At the same moment there came back to him the resolve he had made to die fighting rather than submit to being sacrificed. Now he upbraided himself furiously for having allowed the drug he had been given in his food to lull him into a false sense of security and to forget his intention to escape.
But it was not too late. The sun was already casting long shadows on the terrace and about to set behind the range of distant mountains. If he acted swiftly and ruthlessly he might yet get away under cover of darkness and rejoin his own people.
He had no weapon but, springing forward, with one hand he seized Itzechuatl by the throat and with the other grasped the bejewelled hilt of the dagger at his girdle. Wrenching out the sharp obsidian blade, he lifted it high and struck with it at the High Priest’s side. The point descended on a hidden buckle. The stone blade shattered into fragments, but the blow was so forceful that it drove the breath out of Itzechuatl’s body. With a gasp, he lurched sideways and collapsed.
With cries of horror at this sacrilege, the bearers of the litters launched themselves on Adam. There were sixteen of them, but they were little men and Adam, by comparison, a giant. He seized the foremost by the hair and beneath one knee, lifted him high in the air and threw him into the midst of the others. Plunging forward into the gap in their ranks, he hit out right and left. Three of them went down under his blows, the rest, except for one, gave back.
That one still barred his path and had drawn a dagger. At that moment the tall girl, Mirolitlit, snapped the neck fastening of her transparent gauze cloak and cast the garment over the Chichimec’s dagger hand, fouling it so that he could not strike.
Next moment Adam smashed his fist into the man’s face and sent him reeling. Flashing a smile at the girl, which she returned with a shout of encouragement, he dashed forward in the direction of the steps that led down from the terrace to the water. Taking them three at a time he reached the stone landing stage. Seizing the painter of a canoe alongside, with brute strength he wrenched out the staple that held it. Before those of the bearers who had remained uninjured were halfway down the steps he was in the canoe, had grabbed the paddle and pushed off.
The sun had just gone down behind the mountains. Darkness was fast descending on the lake; but he knew that when he reached the shore he had hundreds of miles to cover before he could hope to reach the country near the coast, to which his own people had retired, and be safe among them. The Chichimec warriors were fast runners and they would soon be in pursuit. Kneeling in the canoe he drove the frail craft forward with frantic strokes across the lake. It was not until moments later that he realised it was to the Norse gods that he was praying desperately to save him.
4
A Girl with a Gun
When Adam came to, he realised vaguely that he was leaning over sideways, embraced by the soft arms of a woman and with his aching head pillowed on her breast. His dream had been so vivid that he thought himself still in the past; that somehow he had been knocked out and brought back to the terrace of the Palace, and that it was the beautiful Mirolitlit who was cradling him in her arms.
A moment later he opened his eyes, saw trees and traffic through a window and realised that he was in the back of a large car; yet the idea that he was being supported by Mirolitlit’s arms still persisted.
Turning his head, he looked up at his companion and, to his surprise, saw that she was not Mirolitlit. The only resemblance between the two was that both had black hair and copper-coloured skin. This girl had blue eyes and an aquiline nose set between high cheekbones in a narrow face. Her mouth was well shaped, but on the thin side, and her chin showed great determination.
As he moved, she smiled. In repose her features had conveyed the impression that she was an autocrat: beautiful, but self-willed and dictatorial. The smile was one of warm friendliness. Her mouth opened, as though from constant habit, to display two gleaming rows of even teeth; her eyes radiated tenderness and concern. It was as though the sculptured head of an imperious Indian Princess had magically become alive, revealing a generous mind, responsive nerves and a flow of rich blood from the heart.
She said in Spanish, ‘We knocked you down and are taking you to a hospital. I’m terribly sorry. I do hope that you are not badly hurt.’
Perhaps it was her voice, coupled with the entrancing smile; but Adam again thought of Mirolitlit. In spite of the difference in their appearance, the two women seemed to bear an indefinable resemblance to each other. It was something intangible, not of the body, but in the nature of an invisible aura or spiritual essence.
