Part 6

So jealous was I in guarding the strange legacy that the Cacique had bequeathed to me that not until I was safe back in Morelia, in my room at the hotel, with the door locked behind me, did I venture to examine it. The bag, about six inches square, tightly sewed on all four of its sides, was made of snake-skin, and was provided with a loop of snake-skin so that it might be hung from the neck upon the breast like a scapulary. My hands trembled as I cut the delicate stitching of maguey fibre, and then drew forth a mass of several thicknesses of coarse gray-brown paper, also made of the maguey, such as the ancient Aztecs used. Being unfolded, I had before me a sheet nearly two feet square, on which was painted in dull colors a curious winding procession of figures and symbols. My knowledge of such matters being then but scant, I could tell only that this was a record, at once historical and geographical, of a tribal migration; and I saw at a glance that it was unlike either of the famous picture-writings which record the migration of the Aztecs from Culhuacan to the Valley of Mexico, and then about that valley until their final settlement in Tenochtitlan. I was reasonably confident, indeed, that this record differed from all existing codices; and I was filled with what I hope will be looked upon as a pardonable pride at having discovered, within three months of my coming to Mexico, this unique and inestimable treasure.

My natural desire was to carry my precious codex at once to Don Rafael, that I might have the benefit of his superior knowledge in studying it (for he had continued very intelligently the investigation of Aztec picture-writing that was so well begun by the late Senor Ramirez), and also that I might enjoy his sympathetic enjoyment of my discovery. As I raised the bag, that I might replace in it the refolded paper--which I already saw heralded to the world as the Codex Palgravius, and reproduced in fac-simile in Pre-Columbian Conditions on the Continent of North America--some glittering object dropped out of it and fell with a jingling sound upon the stone floor. When I examined eagerly this fresh treasure I found that it was a disk of gold, about the size and thickness of a Mexican silver dollar, on which a curious figure was rudely engraved. The engraving obviously represented an Aztec name-device, the like of which, in the ancient picture-writings, distinguish one from another the several generations of a line of kings. This name-device was strange to me; but, as I have said, I had not at that time studied carefully the Aztec picture-writings, and there were many names of kings which I would not then have recognized. But that the gold disk was the token concerning the meaning of which the dying Cacique had given so strange a hint, I felt assured.

Being still further gladdened by this fresh discovery, I carried my treasures at once to the Museo; and Don Rafael's enthusiasm over them was as hearty as I could desire. Being so deeply learned in such matters, he was able in the course of a single afternoon to arrive at much of the meaning of my codex; and his rendering of it showed that it possessed a very extraordinary historical value. In the Codex Boturini, as is well known, are several important lapses that neither that eminent scholar, nor any other archaeologist whose conclusions can be considered trustworthy, has been able to supply. All that reasonably can be imagined concerning these breaks is that the historian of the Aztec migration deliberately omitted certain facts from his pictured history. The astonishing discovery that Don Rafael made in regard to my codex was that it unquestionably supplied the facts concealed in one of the longest of these unaccountable blanks. This was not a mere guess on his part, but a demonstrable certainty. On a fac-simile of the Codex Boturini he bade me observe attentively the pictures which preceded and which followed the break in question; and then he showed me that these same pictures were the beginning and the ending of my own codex--obviously put there so that this secret record might be inserted accurately into the public record of the wanderings of the Aztec tribe.

Further, the geographical facts set forth in the Codex Boturini having been very solidly established, it was easy to determine approximately the part of Mexico to which the beginning and the end of my codex referred. But the migration here recorded was a very long one, and all that Don Rafael could say with certainty concerning it was that it told of far journeyings into the west and north. He was much puzzled, moreover, by a picture that occurred about the middle of the codex, and that seemed to be intended to represent a walled city among mountains. To my mind this picture tallied well with what the dying Cacique had told me touching the hidden stronghold of his race. But Don Rafael attached very little importance to the Cacique's words; and on archaeological grounds maintained that a walled city was an impossibility in primitive Mexico--for while walls were built in plenty by the primitive Mexicans, and still are to be found in many places, no mention of a walled city is made by the early chroniclers, and of such a city there never has been found the slightest trace.

