My heart was light within me as I stood on the steamer's deck in the cool gray of an October morning and saw out across the dark green sea and the dusky, brownish stretch of coast country the snow-crowned peak of Orizaba glinting in the first rays of the rising sun. And presently, as the sun rose higher, all the tropic region of the coast and the brown walls of Vera Cruz and of its outpost fort of San Juan de Ulua were flooded with brilliant light—which sudden and glorious outburst of radiant splendor seemed to me to be charged with a bright promise of my own success.
And still lighter was my heart, a week later, when I found myself established in the beautiful city of Morelia, and ready to begin actively the work for which I had been preparing myself—at first unconsciously, but for ten years past consciously and carefully—almost all my life long.
Morelia, I had decided, was the best base for the operations that I was about to undertake. My main purpose was to search for the remnants of primitive civilization among the more isolated of the native Indian tribes; and out of the fragments thus found, pieced together with what more I could glean from the early ecclesiastical and civil records, to recreate, so far as this was possible, the fabric that was destroyed by the Spanish conquerors. Nowhere could my investigations be conducted to better advantage than in the State of Michoacan (of which State the city of Morelia is the capital) and in the adjacent State of Jalisco; for in this region tribes still exist which never have been reduced to more than nominal subjection, and which maintain to a great extent their primitive customs and their primitive faith, though curiously mingling with this latter many Christian observances. Indeed, the independence of the Indians of these parts is so notable that the proverb "Free as Jalisco" is current throughout Mexico. Moreover, Morelia is a city rich in ancient records. The archives of the Franciscan province, that has its centre here extend back to the year 1531; those of the Bishopric of Michoacan to the year 1538; and those of the Colegio de San Nicolás to the year 1540; while in the recently founded Museo Michoacano already has been collected a rich store of archæological material. In a word, there was no place in all Mexico where my studies and my investigations could be pursued to such advantage as they could be pursued here.
From a fellow-archæologist in the City of Mexico I brought a letter of introduction to the director of the Museo, the learned Dr. Nicolás Leon; and so cordially was this letter worded, and so cordially was it received, that within the day of my coming into that strange city I found myself in the midst of friends. At once their hearts and their houses were opened to me, and they gave me with a warm enthusiasm the benefit of their knowledge and of their active assistance forwarding the work that I had in hand.
In the quiet retirement of the Museo I opened to that one of its members to whom the director especially had commended me, Don Rafael Moreno, the purposes which I had in view, and the means by which I hoped to accomplish them. "Surely," I said, "among the free Indians in the mountains hereabouts much may be found—in customs, in tone of thought, in religion—that has remained unchanged since the time of the conquest."
Don Rafael nodded. "Fray Antonio has said as much," he observed, thoughtfully.
"And as your own distinguished countryman, Señor Orozco y Berra, has pointed out," I continued, "many dark places in primitive history may be made clear, many illusions may be dispelled, and many deeply interesting truths may be gathered by one who will go among these Indians, lending himself to their mode of life, and will note accurately what he thus learns from sources wholly original."
"Fray Antonio has professed the same belief," Don Rafael answered. "But that his love is greater for the saving of heathen souls than for the advancement of antiquarian knowledge, he long ago would have done what you now propose to do. He has done much towards gathering a portion of the information that you seek, even as it is."
"And who is this Fray Antonio, señor?"
"He is the man who of all men can give you the wisest help in your present need. We see but little of him here at the Museo, though he is one of our most honored members, for his time is devoted so wholly to the godly work to which he has given himself that but little remains to him to use in other ways. He is a monk, vowed to the Rule of St. Francis. As you know, since the promulgation of the Laws of the Reform, monks are not permitted in our country to live in communities; but, with only a few exceptions, the conventual churches which have not been secularized still are administered by members of the religious orders to which they formerly belonged. Fray Antonio has the charge of the church of San Francisco—over by the market-place, you know—and virtually is a parish priest. He is a religious enthusiast. In God's service he gives himself no rest. The common people here, since his loving labors are among them while the pestilence of small-pox raged, reverently believe him to be a saint; and those of a higher class, who know what heroic work he did in that dreadful time, and who see how perfectly his life conforms to the principles which he professes, and how like is the spirit of holiness that animates him to that of the sainted men who founded the order to which he belongs, are disposed to hold a like opinion. Truly, it is by the especial grace of God that men like Fray Antonio are permitted at times to dwell upon this sinful earth."
