“DOES not the city lie very low?” I asked of Maya, when we had studied the prospect on every side. “To my eye its houses seem almost upon a level with the waters of the lake.”
“I believe that is so,” she answered. “Moreover, during those months of the year that are coming, the surface of the lake rises many feet, so that the greater part of the island is submerged and the water stands about the wall.”
“How, then, do you prevent the town from being flooded?” asked the señor. “If once the water flowed in, the place would vanish and every soul be drowned.”
“Yes, friend, but the waters never rise beyond a certain height, and they are kept from flooding the city by the great sluice-gate. If that gate were to be opened in the time of inundation, then we should perish, every one. But it never is opened during those months, for if any would leave or enter the city they do so by means of ladders leading from the summit of the wall to floating landing-stages on the moat beneath. Also night and day the gate is guarded; moreover, it can be moved from one place only by those that know its secret, who are few.”
“It seems a strange place to build a city,” answered the señor. “I do not think that I should ever sleep sound during the months of inundation, knowing that my life depended upon a single gate.”
“Yet men have slept safely here for a thousand years or more,” she said. “Legend tells us that our ancestors who came up from the coast in ancient days settled on the island by command of their gods, choosing this hollow bed of land to build in, so that rather than submit themselves to foes, as their fathers were forced to do in the country beyond the mountains, they could, if need were, flood the place and perish in the water. For this reason it is that the holy sanctuary of the Nameless god, the Heart of Heaven, is hollowed deep in the rock beneath us, for the waters of the lake would flow in upon it at a touch, burying it and all its treasures from the sight of man for ever. Now, if you have seen enough, I will take you to visit the public workshops where fish is dried, linen woven, and all other industries carried on that are necessary to our comfort,”—and, turning, she led the way with her ladies towards the head of the stairs.
As we drew near to it, however, three men appeared upon the platform, in one of whom I knew Tikal. Seeing Maya he advanced toward her, bowing as he came.
“Lady,” he said, “learning that you were here with these strangers, I have followed you to beg that you will speak with me alone for some few minutes.”
“That I cannot do, cousin,” she answered coldly, “for who knows what colour might afterwards be put upon my words. If you have anything to say to me, say it before us all.”
“That I cannot do,” he replied, “for what I have to say is secret. Still, for your father’s sake, and perhaps for your own, you will do well to hear it.”
“Without a witness I will not listen to you, Tikal.”
“Then, Lady, farewell,” he said, and turned to go.
“Stay, cousin. If you fear to speak before our own people, let this stranger—” and she pointed to me, Ignatio—“be present at our talk. He is of our blood, and can understand our tongue, a discreet man, moreover, one of the Brethren of the Heart.”
“One of the Brethren of the Heart? How can a stranger be a Brother of the Heart? Prove it to me, wanderer.”
And, drawing me aside, he said certain words, which I answered, giving him the signs.
“Do you agree?” asked Maya.
“Yes, Lady, since I must, though it pleases me little to open my mind before a stranger. Let us step apart,”—and he walked to the centre of the platform, followed by Maya and myself.
“Lady,” he began, “my business with you is not easy to tell. For many years we were affianced, and both you and your father promised that we should be wed when you returned from this journey——”
“Surely, as things are, cousin, it is needless to discuss the matter of our betrothal,” she broke in with sarcasm.
“Not altogether needless, Lady,” he answered. “I have much to ask your pardon for, yet I make bold to ask it. Maya, you know well that I have loved and love you dearly, and that no other woman has ever been near my heart.”
“Indeed,” she said with a laugh, “these words sound strange in the mouth of the new-made husband of Nahua.”
“Perhaps, Lady, and yet they are true. I am married to Nahua, but I do not love her, though she loves me. It is you whom I love, and when I saw you yesterday all my heart went out to you, so that I almost hated the fair bride at my side.”
“Why, then, did you marry her?”
“Because I must, and because I believed you dead, and your father with you, as did every man in the city. You and Zibalbay being dead, as I thought, was it wonderful that I should wish to keep the place that many were plotting to take from me? This could be done in one way only, by the help of Mattai, the most clever and the most powerful man in the city, and this was Mattai’s price, that his daughter should become the Lady of the Heart. Well, she loved me, she is beautiful, and she has her father’s strength and foresight, so that among all the ladies in the land there was none more fitted to be my wife.”
“Well, and you married her, and there’s an end. You ask my forgiveness, and you have it, seeing that it does not befit me to play the part of a jealous woman. Doubtless time will soften the blow to me, Tikal,” she added, mockingly.