In regard to the engraved disk of gold, Don Rafael said at once and positively that it represented a name-device which never had been figured in any known Aztec writing; and he was of the opinion--being led thereto by consideration of certain delicate peculiarities of the figure which were too subtle for my uninstructed apprehension to grasp--that the name here symbolized was that of a ruler who was both priest and king. That the piece of gold was found associated with picture-writing unquestionably belonging to the theocratic period lent additional color to this assumption. The sum of our conclusions, therefore, was that we had here the name-device of a priest-king who had ruled the Aztec tribe during some portion of the first migration. And, assuming that he had lived during the period to which my codex referred, and accepting the system of dates tentatively adopted by Senor Ramirez, we even fixed the ninth century of our era as the period in which he had lived and ruled.

During two whole days Don Rafael and I worked together over these matters in the Museo; and it was not until our investigations were ended--so far, at least, as investigations could be said to be ended while yet no definite conclusions were reached--that my thoughts reverted to Fray Antonio, and to the requirement of courtesy that I should report to him the result of my course of study in the Indian tongues. It is but justice to myself to add that, knowing him to be gone to Santa Maria to attend to the Cacique's burial, I had temporarily dismissed this matter from my mind.

But when I was come to the Church of San Francisco--carrying with me the Codex Palgravius and the engraved disk of gold, in both of which I knew that he would take a keen interest--I had no immediate opportunity of exhibiting to him my treasures.

As I pushed open the sacristy door, when I had knocked upon it and he had called me to enter, he came towards me at once in excitement so eager that his face was all lit up by it; and almost before I could greet him he exclaimed: "You are most happily come, my friend. At this very moment I was about to send for you; for I have found that which will stir your heart even as it has stirred mine. Yet perhaps," and he spoke more gravely, "it will not stir your heart in the same way that mine is stirred by it--for if I can but find the key that will unlock the whole of the mystery that here partly is revealed, I see before me such opportunity to garner the Lord's vintage as comes but seldom to His servants in these later ages of the world."

So strange was Fray Antonio's manner, and so wayward seemed his speech, that I was half inclined to think his religious enthusiasm fairly had landed him in religious madness; which thought must have found utterance in my look of doubtfulness, for he smiled kindly at me, and in a quieter tone went on:

"My wits still are with me, Don Tomas; though I do not wonder at your thinking that I have lost them. Sit down here and listen to the story of my discovery; and when it is ended you will perceive that I very well may be excited by it and still be sane."

Being assured by this calmer speech that Fray Antonio had not taken leave of his senses, I made a weak disclaimer, that he smilingly accepted, of my too clearly expressed doubts in that direction; and so seated myself to listen.

"You know, senor," he began, "that common report has declared that beneath this Church of San Francisco is a secret passage that extends under the city and has its exit in the outlying meadow-lands. I may confide in you frankly that this passage does exist, and that I, in common with all members of my Order who have dwelt here, know precisely where its entrance is and where its outlet. These matters need not be exposed, for they are not essential to my purpose. But you must know that in the midst of this passage I found on the day preceding your return from the mountains a little room of which the door was so well concealed that my finding it was the merest accident. And in the room, with other things which need not here be named, I found a chest in which are certain ancient papers of which I have been long in search. In the archives are frequent references to these papers--they are of much importance to our Order--but as with all my search I never could discover them, I had decided in my mind that in one or another of the troublous periods that our Church has passed through they had been destroyed. It is plain to me now that in one of these periods of danger they were hidden in this safe place.