Don Rafael spoke with a depth of feeling and a reverence of tone that gave his strong words still greater strength and deeper meaning. After that moment's pause he resumed: "But that which is of most interest to you, señor, is the knowledge that Fray Antonio has gained of our native Indians during his ministrations among them. It is the dearest wish of his heart to carry to these heathen souls the saving grace of Christianity, and for the accomplishment of this good purpose he makes many journeys into the mountains; ministering in the chapels which his zeal has founded in the Indian towns, and striving earnestly by his preaching of God's word to bring these far-wandered sheep into the Christian fold. Very often his life has been in most imminent peril, for the idolatrous priests of the mountain tribes hate him with a most bitter hatred because of the inroads which his mild creed is making upon the cruel creed which they uphold. Yet is he careless of the danger to which he exposes himself; and there be those who believe, such is the temerity with which he manifests his zeal, that he rather seeks than shuns a martyr's crown."
Again Don Rafael paused, and again was it evident that deep feelings moved him as he spoke of the holy life of this most holy man. "You will thus understand, señor," he went on, "that Fray Antonio of all men is best fitted by his knowledge of the ways of these mountain Indians to advise you touching your going among them and studying them. You cannot do better than confer with him at once. It is but a step to the church of San Francisco. Let us go."
What Don Rafael had said had opened new horizons to me, and I was stirred by strange feelings as we passed out together from the shady silence of the Museo into the bright silence of the streets: for Morelia is a quiet city, wherein at all times is gentleness and rest. For priests in general, and for Mexican priests in particular, I had entertained always a profound contempt; but now, from an impartial source, I had heard of a Mexican priest whose life-springs seemed to be the soul-stirring impulses of the thirteenth century; who was devoted in soul and in body to the service of God and of his fellow-men; in whom, in a word, the seraphic spirit of St. Francis of Assisi seemed to live again. But by this way coming to such tangible evidence of the survival in the present time of forces which were born into the world six hundred years ago, my thoughts took a natural turn to my own especial interests; and, by perhaps not over-strong analogy, I reasoned that if this monk still lived so closely to the letter and to the spirit of the Rule that St. Francis, six centuries back, gave to his order, most reasonably might I hope to find still quick something of the life that was in full vigor in Mexico only a little more than half that many centuries ago.
We turned off from the Calle Principal by the little old church of La Cruz, and passed onward across the market-place, where buying and selling went on languidly, and where a drowsy hum of talk made a rhythmic setting to a scene that seemed to my unaccustomed eyes less a bit of real life than a bit lifted bodily from an opera. Facing the market-place was the ancient church; and the change was a pleasant one, from the vivid sunlight and warmth of the streets to its cool, shadowy interior: where the only sign of life was a single old woman, her head muffled in her rebozo, praying her way along the Stations of the Cross. For more than two hundred and fifty years had prayer been made and praise been offered here; and as I thought of the many generations who here had ministered and worshipped—though evil hearts in plenty, no doubt, both within and without the chancel there had been—it seemed to me that some portion of the subtle essence of all the soul-longings for heavenly help and guidance that here had been breathed forth, by men and women truly struggling against the sinful forces at work in the world, had entered into the very fabric of that ancient church, and so had sanctified it.
We crossed to the eastern end of the church, where was a low door-way, closed by a heavy wooden door that was studded with rough iron nails and ornamented with rudely finished iron-work; pushing which door open briskly, as one having the assured right of entry there, Don Rafael courteously stood aside and motioned to me to enter the sacristy.
From the shadowy church I passed at a step into a small vaulted room brilliant with the sunlight that poured into it through a broad window that faced the south. Just where this flood of sunshine fell upon the flagged floor, rising from a base of stone steps built up in a pyramidal form, was a large cross of some dark wood, on which was the life-size figure of the crucified Christ; and there, on the bare stone pavement before this emblem of his faith, his face, on which the sunlight fell full, turned upward towards the holy image, and his arms raised in supplication, clad in his Franciscan habit, of which the hood had fallen back, knelt Fray Antonio; and upon his pale, holy face, that the rich sunlight glorified, was an expression so seraphic, so entranced, that it seemed as though to his fervent gaze the very gates of heaven must be open, and all the splendors and glories and majesties of paradise revealed.
It is as I thus first saw Fray Antonio—verily a saint kneeling before the cross—that I strive to think of him always. Yet even when that other and darker, but surely more glorious, picture of him rises before my mind I am not disconsolate; for at such times the thought possesses me—coming to me clearly and vehemently, as though from a strongly impelled force without myself—that what he prayed for at the moment when I beheld him was that which God granted to him in the end.
