The Aztec Treasure-House

by Thomas A. Janvier

  XIII.

  UP THE CHAC-MOOL STAIR.

  We awoke the next morning at the very moment that the sun rose above themountain peaks to the eastward; and our waking was due in part to thesunshine striking upon our faces, but more to the prodigious braying,that echoed thunderously from the cliffs around us, with which El Sabiowelcomed the advent of the god of day.

  "It is a good sign, senor," said Pablo, "when El Sabio brays thus noblyat sunrise. He does not do it often, but when he does I know beyond adoubt that I am to have a lucky day."

  "An' I must say," Young struck in, "that for a man who expects t' havet' eat his boots in th' course of a day or two I'm feelin' this mornin'most uncommonly chipper myself. For one thing, I mean t' have anotherlook around that idol. I'm not at all sure that he's not th' tippin'-upkind. Maybe we didn't put enough weight on him yesterday; or he may dohis tippin' up from th' other end. Anyhow, I'm goin' t' have anotherwhack at him as soon as I've eat my breakfast; an' that's a performancethat won't take long t' get through with, considerin' how thunderin'little there is t' eat."

  Truly, the eating of our breakfast did not consume much time; and, soshort did Young make our rations, I am not sure that we were nothungrier at the end of it than we were at its beginning. When wefinished, the sun was still low in the east; and the bright rays struckfull upon the statue of Chac-Mool, on the great stone altar, and intothe depths of the niche that had been hollowed behind it in the face ofthe cliff. We observed that the idol was so placed that the very firstrays of the sun, coming through a cleft between two great peaks to theeastward, shone brightly upon it, while yet all the rest of the valleysave the cliff above the niche remained in shade.

  With the strong sunlight deeply penetrating it, the recess behind thealtar no longer was filled with the black shadows that had obscured iton the previous afternoon; and even the hole into which Young so nearlyhad fallen was plainly visible. Taking advantage of the better light,the lost-freight agent--who certainly had found a fitting berth in thatdepartment of railway service, for such a man for hunting for things,and for finding them, I never came across--made a more carefulexamination of the deeper portion of the recess, and presently he gave ashout that told of a discovery.

  As we gathered around him he pointed in great excitement to a row ofmetal pegs, which were fixed in the rock one above the other,diagonally; and then to the point in the roof of the recess towardswhich these pegs tended. Even with the strong light that now aided usit was some time before I could make out among the black shadows of theroof a small opening; but the longer that I looked at it the moredistinct it grew.

  "We've struck th' trail once more," Young cried. "We've struck it sure.It don't look promisin', but here it is--for if this ain't th' King'ssymbol carved right by th' first of these pegs, then you're all atliberty t' kick me right smack over th' top of that idol for a d----nfool! Hurrah!"

  Pablo could not understand what Young was saying, but it was easy toperceive from his gestures the nature of the happy discovery that he hadmade. In a tone in which deference and triumph were curiously blended,Pablo said to me: "Did I not tell you, senor, that a good thing alwayshappens when El Sabio brays at the rising sun?"

  Before Pablo had ended this short but exultant deliverance, Young washalf-way up to the roof of the cave, treading gingerly upon the metalbolts and testing each one before he trusted his weight to it. In acouple of minutes he reached the roof and disappeared through the hole;and almost instantly he called down to us: "We're solid--here's aregular staircase. Come along!"

  We followed him promptly enough; while our hearts thrilled, and all ourbodies trembled, with the gladness that possessed us as we found thisway opening to us from the valley wherein we had thought that surely wemust die. In a little chamber, cut in the rock above the opening intowhich the ladder of bolts led us, Young was waiting for us; and fromthis chamber a spiral stair-way ascended that was dimly lighted bycrevices cut from it out to the face of the cliff. With Young leadingus, up this we went; at first rapidly, but, later, slowly and wearily,for it seemed as though the stair would never end. Yet though our bodieswere heavy our spirits were very light; for we knew by the wearisomelength of it that the stair must lead to the very top of the toweringcliffs by which we had believed ourselves to be irrevocably shut in. Andat last there was a gleaming of light above us; and this grew strongerand stronger until we came out with a shout of joy into the gladsunlight--and saw far below us the valley that we once more thoughtbeautiful, now that it no longer held us fast.