"Some of these papers, dealing with mere matters of history, you will have pleasure in examining in due time. But that which I shall show you now, and which has so excited me that you not unnaturally thought that I had gone mad over it, has got among the rest, as I verily believe, by simple accident. Among the books and papers in the chest was a parchment case on which was written 'Mission of Santa Marta,' and the date '1531.' Within it were some loose sheets of paper on which were records of Indian baptisms, as is evident by the strange mixing of Christian and of heathen names. Plainly, this was the register of some mission station of our Order in that far-back time. But as I pried into the case more closely, I found, within a double fold of the parchment--yet not as though intentionally hidden, but rather as though there placed for temporary safety--a sealed letter directed to the blessed Fray Juan de Zumarraga, who was of our Order, and who, as you know, was the first bishop of our holy Church in this New Spain. As I drew forth the letter, the seal, that time had loosened, fell away and left it open in my hand. That this letter never until now has been read I am altogether confident, for the prodigy of which it tells would have made so great a stir that ample record of it would have been preserved. Nor is it difficult to account for the way in which it missed coming to the eye for which it was intended. In that early time many and many of our Order, going out to preach God's Word among the barbarians, came happily to that end which is the happiest end attainable in God's service: a blessed martyrdom." Fray Antonio's voice trembled with deep feeling as he spoke, and I remembered that Don Rafael had told me that this good brother, it was believed, himself longed for a death so glorious. "And being thus slain," Fray Antonio in a moment continued, "the mission stations which they had established were left desolate, with what they held--save such few things as might be cared for by the savage murderers--remaining there within them. In later times, as the conquering Spaniards overspread the land, many of these stations were found, with nothing to tell save nameless bones of those who had died there that God's will might be done.

"It is my conjecture, therefore, that this parchment case was found--how many years after the death of him who owned it, who can tell?--in one of the many stations that the savages thus ravaged; that the soldiers, or whoever may have found it, brought it hither, the nearest important abiding-place of our Order; and that, being carelessly examined, it was carelessly thrown aside when found to contain, apparently, only the little record of the work which our dead brother accomplished before God granted him his crown of earthly martyrdom and so made quick his way to heaven. Had the letter ever reached that 'first hand' for which the writer says he waits to send it by, it assuredly would have come to the knowledge of the gold-loving Spanish conquerors, and armies would have gone forth to answer it. But our dead brother, having written it and placed it in this fold of the parchment for safety until the chance to send it southward should come, was cut off from life suddenly; and so, of the prodigious marvel of which knowledge had so strangely come to him, only this mute and hidden record remained."

"But the letter itself?" I asked, with more energy than politeness. "What is the story that it contains? What is this mystery? Tell me of it first, and then explain as much as you please afterwards."

Fray Antonio smiled at me kindly. "Ah, you too are becoming excited," he said. "But, truly, it is not fair that I should thus have kept you waiting. Indeed, I am so full of it all that I forgot that as yet you know nothing. Come out with me into the court-yard, where the light is stronger--for the writing is very faint and pale--and I will read you this letter in which so wonderful a story is set forth."

Together we passed out through a little door in the rear of the sacristy into what had been the inner and smaller cloister court-yard of the old convent--a lovely place in which a fountain set in a quaint stone basin sparkled, and where warm sunshine fell upon the rippling water and upon beds of sweet-smelling flowers. And here it was, standing among the flowers in the sunshine, beside the quaint fountain, that Fray Antonio read to me the letter--that in this strange fashion had come to us from a hand dead for much more than three centuries, and that yet brought to us two a vital message that wholly was to shape our destinies.

IV.

MONTEZUMA'S MESSENGER.

The letter was without date, but, being addressed to the Bishop Zumarraga, the phrase that occurred in it--"this New Spain, wherein, Very Reverend Father, you have labored in God's service this year and more past"--showed that 1530 was the year in which it was written. As to place, there practically was no clew at all. The writer referred repeatedly to "this mission of Santa Marta, in the Chichimeca country"--but the mission had perished utterly but a little while after it was founded; and at that period the term Chichimeca country was used by the Spaniards in speaking of any part of Mexico where wild Indians were.

Being shorn of a portion of its pious verbiage, and somewhat modernized in style, the ancient Spanish of this letter contained in effect these English words:

"VERY REVEREND FATHER,--This present letter will be sent forward to you by the first hand by which it may be hence transmitted; and in your wisdom, with God's grace also guiding you, I doubt not that you will take measures for sending missionaries of our Order to the great company of the heathen whose whereabouts I am to disclose to you. And also, no doubt--keeping the matter secret from the pestilent Oidores of the Audiencia--you will communicate this strange matter through safe channels to our lord the King: that with our missionaries an army may go forth, and that so the great treasure of which I give tidings may be wrested from the heathen to be used for God's glory and the enriching of our lord the King.