Some men being thus broken in upon while in the very act of communing with Heaven would have been distressed and ill at ease—as I assuredly was because I had so interrupted him. But to Fray Antonio, as I truly believe, communion with Heaven was so entirely a part of his daily life that our sudden entry in nowise ruffled him. After a moment, that he might recall his thoughts within himself and so to earth again, he arose from his knees, and with a grave, simple grace came forward to greet us. He was not more than eight-and-twenty years old, and he was slightly built and thin—not emaciated, but lean with the wholesome leanness of one who strove to keep his body in the careful order of a machine of which much work was required. His face still had in it the soft roundness and tenderness of youth, that accorded well with its expression of gracious sweetness; but there was a firmness about the fine, strong chin, and in the set of the delicate lips, that showed a reserve of masterful strength. And most of all did this strength shine forth from his eyes; which, truly, though at this first sight of him I did not perceive it fully, were the most wonderful eyes that ever I have seen. As I then beheld them I thought them black; but they really were a dark blue, and so were in keeping with his fair skin and hair. Yet that which gave them so strong an individuality was less their changing color than the marvellous way in which their expression changed with every change of feeling of the soul that animated them. When I first saw them, turned up towards heaven, they seemed to speak a heavenly language full of love; and when I saw them last, stern, but shining with the exultant light of joy triumphant, they fairly hurled the wrath of outraged Heaven against the conquered powers of hell. And I can give no adequate conception of the love that shone forth from them when pitying sympathy for human sorrow, or even for the pain which brute beasts suffered, touched that most tender heart for which they spoke in tones richer and fuller than the tones of words.
Don Rafael, standing without the door that he had opened in order that I might precede him, did not perceive that we had interrupted Fray Antonio in his prayers; and began, therefore, in the lively manner natural to him, when I had been in due form presented as an American archæologist come to Mexico to pursue my studies of its primitive inhabitants, to commend the undertaking that I had in hand, and to ask of Fray Antonio the aid in prosecuting it that he so well could give.
Perhaps it was that Fray Antonio understood how wholly my heart already had gone out to him—assuredly, later, there was such close sympathy between us that our thoughts would go and come to each other without need for words—and so was disposed in some instinctive way to join his purposes with mine; but, be this as it may, before Don Rafael well could finish the explanation of my wishes, Fray Antonio had comprehended what I desired, and had promised to give me his aid.
"The señor already has a book-knowledge of our native tongues. That is well. The speaking knowledge will come easily. He shall have the boy Pablo for his servant. A good boy is Pablo. With him he can talk in the Nahua dialect—which is the most important, for it is sprung most directly from the ancient stock. And I will arrange that the señor shall live for a time in the mountains—it will be a hard life, I fear—at Santa María and at San Andrés, in which villages he can gain a mouth-mastery of both Otomí and Tarascan. A little time must be given to all this—some months, no doubt. But the señor, who already has studied through ten years, will understand the needfulness of this short discipline. To a true student study in itself is a delight—still more that study which makes the realization of a long-cherished purpose possible. The señor, I know, reads Spanish, since so perfectly he speaks it"—this with a gracious movement of the hands and a courteous inclination of the body that enhanced the value of the compliment—"but does the señor read with ease our ancient Spanish script?"
"I have never attempted it," I answered. "But as I can read easily the old printed Spanish, I suppose," I added, a little airily, "that I shall have no great difficulty in reading the old script also."
Fray Antonio smiled a little as he glanced at Don Rafael, who smiled also, and as he turned out his hands, answered: "Perhaps. But it is not quite the same as print, as the señor will know when he tries. But it makes no difference; for what is most interesting in our archives I shall be glad—and so also will be Don Rafael—to aid him in reading.
"You must know, señor," he went on, dropping his formal mode of address as his interest in the subject augmented, and as his feeling towards me grew warmer, "that many precious documents are here preserved. So early as the year 1536 this western region was erected into a Custodia, distinct from the Province of the Santo Evangelio of Mexico; and from that time onward letters and reports relating to the work done by the missionaries of our order among the heathen have been here received. In truth, I doubt not that many historic treasures are hidden here. In modern times, during the last hundred years or more, but little thought has been given to the care of these old papers—which are so precious to such as Don Rafael and yourself because of their antiquarian value, and which are still more precious to me because they tell of the sowing among the heathen of the seed of God's own Word. It is probable that they have not been at all examined into since our learned brothers Pablo de Beaumont and Alonzo de la Rea were busy with the writing of their chronicles of this Province—and the labors of these brothers ended more than two hundred and fifty years ago. In the little time that I myself can give to such matters I already have found many manuscripts which cast new and curious light upon the strange people who dwelt here in Mexico before the Spaniards came. Some of these I will send for your examination, for they will prepare you for the work you have in contemplation by giving you useful knowledge of primitive modes of life and tones of faith and phases of thought. And while you are in the mountains, at Santa María and San Andrés, I will make further searches in our archives, and what I find you shall see upon your return.