  In the depth below us we could discern El Sabio, looking no bigger thena rabbit; and he must have caught the sound of our shouting with thoselong ears of his, for there came up to us faintly from him an answeringbray.

  "It's pretty hard lines on that jackass," said Young, "leaving himbehind down there. But he might be left in a worse place, after all."

  I could perceive that Pablo was stirred by uneasy thoughts of theseparation that now so clearly must take place between him and his dearfriend; and he looked wistfully along the path across the mountain tothe westward--cut and smoothed so that it was an easy path to go on--andevidently thought how simple a matter it would be for El Sabio to travelon with us if only once he were up the stair. But he did not speak, andI hoped that he was nerving himself to bear manfully this sore trial.For the rest of us, we had but one thought: to get our packs up thestair-way as quickly as possible--and at its quickest this work would beslowly and painfully done--and then once more go forward. Just as weturned to descend again an eagle came sailing slowly towardsus--evidently without fear of us--and Rayburn was so fortunate as tobring him down with a pistol-shot. We tossed him over the edge of thecliff; and a famous breakfast we made on him when we returned into thevalley again. I can't say that I would have much stomach for so dirty abird now, but I certainly did think that eagle most delicious eatingthen.

  The hearty meal that we made on him strengthened us mightily, and wewent to work with a will at getting our traps up the stair. With ourpack-ropes we hauled the various articles first into the little room atthe stair-foot, and then toilsomely carried them to the heights above.Saving only that this work did not blister my hands, it was worse thanthe building of the raft had been; and all of us, using in climbing andin descending the stair certain muscles which normally are not broughtoften into play, found our legs so stiff and sore for the next day ortwo that walking gave us very lively pain.

  It was as this heavy work went slowly forward that Pablo said to me,speaking in an insinuating and deprecating tone: "Up a stair such asthis is, senior, the Wise One would bound like a deer."

  I did not call in question Pablo's simile, for I knew that the boy'sheart must be very sad. Laying my hand kindly upon his shoulder, Ianswered in a way to show that I was truly sorry for him: "The Wise Onewill lead a happy life, Pablo, in this beautiful valley--where nothingcan do him harm, and where he will have an abundance of water and ofrich fresh grass. Up the stair no doubt he could climb, for he knowswonderfully well how to use those dainty little feet of his; but eventhe Wise One could not climb up the ladder of metal bolts. Thereforemust thou strengthen thy heart against the bitterness of this partingfrom him; for even if thou wouldst stay behind with him it is notpossible--for thou canst not live, like the Wise One, on water andgrass."

  "But he is so little and so light an ass, senor," Pablo urged, "thatsurely, all of us pulling together, we could pull him up by the ropes,even as the other things have been pulled up; surely, surely, senor,that would be an easy thing for four men to do--and I also can pull atthe ropes, senor, almost as well as any man."

  It did not seem to me that even all of us pulling together could sway ElSabio up a hundred feet through the air; but Pablo was so pitiful in hisentreaties, and seemed so resolutely bent upon remaining behind in thevalley and dying there with his dear friend rather than go on withouthim, that I opened the matter to Rayburn and joined my plea to Pablo'sthat this curious effort should be made. And in addition to thesentimental rea
son for taking the ass with us, I pointed out toRayburn--as, indeed, he understood without my telling him--howpractically valuable El Sabio was to us in helping us to bear our heavyloads. Rayburn thought with me that the dead lift of so considerable aweight to such a height, without tackle of any sort to help us, wasimpossible. But Young, who had an inventive strain in his composition,was of the opinion that he could set up such rough tackle as wouldanswer our purpose; upon understanding which, Pablo at once embraced ElSabio and danced for joy.

  Young was, I think, the handiest man I ever knew. He had a naturalgenius for mechanics; and in the many years of his railroad life he hadgained a knowledge of all manner of expedients by which the work ofcomplicated machinery could be accomplished by very simple means. "Whenyou have a freight smash-up right in the middle of the section," hesaid, "with nobody to help you inside of forty miles, and the expressdue to come bouncing down on you inside of two hours, you've just _got_to get things out of the way whether you've got anything to do it withor not. If I had the equipment of a first-class freight-cab here I'dyank that burro up inside of twenty minutes; and if I don't do it,anyway, inside of two hours I'll promise to eat him."

