratory, directly behind where the idol had stood until the thunder-bolt had dashed it down. It was at this point, apparently, that the lightning had entered the chamber; for here several of the plates of gold with which the walls were covered--overlapping each other like fish-scales--had been loosened, while three of them had been wrenched entirely from their fastenings and had fallen down. As I joined him, Young excitedly pointed to the opening thus made, through which was visible not a solid wall of rock but a dark cavity, and from which was blowing a soft current of cool air.

"It's a way out! It's a way out! I tell you," he cried. "This suck o' wind proves it. If we only can get some more o' these blasted plates loose we'll light out o' this and euchre the Priest Captain an' his whole d--n outfit yet! Ketch hold here, Professor, an' put your muscle into it for all you're worth. Grab right here; now!" And Young and I together pulled at the same plate with all our might and main. But for all the impression that we made upon it we might as well have tried to pull down the mountain; the plate did not stir. Young gave a hearty curse (and I confess that hearing him swearing in that natural way again was a real comfort to me), and then we took another pull; and all this while, so much does the thought of saving his life put cheer into a man, my heart was bounding within me and the hot coursing of my blood seemed like to burst my veins. Young's fervor was not less than mine, and we wrenched and tugged together, and never stopped to mark our cut and bleeding hands.

"We've got t' do it!" Young exclaimed, as we paused at last, without having loosened the plate in the least degree. "There's some way o' workin' this thing, I know. It must be some sort of a door, an' if we only can get th' hang of it we'll be all right. Have you got your wind again, Professor? Let's try 'f we can't sort o' prize this plate out; it's a little loose. Just get your fingers under it an' we'll sort o' pull it up an' out at th' same time. So! Now sling your muscle into it. Heft!"

We were stooping a little, and so had a strong purchase, and with all our united strength we heaved away together. There was a rattling of metal, a yielding of the plate so easy that our tremendous effort was out of all proportion to it; my fingers seemed suddenly to be nipped in a red-hot vice; Young uttered a yell of pain, and then we both were sprawling on our backs on the floor, while in front of us was a broad opening in the wall where a wide section of the panelling had risen upward (the plates sliding up under each other), and so had made an open way.

"H--ll! how that did hurt!" Young mumbled, with his nipped fingers in his mouth; and I must say that the vigor of his language was not uncalled for, as I well understood by the pain that I myself was suffering. I never remember pinching my fingers so badly as I did then in the whole course of my life.

However, we did not suffer our hurts, which were not really serious, to delay us in exploring this hidden place that so suddenly and with such unnecessary violence had opened to us. Pushing upward the ingeniously contrived door from the bottom, we easily raised it until an opening was discovered the full height of a man; and through this we went into a narrow passage in the rock that in a moment turned and so brought us into a room that was nearly as large as the oratory that we had just left, and that, as we presently found, actually communicated with the oratory by means of two narrow slits high up in the wall; which apertures here were plainly visible, but on the other side were so cleverly disguised by an ingenious arrangement of the overlapping plates as to be entirely concealed. Like the oratory, too, this room had an opening in its roof through which air entered, and so much light that we could see about us plainly. And the very first glance that I cast around me in this strange place assured me that, by sheer accident, we had found our way at last to the secret chamber wherein King Chaltzantzin's treasure had lain hidden for a thousand years.