"With your permission, señores, I must now go about my work. Don Rafael knows that I am much too ready to forget my work in talk of ancient matters. It is a weakness with me—this love for the study of antiquity—that I struggle against, but that seems rather to increase upon me than to be overcome. This afternoon, señor, I will send a few of the ancient manuscripts to you. And so—until we meet again."
Fray Antonio punctually fulfilled his promise in regard to the manuscripts, and I had but to glance at them in order to understand the smile that he had interchanged with Don Rafael when I so airily had expressed my confidence in my ability to read them. To say that I more easily could read Hebrew is not to the purpose, for I can read Hebrew very well; but it is precisely to the purpose to say that I could not read them at all! What with the curious, involved formation of the several letters, the extraordinary abbreviations, the antique spelling, the strange forms of expression, and the use of obsolete words I could not make sense of so much as a single line. Yet when, being forced into inglorious surrender, I carried the manuscripts to the Museo, and appealed to Don Rafael for assistance, he read to me in fluent Spanish all that I had found so utterly incomprehensible. "It is only a knack," he explained. "A little time and patience are required at first, but then all comes easily." But Don Rafael did here injustice to his own scholarship. More than a little time and patience have I since given to the study of ancient Spanish script, and I am even yet very far from being an expert in the reading of it.
In regard to the other promise that Fray Antonio made me—that he would send me a servant who also would serve as a practical instructor in the Nahua, or Aztec, dialect—he was equally punctual. While I was taking, in my bedroom, my first breakfast of bread and coffee the morning following my visit to the church of San Francisco, I heard a faint sound of music; but whether it was loud music at a distance or very soft music near at hand I could not tell. Presently I perceived that the musician was feeling about among the notes for the sabre song from La Grande Duchesse—selections from which semi-obsolete opera, as I then remembered, had been played by the military band on the plaza the evening before. Gradually the playing grew more assured; until it ended in an accurate and spirited rendering of the air. With this triumph, the volume of the sound increased greatly; and from its tones I inferred that the instrument was a concertina, and that whoever played it was in the inner court-yard of the hotel. Suddenly, in the midst of the music, there sounded—and this sound unmistakably came from the hotel court-yard—the prodigious braying of an ass; and accompanying this came the soft sound of bare feet hurrying away down the passage from near my door.
I opened the door and looked out, but the passage was empty. The gallery overlooked the court-yard, and stepping to the edge of the low stone railing, I beheld a sight that I never recall without a feeling of warm tenderness. Almost directly beneath me stood a small gray ass, a very delicately shaped and perfect little animal, with a coat of most extraordinary length and fuzziness, and with ears of a truly prodigious size. His head was raised, and his great ears were pricked forward in a fashion which indicated that he was most intently listening; and upon his face was an expression of such benevolent sweetness, joined to such thoughtfulness and meditative wisdom, that in my heart (which is very open to affection for his gentle kind) there sprung up in a moment a real love for him. Suddenly he lowered his head, and turned eagerly his regard towards the corner of the court-yard where descended the stair-way from the gallery on which I stood; and from this quarter came towards him a smiling, pleasant-faced Indian lad of eighteen or twenty years old, whose dress was a cotton shirt and cotton trousers, whose feet were bare, and on whose head was a battered hat of straw. And as the ass saw the boy, he strained at the cord that tethered him and gave another mighty bray.
"Dost thou call me, Wise One?" said the boy, speaking in Spanish. "Truly this Señor Americano is a lazy señor, that he rises so late, and keeps us waiting for his coming so long. But patience, Wise One. The Padre says that he is a good gentleman, in whose service we shall be treated as though we were kings. No doubt I now can buy my rain-coat. And thou, Wise One—thou shalt have beans!"
And being by this time come to the ass, the boy enfolded in his arms the creature's fuzzy head and gently stroked its preternaturally long ears. And the ass, for its part, responded to the caress by rubbing its head against the boy's breast and by most energetically twitching its scrag of a tail. Thus for a little time these friends manifested for each other their affection; and then the boy seated himself on the pavement beside the ass and drew forth from his pocket a large mouth-organ—on which he went to work with such a will that all the court-yard rang with the strains of Offenbach's music.
It was plain from what he had said that this was the boy whom Fray Antonio had promised to send to me; and notwithstanding his uncomplimentary comments upon my laziness, I had taken already a strong liking to him. I waited until he had played through the sabre song again—to which, as it seemed to me, the ass listened with a slightly critical yet pleased attention—and then I hailed him.
"The lazy Señor Americano is awake at last, Pablo," I called. "Come up hither, and we will talk about the buying of thy rain-coat, and about the buying of the Wise One's beans."
The boy jumped up as though a spring had been let loose beneath him, and his shame and confusion were so great that I was sorry enough that I had made my little joke upon him.