‘Muchos gracias, señorita’ he muttered, endeavouring to sit up. But his head was aching atrociously and felt like a millstone. It rolled on his shoulders and he fell back. Then he managed to gasp. ‘It was my fault. Sorry … sorry to be a bother.’
‘Lie quietly now,’ she said. ‘We’ll be there in a minute.’ And shortly afterwards the car pulled up. Ambulance men appeared with a stretcher and Adam was carried into the hospital.
In a ground-floor room a doctor examined him. Meanwhile the man who had been driving the car stood nearby, looking on anxiously. His hair was thick but snow white above a square, forceful face, his brown eyes quick and intelligent, his clothes expensive and his air, as he questioned the doctor, that of a man used to being obeyed.
The doctor reported that Adam had sustained no injury except to his head, and that was not serious; but he would probably suffer from slight concussion, so it was advisable that he remain in the hospital, anyway for that night.
By then Adam had recovered sufficiently to give particulars about himself, upon which the other man said, ‘Señor Gordon is to be put in a private ward and given every attention. I will be responsible for all expenses.’ Then, turning to Adam, he added in halting English, ‘Accept, please, my deepest regrets, wishes too for speedy recovery. As you are visitor here I hope you allow me to make reparation for the knocking down of you. Permit that I be of service to you during stay in Mexico City. I am named Bernadino Enriquez.’
Adam was then wheeled to a lift, put to bed in a pleasant room upstairs and given a sedative which soon sent him off to sleep. During the night he dreamed again and the lovely Mirolitlit was the central figure in the dream, but it had no continuity and at times Mirolitlit turned into the girl in the car so that their personalities became inextricably mixed.
In the morning his head still pained him and he had a slight temperature, so, although otherwise he felt fairly well, it was decided that he should spend another night in the hospital. Soon after the doctor had left him, his day nurse brought in a huge bouquet of flowers and a basket of exotic fruit. There was a card with them inscribed, ‘Bernadino Enriquez, Avenida Presidente Masarik 85’, and an invitation to dinner two nights hence, the 7th January. Hoping that the intriguing lady of the car would be there, Adam promptly decided to accept, then asked his nurse if she knew anything about Bernadino Enriquez.
With a laugh she replied, ‘But, of course. He is the plastics king; and one of the richest men in Mexico.’
At that—the lady apart—Adam felt that his luck was in again; for it was well worth having been knocked down to have gained the acquaintance of a man who was in a position to give him considerable help in securing valuable data for the background of his book.
Next day, a Sunday, feeling none the worse for his accident, he returned to his hotel. There, to his surprise and indignation, he learned that, not knowing what had become of him, the manager had had his things packed up and his room let to someone else. Moreover, there was no other room free which he could be given. As he had booked accommodation there for this fortnight as far back as November, he was justifiably furious, lost his temper and proceeded to tell the management what he thought of their hotel in a mixture of Spanish and English through which came distinct traces of the Scottish accent he had had in his youth. An under-manager, who had been brought on the scene, only shrugged, said that they could let their rooms many times over, and that once a room had remaine
d unoccupied for more than one night the booking for the whole period was regarded by them as cancelled. However, to pacify the outraged guest, other hotels were telephoned and, by luck, the El Presidente had just had a cancellation; so Adam’s baggage was brought up and, vowing never again to enter the Del Paseo, he drove off in a taxi.
The El Presidente was only a few blocks away in the Hamburgo—the Bond Street of Mexico City. The greater part of the ground floor consisted of a lofty grotto, ending in a wall of rock down which water was splashing through growing ferns and creepers. Below it was an irregular-shaped swimming pool and, on the far side of that, tables, chairs and a small bar to enable people to enjoy their drinks while watching the bathers.
