Our eyes were riveted upon this beautiful apparition, and our lips silent. She seemed desirous of speaking, and once or twice I beheld her lips faintly moving. Finally, raising her white, uncovered arm, she pointed to the north, and softly murmured, "Palenque!"
Before we could resolve in our minds what to say in reply, the fairy princess folded her arms across her breast, and disappeared as suddenly and mysteriously as she had been evoked from night. We spoke not a word to each other, but gazed long and thoughtfully at the spot where the bright vision had gladdened and bewildered our sight. By a common impulse, we turned to leave, and descended the mountain in silence as deep as that which brooded over chaos ere God spoke creation into being. We soon reached the foot of the hill, and parted, with no word upon our lips, though with the wealth of untold worlds gathered up in our hearts.
Never, since that bright and glorious tropical night, have I mentioned the mysterious scene we witnessed on the ramparts of Fort Castillo; and I have every reason to believe that my companion has been as discreet.
This, perhaps, will be the only record that shall transmit it to the future; but well I know that its fame will render me immortal.
Through me and me alone, the sculptured marbles of Central America have found a tongue. By my efforts, Palenque speaks of her buried glories, and Uxmal wakes from oblivion's repose. Even the old pyramid of Cholula yields up its bloody secrets, and Casa Grande reveals the dread history of its royalties.
The means by which a key to the monumental hieroglyphics of Central America was furnished me, as well as a full account of the discoveries made at Palenque, will be narrated in the subsequent chapters of this history.
CHAPTER II.
"Amid all the wreck of empires, nothing ever spoke so forcibly the world's mutations, as this immense forest, shrouding what was once a great city."—Stephens.
At daylight on the next morning after the singular adventure recorded in the preceding chapter, the California passengers bound eastward arrived, and those of us bound to the westward were transshipped to the same steamer which they had just abandoned. In less than an hour we were all aboard, and the little river-craft was busily puffing her way toward the fairy shores of Lake Nicaragua.