"It is all right, my child," I said, quickly, and with all the kindness that I could put into my tones. "Thou wert talking to the Wise One, not to me—and I have forgotten all that I heard. Thou art come from Fray Antonio?"
"Yes, señor," he answered; and as he saw by my smiling that no harm had been done, he also smiled; and so honest and kindly was the lad's face that I liked him more and more.
"Patience for yet a little longer, Wise One," he said, turning to the ass, who gravely wagged his ears in answer. And then the boy came up the stair to the gallery, and so we went to my room that I might have talk with him.
It was not much that Pablo had to tell about himself. He was a Guadalajara lad, born in the Indian suburb of Mexicalcingo—as his musical taste might have told me had I known more of Mexico—who had drifted out into the world to seek his fortune. His capital was the ass—so wise an ass that he had named him El Sabio. "He knows each word that I speak to him, señor," said Pablo, earnestly. "And when he hears, even a long way off, the music that I make upon the little instrument, he knows that it is from me that the music comes, and calls to me. And he loves me, señor, as though he were my brother; and he knows that with the same tenderness I also love him. It was the good Padre who gave him to me. God rest and bless him always!" This pious wish, I inferred, related not to the ass but to Fray Antonio.
"And how dost thou live, Pablo?" I asked.
"By bringing water from the Spring of the Holy Children, señor. It is two leagues away, the Ojo de los Santos Niños, and El Sabio and I make thither two journeys daily. We bring back each time four jars of water, which we sell here in the city—for it is very good, sweet water—at three tlacos the jar. You see, I make a great deal of money, señor—three reales a day! If it were not for one single thing, I should soon be rich."
That riches could be acquired rapidly on a basis of about twenty-seven cents, in our currency, a day struck me as a novel notion. But I inquired, gravely: "And this one thing that hinders thee from getting rich, Pablo, what is it?"
"It is that I eat so much, señor," Pablo answered, ruefully. "Truly it seems as though this belly of mine never could be filled. I try valiantly to eat little and so to save my money; but my belly cries out for more and yet more food—and so my money goes. Although I make so much, I can scarcely save a medio in a whole week, when what El Sabio must have and what I must have is paid for. And I am trying so hard to save just now, for before the next rainy season comes I want to own a rain-coat. But for a good one I must pay seven reales. The price is vast."
"What is a rain-coat, Pablo?"
"The señor does not know? That is strange. It is a coat woven of palm leaves, so that all over one it is as a thatch that the rain cannot come through. What I was saying just now to El Sabio—" Pablo stopped suddenly, and turned aside from me in a shamefaced way, as he remembered what he also had said to El Sabio about my laziness.
"—Was that out of the wages I am to pay thee thou canst save enough money to buy thy coat with," I said, quickly, wishing to rid him of his confusion. And then we fell to talking of what these wages should be, and of how he was to help me to gain a speaking knowledge of his native tongue—for so far we had spoken Spanish together—and of what in general would be his duties as my servant. That El Sabio could be anything but a part of the contract seemed never to cross Pablo's mind; and so presently our terms were concluded, and I found myself occupying the responsible relation of master to a mouth-organ playing boy and an extraordinarily wise ass. It was arranged that both of these dependants of mine should accompany me in my expedition to the Indian villages; and to clinch our bargain I gave Pablo the seven reales wherewith to buy his rain-coat on the spot.
I was a little surprised, two days later, when we started from Morelia on our journey into the mountains to the westward, to find that Pablo had not bought his much-desired garment; though, to be sure, as the rainy season still was a long way off, there was no need for it. He hesitated a little when I questioned him about it, and then, in a very apologetic tone, said: "Perhaps the señor will forgive me for doing so ill with his money. But indeed I could not help it. There is an old man, his name is Juan, señor, who has been very good to me many times. He has given me things to put into this wretchedly big belly of mine; and when I broke one of my jars he lent me the money to buy another with, and would take from me again only what the jar cost and no more. Just now this old man is sick—it is rheumatism, señor—and he has no money at all, and he and his wife have not much to eat, and I know what pain that is. And so—and so—Will the señor forgive me? I do not need the rain-coat now, the señor understands. And so I gave Juan the seven reales, which he will pay me when he gets well and works again; and should he die and not pay me—Does the señor know what I have been thinking? It is that rain-coats really are not very needful things, after all. Without them one gets wet, it is true; but then one soon gets dry again. But truly"—and there was a sudden catching in Pablo's throat that was very like a sob—"truly I did want one."