For the moment Adam was in no mood to enjoy this pleasant scene and went straight up to his room. He found it to be somewhat better equipped than the one he had had at the Del Paseo and, in addition, it had a balcony looking out over the roof-tops towards Popoctepetl; so, in spite of the bother he had been put to, he felt that he had benefited by the scurvy treatment the Del Paseo had meted out to him.
The remainder of Sunday and most of Monday he spent quietly; then, at nine o’clock that evening, dressed in his new Savile Row dinner jacket, he took a taxi out to the Avenida Presidente Masarik.
It lay north of the Park, in the best residential district, and No. 85 proved to be a block of flats, the penthouse on top of which was occupied by Enriquez. Adam was whisked up there in a lift and found it to be the finest private apartment that, in his limited experience, he had ever seen.
A white-jacketed houseman led him through a wide hall, where there were massed banks of flowers and orchids sufficient to stock a florist’s shop, into a drawing room half as large as a tennis court. Three of the walls were of glass, beyond which lay broad stretches of roof shaded by awnings. Beneath them were swing hammocks, a dozen lounge chairs, a fountain and flowering shrubs in big pots. But neither in the big room nor out on the roof gardens was a soul to be seen. Adam had made the mistake common to visitors to Mexico. He had arrived at the time for which he had been invited, instead of half an hour or an hour later.
Against the one solid wall, which was panelled in natural wood, there stood a big bookcase and, after the houseman had bowed himself away, Adam spent a few minutes examining its contents. His attention was then caught by a painting further along the wall. It was a portrait of the girl in the car.
That made it probable, he thought, that she was Enriquez’s daughter, or a relative, although they were not in the least like one another. As he looked at it he saw now that she must be tall and had splendid shoulders, which again recalled his memory of Mirolitlit, and he was more than ever intrigued by the subtle, if vague, resemblance.
Although the only words he had exchanged with the Indian girl were when asking her name, she had left an indelible impression on him; and he felt convinced that, given half an hour in her company, he would have fallen desperately in love with her. Uneasily he wondered if the girl in the portrait would have the same effect on him. She was equally beautiful, although hers was a different and much stronger face. Even so, the same indefinable personality seemed to radiate from it.
Ten minutes later, Bernadino Enriquez came bustling in, with profuse apologies for not having been there to receive his guest. Enriquez at first spoke in halting English, but Adam had brushed up his Spanish recently and found that, having spent so much of his time learning the language during his trip to Brazil, he could converse in it quite happily; so he set his host at his ease by replying in Spanish. He left the choice of drinks to him and was furnished with a delightful concoction of well-iced rum, lime and pineapple juice. Gesturing towards the portrait, he asked who the lovely lady was, and Bernadino replied promptly:
‘My daughter, Chela. You have met her. She was with me in my car when I ran you down. Presently she will join us. But you know what women are. One hair out of place and they must spend another quarter of an hour at their toilette.’
The quarter of an hour went by while they talked amicably of Mexico and Adam spoke enthusiastically of the wonders of the capital that he had so far seen; then, instead of Chela, the first guest arrived—a Canadian who, like his host, had big interests in plastics. He was followed by others until the room was half full of chatting people. Among them was a tall, pale-faced Englishman with a slight stoop. His fair hair was thin, but he had a luxuriant moustache and was introduced to Adam as Wing Commander Hunterscombe.
Adam asked if he was still in the R.A.F., and he replied, ‘No; got out years ago, soon after the war. Went into the Foreign Service. I’m at the Embassy here. Not as a real diplomat, of course; just Cultural Attaché. That’s how I came to know your books.’ He gave a rather vapid laugh. ‘Got to, you know, part of the job.’
In response to this somewhat back-handed compliment, Adam said, a shade acidly, ‘I hope you didn’t find them too boring.’
‘Good Lord, no. Grand stuff. Have you signed the Book yet?’
‘Book?’ replied Adam with a puzzled frown. ‘What book do you mean?’
‘Why, the one at the Embassy, of course.’
‘I didn’t know that I was supposed to.’
‘Oh, come. You’re fooling. All British visitors are expected to.’