"Know, Very Reverend Father, that a month since, I being then abroad from this mission of Santa Marta, preaching God's word in a certain village of the Chichimecas that is five leagues to the northward, was so strengthened by God's grace that many of the heathen professed our holy faith and were baptized. And of these was one who among that tribe was held a captive. Which captive, as I found, was of the nation that dwelt in Tenochtitlan before our great captain, Don Fernando Cortes, reduced that city to submission. But little of earthly life remained to this poor captive when I, unworthily but happily, opened to him the way to life glorious and eternal; for in the fight that happened when he was captured--of which fight he alone of all his companions had survived--he was sorely wounded; and though in time his wounds had healed he remained but a weakly man, and the service to which his captors forced him was hard. So it was that I had but little more than time to put him in the way leading to heaven before his spirit gladly forsook its weary body and went thence from earth.

"That he truly was a convert to our holy faith I am well assured, by the signs of a spirit meet for repentance which he showed in his own person; and still more by his strong longing, most earnestly expressed, that this same glorious faith of freedom should be preached to a certain great company of his people, whereof he most secretly told me, who still remain bound in the bondage of idolatry. And it is what he told me of these, Very Reverend Father, and of the marvellous hidden city wherein they dwell, and of the mighty treasure which there they guard, that I desire now to bring to your private knowledge, before it shall be known of by the Oidores, and through you to our lord the King. Here now is the whole of the mystery that he recited:

"In very ancient times, he said, his people came forth from seven caves which are in the western region of this continent, and wandered long in search of an abiding-place. And in the course of ages it came to pass that a certain wise king ruled over them to whom was given the gift of prophecy. Which king, by name Chaltzantzin, foretold that in the later ages there should come an army of fair and bearded men from the eastward, who would prevail over the people of his race: slaying many, and making of the remainder slaves. Being sorely troubled by thought of what he thus foresaw, he set himself to provide a source of strength whereon his descendants in that later time might draw in the hour of their peril--and so save themselves from cruel death and from yet crueler slavery. To which end, in a certain great valley that lies securely hidden among the mountains of this continent, he caused to be built a walled city; and this city he then peopled with the very bravest and strongest of his race. And he made for those dwelling there a perpetual law that commanded that all such as showed themselves when come to maturity to be weak or malformed in body, or coward of heart, then should be put to death; to the end that their natural increase ever should be of the same stout stuff as themselves, and also that there might be no lack of victims for the sacrifices which are acceptable to their barbarous gods. And thus he provided that in the time of need there should be here a strong army of valiant warriors, ready to come forth to fight against the fair-faced bearded men, and by conquering them to save safe the land.

"And yet more provision did King Chaltzantzin make for the strengthening and the saving of his race in the later ages. Within this walled city of Culhuacan he caused to be builded a great treasure-house, wherein he garnered such store of riches as never was gathered together in one place since the beginning of the world. And his order was that if even the power of the army which should go forth from that city sufficed not to conquer the foreign foemen, then should this vast treasure be used to buy his people's ransom, that they might not perish nor be enslaved.

"Having set all which great matters in order, King Chaltzantzin came forth from the Valley of Aztlan, leaving behind him the noble colony that he had there founded; and so with his people wandered vagrant--even as their gods had commanded that they should go until by a sign from heaven they should be shown where was to be their lasting home. And that the fulfilling of his purpose might be made the more sure, he brought his people forth from that valley by most perilous passes and through strait ways so that they might not return thither; and that they who remained might not follow, he closed the way behind him with mighty bars.

"In the fulness of time this wise king died, and others reigned in his stead; and at last the ages of wandering of the Aztec tribe were ended by the sign coming from heaven whereby they knew that the Valley of Anahuac was to be their abiding home. There built they the city of Tenochtitlan: which city the valiant captain, Don Fernando Cortes, conquered this short time since--and by conquest of it verified precisely the prophecy that King Chaltzantzin uttered in very ancient times.