When Pablo had told this little story I did not wonder at the esteem in which Fray Antonio held him, and from that time onward he had a very warm place in my heart. And I may say that but for his too great devotion to his mouth-organ—for that boy never could hear a new tune but that he needs must go at once to practising it upon his beloved "instrumentito" until he had mastered it—he was the best servant that man ever had. And within his gentle nature was a core of very gallant fearlessness. In the times of danger which we shared together later, excepting only Rayburn, not one of us stood face to face and foot to foot with death with a steadier or a calmer bravery; for in all his composition there did not seem to be one single fibre that could be made to thrill in unison with fear. Of his qualities as a servant I had a good trial during the two months that we were together in the mountains—in which time I got enough working knowledge of the Indian dialects to make effective the knowledge that I had gained from books—and I was amazed by the quickness that he manifested in apprehending and in supplying my wants and in understanding my ways.
As to making any serious study of Indian customs—save only those of the most open and well-known sort—in this short time, I soon perceived that the case was quite hopeless. Coming from Fray Antonio, whose benevolent ministrations among them had won their friendship, the Indians treated me with a great respect and showed me every kindness. But I presently began to suspect, and this later grew to be conviction, that because my credentials came from a Christian priest I was thrust away all the more resolutely from knowledge of their inner life. What I then began to learn, and what I learned more fully later, convinced me that these Indians curiously veneered with Christian practices their native heathen faith; manifesting a certain superstitious reverence for the Christian rites and ceremonies, yet giving sincere worship only to their heathen gods. It was something to have arrived at this odd discovery, but it tended only to show me how difficult was the task that I had set myself of prying into the secrets of the Indians' inner life.
Indeed, but for an accident, I should have returned to Morelia no wiser, practically, than when I left it; but by that turn of chance fortune most wonderfully favored me, and with far-reaching consequences. It was on the last afternoon of my stay in the village of Santa María; and the beginning of my good-luck was that I succeeded in walking out upon the mountain-side alone. My walk had a decided purpose in it, for each time that I had tried to go in this direction one or another of the Indians had been quickly upon my heels with some civil excuse about the danger of falling among the rocks for leading me another way. How I thus succeeded at last in escaping from so many watchful eyes I cannot say, but luck was with me, and I went on undisturbed. The sharply sloping mountain-side, very wild and rugged, was strewn with great fragments of rock which had fallen from the heights above, and which, lying there for ages beneath the trees, had come to be moss-grown and half hidden by bushes and fallen leaves. In the dim light that filtered through the branches, walking in so uncertain a place was attended with a good deal of danger; for not only was there a likelihood of falls leading to broken legs, but broken necks also were an easy possibility by the chance of a slip upon the mossy edge of one or another of the many ledges, followed by a spin through the air ending suddenly upon the jagged rocks below. Indeed, so ticklish did I find my way that I began to think that the Indians had spoken no more than the simple truth in warning me against such dangers, and that I had better turn again while light remained to bring me back in safety; and just as I had reached this wise conclusion my feet slid suddenly from under me on the very edge of one of the ledges, and over I went into the depth below.
Fortunately I fell not more than a dozen feet or so, and my fall was broken by a friendly bed of leaves and moss. When I got to my feet again, in a moment, I found myself in a narrow cleft in the rocks, and I was surprised to see that through this cleft ran a well-worn path. All thought of the danger that I had just escaped from so narrowly was banished form my mind instantly as I made this discovery; and full of the exciting hope that I was about to find something which the Indians most earnestly desired to conceal, I went rapidly and easily onward in the direction that I had been pressing towards with so much difficulty along the rocky mountain-side. The course of this sunken path, I soon perceived, was partly natural and partly artificial. It went on through clefts such as the one that I had fallen into, and through devious ways where the fragments of fallen rock, some of them great masses weighing many tons, had been piled upon each other in most natural confusion, so as to leave a narrow passage in their depths. And all this had been done in a long-past time, for the rocks were thickly coated with moss; and in one place, where a watercourse crossed the path, were smoothed by water in a way that only centuries could have accomplished. So cleverly was the concealment effected, the way so narrow and so irregular, that I verily believe an army might have scoured that mountain-side and never found the path at all, save by such accident as had brought me into it.
For half a mile or more I went on in the waning light, my heart throbbing with the excitement of it all, and so came out at last upon a vast jutting promontory of rock that was thrust forth from the mountain's face eastwardly. Here was an open space of an acre or more, in the centre of which was a low, altar-like structure of stone. At the end of the narrow path, being still within its shelter, I stopped to make a careful survey of the ground before me; for I realized that in what I was doing Death stood close at my elbow, and that, unless I acted warily, he surely would have me in his grasp. Coming out of the shadows of the woods and the deeper shadows of the sunken path to this wide open space, where the light of the brilliant sunset was reflected strongly from masses of rosy clouds over all the eastern sky, I could see clearly. In the midst of the opening, not far from the edge of the stupendous precipice, where the bare rock dropped sheer down a thousand feet or more, was a huge bowlder that had been cut and squared with ineffective tools into the rude semblance of a mighty altar. The well-worn path along which I had come told the rest of the story. Here was the temple, having for its roof the great arch of heaven, in which the Indians, whom the gentle Fray Antonio believed to be such good Christians, truly worshipped their true gods; even as here their fathers had worshipped before them in the very dawning of the ancient past.
