X.
THE SWINGING STATUE.
Four more days went by very wearily. Our wounds were healing--for we allwere in good condition as the result of our vigorous life in the openair--but they still kept us in constant pain, and so tended to increaseour melancholy. Out in the valley, beyond the mouth of the canon, theIndians maintained their watchful guard. Rayburn tried the experiment ofholding a hat and coat out on a pole, standing himself under cover ofthe rock, and in an instant a pair of arrows went through the dummy; andas one of these came from the right and the other from the left, it wasevident that in both directions the valley was picketed.
We were safe enough for the time being, of course. Even should theIndians overcome their superstitious dread and enter the canon--whichwas not probable, for they had not even ventured to remove theirdead--they could not possibly make a successful attack upon us in thecave. Behind the breastwork that we had built in the narrow entrance,and armed with our repeating rifles and revolvers, we were absolutelysecure.
"It's not a bad thing that we're safe," said Young, "an' that we've gotplenty of grub an' water, an' even lots of firewood; if we've got t' beshut up here we might as well be comfortable. But what I want is athrough ticket for home. This treasure business has gone back on us th'worst kind. That old Fray Francisco had his eye shut up by th' tall talkof th' fellow who pretended to be converted; and th' Cacique justpromiscuously lied. That's about the size of it. An' for bein' foolsenough to swallow their stuff, here we are, as Rayburn says, like ratsin a cage."
There was so much probability in what Young said that I did not attemptto argue with him; yet was I convinced that in what Fray Francisco hadwritten, and still more in what the dying Cacique had said to me, therewas a substantial element of truth.
Finding that nobody replied to him, for all of us were sore at heart andso disposed to silence, Young turned to the statue of Chac-Mool andproceeded to abuse it vigorously, on the ground that it was anidolatrous product of the Aztec race that was at the root of all ourtroubles. For, as he truly said, had there been no Aztecs to begin with,our departure on a wild-goose chase after an Aztec treasure-house wouldhave been an impossibility. His attention having been thus fixed uponthe idol, his habit of investigation got the better of his ill-willtowards it, and he mounted the altar to examine it moreclosely--continuing the while to address it in language that waseminently unparliamentary.
"A pretty-looking sort a specimen _you_ are!" he said, in a tone ofvast contempt. "But you're about what I'd expect folks like that friendof th' Professor's, th' Cacique, t' worship. It takes a low sort of aheathen, even in his blindness, t' bow down to a stone like you--withyour twisted head, an' your stubby legs, an' your little fryin'-pan overyour stomach. Why, where I come from they wouldn't have you even for astone settee in a park. No, you're not fit even t' sit on--unless,maybe, it's on th' flat top of your crooked head;" and by way of testingthis possibility, Young seated himself on the head of Chac-Mool.
And then a very extraordinary thing happened. The idol, and the greatslab of stone on which it rested and of which it was a part, slowlymoved; the head sinking, and the other end of the slab, on which thelegs were carved, rising in the air! Young sprang up with a cry as hefelt the stone sinking beneath him; and the figure, relieved of hisweight, settled back into its former position with a slight jar. In amoment that the slab was in the air there had come from under it a gleamof light.
In the excitement wrought by this strange accident our hurts wereforgotten; and we eagerly clambered upon the altar to investigate thematter further, while hope and wonder thrilled our hearts.
"Now, then, Young," said Rayburn, "try it again. It looks as though thisidol wasn't all the blackguard things you've been calling it, by a longshot."
"No, I'll be hanged if I'll try it again," Young answered. "Try ityourself, if you want to. How do I know what's goin' t' happen with astone thing that goes tippin' around that way? I don't mind sayin' thatI'm a good deal jolted, an' don't feel like foolin' with it any more.Try it yourself, if you want to, I say."
"All right," Rayburn answered. "You and the Professor stand here whereyou can grab me if anything goes wrong. It looks to me as though therewas a chance for us of some sort here, and I mean to see what it is."
Young and I stood on each side of Rayburn and held him by the arms as heseated himself on the idol's head. Borne down by his weight, the headslowly sank, the whole fore-end of the stone slab falling away into therock, and the after-end correspondingly rising and disclosing a squaredopening, through which came a strong burst of light. When the head wasdown to the level of the rock, and the slab stood up at an angle ofnearly fifty degrees, the movement ceased. Looking into the opening wesaw a flight of a dozen stone steps. On the bottom step the sun shonebrightly, and in our faces blew a draught of fresh, sweet air. On therock, beside the stair-way was carved the King's symbol, with the arrowpointing downward.
