When, in our turn, Rayburn and Young and I had told of the far more stirring adventures that we had passed through, and of our high hopes seemingly so well founded that had suffered so dismal a downfall, we all of us wisely refrained from speculating at all upon the future; instead of which profitless and painful topic we strove to speak cheerfully of indifferent matters; and this we did not only that we might the better keep our hearts up, but that we might not excite Rayburn, who already was in a dangerously feverish condition by reason of his wound. But, though we spoke not of it, we none of us doubted what our fate would be; nor did we imagine that the death that surely awaited us would be long delayed.
It was a source of wonder to us, therefore, that day after day went by without bringing the end that we so confidently expected. From the man who brought us our food we could learn nothing; but this was not from ill-will on his part, but because he himself knew nothing of the Priest Captain's plans. This man, though a priest, was not unkindly disposed towards us, and he even listened to the words which Fray Antonio addressed to him touching Christian doctrine; but while he listened—being made of a sterner stuff than the priest who previously had been Fray Antonio's jailer—he gave no sign of assent. The only other person whom we had a chance to speak with, and this but rarely, was the old man who had shown kindness to Pablo, the guardian of the archives—who, by right of his official position, had free access to that portion of the Treasure-house from which the second grating cut us off. At the grating he and I had some very interesting conversations together upon archæological matters; but Fray Antonio took but little interest in him when he found how slight was the impression made upon him by the most serious of doctrinal talk. In truth, this old fellow—wherefore my own heart warmed to him—was wholly given to the study of antiquities; and so full was his mind of this delightful subject that there was no room left in it for thoughts about religions of any sort. He was entirely catholic in this matter, for his unconcern respecting Christianity was neither more marked nor less marked than was his unconcern toward his own avowed faith.
Many curious things this old man told me touching the history of his people; and he showed me, also, the manner in which their annals were kept—an obvious evolution from the picture-writing of the Aztecs that had advanced to a stage closely resembling the cross between ideaographs and an alphabet that the Coreans use—all of which I have dealt with exhaustively in my larger work. And he told me also, with a wonder that did not seem uncalled for, that several times in each year the Priest Captain retired to the very place in which we then were imprisoned, and remained there sometimes for as much as a whole month cut off from his people, without food or drink, while he communed with the gods.
But what seemed strange to me, and also bitterly disheartening, was that this old man, notwithstanding the office that he held and his hungry love for ancient things, could tell me nothing of the treasure that King Chaltzantzin had stored away. He knew of this treasure, he said, only as a vague tradition; and although, at one time or another, he had explored every chamber in the Treasure-house, he never had found of this ancient deposit the smallest trace; for which excellent reason he had concluded that if ever there had been such a treasure it long since had been dispersed. No doubt—considering how useless to me, beyond the mere gratification of my own curiosity, would have been its discovery—my regret at this abrupt ending of my hopes was most unreasonable; but I confess that, so far as I myself was concerned, the very keenest pang of sorrow that I suffered through all that sorrowful time was when I thus learned that the archæological search that I had entered upon so hopefully, and that I had so laboriously prosecuted, had been but a fool's errand from first to last.
XXXIV.
A MARTYRDOM.
Heavily and wearily the days dragged on as we lay in that dismal prison hewn from the mountain's heart; and as they slowly vanished there stole upon us a new sorrow, that was deeper and more searching than the doubting dread by which we were beset touching the cruel ending of our lives.
Rayburn's wound—a very savage cut in the thigh, made by the jagged edge of a maccahuitl—from the first had been a dangerous one; and the danger had been aggravated by inflammation that had followed that long, hot journey across the lake, and by the rough handling that his bearers had given him, and by the excitement that had attended El Sabio's fiery outburst beside the sacrificial stone. Even Fray Antonio's skill in surgery, without which he assuredly would have quickly died, only barely sufficed to keep him alive while the fever was upon him; and when at last the fever left him, the little strength remaining to him grew less with every passing day. It was pathetic to see this man, who until then had been the very embodiment of rugged vigor, so worn with suffering that without Fray Antonio's tender assistance he scarce could move; and still more pathetic was it to hear him moaning in his pain, and uttering heart-sick longings for sunlight and fresh air, for need of which, Fray Antonio affirmed, he was dying there quite as much as because of his wound. Indeed, the chill chamber in the rock where he was lying was no fit place even for a well man at that time to dwell in; for the season of rains had come, and all the nights were cold and damp, while through the afternoons and in the night-time, during which portions of the day the rain fell in torrents, the whole mountain was shaken by the tremendous peals of thunder which roared and crashed about its crest.
It was after one of poor Rayburn's pitiable outbreaks of weak moaning that Young led me away into the oratory, with the evident intention of delivering himself of some matter that pressed heavily upon his mind.