THE FIGHT IN THE CAÑON
The young men, left to themselves, hesitated for a moment, and then with a cry—as though for their own encouragement—came charging towards us in a body. As we got a full view of them we perceived with much satisfaction that their only arms were bows and arrows and long spears, and that there were not more than twenty men in the lot. And then Rayburn gave the order to fire. I confess that my hand so trembled as I pulled the trigger of my rifle that I was not at all surprised to find that the man whom I had fired at—a very tall, powerful young fellow, who seemed to be in command—was not hit; but a man just behind him dropped, and I had a queer feeling in my throat, and certain odd sensations in my stomach, as I realized that I had shot him. Indeed, I was so engrossed with meditations upon the curious ease with which a man's life is let out of him, that I quite forgot for some seconds to continue firing. The others, luckily, conducted themselves in a more practical manner; and the little whirlwind of balls which sped from the Winchesters made it wonderful, not that so many of the Indians fell dead or wounded, as that any of them remained alive and unhurt. But eight of them did survive their charge in the face of the storm of bullets that we pelted at them; and these—headed by the tall fellow, who seemed bullet-proof—came rushing at us over our breastwork of rocks, shouting and flourishing their long spears.
I cannot say very accurately what happened during the next five minutes or so, for one of the Indians came directly at me, and before I could at all stop him—for I found that shooting at him with my revolver did him no harm at all; and this struck me as odd, for I had repeatedly hit the mark while practising in the corral—he had prodded his spear through the fleshy part of my left arm. It hurt severely. He had aimed his thrust, doubtless, at my heart, and he certainly would have penetrated that vital organ had I not at that moment slipped, and so disarranged his aim. He pulled the spear out of my arm, which action also gave me great pain, and his manner indicated that he was about to thrust it into some other part of me; which he surely could have done, for I was wholly at a loss as to what measures should be taken to assure my own safety. Indeed, I was very well convinced that my life was as good as ended, and a curious flash of thought went through me that I cannot coherently remember, but that was in the nature of a query as to whether or not in a future state the many scientific truths which as yet are but imperfectly understood will be wholly revealed to us.
However, the opportunity that I confidently expected would be given to me in a moment to obtain an answer to this interesting question did not then occur. Just as the Indian was lunging at me—I can see his ugly face now, as I close my eyes and let my thoughts turn backward to that critical moment—there was a flash of some bright object before me, and then the Indian's entire head seemed to shut up suddenly, something like an opera-glass, and he went down to the ground like a stone. As I turned, I saw that my deliverance had come from Pablo, and even in that very exciting moment I observed with astonishment that the weapon with which he had slain the Indian was a great jagged sword—if the maccuahuitl can be called a sword—such as the Aztecs used in ancient times. I could not then conveniently stop to question him whence he had obtained that very interesting weapon, for there was another Indian already close upon me; and I am pleased to say—for I do not wish the belief to go abroad that scientific men are worse than useless in practical emergencies—that, without assistance from Pablo or from anybody else, I managed to pick up my rifle, and with the heavy iron barrel of that weapon, used clubwise, I mashed the head of that Indian into a perfect pulp. I know positively that I mashed it into a pulp, for I tried afterwards to measure it, and found that for craniological purposes it was utterly valueless.
Even had I required Pablo's aid in this encounter he could not possibly have given it to me, for he was himself just then very hotly engaged. Indeed, but for assistance that come to him from an unexpected quarter his life assuredly would have been lost. He was in the act of hauling back to strike at the fellow facing him, and he did not at all know that he was in imminent danger of a thrust in the back from a wounded wretch who, having struggled upon his knees, was using what little life was left in him to deliver yet another blow. Just at this critical instant it was that Fray Antonio dashed into the thick of the fighting, and covered Pablo's body with his own against this assault in the rear; so that, as the Indian struck, the knife only cut through the monk's habit and slightly scratched his arm, instead of making a hole between Pablo's shoulder-blades that would have let the life out of him. Young, who was close beside Pablo, saw what was going on, and checked it before further harm was done by turning quickly and shooting off the top of the wounded Indian's head; and then Fray Antonio retired out of the fighting in which, without himself striking a blow, he had taken so gallant a part.
So far as I was concerned, the fight was at an end when I had so cleverly mashed the head of my second assailant. No more Indians came at me, and as I looked around I perceived that this was for the excellent reason that there were no more to come. Two were just advancing on Young; who had them covered with his revolver, and dropped them, one after the other, in less time than is required to tell about it. The only other survivor among the enemy—at least the only one able to keep his feet—was the tall young chief, and he and Rayburn were just finishing the last round of what probably was as fine a fight as ever was fought. They were well matched in size and in weight; and if the Indian was any stronger than Rayburn, I can only say that he must have been a most wonderfully strong man. They were fighting on even terms; for the Indian was armed only with a short club, that he held in his left hand—and this left-handed method made him all the more awkward to deal with—while Rayburn, having emptied his revolver, was using as a club its heavy barrel.
As I caught sight of them, the Indian was in the act of springing forward and delivering a tremendous blow; but Rayburn most skilfully parried this blow by throwing out his rifle, still retained in his left hand, in such a manner and with such force that the Indian's arm—at the same time striking and being struck with the iron barrel—was broken just above the wrist. He gave a yell of pain, as he well might; but he was a plucky fellow, and instead of dropping his club he only shifted it to his right hand. He never had a chance to strike again with it; for in that same instant Rayburn swung his revolver at arm's-length through the air and brought it down on his head with a sound so muffled and so hollow that I can liken it only to the staving-in of the head of a full cask. For a moment, while Rayburn drew back to strike again, the Indian's body swayed heavily; and then all his muscles relaxed, and he fell heavily and limply to the ground—while his brains spurted out from the ghastly trench made by that mighty blow from back to front across the entire top of his skull.
VIII.
AFTER THE FIGHT.
Rayburn stood panting for a moment over the Indian's body; and then, having satisfied himself by a look around among our fallen enemies that every one of them was either dead or dying, he stooped down beside the stream to drink from it, and then to bathe an ugly gash in his forehead made by a spear thrust that luckily had glanced aside.
