The Aztec Treasure-House

by Thomas A. Janvier

  IV.

  MONTEZUMA'S MESSENGER.

  The letter was without date, but, being addressed to the BishopZumarraga, the phrase that occurred in it--"this New Spain, wherein,Very Reverend Father, you have labored in God's service this year andmore past"--showed that 1530 was the year in which it was written. As toplace, there practically was no clew at all. The writer referredrepeatedly to "this mission of Santa Marta, in the Chichimecacountry"--but the mission had perished utterly but a little while afterit was founded; and at that period the term Chichimeca country was usedby the Spaniards in speaking of any part of Mexico where wild Indianswere.

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

  THE LETTER FROM THE DEAD.]

  "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.

  "But the captive Indian told me, further, that before the coming of the Spaniards there was seen the sign of warning that King Chaltzantzin had promised should tell when the danger that he had so well prepared for should be near; which sign was the going out of the sacred fire that the priests guarded on a certain high hill. Meantime, all knowledge of their brethren hidden in the Valley of Aztlan for their help in time of peril was lost to the Aztec tribe in dim tradition; for the King had commanded, in order that his people might not fall into weakness through trusting in the strength of others for protection, that no open record of the colony that he had founded should be preserved. Therefore was this matter a secret known only to a few priests whose blood was of the royal line; in whose keeping, also, was the token that King Chaltzantzin had commanded should be sent to the walled city of Culhuacan when its warriors were to be called forth, and a map whereby the way thither was made plain. And so it was that, when the sacred fire ceased burning, the priests were alert for the threatened danger; and when the landing of the Spaniards--'fair-faced and bearded men, coming from the eastward'--was known to them, they warned their king, Montezuma, that the prophecy was fulfilled, and that the time for sending for the army and the treasure had come.

  "For the bearer of this message was chosen a priest of the blood royal, with whom went also a younger priest, his son. And with these went a guard, whereof the captive Indian was one
, that they might be carried in safety through the region where the wild Indians were. But the valor of the guard was useless, for the wild Indians set upon them in such prodigious numbers--in a place not far from where is this present mission of Santa Marta--that all of the company, save only this single Indian who was wounded and made captive, was overpowered and slain. Yet among the slain, the Indian said, was not found the body of the priest's son; nor was there found on the priest's body the token that he had been the bearer of, nor the map that showed the way. For a time the Indian had hoped that the younger priest had escaped out of the fight alive, and had carried to them who dwelt in the walled city of Culhuacan the message of summons; but as the years went onward and nothing came of it, this hope had died within his heart.

  "This, Very Reverend Father, is the strange story told me by this Indian; who spoke with the urgent sincerity of one devout in the Christian faith who knew by sensible perception that his death was near at hand. Eagerly he begged that to these Gentiles, his brethren by blood, might be sent in their secret fastnesses the blessed Word whereby they would be delivered from the chains of their idolatry into the freedom of Christian grace. And, surely, the treasure that they ward very well may be wrested from these heathen that it may be used in part in this land in God's service, and that in part it may go to the just enriching of our lord the King.

  "Nor is the matter one that is difficult of accomplishment. For a token which shall give us the right of entry into this walled city of Culhuacan we need only the Word of God and a sufficient force of men well armed with swords and matchlocks. Nor is it any bar to our quest that the map showing the way thither has been lost. The Indian told me that this way is so plainly marked that one who had found it could not lose it again. For at spaces of not more than a league or two apart, upon flat places of the rock convenient for such purpose, was cut the same figure that the token of summons had engraved upon it; and, with this, an arrow pointing towards where the next carving would be found: and so these signs went onward, the heathen priest had told him, even to the very entrance of the Valley of Aztlan. And that this matter might be made sure to me, he led me to a spot but a league to the westward of this mission of Santa Marta and there showed me one of these signs, with the pointing arrow carved also on the rock beside it--of all of which the drawing here made is an indifferent good copy. And by that guiding arrow we went onward to another like carving at a little less than two leagues away to the northward. Therefore, Very Reverend Father, I, of my own knowledge, am a witness to a part, at least, of the truth of what that Indian told. And with all my heart do I add mine own entreaty to his simple pleadings for the salvation of the souls of his brethren; and also do I venture to entreat that among those who go to carry the Word of God to this hidden heathen host I may be one; so that I, though all unworthy of such honor, shall have a part in rendering to God so glorious a service.

