"Then—a hundred thousand dollars."
"Good Lord. You are determined."
"I have decided. I am familiar with the jungle. I am an athlete. I speak a little Spanish—enough to boss a labour gang. I propose to assist you in that way, as well as financially. I will make any contract with you that you desire—and attach no strings whatever to my money."
Professor Hardin pondered for a long time. His eyes twinkled when he replied. "You won't believe it, but I don't give a damn for your money. Not that it wouldn't assist us. But—the fact is—I could use a man like you. Anybody could. I'll take you—and you can keep your money."
"There will be a check in the mail to-morrow," Hugo answered.
The professor stood. "We're hoping to get away in three weeks. You'll leave your address with my secretary and I'll send a list of the things you'll want for your kit." He held out his hand and Hugo shook it. When he had gone, the professor looked over the roof-tops and swore gleefully to himself.
Hugo discovered, after the ship sailed, that everyone called Professor Hardin "Dan" and they used Hugo's first name from the second day out. Dan Hardin was too busy to be very friendly with any of the members of his party during the voyage, but they themselves fraternized continually. There were deck games and card games; there were long and erudite arguments about the people whom they were going to study. What was the Mayan time cycle and did it correspond to the Egyptian Sothic cycle or the Greek Metonic cycle. Where did the Mayans get their jade? Did they come from Asia over Bering Strait or were they a colony of Atlantis? When they knew so much about engineering, why did they not use the keystone arch and the wheel? Why was their civilization decadent, finished when the conquistadores discovered it? How old were they—four thousand years or twelve thousand years? There were innumerable other debates to which Hugo listened like a man new-born.
The cold Atlantic winds were transformed overnight to the balm of the Gulf stream. Presently they passed the West Indies, which lay on the water like marine jewels. Ages turned back through the days of buccaneering to the more remote times. In the port of Xantl a rickety wharf, a single white man, a zinc bar, and a storehouse filled with chicle blocks marked off the realm of the twentieth century. The ship anchored. During the next year it would make two voyages back to the homeland for supplies. But the explorers would not emerge from the jungle in that time.
An antiquated, wood-burning locomotive, which rocked along over treacherous rails, carried them inland. The scientists became silent and pensive. In another car the Maya Indians who were to do the manual labour chattered incessantly in their explosive tongue. At the last sun-baked stop they disembarked, slept through an insect-droning night, and entered the jungle. For three weeks they hacked and hewed their way forward; the vegetation closed behind them, cutting off the universe as completely as the submerging waves of the sea. It was hot, difficult work, to which Hugo lent himself with an energy that astounded even Hardin, who had judged him valuable.
One day, when the high mountains loomed into view, Hugo caught his first glimpse of Uctotol, the Sacred City. A creeper on the hillside fell before his machete, then another—a hole in the green wall—and there it stood, shining white, huge, desolate, still as the grave. His arm hung in mid-air. Over him passed the mystic feeling of familiarity, that fugitive sense of recognition which springs so readily into a belief in immortality. It seemed to him during that staggering instant that he knew every contour of those great structures, that he had run in the streets, lived, loved, died there—that he could almost remember the names and faces of its inhabitants, dead for thousands of years—that he could nearly recall the language and the music—that destiny itself had arranged a home-coming. The vision died. He gave a great shout. The others rushed to his side and found him trembling and pointing.