  I did not translate the whole of this speech to Pablo, for talk even infun about eating El Sabio was rather a delicate matter, considering howclose a shave that worthy animal had had to being eaten in dead earnest;but I did tell him that the Senor Young felt sure that he could swing ElSabio up through the air to where the stair began. And with Pablo--whoalso could use his hands well--most willingly helping, Young contrivedin a surprisingly short time to make a rough windlass, that waseffective enough for the work to be done with it, and to pull it up bitby bit into the chamber in the rock and there fit it together over thehole. El Sabio, being brought into the recess behind the idol, regardedus all with a doubting expression that even Pablo's repeated assurancesthat we meant well by him could not change into a look of trustfulness.Pablo declared, however, that in his heart of hearts the Wise One knewthat we all were his friends, and that even though we should hurt him alittle he would understand that it was for his good. And the conduct ofthe ass during the exceedingly bad half-hour that he then went throughseemed fully to bear out Pablo's words. Around his small body, withstays running forward around his neck and aft to his tail, we riggedlooped ropes--which ropes were gathered together above his back andthere made fast to the line that was pendent from the windlass above.From time to time, as this operation was going forward, El Sabio turnedhis head upon one shoulder or the other and gazed with a wistfulexpression at what we were doing to him; and the slow shake that he gavehis head, whereby his great ears were set to wagging mournfully, as hefinished each of these inspections, betrayed the grave wonder that waswithin him as to what it all could mean, together with a not unnaturalapprehension of what might be its ultimate outcome.

  By a good chance, the effect upon the Wise One of finding the solidearth drop suddenly from beneath his feet--when at last all was inreadiness, and Young and Rayburn began to hoist away at thewindlass--was to render him quite rigid with terror; and there was amost agonized look upon his face as he went sailing up through the air.Pablo, standing below with me, that we might steady the ass with aguy-rope during his ascent, addressed to him all manner of tender andcomforting words; but for once the Wise One seemed to be insensible tohis master's voice. Neither with his eyes nor his ears did he respond;and he well enough might have been taken for a dead ass goingheavenward, but for the sharp twitchings of his tail. And when at lasthe was safely within the upper chamber, he fairly fell down upon therocky floor of it in sheer exhaustion begot of fright. It was not untilwe had passed up a bucket of water to him, whereof he drank the verylast drop, and had been soothed by Pablo's fondling of him and byPablo's gentle words, that his broken spirit revived. And so limp andweak was he that it was a long while before we could in conscience urgehim to ascend the stair. When at last he set himself to thisundertaking, he was far from accomplishing it in the bounding anddeer-like manner that Pablo had promised for him; but he certainly didat last get to the top--which was all that was required of him--andthere drank gratefully the bucketful of water that Pablo had carried upthat great height for his comforting when his toilsome climbing shouldend. And Pablo went down into the valley once more that night in orderto bring back to his friend a hearty supper of rich grass.

  EL SABIO'S PREDICAMENT]

  By the time that all this hard work was accomplished the day was nearlyat an end; and even had there been light for us to see our way by wewere too tired to go on--for every bone and muscle in our bodies wasweary and sore. Therefore we made our camp for the night on the flatexpanse of rock where the stair ended; and we were thankful that enoughof the eagle remained to us for our supper--and, indeed, we made ourbreakfast on him also, for he was a prodigiously large bird. Verydifferent were our feelings as we wrapped ourselves in our blankets andsettled ourselves to sleep on that open mountain-top--with the pathclear before us, and with the cheering hope in our hearts that among themountains we should find a plenty of wild creatures suitable forfood--from the dull despairing languor that had possessed us as we sankto sleep the night before. And with our joy was also a reverentthankfulness--that was more strongly stimulated by certain words whichFray Antonio spoke ere we lay down to rest--that our deliverance wasaccomplished from that death-stricken valley wherein we ourselves sosurely had expected that we must die.