"Hurrah!" cried Young. "Here's a way out--an' it looks as if that oldmonk an' th' Cacique weren't such a pair of blasted liars after all!"
Rayburn jumped up to have a look with the rest of us; but before hecould see anything the statue had fallen into place again and theopening was closed. "No matter, we know how to work it, now," he said."We must prop it up somehow; that's all. I want to have a look at thisthing. There's some mighty good engineering shown in the way the centreof gravity of that stone has been calculated; and there's a goodmechanism in the way it's hung. Here she goes again. Just chock it witha bit of rock when I swing it open."
"Well, what I'm interested in," said Young, "is findin' out what sort ofa place it'll get us into. It looks to me as if we might be goin' tostrike the treasure right smack here."
Much the same notion was in all of our heads by this time, and we werefull of eagerness--the statue having been swung again, and propped inplace with a fragment of rock--as we went down the little stair. Butwhat we found was only a continuation of the canon--as though, by somecurious freak of nature, the thin walls of rock enclosing the cave hadbeen left thus in the very middle of it. Rayburn drew our attention tothe fact that we were on the crest of a divide, for a spring thatbubbled up here flowed away from us; and this also was a cheering signthat the canon had an outlet. How far away the outlet might be we couldnot tell; for the canon, half a mile or so from where we stood, bentsharply to the right. But being thus assured that a way of some sort outof our prison was open to us, we turned to examine the work of theskilled mechanics who in some far past time had set this swinging statuein its place. From below, the simple apparatus, that yet for its fittingrequired so high a grade of scientific knowledge, was plainly disclosedto us. Into the great slab of stone, presumably running through it fromside to side, was set a round bar of metal--the same bright metal ofwhich the sword was made--more than a foot in diameter; and this workedin two concave metal sockets in much the same manner that the sockets ofa gun-carriage hold the trunnions of a gun. What struck Rayburn asespecially remarkable was the trueness to a circle of both the socketsand the bar; both showing, as he declared, that they had been workedupon a lathe. And he was puzzled, as in the case of the sword, as to thecomposition of the metal that thus defied oxidization through longperiods of time. "Gold is the only thing that fills the bill," he said;"but a bar of gold, even of that size, would bend double under such astrain. I'd give ten dollars for a chance to analyze it--for there's abigger fortune in putting a metal like that on the market than there isin finding this treasure that we're hunting for: especially if it turnsout that there isn't any treasure to find."
"Now, don't you go t' runnin' down that treasure," Young struck in."Just now treasure stock is up. Me an' that idol have just boomed th'market. I'm sorry I called Jack Mullins, or whatever his name is, such alot of cuss-word names. I take 'em all back. He isn't just th' sort ofan idol that I'd pick out t' worship myself, at least not as a steadything; but there are good points about him--especially th' way he tipsup. I always did like an idol that tipped up. He's done t
h' square thingby us in gettin' us out all right from th' worst sort of a hole; an' Iguess th' best thing we can do is t' yank our traps out of that cavean' get started again. Why, for all we know, th' treasure may be rightaround that corner."
There was no doubt as to the soundness of Young's suggestion in regardto resuming our march; but the very serious fact confronted us that wenow must do our marching on foot. To get the horses and mules downthrough the narrow opening was simply impossible, and there was nothingfor us but to leave them behind. Rayburn looked very grave over thisphase of the matter, for leaving the mules meant also that we must leavethe greater part of our ammunition and stores. That these things wouldbe abundantly safe in the cave, for any length of time, was not to thepurpose; the essential matter was that we would be deprived of them. Itwas hard, too, to think that our animals would fall into the hands ofthe Indians--for our only course with them must be to turn them loose inthe canon, whence they certainly would go out in search of pasture intothe valley, and so be captured; but it was still harder to think that wemust go ourselves on foot and with a scant outfit of supplies.
It was not very cheerfully, therefore, that we went back into the caveand began to sort out from our packs the articles which would beabsolutely necessary to our preservation in the rough work among themountains that probably was before us; and our shoulders already ached alittle in anticipation of the heavy loads which they must bear.