A tremor of joy went through me as I realized what I had found. Here was positive proof of what I had strongly but not surely hoped for. The Aztec faith truly was still a living faith; and it followed almost certainly that, could I but penetrate the mystery with which it was hedged about so carefully by them still faithful to it, I would find all that I sought—of living customs, of coherent traditions—wherewith to exhibit clearly to the world of the nineteenth century the wonderful social and religious structure that the Spaniards of the sixteenth century had blotted out, but had not destroyed. What my fellow-archæologists had accomplished in Syria, in Egypt, in Greece, was nothing to what I could thus accomplish in Mexico. At the best, Smith, Rawlinson, Schliemann, had done no more than stir the dust above the surface of dead antiquity; but I was about to bring the past freshly and brightly into the very midst of the present, and to make antiquity once more alive!
As I stood there in the dusk of the narrow pathway, while the joy that was in my heart swelled it almost to bursting, there came to my ears the low moaning of one in pain. The faint, uncertain sound seemed to come from the direction of the great stone altar. To discover myself in that place to any of the Indians, I knew would end my archæological ambition very summarily; yet was I moved by a natural desire to aid whoever thus was hurting and suffering. I stood irresolute a moment, and then, as the moaning came to me again, I went out boldly into the open space, and crossed it to where the altar was. As I rounded the great stone I saw a very grievous sight: an old man lying upon the bare rock, a great gash in his forehead from which the blood had flowed down over his face and breast, making him a most ghastly object to look upon; and there was about him a certain limpness that told of many broken bones. He turned his head at the sound of my footsteps, but it was plain that the blood flowing into his eyes had blinded him, and that he could not see me. He made a feeble motion to clear his eyes, but dropped his partly raised arm suddenly and with a moan of pain. I recognized him at a glance. He was the Cacique, the chief, and also, as I had shrewdly guessed, the priest of the village—the very last person whom I would have desired to meet in that place.
"Ah, thou art come to me at last, Benito!" he said, speaking in a low and broken voice. "I have been praying to our gods that they would send thee to me—for my death has come, and it is needful that the one secret still hidden from thee, my successor, should be told. I was on the altar's top, and thence I fell."
I perceived in what the Cacique said that there was hope for me. He could not see me, and he evidently believed that I was the second chief of the village, Benito—an Indian who had talked much with me, and the tones of whose voice I knew well. Doubtless my clumsy attempt to simulate the Indian's speech would have been detected quickly under other circumstances, but the Cacique believed that no other man could have come to him in that place; and his whole body was wrung with torturing pains, and he was in the very article of death. And so it was, my prudence leading me to speak few and simple words, and my good-luck still standing by me, he never guessed whose hands in his last moments ministered to him.
As I raised his head a little and rested it upon my knee, he spoke again, very feebly and brokenly: "On my breast is the bag of skin. In it is the Priest-Captain's token, and the paper that shows the way to where the stronghold of our race remains. Only with me abides this secret, for I am of the ancient house, as thou art also, whence sprung of old our priests and kings. Only when the sign that I have told thee of—but telling thee not its meaning—comes from heaven, is the token to be sent, and with it the call for aid. Once, as thou knowest, that sign came, and the messenger, our own ancestor, departed. But there was anger then against us among the gods, and they suffered not his message to be delivered, and he himself was slain. Yet was the token preserved to us, and yet again the sign from heaven will come. And then—thou knowest—" But here a shiver of pain went through him, and his speech gave place to agonizing moans. When he spoke again his words were but a whisper. "Lay me—in front of—the altar," he said. "Now is the end."
"But the sign? What is it? And where is the stronghold?" I cried eagerly; forgetting in the intense excitement of this strange disclosure my need for reticence, and forgetting even to disguise my voice. But my imprudence cost me nothing. Even as I spoke another shiver went through the Cacique's body; and as there came from his lips, thereafter forever to be silent, a sound, half moan, half gasp, his soul went out from him, and he was at rest.
When a little calmness had returned to me, I took from his breast the bag of skin—stained darkly where his blood had flowed upon it—and then tenderly and reverently lifted his poor mangled body and laid it before the altar. And so I came back along the hidden path, safely and unperceived, to the village: leaving the dead Cacique there in the solemn solitude of that great mountain-top, whereon the dusk of night was gathering, alone in death before the altar of his gods.