Indeed, we all had wounds or bruises by which we were likely to remember our fight for a good many days to come. In addition to the cut on his forehead, Rayburn had an arm badly bruised by a crack from a club; Young had a cut in the calf of his leg that must have been made by one of the Indians after he had fallen wounded; Fray Antonio had the slight cut in his arm that he received in rescuing Pablo; a blow from a club on my shoulder had completely disabled my left arm, and my head was beginning to ache from the wound in my forehead where the arrow had nipped me; and Pablo, by a square knock-down blow on the head that tumbled him among the rocks, had a bad gash in his cheek and was bruised all over. And yet the very first thing that boy did when the fight was ended—being still dazed, no doubt, by the blow on his head—was to play a bit of "Rory O'More" on his mouth-organ in order to make sure that his beloved "instrumentito" had not been injured by his fall. The sound of this air gave my heart a wrench, as I thought of poor Dennis; whose gallant race with death assuredly had saved all of us from dying without a chance to strike a blow. And both of our Otomí Indians were dead too.
But while we had suffered thus severely we had the satisfaction of knowing that we had inflicted a most signal punishment upon our enemies. Of the whole company that had attacked us—eighteen in number, as we found by counting their bodies—only two remained alive when the fight ended; and these two speedily relieved us of all responsibility concerning them by dying of their wounds. As Young tersely expressed it, we had "given the whole outfit a through bill of lading to Kingdom Come!"
Notwithstanding the pain that I was in, the first thought that came to me after we had achieved peace (by the effective yet somewhat radical process of killing all of our enemies) was concerning the strange weapon with which Pablo had been fighting; and by his prompt use of which in my defence my life had been saved. He had laid it upon a rock—while testing the integrity of his mouth-organ—and as I now carefully examined it I found that my glimpse of it as Pablo had mashed the Indian's head had not deceived me. It truly was a maccuahuitl, the primitive Aztec sword, but very unlike any description of that weapon that I had ever seen. The maccuahuitl, as described by the Spaniards at the time of the conquest and as shown by the Aztec pictures of it preserved in various museums, was a wooden blade from three and a half to four feet long and from four to five inches wide. Along its two edges, like great saw teeth, fragments of obsidian, about three inches long and two inches wide, were inserted; and as these were keenly sharp the weapon was a most ferocious one. The sword that I held in my hand was identical in its essential features with this primitive design; but it was shorter, narrower, and thinner. What was still more extraordinary about it was that, while it seemed to be made of brass, it had the bright glitter of gold and the temper and the elasticity of steel. Being tested by bending, it instantly sprung straight again; and notwithstanding the vigorous use that Pablo had been making of it on the bones of several Indians, the thin edges of the projecting teeth were only nicked a little—as the edge of a steel sword would have been nicked under like circumstances—and not one of these teeth was bent out of place, as assuredly would have been the case had the metal been ordinary brass.
Fray Antonio, by this time, had returned to us again—looking rather shamefaced because of the part that he had taken in the fight—and I eagerly showed him this strange weapon that had been so strangely found; for Pablo's account of it was simply that, just as his revolver was emptied upon the Indians charging towards us, when there was no time to reload, his eyes were caught by the glitter of the sword as it stuck in a cleft in a rock; whereupon he most gladly seized it—and instantly used it to good purpose upon the Indian who was so close to ending me with his spear, and subsequently contrived with it to send two more Indians to their account.
Fray Antonio's knowledge of the matter having a wider practical range than mine, for he knew well the contents of the several Mexican museums in which specimens of the primitive weapons are preserved, I thought it possible that he might be able to match this curious maccuahuitl with an account of another like it which he somewhere had seen. That there was no record in the books of this weapon made of metal I knew very well. But Fray Antonio's surprise over it was greater than my own; and he certainly found more in it to please him than I did; for this metal maccuahuitl, supposing it to belong to ancient times, settled in his favor a controversy that for some time past we had been amicably but earnestly carrying on. I had adopted the ingenious theory of my friend Bandelier that the serrated edge of the Aztec sword was accidental; resulting from the breaking away in use of portions of what at first was a continuous edge of obsidian. Fray Antonio, on the other hand, had held firmly to the ordinarily accepted opinion that the sword was such as I have described above (I must confess regretfully) the primitive weapon to have been.
My contention therefore was that the sword that Pablo had found was not an antique; and I fortified my position, as I considered impregnably, by the fact that while Aztecs, before the Spanish conquest, did make some slight use of copper and gold, they assuredly had no knowledge whatever of either brass or steel. And my natural irritation very well may be imagined, by any one familiar with controversies of this nature, when I add that Fray Antonio endeavored to cut the ground from under me by asserting that, inasmuch as the weapon obviously was not made of brass or steel, my argument was based upon false premises and consequently led to illogical conclusions. I am afraid that I showed a little temper on this occasion; for Fray Antonio manifested a persistence in his defence of what I regarded as his wholly untenable position that amounted to what I held to be downright pig-headedness. And so, for a considerable length of time, we stood there, among the bodies of the dead Indians, and first one of us and then the other handled the sword, and expressed with increasing warmth our views respecting it and each other; and we might have stood there much longer had not Young—with the best of intentions, no doubt, but in a way the certainly was not agreeable—taken upon himself to bring our controversy for the time being to an end.
"I don't exactly know what you and the Padre are jawing about at such a rate, Professor," he struck in; "but as well as I can catch on, it's about things which happened three or four hundred years ago. I don't want to interrupt you, of course; but I do want the Padre—he knows something about surgery, as I saw the other day when he took that cactus thorn out of Pablo—to do something to plug up this hole in my leg. It's bleeding a good deal, and it hurts like the very devil. And I guess Rayburn'd be glad to have that slit in his forehead tied up too."
To do Fray Antonio justice, he took this interruption in better part than I did; for I was deeply interested in the argument in which we were engaged, and wished to continue it. But when I explained what Young wanted, he turned to him at once, and very tenderly as well as very skilfully dressed his wound; and then bandaged the gash in Rayburn's forehead, and the cut in Pablo's cheek. Pablo decidedly objected to this bandaging, for it put a peremptory stop for a while to his playing on his mouth-organ. For me no surgery was required. Fray Antonio carefully felt my shoulder while he moved my arm—thereby hurting me most horribly—and as the result of his investigations he assured me that the bones were neither broken nor out of place.
Rayburn also examined the maccuahuitl with much interest. "Of course it is not brass," he said, "and of course it cannot possibly be phosphor-bronze. But, if such a thing were a metallurgical possibility, I should say that it was gold—treated in some manner that gives it as great a hardness as bronze receives when treated with phosphorus, but with some chemical change wrought in its constitution that gives it also the tempered quality of steel. Nothing but gold, you see," he added, "could lie around out-of-doors this way and not get tarnished by oxidization."