It was while we were thus engaged that Pablo begged that I would stepaside with him for a moment that he might speak to my ear alone. I sawthat there were tears upon his cheeks, and as he spoke he scarcelycould restrain his sobs.
"Senor," he said, "you know El Sabio?"
"Surely, Pablo."
"You know, senor, that he is a very small ass."
"It is true."
"And you know--you know, senor, how very tenderly we love each other.Since I came away from my father and my mother, in Guadalajara, and frommy little brother and sister there, El Sabio is everything in the worldto me, senor. I--I cannot leave him, senor. I should die if we wereparted; and El Sabio would die also. And you say that you have perceivedthat he is a very small ass. Do not ask me to leave him, senor."
"But we cannot take him with us, Pablo. What would you have?"
"That is it, senor; truly, I think that we can take him with us. Yousee, he is so little; and it is quite wonderful through how small aplace El Sabio can crawl. He can creep like a kitten, senor, and he canmake himself into a very little bunch. And so I think that he can--if wehelp him, you know, senor--and speak to him so that he will not bealarmed, and will try to do his very best to make a small bunch ofhimself--I think that we can get him down through the hole, and so takehim with us. But if we cannot, senor, then--you must forgive me,senor--I love him so very dearly, you know--then I will stay with himhere. It would be better so than that El Sabio should think I no longerloved him. And he would think that, senor, were I to go with you andleave him here among these dreadful dead gentlemen alone."
It had not occurred to any of us that El Sabio might be condensedsufficiently to go through the narrow way; but if he truly were thecollapsable donkey that Pablo declared him to be, we had a good deal tobe thankful for. He was a sturdy little creature, and his small backcould bear easily twice as much as any two of ours. With his assistancewe certainly would be able to carry with us all of our ammunition andarms--of which defensive stuff we could not well afford to spare thesmallest part.
And El Sabio, after Pablo had made a long explanation of the case tohim, and had told him precisely what we expected him to do--to all ofwhich he listened gravely and with an astonishing air of comprehendingwhat was said to him--seemed to enter into the spirit of the situation,and to try his very best to meet its requirements. It is a puzzle to meto this day how El Sabio managed to shrink himself so that we got himthrough that narrow hole; but he certainly did manage it--and then wentdown the stone stair-way backward, as though he had been trained to be atrick donkey from his youth up. When the feat was accomplished, and hestood safely out in the canon, the expressions of love, and ofcongratulation upon his cleverness, which Pablo lavished upon him wereenough to have turned completely a less serious-minded donkey's head.
Such of our stores as we were compelled to leave behind us, includingour saddles, and the pack-saddles, and all the heavier portion of ourcamp equipage, we heaped in one corner of the cave and piled rocksover; and then we turned our poor horses and the mules loose in thecanon, feeling certain that their instinct would lead them out to thevalley in search of food. It went to our hearts to know that these goodbeasts of ours were doomed to hard service under Indian masters to theend of their days.
All being thus in readiness for our advance, we went down the stair-waybeneath the swinging statue, and from beneath pulled out the piece ofrock which propped up the great mass of stone. With a heavy jar it felland closed the passage-way, and we prepared to start. Just then FrayAntonio remembered that he had left on a ledge in the cave--that we hadused as a shelf for the storage of various small matters during oursojourn there--a little volume that he dearly loved: the _Meditations ofThomas a Kempis_. He was full of remorse for his forgetfulness, and didnot ask that we should turn back to get his book for him; yet hisdistress over the loss of it was so evident that we had not the heart togo on.
"It will take only ten minutes to go back," said Rayburn, and as hespoke he ran up the stair-way and set his shoulders to sway up thestone. In a moment he called: "Just come here, Young, and help, willyou? It don't work as easily from this side." But even with Young's helpthe stone did not move. Then the rest of us joined these two, and allfive of us together pushed with all our strength--and the stone did notyield by so much as the breadth of a hair! And then rather a queer lookcame into Rayburn's face, and he said: "I think that I understand whatis the matter. The point of leverage falls beyond the edge of the hole.From where we have a chance to push, we are working against the wholeweight of the stone. We might as well try to lift the mountain itself!"And then he added, "I guess we'd better give this thing up and start."
Very curious feelings were in our breasts as we picked up our packs andset off along the canon; for we knew that by that way only could we go,and that, no matter what was ahead of us, our retreat was cut off.
The Aztec Treasure-House Page 12
