“At first this work progressed very slowly for, perforce, I was the only worker in the heaped-up chamber, my head and shoulders in the flickering light of wild wax-candles while the rest of my body was buried in the darkness of unknown centuries, my high-booted feet crowding against who knows what noxious cave creatures.
“The mass of material, though hard-packed by time, was mostly wood-ashes; and once these were loosened, a heavy booted foot or even a sandaled one might injure some priceless museum specimen. And so for a while I preferred to work alone in the confined space. At last I had cleared away the accumulation above the second step of the stairway, and I worked a clear space about the third step, using only my bare hands, a sculptor’s spatula, and a whisk-broom. Even the trowel was tabooed. Finally a sufficient space was cleared for my two most trusted aides, Manuel and Pedro, to work beside me and then the work progressed more rapidly.
“For several days things went along in this manner, with our interest and curiosity mounting hourly, so that all who worked with me, down to the last peon, grew feverishly excited and food and drink became mere irritating interruptions. And each day added to our hoard of potsherds, human bones, and shining jade.
“To this day I cannot think of that strange chamber without wonder. Neither can I account for the presence of the material which so nearly filled it. That it was a depository for the contents of previous burial-places, is, I think, a fact beyond a doubt. Ashes, half-burned fragments, even pieces of smooth wall-finish foreign to this particular chamber, potsherds and jade ornaments—all lead to this conclusion. At first I thought that the place had been a crematory, but I was soon convinced that this could not have been so.
“As the work went forward the outline of the chamber became well defined. The opening was relatively high and wide and I could stand there almost erect. The passage, however, narrowed quickly like a funnel, ending in a dead wall. The week was drawing to a close and with it, so it appeared, our task. The work within that deep-down, badly ventilated shaft was not too pleasant. The air was close; the place was frightfully hot, and the big wax candles, dim and smoky, did not tend to make the place more comfortable.
“We three—Manuel, Pedro, and I—were stripped to the waist and looked more like chimney-sweeps than delvers after scientific lore. The work seemed so nearly at an end that we kept doggedly on, the boys digging and sifting while I stopped frequently to make notes. Late in the day, all seemed finished except for a few isolated ash-heaps and a big flat stone that leaned again the very end of the wall.
“Heaving a sigh of relief and wiping away the layer of grime and sweat from my eyes, I said, ‘Well, boys, there’s nothing left but to haul away that big flat stone and sweep up the ashes behind it on the chance that there are some beads or small objects in the mess; then we’ll take a few measurements and call the job finished.’ I grasped the stone slab with both hands and pulled it toward me. It yielded so suddenly that I fell back with it; and my companions likewise fell back, for, instead of uncovering a pile of ashes, it disclosed a big, circular, pitch-black hole and from that unsuspected, terrible hole came a long, soughing rush of cold, damp wind. Our candles went out at once, leaving us in inky blackness. The cold wind chilled our overheated bodies. I was left with an insecure foothold too near the opening to dare a movement in the dark. The two natives were simply glued to their places in sheer terror.
“Finally Pedro spoke. ‘It is the mouth of hell,’ he said, and I heard his teeth chatter as he said it. Even then, with my feet so placed on the sloping wall-space and my body so inclined on the sloping floor that it seemed as if an incautious move might slide me smoothly into that black hole and through it into Eternity, I felt a pleased interest in Pedro’s statement, for to the ancient Mayas, hell, called by them Metnal, was not a burning pit of fire and brimstone but a dank, cold place where lost souls, benumbed with chill, struggled forever in thick, dark mud. The words of Pedro, coming so spontaneously from the heart and coinciding so nearly with the ancient belief, the belief of his ancestors, caused me to wonder.
“For the moment, however, it suited my purpose to have the more Christian idea prevail and I did some rapid missionary work, saying reprovingly in the native tongue, ‘Ehen, Pedro! What did Padre Ortiz say about the hot flames of an ever-burning hell? It is a cold wind and not a hot flame that comes from this hole.’ My logic evidently appealed to them and freed them of a superstitious fear and they became once more calm and resourceful.
“Working slowly and carefully in the utter darkness, we managed to block up the hole with our wide-brimmed hats and we held them in place by toppling the big flat stone against them. I was then able to get to my feet and relight our candles. By long experience in subterranean work, cave explorations, and descents into ancient cisterns, I have learned to take certain basic precautions. As one of these, I wear about my neck, hanging from a stout cord of deerskin, an air-tight metal case within which are a glass vial of proof alcohol and some wax matches. By this means I am freed of the vexation of damp matches and a futile blue line of phosphorescence when a light is quickly and urgently needed. I also carry invariably in such work a small Davy lamp and a hundred-foot steel tape.