"What's the reason that it's not some queer thing belonging to the folks we're looking for?" Young asked; and his question expressed a thought that already had found a lodging in my own mind. For such good-luck as this would be I was quite willing to concede that Fray Antonio was right in his unpleasantly positive views in regard to the shape of the Aztec swords. And what Young said also put me sharply in mind of the graving on the rock of the King's symbol, that we had found only in the same moment to lose it again. To this matter I now adverted; and I said some very unpleasant things about the Indians who had prevented us from following the trail, that we had sought for so laboriously, when we did find it at last—and who still, for we doubted not that the main body was in wait for us lower down the valley, prevented us from returning to the spot where we had seen the sign and thence systematically continuing our search.
"If I was you, Professor," said Young as I ceased speaking, "I wouldn't be so everlastin'ly down on these poor devils of Indians for what they've done. They killed Dennis, an' that's a pretty bad business; an' they got away with our two mozos, too; an' they've pretty well battered th' rest of us. But I take it that we've about evened things up by killin' eighteen of 'em—or six of their crowd dead for each one dead in ours. I guess we can call that part of th' business about square. But what I'm gettin' at is, if it hadn't been for the Indians we'd never have come up this valley; an' so we'd never have struck th' King's symbol trail at all."
"But what good did it do us to find it, when we could not follow it?" I asked. "We cannot go back to examine the sign without risking our lives; and unless we do examine it we cannot know where the next one is, and so the trail is lost."
"I've just been waitin'," said Young, "t' see if I was th' only man in this party that God-a-mighty'd given a pair of eyes to. I guess I am. Suppose you just get up, Professor, an' turn around, an' take a look at that place where there's a brown mark on th' side of th' rock; an' suppose th' rest of you look there too. If that isn't th' King's symbol, just as plain as th' noses in all your faces, I'll eat every dead Indian in this cañon."
And Young spoke the truth. Just above the cleft whence Pablo had taken the sword, graven so deeply in the rock that after all the weathering of centuries it still remained distinct and clear, was identically the same figure that Fray Francisco in the far past time had represented in his letter, and that was repeated also on the far more ancient piece of gold. Above it was cut an arrow that pointed directly up the cañon.
It was a good thing that something came to cheer us just then; for what with the death of Dennis and of our two poor Indians, and our own hurts, and the melancholy feeling that must oppress men always—save those of cruel and hardened natures—when a fight is ended in which they have spilled freely human blood, we all were oppressed sensibly by a consuming sadness.
But here was cheer indeed. Not only had we surely found the trail at last, but we found it leading in precisely the direction that at that moment we desired to go. For us to return down the valley to the open country, we knew was full of most signal danger; for the Indians who so unaccountably had declined to take part in attacking us assuredly were lying in wait for us by the way. Our only chance to escape them was to strike into the mountains; and the sign that we now had gave promise that we should find some sort of a path along which we might go. Therefore it was with good heart that we set about getting as far into the depths of the cañon as possible before night should be wholly upon us; trusting, in regard to possible pursuit, somewhat to the superstition of the Indians which so unaccountably yet so obviously had been aroused, and also to the wholesome dread that they must have of us upon finding that every one of their companions had been slain. The bodies of our poor Otomís we placed in a deep fissure in the rock, and there heaped stones upon them, while Fray Antonio said over them the briefer office; but the body of Dennis we carried with us, that we might give him a more tender and reverent burial in gratitude for his brave struggle to save our lives when he knew that his own life was lost. As for the eighteen dead Indians—who had invited the death that so promptly had come to them—we did not bother ourselves about them at all. We left them to the coyotes.
IX.
THE CAVE OF THE DEAD.
Very dismal was our procession of faintly seen figures moving cautiously through that wild solitude. At its head went Rayburn, leading his horse, on which was Dennis's dead body; all of us, being bruised and cut and bleeding, walked slowly and painfully; and behind us, ghastly forms torn by bullets and crushed by blows, lay the slain Indians in all manner of unnatural attitudes, made yet more hideous and fantastical by the gathering gloom of night. Indeed, night now was so close upon us that had not the cañon in which we were run east and west, we would have been for some time past in darkness. As it was, though shut off from the west by the great range of mountains, a faint light came down into its depths from the still bright eastern sky, where lingered ruddy reflections of the sunset: and so we could see to pick our way, along the edge of the little stream, among the rough masses of rock and trunks of trees which had fallen from above.
Our march ended sooner than we had counted on. Before we had accomplished more than half a mile of this rough travelling, there loomed before us a wall of rock which shut in the end of the cañon, and which rose as high and as sheer as did the cañon's sides. Our hearts sank within us, for we perceived that we were in a cul-de-sac; whence escape was possible only along the way by which we had come—and so to return, with the Indians still in wait for us, was to walk straight into the jaws of death. And, further, if our course in this direction was cut off, it was evident that the King's symbol graved upon the rock at the entrance of the cañon was a useless and misleading sign.
In the hope that we might find a sharp turn, not to be perceived until we were close upon it, we pressed on through the dusk until we came to the very end of the cañon, and the dark wall of rock that barred our way rose directly above our heads. And then we found, not a turn in the cañon, but a narrow opening (through which came forth the little stream) into the body of the mountain itself. Yet we hesitated about entering this black gap—for who could tell what depths, unseen in that dense darkness, we might not plunge into headlong?
Much dry pine wood, branches and whole trees, lay about us in the cañon; and of this apt material Rayburn presently constructed a great torch. Lighting this in the open cañon was not to be thought of, for while we felt tolerably certain that the main body of our enemies had not followed us, we could not be wholly certain that they were not close upon our heels and ready to open upon us with a volley of arrows and spears. Rayburn therefore struck a wax-match—with which excellent article of Mexican manufacture we were supplied plentifully—and with this to light his way, entered the narrow pass; and in his wake the rest of us followed. Almost in a moment the walls on each side of us spread out beyond the reach of the narrow circle of light, and we perceived that we were come into a cave. But before we could at all discern our surroundings the match was blown out by a sudden suck of wind setting in from the entrance, and we were in thick darkness. The air around us was so sweet and so fresh that we knew that the cave must be large, and with more than one opening—as, indeed, the suck of wind inward through the passage by which we entered clearly showed. While Rayburn struck another match, wherewith to light the torch, we all stood still in our places; and certain tremors went through our breasts because of the eeriness of our surroundings.