When Pablo and I started, the day following, upon our return to Morelia, the village of Santa María was overcast with mourning. The Cacique was dead, they told us; had fallen among the rocks on the mountain-side, being an old man and feeble, and so was killed. And I was expressly charged with a message to the good Padre, begging him to hasten to Santa María that the dead man might have Christian burial. I confess that I found this request, though I promised faithfully to comply with it, highly amusing; for I knew beyond the possibility of a doubt that if ever a man died a most earnest and devout heathen it was this same Cacique for whom Christian burial was sought; and I felt an assured conviction that when the services of the Church over him were ended—and whatever good was to be had for him from them secured—he would be buried fittingly with all the fulness of his own heathen rites. But this matter, lying in what I already perceived to be the very wide region between the avowed faith and the hidden faith of the Indians, was no concern of mine; yet I longed, as only a thoroughly earnest archæologist could long, to be a witness of the funeral ceremony in which Fray Antonio most conspicuously would not take part. As this was hopelessly impossible—for only by very slow advances, if ever, could I reach again by considerate investigation the point that in a moment I had reached by chance—I came away from Santa María reluctantly, yet greatly elated by the discovery that I had made.
So jealous was I in guarding the strange legacy that the Cacique had bequeathed to me that not until I was safe back in Morelia, in my room at the hotel, with the door locked behind me, did I venture to examine it. The bag, about six inches square, tightly sewed on all four of its sides, was made of snake-skin, and was provided with a loop of snake-skin so that it might be hung from the neck upon the breast like a scapulary. My hands trembled as I cut the delicate stitching of maguey fibre, and then drew forth a mass of several thicknesses of coarse gray-brown paper, also made of the maguey, such as the ancient Aztecs used. Being unfolded, I had before me a sheet nearly two feet square, on which was painted in dull colors a curious winding procession of figures and symbols. My knowledge of such matters being then but scant, I could tell only that this was a record, at once historical and geographical, of a tribal migration; and I saw at a glance that it was unlike either of the famous picture-writings which record the migration of the Aztecs from Culhuacan to the Valley of Mexico, and then about that valley until their final settlement in Tenochtitlan. I was reasonably confident, indeed, that this record differed from all existing codices; and I was filled with what I hope will be looked upon as a pardonable pride at having discovered, within three months of my coming to Mexico, this unique and inestimable treasure.
My natural desire was to carry my precious codex at once to Don Rafael, that I might have the benefit of his superior knowledge in studying it (for he had continued very intelligently the investigation of Aztec picture-writing that was so well begun by the late Señor Ramirez), and also that I might enjoy his sympathetic enjoyment of my discovery. As I raised the bag, that I might replace in it the refolded paper—which I already saw heralded to the world as the Codex Palgravius, and reproduced in fac-simile in Pre-Columbian Conditions on the Continent of North America—some glittering object dropped out of it and fell with a jingling sound upon the stone floor. When I examined eagerly this fresh treasure I found that it was a disk of gold, about the size and thickness of a Mexican silver dollar, on which a curious figure was rudely engraved. The engraving obviously represented an Aztec name-device, the like of which, in the ancient picture-writings, distinguish one from another the several generations of a line of kings. This name-device was strange to me; but, as I have said, I had not at that time studied carefully the Aztec picture-writings, and there were many names of kings which I would not then have recognized. But that the gold disk was the token concerning the meaning of which the dying Cacique had given so strange a hint, I felt assured.
Being still further gladdened by this fresh discovery, I carried my treasures at once to the Museo; and Don Rafael's enthusiasm over them was as hearty as I could desire. Being so deeply learned in such matters, he was able in the course of a single afternoon to arrive at much of the meaning of my codex; and his rendering of it showed that it possessed a very extraordinary historical value. In the Codex Boturini, as is well known, are several important lapses that neither that eminent scholar, nor any other archæologist whose conclusions can be considered trustworthy, has been able to supply. All that reasonably can be imagined concerning these breaks is that the historian of the Aztec migration deliberately omitted certain facts from his pictured history. The astonishing discovery that Don Rafael made in regard to my codex was that it unquestionably supplied the facts concealed in one of the longest of these unaccountable blanks. This was not a mere guess on his part, but a demonstrable certainty. On a fac-simile of the Codex Boturini he bade me observe attentively the pictures which preceded and which followed the break in question; and then he showed me that these same pictures were the beginning and the ending of my own codex—obviously put there so that this secret record might be inserted accurately into the public record of the wanderings of the Aztec tribe.