  "The more urgently do I ask this favor because here, in this mission of Santa Marta, it is but too clear to me that I am laboring in a barren field. Some hundreds of the heathen I have indeed baptized; but among all these who have professed our Christian faith scarce a score show outward and visible signs of a true regeneration. Many, I am sadly sure, still practise in secret their old idolatry--and find little more than mere amusement in the rites of our most holy Church. When they tire of this novelty, which, in the case of folk of such light natures no doubt will be in a little while, they will return openly to their idolatry; and it probably may happen that they then will sacrifice me to their heathen gods. That, in one way or another, they do intend to kill me, and that soon, I feel quite sure. I am but twenty-three years old, Very Reverend Father; and that is an early time in life to end it. No doubt, also, in killing me they will use torture. And I long fervently to live, not only for the pleasure of it, but also that I may do good service to God, and to our Father Saint Francis, by saving many heathen souls. Therefore I beg that when the army marches to the reduction of this hidden city that I may be one of our brethren who will go with it, to hold by tender preaching of God's goodness and mercy such heathen as may remain alive after our soldiers shall have conquered that city with the sword.

  "I commend you, Very Reverend Father, to the care of Our Lord in all things, and pray that he may guard your most illustrious and very reverend person, and protect you in all matters of your temporal and spiritual estate. And I am the least worthy of your servants,

  FRANCISCO de los ANGELES."

  "Of a truth," said Fray Antonio, as he ceased reading, "this brother ofmine adhered closely to the truth when he subscribed himself the leastworthy of the bishop's servants. Were it not here in his own hand, Ishould refuse to believe that one of our Order at that time in New Spainhad any thought of saving his own life when God's work was to be done."

  For myself, I must own that my heart was deeply touched by the veryhumanity of this poor Brother Francisco's cry for help that came up outof the dead depths of the past; and that was the more keen and pitifulbecause the cruel death at the hands of the barbarous Indians that he sodreaded assuredly had overtaken him. His could not have been a strongnature, and it was the weaker because of his youth; but, after all, itwas the nature that God had given him, and there must have been a strainof strength in it, else he never would have braved the dangers whichovercame him in the end. And he was "but twenty-three years old"!

  Yet when I sought to lead Fray Antonio's mind to such consideration ofthe matter he replied, sternly: "This weak brother failed in his duty.To him God gave an opportunity to die gloriously for the Faith; but,instead of accepting that noble reward joyfully, his strongest wish wasthat he might find a way by which he might escape alive. Had allprofessors of the Christian creed so conducted themselves, that creedlong since would have perished from off the earth. _Semen est sanguisChristianorum_ is well said of Tertullian the Carthaginian, and, later,of the blessed Saint Jerome."

  As Fray Antonio thus spoke he so drew up his slight figure, and in hissweet voice was a ring of such commanding sternness, that he was for themoment transformed. Here was a man wholly different from the gentlescholar whom I had already learned to love. In the glimpse that I thushad of his underlying character I saw vivified again the spirit of theearly Christian Church; and I understood, as I never had understoodbefore, of what stuff they were made who heard pronounced upon them thesentence, "To the lions!" and joyfully accepted their cruel fate,defiant of what man might do to them because of the perfection of theirfaith in the merciful forgiveness and upholding steadfastness of theirChristian God.

  But in a moment a look of sadness and regret came into Fray Antonio'sface, and he added, sorrowfully: "God forgive me for thus judging mybrother, who long since was judged! Who can say that when the hour oftrial came he did not meet his death as bravely as any martyr of themall? And who can say," he went on, but speaking softly, as one communingwith his own soul, "how I myself--But God gives strength." And then heceased to speak aloud, but his lips moved silently as though in prayer.As I close my eyes I see him again as clearly as I saw himthen--standing beside the old stone fountain, amid the flowers, in thegladness of the bright sunshine; in his eyes a strange, far-away look,as though the future for a moment had been opened to him; and on hisstrong, fine face a sternly resolute expression, which yet was softenedby the traits which were so strong within him of holiness and gentlenessand love. I cannot know what Fray Antonio prayed for, there in the oldconvent garden; but I can guess, and I am well persuaded that his prayerwas heard. Truly, I think that it was something more than chance thatled us thus at first to talk, not of the wonder that was in BrotherFrancisco's letter, but of Brother Francisco himself and of his end.