THE CAVE OF THE DEAD
When the great torch blazed up, and threw everywhere save towards the high roof a flood of light, a real and rational fear took possession of us. The cave was nearly circular, and at its back, directly facing the entrance, was a roughly hewn mass of stone on which rested a huge stone figure—identical with the figures in the Mexican National Museum to which Le Plongeon, the discoverer of one of them, at Chichen-Itza, has given the name of Chac-Mool. But what filled us with dread was not this impassive stone image. Our alarm came from a much more natural cause, as we beheld, squatted on their haunches in long semicircular rows, facing the great stone idol, more than a hundred Indians. Truly, considering that our rifles were outside the cave and that we had with us only our revolvers, our momentary thrill of terror was highly natural.
Yet it was only momentary. The Indians, undisturbed by our presence and by the sudden blaze of light, remained unmoved in silent worship of their god; and Rayburn, the first of us to recover equanimity, set all our fears to flight as he exclaimed: "These are not the fighting kind. Every man Jack of 'em is as dead as Julius Cæsar. We've struck an Indian bone-yard."
Here, then, was the reason why a part of the force that had attacked us had drawn off when we made our stand at the mouth of the cañon that led to this home of the dead. Yet when, by the light of the torch, we examined our silent fellow-tenants of the cave, it did not seem that they had been placed there in recent times. Indeed, the more that Fray Antonio and I looked closely at their wrappings and noted the way in which their mummied forms had been ranged before this idol—that certainly belonged to a primitive time—the more were we inclined to believe that this weird sepulchre belonged to the very far back past. But for the moment it mattered not to us whence these dead forms came: the essential matter was that while we remained in the cave with them we were in absolute safety.
"Well," said Young, when we had reached this comforting conclusion, "since it's a sure thing that we're all right here, I move that we make ourselves comfortable. Let's bring in th' stock, an' get th' packs off; an' then we'll build a fire an' eat another supper. Fightin' Indians is hungry work, an' I feel as if I hadn't had anything to eat for a week"—which suggestions were so reasonable that we at once proceeded to act upon them.
It was hard work for us, wounded and sore and tired as we were, to unfasten the pack-cords; and still harder work to collect the wood for our fire. But we managed to accomplish it all at last; and most comforting and refreshing was our supper amid those extraordinary surroundings. There was even cheerfulness about our meal—and yet over in the shadows at the back of the cave, touched now and then by a brighter flash of firelight, lay before the heathen altar of old the body of our poor Dennis; and close beside us were the long rows of dead Indians. I sometimes have thought that it was strange that we then had any heart to eat at all, surrounded by so desolate a company. But there is that about killing one's fellow-creatures, and being in imminent peril of being killed one's self, I have found, that blunts for a while the souls of those who survive and makes them careless of death's awful mystery. As the fire crackled and blazed, giving out a plentiful warmth that in that chill place was most grateful to our aching bodies, our spirits seemed to brighten with its brightness; and when the rich smell of strong coffee mingled with the smell of stewing meats told that Young's cooking was nearly ended, we sniffed hungrily and eagerly; and when we actually fell to upon our meal I remember that we even laughed over it.
Yet it is but just to Fray Antonio to say that his fine spirit did not fall to the level of grossness that ours were brought to by what, as it seems to me, was an instinctive gladness on the part of our fleshly bodies that, for a while longer, they would not return to the dust whereof they were made. Through our meal he sat gravely silent, yet with so sweet and so tender an expression upon his gentle face that in his silence there was no suggestion of reproof. And when our meal was ended, and we were for stretching out upon our blankets before the fire and smoking our pipes comfortably, he reminded us, with no touch of harshness in his voice, that a last duty was claimed of us by our dead companion.
And, truly, the funeral ceremonies over Dennis in that strange place of burial made the most curious ending of a man that ever I saw. In the fine dry sand wherewith the cave was bedded, directly in front of the altar on which was the heathen idol, we dug his grave—toilsomely and with pain, for all of our bodies were hurt and sore. While we labored, two great torches flared upon the altar, propped against the idol; and long, flickering rays of light shot out to us across the mummied bodies of the dead Indians—striking across their gleaming teeth, so that they seemed to smile at us—from the huge blaze of the fire.
From our stores Fray Antonio took out a little salt, and from the clear spring that bubbled up within the cave a cup of water, which elements he blessed and mingled as the rites of his Church prescribed; and with the water thus consecrated he sprinkled the body lying before the heathen altar, while his strong, sweet voice chanted the De Profundis so that all the cave rang with the rich melody of the holy strain, and our own breasts were thrilled by it. Gently we bore the body of poor Dennis from its resting-place before the altar to its last resting-place in the grave that we had dug there, while Fray Antonio said the Miserere; and as with our pack-ropes we lowered the body into the earth, the priest sang the Benedictus, with its promise of a better life to come; and then a prayer ended all, and we filled in the grave.
"I'm Congregational, myself," Young said, when our work was finished; "at least I was brought up that way; an' I'm down on th' Scarlet Woman from first t' last. But I go in for lettin' folks believe what they've got a mind to; an' when it comes t' buryin' 'em it's only square t' give 'em th' sort of send-off that they'd really like. For a Catholic, I guess Dennis was a pretty good one; an' I must say I think it would 'a' done him good to see th' way we've given him a first-class funeral, just in th' shape he'd 'a' fixed things up for himself. But I guess what we've been at would have everlastin'ly shook up these dead fellows here, if they could have come t' life for about five minutes while it was goin' on!"
There was an element of grim humor in this suggestion of Young's that tickled my fancy; and it was, indeed, allowing for the quaintness of his phrasing of it, but an expression of my own thoughts. But my reflection was upon the curious incongruity of it all, and upon the way in which religious faiths supplant each other; even as the different races of men who formulate them and believe in them supplant each other upon the face of the earth. Together in this same cave were now the dead of two faiths and two races. Who could tell what dead of other faiths and races yet unborn would lie here also before the end of time should come?
When all was ended we were glad enough to lie down to give our battered bodies rest in sleep. We felt sure that no attack would be made upon us; yet we rolled some fragments of rock into the narrow entrance to the cave, arranging them in such a way that they would fall with a crash should any attempt be made to move them from outside. And, this precaution having been taken, we lay down upon our blankets thankfully, and never troubled ourselves to keep any watch at all.
It was brilliantly light when we awoke, for the rays of the just-risen sun were striking strongly into the cave through its entrance-way; and much light came also through a crevice higher up, and through a great hole in the vastly high roof. Viewed in this clearer light, there was a horrible ghastliness about the mummies ranged in their orderly rows, and presided over by the coarsely carved, coarsely conceived stone figure that in life they had worshipped as their god. On this image the sunshine fell full, and we perceived that its position evidently had been chosen carefully, so that the very first ray of light from the rising sun would strike upon it. No doubt, in ancient times, this cave had been a temple as well as a place of sepulchre.
