“As you will,” she said; “but one thing I pray of you, let this man, my cousin, Tikal the cacique, be kept away from me, for the sight of him is hateful to me, seeing that, not content with plotting to kill my husband and my child, he puts me to shame continually by the offer of his love.”
“It shall be as you wish, Lady. Your husband and your friend can travel by your side, and guards shall surround your litter to see that none molest you.”
Then we started. Of our journey back there is nothing to tell, unless it be to say that after its own fashion it was even more wretched than that which we had just accomplished. Then, indeed, we were footsore, hungry, and racked with fears, but at least the hope of freedom shone before us like a guiding-star, whereas now, although we travelled in comfort, it was to find shame, exposure, and death awaiting us at last. For my part, indeed, this thought did not move me very much, seeing that hope had left me, and without hope I no longer wished to live. You, my friend, for whom I write this history, may think my saying strange, but had you stood where I stood that day you would not wonder at it. Even now I sometimes dream that I am back in the City of the Heart, and wake cold with fear as a man wakes from some haunted sleep. True, there I had place and power and luxury, but oh! sooner would I have earned my livelihood herding cattle in the wilderness than fret away my life within that golden cage. What to me were their banquets and their empty pleasures, or their petty strivings for rank and title,—to me who all my days had followed the star of my high aim, that star which now was setting. Maya and the señor had each other and their child to console them; but I had nothing except such friendship as they chose to spare me, the memory of my many failures, the clinging bitterness of conscience, the fear of vengeance to be wreaked, and the hope of peace beyond the end. Therefore I, an outworn and disappointed man, was prepared to welcome the doom that awaited me, but how would it be with the others who were still full of love and youth?
Late that night we reached the city and were led, not to the palace where we lived, but towards the enclosure of the pyramid.
“How is this?” asked Maya of the captain of the guard. “Our road lies yonder.”
“No, lady,” he answered, “my orders are to take you up the stairway of the pyramid.”
Now Maya pressed her face against the face of her child and sobbed, for she knew that once more we must inhabit the darksome vault where her father had been taken to die. They led us up the stair and down the narrow way, till we stood in the lamp-lit hall, and heard our prison gates clash behind us. Then they gave us food and left us alone.
Never did I pass a more evil night; for, strive as I would to win it, sleep fled from me, and I tossed upon my couch, wondering where my bed would be on the morrow, after we had stood before the Council in the Sanctuary of the Heart, and Nahua had borne witness against us. I remembered that shaft before the altar, and seemed to hear the murmur of the water in its depths! Well, as I have said, I did not fear to die, for God is merciful to sinners; but oh! it was dreadful to meet this liar’s doom, and to remember that it was I who brought the señor here to share it.
As I mused thus, even through the massive walls of the vault I heard a woman scream, and, springing from my bed, I ran into the central hall, where the lamps burned always. Here I met Maya, clad in her night-dress only, and speeding down the hall, her wide eyes filled with terror.
“What has happened?” I said, stopping her; and, as I spoke, the señor came up.