  And then the subject-matter in ch
ief of the letter claimed ourattention. In itself this was sufficiently marvellous; but whatincreased the marvel of it was the conviction, strong within us both,that if the hidden city of Culhuacan ever had existed at all it existedstill. Our belief was so entirely logical that, assuming the truth ofthe story told by the Indian captive, it admitted nowhere of a doubt.That the city had been hidden for a long period, through at leastseveral hundreds of years, from the Aztecs themselves, and that noknowledge of it had been conveyed to them by wild Indians who had comeby chance upon the valley wherein it was, was evidence enough of thesecurity of its concealment. There was nothing surprising, consequently,in the fact that the Spaniards had not discovered it when they firstoverran Mexico, nor that it had remained unknown to the Mexicans ofmodern times. As is well known, there are to this day prodigious areasin Mexico which remain utterly unexplored. In the region west ofTampico; in the north-western States of Sinaloa, Durango, and Sonora; orin the far southern States of Oajaca and Chiapas, a valley as great asthat in which the City of Mexico now stands might lie utterly hidden andunknown. And if, as the Indian's narrative implied, this particularvalley had been selected deliberately because it was so hidden and soinaccessible, and if the described precautions had been taken to isolateits inhabitants, it very well might have continued to be lost in itsdeep concealment through an almost infinite range of years. That itnever had been found since the Spaniards came into Mexico we wereabsolutely certain, for the outcry over so great a wonder would haveechoed throughout the whole of the civilized world. Finally, in the nameof the city, Culhuacan, we had a substantial fact which connected theextraordinary story that had come to us so strangely with matters withinour own knowledge. For this name not only is given in the Aztectraditions as that of the sacred spot in which their god Huitzilopochtlispoke to them, but survives until this present day in the name of thevillage that lies at the foot of the sacred mountain, in the Valley ofMexico, called by the Aztecs the Hill of Huitzachtla, and by theSpaniards the Hill of the Star--on which, at the end of each cycle offifty-two years, the sacred fire was renewed. Surely it was no accidentthat had caused the name Culhuacan to be given to this village on thissacred spot; rather must it have been so named by the elect few to whomthe secret was known as a perpetual reminder to them of the reserve ofmen and treasure upon which they could draw should danger threaten theircountry and their gods.

  "No doubt," said Fray Antonio, "what is here told of a secret record,known only to the priests, supplies one of the lapses in the picturedhistory of the Aztec migration; but as we know not which break in thehistory is thus filled in, we have no clew whatever as to thewhereabouts of this hidden place. Nor have we any clew as to thewhereabouts of the mission of Santa Marta, whence we might go onward,guided by the carvings upon the rocks, until we found at last the placewe sought. The mission of Santa Marta, where my brother Francisco longago ministered, might have been anywhere in all Mexico; and being sosmall a mission, and enduring for so short a period, it is not likelythat any record of it anywhere has been preserved. Had we but the mapand the token of which my brother writes, our way would be clear;without these guides it well may be a toilsome way and long. Yet do Iknow," Fray Antonio continued, earnestly, "that I shall find this hiddencity. In my soul is a strong and glad conviction that God has called meto the most glorious work of carrying to the heathen dwelling there themessage of His saving love. He has worked one miracle already to call meto this duty; in His own good time and way I doubt not that He will workanother miracle by which I may be set in the way of its accomplishment."

  As Fray Antonio spoke of the map of the Aztec migration, a hope cameinto my heart that, as I considered it, seemed surely to be a certainty.In the excitement of listening to this strange letter--concerning whichnot the least strange matter was, that between the writing and thereading of it had passed three hundred and fifty years--I had forgottenmy own discoveries, and that my purpose was to show him the picturedpaper and the curious piece of gold. But as he spoke of the migrationthis matter was called to my mind suddenly; and then in an instant theconviction thrilled through me that the clew which would lead us to thehidden city was in my possession.

  "God already has worked that other miracle," I cried, joyfully. "Here isthe token, and here is the map that shows the way!" and, so speaking, Iopened the snake-skin bag that I had taken from the breast of the deadCacique and drew forth its precious contents.

  For myself, I needed no additional proof that here was all that wasneedful to guide us to the hidden city. Yet was I glad that in so gravea matter we should have added to absolute conviction the weight ofabsolute proof. And this we had most clearly; for Fray Antonio, coolerthan I, compared the drawing in the letter with the engraving upon thepiece of gold, and found the two to be essentially identical, save thatthe engraving lacked the sign of the arrow pointing the way.

  "And now," I cried, enthusiastically, "for such discoveries inarchaeology as the world has never known!"

  "And now," said Fray Antonio, speaking slowly and reverently, "for suchglorious work in God's service as has been granted but rarely to man todo!"