We were well rested by our long and sound sleep; but the pain which was everywhere in our bodies, from our many bruises, and from our wounds, and from the aching stiffness of our muscles, made life for a time almost intolerable. Moreover, the languorous reaction following the undue exaltation that came of our battling and escape was upon us; so that our pain of body was accompanied by a most sombre and melancholy cast of mind. Yet, again, did the more balanced and delicate temperament of Fray Antonio shine out by contrast with our coarser make; for while he also suffered pains of the body, his mind was filled with a serene cheerfulness that found expression in kindly, comforting words, by which our flagging spirits were strengthened and upheld. There was in Fray Antonio's nature, surely, a fund of gentle lovingness the like of which I never knew in any other man.
And, in truth, our plight was such that we stood in much need of comforting. Not only were we sick with our many hurts, but we were also prisoners. By the full light of day we examined carefully the cave, and found no outlet to it; and we examined carefully, also, the walls of the cañon throughout its full length, and made sure that there was no path leading upward whereby a man could go. And escape down the valley was cut off, for the Indians—who knew, no doubt, the manner of place we were caught in—were on guard and watching for us; which fact came sharply to our knowledge with a half-dozen arrows that dropped among us as we went out a little way beyond the mouth of the cañon to see if the way was open to us. Had we been whole, we might have made a dash and fought our way through; but even this poor plan was not possible when our bodies were stiff and sore. Our one comforting thought was that, as we had an abundance of provisions and an ample supply of water, we could hold out for so long a time that the Indians at last would get tired of waiting for us. If they ventured to attack us in the cave, we knew that we could defend ourselves against any number of them successfully. If they simply abandoned the siege, then we would be free without fighting at all. But it was dismal work waiting in that dismal place for one or the other of these two ends to come.
And the fact that the King's symbol had proved a false guide also was a source of deep concern to us. By the full strength of daylight we again examined the graving at the entrance to the cañon, and there was no mistaking the way in which the arrow pointed. And, what was even more perplexing and disheartening, we found the graving repeated at the entrance to the cave, and the arrow pointing directly towards the statue of Chac-Mool. It was impossible that this cave, with mummies only for inhabitants, could be the walled city wherein the reserve force of men and treasure had been hid; and yet here, obviously, was the end of the trail. Of this we convinced ourselves by searching the cave exhaustively for another outlet—even sounding the walls in the hope that we might find a passage that had been artificially concealed. As Rayburn tersely put it, we were no better than so many rats in a trap with terriers waiting for us outside.
X.
THE SWINGING STATUE.
Four more days went by very wearily. Our wounds were healing—for we all were in good condition as the result of our vigorous life in the open air—but they still kept us in constant pain, and so tended to increase our melancholy. Out in the valley, beyond the mouth of the cañon, the Indians maintained their watchful guard. Rayburn tried the experiment of holding a hat and coat out on a pole, standing himself under cover of the rock, and in an instant a pair of arrows went through the dummy; and as one of these came from the right and the other from the left, it was evident that in both directions the valley was picketed.
We were safe enough for the time being, of course. Even should the Indians overcome their superstitious dread and enter the cañon—which was not probable, for they had not even ventured to remove their dead—they could not possibly make a successful attack upon us in the cave. Behind the breastwork that we had built in the narrow entrance, and armed with our repeating rifles and revolvers, we were absolutely secure.
"It's not a bad thing that we're safe," said Young, "an' that we've got plenty of grub an' water, an' even lots of firewood; if we've got t' be shut up here we might as well be comfortable. But what I want is a through ticket for home. This treasure business has gone back on us th' worst kind. That old Fray Francisco had his eye shut up by th' tall talk of th' fellow who pretended to be converted; and th' Cacique just promiscuously lied. That's about the size of it. An' for bein' fools enough to swallow their stuff, here we are, as Rayburn says, like rats in a cage."
There was so much probability in what Young said that I did not attempt to argue with him; yet was I convinced that in what Fray Francisco had written, and still more in what the dying Cacique had said to me, there was a substantial element of truth.
Finding that nobody replied to him, for all of us were sore at heart and so disposed to silence, Young turned to the statue of Chac-Mool and proceeded to abuse it vigorously, on the ground that it was an idolatrous product of the Aztec race that was at the root of all our troubles. For, as he truly said, had there been no Aztecs to begin with, our departure on a wild-goose chase after an Aztec treasure-house would have been an impossibility. His attention having been thus fixed upon the idol, his habit of investigation got the better of his ill-will towards it, and he mounted the altar to examine it more closely—continuing the while to address it in language that was eminently unparliamentary.
"A pretty-looking sort a specimen you are!" he said, in a tone of vast contempt. "But you're about what I'd expect folks like that friend of th' Professor's, th' Cacique, t' worship. It takes a low sort of a heathen, even in his blindness, t' bow down to a stone like you—with your twisted head, an' your stubby legs, an' your little fryin'-pan over your stomach. Why, where I come from they wouldn't have you even for a stone settee in a park. No, you're not fit even t' sit on—unless, maybe, it's on th' flat top of your crooked head;" and by way of testing this possibility, Young seated himself on the head of Chac-Mool.
And then a very extraordinary thing happened. The idol, and the great slab of stone on which it rested and of which it was a part, slowly moved; the head sinking, and the other end of the slab, on which the legs were carved, rising in the air! Young sprang up with a cry as he felt the stone sinking beneath him; and the figure, relieved of his weight, settled back into its former position with a slight jar. In a moment that the slab was in the air there had come from under it a gleam of light.
In the excitement wrought by this strange accident our hurts were forgotten; and we eagerly clambered upon the altar to investigate the matter further, while hope and wonder thrilled our hearts.
"Now, then, Young," said Rayburn, "try it again. It looks as though this idol wasn't all the blackguard things you've been calling it, by a long shot."
"No, I'll be hanged if I'll try it again," Young answered. "Try it yourself, if you want to. How do I know what's goin' t' happen with a stone thing that goes tippin' around that way? I don't mind sayin' that I'm a good deal jolted, an' don't feel like foolin' with it any more. Try it yourself, if you want to, I say."
"All right," Rayburn answered. "You and the Professor stand here where you can grab me if anything goes wrong. It looks to me as though there was a chance for us of some sort here, and I mean to see what it is."
