Days of the Discoverers

by Louise Lamprey

All too soon the meaning was made known to them. Valdivia and four other men who were now less gaunt and famine-stricken than when captured, were seized and taken away, to be sacrificed to the gods.

It was the custom of the Mayas of Yucatan to sacrifice human beings, captives or slaves for choice, to the gods in whose honor the stone pyramids were raised. When the victim had been led up the winding stairway to the top, the central figure in a procession of priests and attendants, he was laid upon a stone altar and his heart was cut out and offered to the idol, after which the body was eaten at a ceremonial feast. The eight captives who remained now understood that the food they had had was meant merely to fatten them for future sacrifice. Half mad with horror, they crouched in the hot moist darkness, and listened to the uproar of the savages.

A strong young sailor by the name of Gonzalo Guerrero, who had done good service during the hurricane, pulled Jerónimo by the sleeve, "What in the name of all the saints can we do, Padre?" he muttered. "José and the rest will be raving maniacs."

Aguilar straightened himself and rose to his feet where the rays of the moon, white and calm, shone into the enclosure. Lifting his hands to heaven he began to pray.

All he had learned from books and from the disputations and sermons of the Fathers fell away from him and left only the bare scaffolding, the faith of his childhood. At the familiar syllables of the Ave Maria the shuddering sailors hushed their cries and oaths and listened, on their knees.

This was a handful of castaways in the clutch of a race of man-eaters who worshiped demons. But above them bent the tender and pitiful Mother of Christ who had seen her Son crucified, and Christ Himself stood surrounded by innumerable witnesses. Among the saints were some who had died at the hands of the heathen, many who had died by torture. The poor and ignorant men who listened were caught up for the moment into the vision of Fray Jerónimo and regained their self-control. When the prayer was ended Gonzalo Guerrero sprang up, and rallied them to furious labor. Under his direction and Aguilar's they dug and wrenched at their cage like desperate rats, until they broke away enough of it just to let a man's body through. Aguilar was the last to go. He closed the hole and heaped rubbish outside it, as rubbish and branches had been piled where they were used to sleep, to delay as long as possible the discovery of their escape. They got clear away into the depths of the forest.

But for men without provisions or weapons the wilderness of that unknown land was only less dreadful than death. Trees and vines barren of fruit, streams where a huge horny lizard ate all the fish—El Lagarto he was called by the discoverers,—no grain or cattle which might be taken by stealth—this was the realm into which they had been exiled. When they ventured out of the forest, driven by famine, they were captured by Acan Xooc, the cacique of another province, Jamacana. Here they were made slaves, to cut wood, carry water and bear burdens. Water was scarce in that region. There had been reservoirs, built in an earlier day, but these were ruined, and water had to be carried in earthern jars. The cacique died, and another named Taxmar succeeded him. Year after year passed. The soul of one worn-out white man slipped away, followed by another, and another, until only Aguilar and Guerrero were left alive.

Taxmar sent the sailor as a present to a friend, cacique of Chatemal, but kept Aguilar for himself, watching his ways.

The cacique was a sagacious heathen of considerable experience, but he had never seen a man like this one. Jerónimo was now almost as dark as an Indian and had not a scrap of civilized clothing, yet he was unlike the other white men, unlike any other slave. He had a string of dried berries with a cross made of reeds hung from it, which he sometimes appeared to be counting, talking to himself in his own language. Taxmar had once seen a slave from the north who had been a priest in his own country and knew how to remember things by string-talk, knotting a string in a peculiar fashion; but he was not like this man. When the white slave saw the crosses carved on their old walls he had eagerly asked how they came there, and Taxmar gathered that the cross had some meaning in the captive's own religion. He never lied, never stole, never got angry, never tattled of the other slaves, never disobeyed orders, never lost his temper. Taxmar could not remember when he himself had ever been restrained by anything but policy from taking whatever he wanted. Here was a man who could deny himself even food at times, when he was not compelled to. Taxmar could not understand.

What he did not know was, that when he had escaped from the cannibals Aguilar had made a fresh vow to keep with all strictness every vow of his priesthood, and to bear his lot with patience and meekness until it should be the will of God to free him from the savages. He had begun to think that this freedom would never be his in his lifetime, but a vow was a vow. He no more suspected that Taxmar was taking note of his behavior, than a man standing in front of the lion's cage at the menagerie can translate the thoughts behind the great cat's intent eyes.