‘What’s the idea?’
‘Well, should any trouble blow up. Not that that’s likely here. But say it did, you’d be on the list of British visitors. Then we’d get you on the blower and tip you off to scram before things got worse. Besides, as you are a V.I.P., you’ll probably be asked along to the Residence for a drink. Or, if H.E. has read your books and would like to see more of you, he may ask you to lunch.’
Adam had not been a literary V.I.P. long enough to become blasé with the treatment and he had never been inside an Embassy; so he told the languid, willowy Hunterscombe that he would sign the Book the following morning.
It was just then that Chela Enriquez made her entrance and, at the sight of her, a momentary hush fell on the room. She was wearing a long, full-skirted gown of pale-blue satin with a ruehed ‘V’ neck, the point of which came down low between her small but pouting breasts. The colour set off the golden skin of her slender arms and splendid neck to perfection. Her height made her an impressive figure, but there was nothing of the female Grenadier about her. The breadth of her shoulders emphasised the smallness of her waist, her well-rounded hips and long legs. She carried herself superbly, her smile was dazzling and her movements a poem of grace as she acknowledged the greetings of those nearest her and walked straight over to Adam.
When he had assured her that he had fully recovered, she asked him how long he had been in Mexico, how long he meant to stay, who he knew in the city and what he had so far seen in it.
He told her that he had come without introductions, meant to remain in the country, for several weeks anyhow, then enthused about the Christmas decorations and the new Museum of Anthropology.
She said that, as he had no friends in Mexico, they must look after him. Then, seeing that his glass was empty, she took it herself to the drinks table, brought it back refilled and said with a smile. ‘You must excuse me now. I have to look after our other guests; but we will talk together again later.’
As she moved away, a short, tubby, bald man came up to Adam and asked what he thought of Mexico City. Again Adam enthused about the fine streets and buildings and the wonderful illuminations.
His companion made a wry grimace. ‘Those lights cost us taxpayers a pretty penny; electricity is terribly expensive here.’
Adam raised his eyebrows. ‘You surprise me. From such vast quantities of it being used, I thought it must be quite cheap. Why does your government go in for such extravagance?’
‘To please the masses. It is their policy to keep the people happy with bread and games.’
‘Is there no control over that sort of thing then?’
‘None. Here we live under a dictatorship. Since 1920 we have had a one-party government. It is now call
ed the P.R.I.—Partido Revolucionario Institucional. They decree everything and, short of another revolution, we’ll never get them out.’
It was half past ten before a move was made. Then the whole party descended in the lifts and piled into a fleet of cars, which carried them along to the centre of the Park, where they alighted at a new restaurant called El Lago.
The place was another revelation to Adam of the wealth and luxury of Mexico City. It resembled a theatre and along its wide curve there was tier upon tier of balconies upon which the tables were set. All of them looked out upon a lake from which rose a wondrous fountain, at times jetting its water a hundred feet in the air, at others spreading it out like a huge fan. Coloured lights played on the water, turning it to rainbow hues, and its movements were timed to coincide with the tempo of the band.
They sat down sixteen to dinner and, to Adam’s delight, he found himself placed next to Chela. During the meal she asked him innumerable questions about himself that were probing and intelligent, listening to his replies with absorbed interest.
When they reached the dessert, a fantastic creation of ice-cream, candied fruits and meringue decorated with orchids, she said:
‘As you have no friends here, my father wishes me to be your guide and take you to all the interesting places in the city that a professional guide might not show you.’
‘I can think of nothing more delightful,’ he smiled, ‘but isn’t that a bit hard on you? I mean, you must have dozens of friends and be booked up with any number of engagements. I wouldn’t like to be a nuisance and interfere with your usual activities.’
She shrugged and returned his smile. ‘I can see my friends at any time. And Jeremy Hunterscombe tells me that you are a famous author. I love books, and must read all yours. We shall find lots to talk about and I shall look upon showing you the city as an honour.’
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