Young and I stood on each side of Rayburn and held him by the arms as he seated himself on the idol's head. Borne down by his weight, the head slowly sank, the whole fore-end of the stone slab falling away into the rock, and the after-end correspondingly rising and disclosing a squared opening, through which came a strong burst of light. When the head was down to the level of the rock, and the slab stood up at an angle of nearly fifty degrees, the movement ceased. Looking into the opening we saw a flight of a dozen stone steps. On the bottom step the sun shone brightly, and in our faces blew a draught of fresh, sweet air. On the rock, beside the stair-way was carved the King's symbol, with the arrow pointing downward.
"Hurrah!" cried Young. "Here's a way out—an' it looks as if that old monk an' th' Cacique weren't such a pair of blasted liars after all!"
Rayburn jumped up to have a look with the rest of us; but before he could see anything the statue had fallen into place again and the opening was closed. "No matter, we know how to work it, now," he said. "We must prop it up somehow; that's all. I want to have a look at this thing. There's some mighty good engineering shown in the way the centre of gravity of that stone has been calculated; and there's a good mechanism in the way it's hung. Here she goes again. Just chock it with a bit of rock when I swing it open."
"Well, what I'm interested in," said Young, "is findin' out what sort of a place it'll get us into. It looks to me as if we might be goin' to strike the treasure right smack here."
Much the same notion was in all of our heads by this time, and we were full of eagerness—the statue having been swung again, and propped in place with a fragment of rock—as we went down the little stair. But what we found was only a continuation of the cañon—as though, by some curious freak of nature, the thin walls of rock enclosing the cave had been left thus in the very middle of it. Rayburn drew our attention to the fact that we were on the crest of a divide, for a spring that bubbled up here flowed away from us; and this also was a cheering sign that the cañon had an outlet. How far away the outlet might be we could not tell; for the cañon, half a mile or so from where we stood, bent sharply to the right. But being thus assured that a way of some sort out of our prison was open to us, we turned to examine the work of the skilled mechanics who in some far past time had set this swinging statue in its place. From below, the simple apparatus, that yet for its fitting required so high a grade of scientific knowledge, was plainly disclosed to us. Into the great slab of stone, presumably running through it from side to side, was set a round bar of metal—the same bright metal of which the sword was made—more than a foot in diameter; and this worked in two concave metal sockets in much the same manner that the sockets of a gun-carriage hold the trunnions of a gun. What struck Rayburn as especially remarkable was the trueness to a circle of both the sockets and the bar; both showing, as he declared, that they had been worked upon a lathe. And he was puzzled, as in the case of the sword, as to the composition of the metal that thus defied oxidization through long periods of time. "Gold is the only thing that fills the bill," he said; "but a bar of gold, even of that size, would bend double under such a strain. I'd give ten dollars for a chance to analyze it—for there's a bigger fortune in putting a metal like that on the market than there is in finding this treasure that we're hunting for: especially if it turns out that there isn't any treasure to find."
"Now, don't you go t' runnin' down that treasure," Young struck in. "Just now treasure stock is up. Me an' that idol have just boomed th' market. I'm sorry I called Jack Mullins, or whatever his name is, such a lot of cuss-word names. I take 'em all back. He isn't just th' sort of an idol that I'd pick out t' worship myself, at least not as a steady thing; but there are good points about him—especially th' way he tips up. I always did like an idol that tipped up. He's done th' square thing by us in gettin' us out all right from th' worst sort of a hole; an' I guess th' best thing we can do is t' yank our traps out of that cave an' get started again. Why, for all we know, th' treasure may be right around that corner."
There was no doubt as to the soundness of Young's suggestion in regard to resuming our march; but the very serious fact confronted us that we now must do our marching on foot. To get the horses and mules down through the narrow opening was simply impossible, and there was nothing for us but to leave them behind. Rayburn looked very grave over this phase of the matter, for leaving the mules meant also that we must leave the greater part of our ammunition and stores. That these things would be abundantly safe in the cave, for any length of time, was not to the purpose; the essential matter was that we would be deprived of them. It was hard, too, to think that our animals would fall into the hands of the Indians—for our only course with them must be to turn them loose in the cañon, whence they certainly would go out in search of pasture into the valley, and so be captured; but it was still harder to think that we must go ourselves on foot and with a scant outfit of supplies.
It was not very cheerfully, therefore, that we went back into the cave and began to sort out from our packs the articles which would be absolutely necessary to our preservation in the rough work among the mountains that probably was before us; and our shoulders already ached a little in anticipation of the heavy loads which they must bear.
It was while we were thus engaged that Pablo begged that I would step aside with him for a moment that he might speak to my ear alone. I saw that there were tears upon his cheeks, and as he spoke he scarcely could restrain his sobs.
"Señor," he said, "you know El Sabio?"
"Surely, Pablo."
"You know, señor, that he is a very small ass."
"It is true."
"And you know—you know, señor, how very tenderly we love each other. Since I came away from my father and my mother, in Guadalajara, and from my little brother and sister there, El Sabio is everything in the world to me, señor. I—I cannot leave him, señor. I should die if we were parted; and El Sabio would die also. And you say that you have perceived that he is a very small ass. Do not ask me to leave him, señor."
"But we cannot take him with us, Pablo. What would you have?"
"That is it, señor; truly, I think that we can take him with us. You see, he is so little; and it is quite wonderful through how small a place El Sabio can crawl. He can creep like a kitten, señor, and he can make himself into a very little bunch. And so I think that he can—if we help him, you know, señor—and speak to him so that he will not be alarmed, and will try to do his very best to make a small bunch of himself—I think that we can get him down through the hole, and so take him with us. But if we cannot, señor, then—you must forgive me, señor—I love him so very dearly, you know—then I will stay with him here. It would be better so than that El Sabio should think I no longer loved him. And he would think that, señor, were I to go with you and leave him here among these dreadful dead gentlemen alone."
It had not occurred to any of us that El Sabio might be condensed sufficiently to go through the narrow way; but if he truly were the collapsable donkey that Pablo declared him to be, we had a good deal to be thankful for. He was a sturdy little creature, and his small back could bear easily twice as much as any two of ours. With his assistance we certainly would be able to carry with us all of our ammunition and arms—of which defensive stuff we could not well afford to spare the smallest part.