“There is not an end, Maya, and I come to ask you to-day to renew your promise that you will be my wife.”
“What, cousin! Having broken your troth, would you now offer me insult? Do you then propose that I, the Daughter of the Heart, should be Nahua’s handmaid?”
“No, I propose that when Nahua is put away you should take her place and your own.”
“How can this be, seeing that the Lady of the Heart cannot be divorced?”
“If she ceases to be the Lady of the Heart she can be divorced like any other woman; at the least, love has no laws, and I will find a way.”
“The way of death, perhaps. No, I will have none of you. Honour has laws, Tikal, if love has none. Go back to your wife, and pray that she may never learn how you would have treated her.”
“Is that your last word, Lady?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Because more hangs on it than you know. Listen: Very soon all the men in the city will be gathered on this place to hear your father’s words, and to decide whether he or I shall rule. See, already they assemble in the temple square. Promise to be my wife, and in return I will yield to your father and he shall be master for his life’s days and have his way in all things. Refuse, and I will cling to power, and matters may go badly for him, for you, and—” he added threateningly, “for these strangers, your friends.”
“All this must befall as it chances,” she answered proudly, “I do not meddle with such questions, nor do your threats move me. If you are so base as to plot mischief against an old man who has poured benefits upon you, plot on, and in due time meet with your reward, but for myself I tell you that I have done with you, and that, come what may, I will never be your wife.”
“Perhaps you may yet live to take back those words, Lady,” he said in a quiet voice; then, with a low obeisance, he turned and went.
“You have made a dangerous enemy, Lady,” I said, when he was out of earshot.
“I do not fear him, Ignatio.”
“That is well,” I answered, “but for my part I do. I think that his plans are ready, and that before this day is done there will be trouble. Indeed, I shall be thankful if we live to see to-morrow’s light.”
By this time we had reached the others.
“Are you weary of waiting?” she said to the señor, giving him a sweet look as she spoke. “Well, I should have been happier here than I was yonder. Give me your hand and lead me down the stair, for I am tired. Ah, friend, did you but know it, I have just dared more for your sake than I should have done for my own.”
“What have you dared?” he asked.
“That you will learn in due time, if we live long enough, friend,” she answered, “but, oh! I would that we had never set foot within this city.”
Two hours had passed, and, following in the train of Zibalbay and Maya, who walked beside him, once more we found ourselves upon the summit of the pyramid. Now, however, it was no longer empty, for on it were collected men to the number of some thousands; indeed, all the adult male population of the city. On one side of the altar were seated Tikal, his bride Nahua, who was the only woman there, and some hundreds of nobles, all of whom, I noted, were armed and guarded by a body of soldiers that stood behind them. On the other side were many vacant places; and as Zibalbay, with Maya and all the great company of followers that he had gathered, advanced to take them, Tikal and every man present on the pyramid uncovered their heads and bowed in greeting to him.
After a few moments’ pause, two priests came forward from the watch-house behind the altar, and, having laid upon it an offering of fresh flowers, the elder of them, who was robed in pure white, uttered a short prayer to the Nameless god, the Heart of Heaven, asking that he would be pleased to accept the gift, and to send a blessing upon the deliberations of his people here assembled. Then Zibalbay rose to address the multitude, and I noted that his fierce face was pale and anxious, and that his hand shook, although his eyes flashed angrily:
“Nobles and people of the City of the Heart,” he began, “on this day a year ago, I, your hereditary ruler and cacique, and the high-priest of the Heart of Heaven, left this city on a certain mission. This was my mission: To find the severed portion of the sacred symbol that lies in the sanctuary of the temple, the portion that is called Day, which has been lost for many an age. You know that our race has fallen upon evil times, and that, year by year, our numbers dwindle, till at length the end of the people is in sight, seeing that within some few generations they must die out and be forgotten. You know also the ancient prophecy, that when once more the two halves of the Symbol of the Heart, Day and Night, are laid side by side, in their place upon the altar in the sanctuary, then, from that hour, this people shall grow great again; and you know how a voice spoke to me, in answer to my prayers, bidding me, Zibalbay, to wander forth from the country of the Heart, following the road to the sea, for there I should find that which was lost.
“Thither, then, having won the permission of my Council, the Brotherhood of the Heart, I have wandered alone with my daughter, the Lady Maya, suffering much hardship and danger in my journeyings, and lo! I have found that which was lost, and brought it back to you, for here it hangs upon the neck of this Ignatio, who has accompanied me from the lands beyond the desert.”
