“Here we are. Hardly any one ever comes here, and it will be dreadfully dusty. Books are dusty old things anyhow.”
She turned the big brass knob in the dusky door before them, and shoved against it with all her might, but Ned had to help her with his shoulder, or the massive mahogany portal would not have yielded an inch. It did go slowly in, upon its ancient-looking bronze hinges, and then they were in a room which was worth looking at. It was not so very large, only about fifteen feet by twenty, but it was unusually high, and it had but one tall, narrow slit of a window. Close by this, however, were a finely carved reading chair and table, ready to receive all the light which the window might choose to let in. Ned was staring eagerly around the room, when his pretty guide remarked:
“You had better see all you can before it gets any darker. Take down as many books as you want. I don’t care much for those fusty-musty old histories. I must go away now—”
“Hullo, señorita!” exclaimed Ned. “There is a lamp on the table. I have some matches—”
“I don’t believe you can make it burn,” she said, “but you can try. It has not been lighted for this ever so long, and the oil may have dried up.”
Around she whirled and away she went, leaving Ned to his own devices. His next thought was almost impolite, after all, for he was more than half glad that she did go, so that he might have the library all to himself to rummage in. He did not instantly examine the lamp, for he had never before been in just this kind of room, and it fascinated him. All its sides were occupied by high bookcases, every one of them crammed full of volumes of all sorts and sizes. He thought that he had never seen larger books than were some of the fat folios on the lower shelves. There were great, flat, atlas-looking concerns leaning against them, and out on the floor stood several upright racks of maps. Old Señor Paez may have been what is called a book-worm. At all events, Ned had understood that he was a very learned man, with a strong enthusiasm for American history.
“Heavens and earth!” suddenly exclaimed Ned. “What is that?”
He darted forward to a further corner of the room, as if he were in a great hurry to meet somebody who had unexpectedly come in. It certainly was something almost in human shape, but it had been standing there a long while, and the hand which it appeared to hold out to him was of steel, for it was nothing in the wide world but a complete suit of ancient armor. It was so set up in that corner, however, that it almost seemed alive, with its right hand extended, and its left holding a long, pennoned lance. Its helmet had a barred vizor, so that if there had been any face behind that, it would have been hidden. Ned went and stood silently before it for a moment, staring at that vizor.
“I say,” he muttered, as if he did not care to speak any louder. “I don’t believe General Taylor’s men would care to march far with as much iron as that on them—not in hot weather. But the old Aztecs didn’t have anything that would go through that kind of uniform. If Cortes and his men wore it, there is no wonder that they went on killing the Indians without being much hurt themselves.”
In fact, not all of them had been dressed up in precisely such a manner, although they did wear armor.