And El Sabio, after Pablo had made a long explanation of the case to him, and had told him precisely what we expected him to do—to all of which he listened gravely and with an astonishing air of comprehending what was said to him—seemed to enter into the spirit of the situation, and to try his very best to meet its requirements. It is a puzzle to me to this day how El Sabio managed to shrink himself so that we got him through that narrow hole; but he certainly did manage it—and then went down the stone stair-way backward, as though he had been trained to be a trick donkey from his youth up. When the feat was accomplished, and he stood safely out in the cañon, the expressions of love, and of congratulation upon his cleverness, which Pablo lavished upon him were enough to have turned completely a less serious-minded donkey's head.
Such of our stores as we were compelled to leave behind us, including our saddles, and the pack-saddles, and all the heavier portion of our camp equipage, we heaped in one corner of the cave and piled rocks over; and then we turned our poor horses and the mules loose in the cañon, feeling certain that their instinct would lead them out to the valley in search of food. It went to our hearts to know that these good beasts of ours were doomed to hard service under Indian masters to the end of their days.
All being thus in readiness for our advance, we went down the stair-way beneath the swinging statue, and from beneath pulled out the piece of rock which propped up the great mass of stone. With a heavy jar it fell and closed the passage-way, and we prepared to start. Just then Fray Antonio remembered that he had left on a ledge in the cave—that we had used as a shelf for the storage of various small matters during our sojourn there—a little volume that he dearly loved: the Meditations of Thomas à Kempis. He was full of remorse for his forgetfulness, and did not ask that we should turn back to get his book for him; yet his distress over the loss of it was so evident that we had not the heart to go on.
"It will take only ten minutes to go back," said Rayburn, and as he spoke he ran up the stair-way and set his shoulders to sway up the stone. In a moment he called: "Just come here, Young, and help, will you? It don't work as easily from this side." But even with Young's help the stone did not move. Then the rest of us joined these two, and all five of us together pushed with all our strength—and the stone did not yield by so much as the breadth of a hair! And then rather a queer look came into Rayburn's face, and he said: "I think that I understand what is the matter. The point of leverage falls beyond the edge of the hole. From where we have a chance to push, we are working against the whole weight of the stone. We might as well try to lift the mountain itself!" And then he added, "I guess we'd better give this thing up and start."
Very curious feelings were in our breasts as we picked up our packs and set off along the cañon; for we knew that by that way only could we go, and that, no matter what was ahead of us, our retreat was cut off.
XI.
THE SUBMERGED CITY.
A sweet, warm wind blew in our faces as we set off along the cañon; the sun shone joyously upon us, and there was that fresh, tingling quality in the air that is peculiar to regions high above the level of the sea. In spite of the fact that the way behind us was irrevocably barred, and that no matter what dangers were ahead of us we had no option but to face them, our spirits were strong within us, and we went blithely on our way. Young, who was in advance, began to whistle "Yankee Doodle"; and presently, from the rear of our procession, where Pablo walked beside the heavily laden El Sabio, there broke forth a mouth-organ accompaniment to this spirited melody.
The bed of the cañon, through which a little stream ran, fell away before us along a slight down grade; which descent, since we found also a good foot-way beside the stream, made walking comparatively easy notwithstanding our heavy back-loads. Now and then our way would be barred by masses of rock fallen from above, and by whole trees blown down from their insecure roothold on the rocky cliffs; and twice we came to steep descents which would have given us trouble had we not brought along the ropes wherewith our packs had been bound. Shifting El Sabio down these places was our hardest task; but with the ropes, and the intelligent part that he took in the performance, we managed it successfully.
So we went on for half a dozen miles or more through the windings of the cañon, but keeping all the while a sharp lookout ahead—for in the mouth of this end of the cañon, supposing it to open as at the other end upon a grassy valley, we well enough might come upon an Indian camp. And that we had come upon such a camp we felt quite sure when, late in the afternoon, Rayburn signalled us from his advanced position—he having gone to the head of the line in Young's place—to stand still until he should reconnoitre a little. Being thus halted, we unslung our rifles and loosed our pistols in their holsters, so that we might be ready in case fighting suddenly should begin; and Rayburn went on around a turn in the cañon, and for a while we lost sight of him.
Presently he returned and signalled us to join him, but to move cautiously. When we came up with him he led us to the bend in the cañon, and there a broad view opened to us; for the cañon suddenly widened into a great valley, that was everywhere, so far as we could see, surrounded by walls of rock almost perpendicular and vastly high. In the bottom of the valley was a broad expanse of delectably green meadow-land, broken here and there by groves of trees; and in the valley's middle part, reaching from side to side of it, was a lovely lake, whereof the blue was flecked by white reflections of certain little idly drifting clouds: the sight of all which greenness and fair water and broad range of sky—after being for so long a season pent up in rocky fastnesses and wandering over brown, sun-baked plains—fairly brought tears into my eyes because of its fresh and open loveliness. And in the tender feeling that thus stirred my heart, as I could see in the quick glance that he gave me, Fray Antonio also keenly sympathized; for his nature was very open at all times to such gentle influences.
But Rayburn and Young, as was evident from their anxious looks, were thinking only of the dangers which this lovely valley might hold in store for us; for the shore of the lake nearest to us had many houses built upon it, and we could see faintly, for the width of the lake was nearly two miles, that there were other houses upon its farther shore. Standing hidden behind a rock, Rayburn examined the valley carefully through a field-glass for a long while.
"I must say this place beats me," he said at last, as he put the glass down from his eyes. "There's no doubt about there being a town down there; but I can't make out a sign of a single living thing. And what is still queerer, the houses seem to go right down into the lake. If you'll take the glass, Professor, you'll see that a few of them, on this side, stand all right on dry ground; and then, farther down the sloping bank, are a lot in the water; and beyond these there seem to be some roofs just showing above the level of the lake. And as far as I can make out, things are just the same over on the far shore. It looks as if the lake had risen after the town was built."
As I looked through the glass I saw that what Rayburn had said was true; and I observed with much interest that many of the houses were large, and that all seemed to be well built of stone. Their construction reminded me of the buildings which M. Charnay examined at Tula, and I was eager to get down to them and examine them closely. Young and Fray Antonio took the glass, in turn, and as none of us saw any signs of life in the valley, we decided to go on. And we were mightily stimulated in this resolve by finding, just at the end of the cañon, where the sharp descent began, a graving of the King's symbol on the rock, with the arrow pointing directly down the steep path.
"Here's a walled city, for sure," said Young; "and if this is where th' treasure-house is, we won't raise a row because th' folks have gone off an' left it. Just whoop up that burro of yours, Pablo, an' let's be gettin' along. It's a pity we had t' leave th' mules behind. If th' treasure's in silver, we can't get away with much of it with nothin' but El Sabio t' pack it on."
Pablo did not understand this speech, of course, but he recognized his own name and the name of El Sabio, and Young's gestures helped out the meaning of his words. Therefore Pablo grinned, and "whooped up" El Sabio; and we all set off briskly down the steep decline.
Presently we found our way much easier than we had been led to expect by its rough beginning. As we advanced along it there was ample evidence that the path had been graded and smoothed by the hand of man. In several places it was carried on a terrace supported by a well-laid retaining wall; a deep crevice was spanned by long slabs of stone, so placed as to form a bridge; and where it turned sharply around a high shoulder of rock, the face of the cliff had been quarried away. Yet that this all had been done in a very remote time was shown by the fragments of rock which had fallen into it here and there, and which were blackened by age. "The same fellow who set that statue in place probably was in charge here," was Rayburn's comment, "and he was a first-rate engineer. I wish I knew how he managed to swing those stone slabs over that crevice. There's no room there to set up a derrick, and it would puzzle me to set blocks like that without one."
And Rayburn's admiration for the professional skill of this engineer of a long past age was still further excited when the path came fairly into the valley, and thence was carried downward along the gentle slope towards the lake, by a perfectly even two-per-cent. grade, over a broad way paved smoothly with squared blocks of stone. And Fray Antonio and I were much interested in this work also, for we both perceived the identity of its structure with the paved way that is found on the east coast of Yucatan, and that is continued on the island of Cozumel.
By this paved avenue we entered the city—for, as we presently found, it was entitled to this more dignified name. The first houses that we came to were but small buildings enclosing a single room—such as are found, inhabited by working-people, on the outskirts of any Mexican city at the present day. They were silent and deserted; but they gave, at first sight, the impression of being but momentarily abandoned, for the belongings of their owners still remained in them as though the every-day affairs of life still went on within their walls. In the first that we entered we found an earthen pot still standing on a sort of fireplace, and beside the fireplace a little pile of charcoal. There was a fragment of bone in the pot, and beneath it were some scraps of charcoal which remained unconsumed. It was as though cooking had been going on here but an hour before. Rayburn even put his hand into the ashes to feel if they still were warm. But closer investigation gave us a juster notion of the long lapse of time that must have occurred since any fire had burned upon this hearth. In one corner of the room we found a pile of mats, but on touching these they crumbled into fragments in our hands; and the bone in the pot was so dry and so porous that it was light as cork.
As in this first house that we examined, so was it in all of them. All, at the first glance, seemed to have been but a moment before deserted; but all had signs about them which showed that they had been abandoned for a very long time. In one we found a loom—in construction very like that which the Navajo Indians use at the present day—on which hung, partly completed, a sheer filament that once had been some sort of heavy woollen cloth. In another, a cotton garment was lying carelessly upon a shelf, as though but a moment before cast aside; yet, as I tried to pick it up, it crumbled between my fingers into a fine powder.
Of humanity, the only sign that we found anywhere about this grim and desert place was the dried, shrivelled remnant of a woman that we came upon in an upper room of one of the larger houses farther on. She was lying upon a bed of mats, partly turned upon her side, and one arm was stretched out towards an earthen cup that stood just beyond her reach upon the floor. There was strong pathos in the action of the figure, for it told of the keen thirst of fever—of weakness so extreme that the inch or two between the hand and the cup was a gulf impassable—of a moaning struggle after the water so longed for—and then, at last, of death in that utter and desolate loneliness. And what added to the ghastliness of it all was that a thin ray of sunlight, coming through a crevice in the wall, struck upon the woman's teeth—whence the lips had dried away—and by its gleaming there made on her face a smile.
As we came close to the lake, we perceived, as Rayburn already had discerned by the aid of the glass, that houses, partially submerged, actually rose from the water, and that houses of which only the roofs were visible were farther on. That this whole valley was the crater of an extinct volcano was sufficiently evident; and we could only surmise that in later times some fresh cataclysm of nature had poured suddenly into it a vast body of water, and so had submerged the city that had been builded here. Whatever had brought about the catastrophe, it evidently had come with a most appalling suddenness. Everywhere the condition of the houses showed how hastily they had been abandoned; and the wild hurry of flight was shown still more clearly in the case of the woman—whose surroundings gave evidence that she had been a person of consequence—deserted in her age or infirmity and left lonely to die.
Young's face wore a melancholy expression as we stood upon the shore of the lake, and looked out across it towards the faintly seen western shore. "If this is th' place we're huntin' for," he said, "I guess our treasure stock is pretty badly watered, unless somebody's had th' sense t' keep th' treasure dry over on th' other side. We'd better move over there, I reckon, an' take a look for it, especially as we've got t' go that way anyhow in order t' get out. There ought t' be some sort of a path around th' lake, between th' edge of th' water and th' cliffs."
But when we came to examine into this matter we found that there was no path at all. On each side of the valley the walls of rock rose directly from the water, sharp and sheer.
"Well," said Rayburn, when we had finished our inspection, "we've got to get across somehow. I guess we'll have to sail in, the first thing to-morrow morning, and build a raft. These pine-trees down here by the water will cut easy and float well, and there's some comfort in that, anyway. But what I'm after right now is my supper."
Pablo already had started a fire, having first unpacked El Sabio, that he might refresh himself by rolling on the soft, green grass and by eating his fill of it, and Young presently had some ham fried and some coffee boiled. We had counted upon having fresh meat for supper that night, for there was everything in the look of the valley to promise that we would find game there; but, so far, not a four-footed thing nor a bird had we seen, nor even signs of fish in the lake.
In the morning we got out the axes and went to work at the building of the raft; and, notwithstanding what Rayburn had said in regard to the ease of cutting them, I must confess that for my part I found the cutting of pine-trees very wearying and painful. My hands were blistered by it, and the muscles of my back were made extremely sore by it for several days. Indeed, the construction of a raft big enough to float us all, and our heavy packs, and El Sabio, was a serious undertaking. We spent two days and a half over it, and I never in my life was more thankful for anything than I was when at last that wretched raft was done. As Young observed, as he regarded our finished work critically, there was no style about it—for it was only a lot of rough logs, of which the upper and lower layers ran fore and aft and the middle layer transversely, the whole bound together by our pack-ropes—but it was large enough for our purposes, and it was solid and strong.
In the late afternoon we carried our belongings on board of it, and Pablo succeeded by dint of much entreaty in inducing El Sabio to board it also, and we pushed off from shore. For driving the clumsy thing forward we had made four rough paddles, which well enough served our purposes, for there was no current whatever in the lake and the air was still.