Now a murmur of astonishment went up from the multitude, and Zibalbay paused awhile.
“Of this matter of the finding of the symbol,” he continued, “I will speak more fully at the proper time, and to those who have a right to hear it, namely, to the elected Brotherhood of the Heart, in the holy Sanctuary, on the day of the Rising of Waters, being one of the eight days in each year on which it is lawful for the Council of the Heart to meet in the Sanctuary. But first in this hour I will deal with other questions.
“It is known to you that, when I went upon my mission, I left my nephew Tikal to sit in my place, it being agreed between us and the Council that if I should return no more within two years he should become cacique of the people. I have returned within one year, and I find this: That already he has allowed himself to be anointed cacique, and more, that he, who was affianced to my daughter, has taken another woman to be his wife. Last night with my own ears I heard him proclaim his treachery in the hall of the palace, and when I spoke out the bitterness that was in my heart, I, your lord, was met with threats, and told that Tikal, having been anointed, could not now be deposed. I use the saying against him. Nobles, have I not been anointed, and ruled over you and the people for many years, and can I then be deposed,—I, who am not a traitor to my master, nor a forswearer of my oaths, as is my nephew yonder?”
Again he paused, and some of the audience, with those who had accompanied Zibalbay, shouted “No;” but the most of them looked towards Tikal and were silent. Now Mattai rose from his place behind Tikal and spoke, saying:
“As one who had to do with the anointing of Tikal to be cacique when we believed you and the Lady Maya to be dead, I would ask you, Zibalbay, before we on this side of the altar answer you, to tell us openly what is the meaning of this journey that you have undertaken, and for what purpose you have brought these two strangers, who are named Ignatio and Son of the Sea, with you, in defiance of the ancient law, which says that he who brings a stranger across the mountains into the land of the City of the Heart shall die, together with the stranger.”
Now, when Zibalbay heard this question he started, for he had forgotten this law, and saw the cunning trap that Mattai had spread for his feet. Nevertheless he answered boldly, since it was his nature to be outspoken and straightforward.
“It becomes you ill, Mattai, to question me,—you who have proved yourself a plotter and a lying prophet, reading in the stars that I and my daughter were dead, while we still draw the breath of life beneath them. Yet I will answer you, and, scorning subterfuge or falsehood, set out the whole matter in the hearing of the people, that they may judge between me, your party, and your master. First, I will say that I had forgotten the law of which you speak, whereof I have broken the letter, or, if at any time I remembered it, my necessities caused me to disregard it. Learn, then, that the stranger Ignatio is of royal Indian blood, and the holder of that symbol which I went forth to seek, and that the white man whom you call Son of the Sea is as a brother to him, and that both of them are of the fellowship of the Heart, the Lord Ignatio being no less a man than the master of the order in yonder lands, as I am here. This Lord Ignatio I summoned to me, and he came. He came, and with his companion, Son of the Sea, saved me and my daughter from shame and death at the hands of certain murderers, white men. Then, when we had escaped, we tried each other, and laid the symbols side by side, and, lo! Day and Night came together and they were one. Then, also, I told him the story of how it happened that I was wandering far from my own place, and he told me what was his purpose and the desire of his life.
“This is his purpose—to break the yoke that the white man has set upon the neck of the Indians in the far lands, and to build up a mighty Indian nation stretching from sea to sea, whereof this city, Heart of the World, shall be the centre and the capital. Then we made a compact together, a compact that cannot be broken, and it was this: That the Lord Ignatio, with the white man, his companion, from whom he will not be separated, should accompany us here, where the symbols should be set in the appointed place, that the prophecy may be fulfilled and fortune return to us: That I should give to him so much as he may need of the treasures which lie useless in our storehouses, wherewith he may arm troops and bring about his ends, and that in return he should bring to us what we need far more than gold and gems—men and women with whom we may intermarry, so that our race, ceasing to dwindle, may once again multiply and grow great.
“Such, nobles, is our compact, and this is the path which the god who rules us has pointed out for our feet to tread. Accept it and grow great—refuse it and perish. For know that not for myself do I speak, who am old and near to death, but for you and your posterity for ever. Be not bewildered or amazed, for, though these things are new to you, it may well chance that after the Council of the Heart has been celebrated in the Sanctuary on the night of the Rising of Waters, the god whom we worship, the Nameless god under whose guidance all these things have come about, will reveal his purpose by the mouth of his oracle, and show what part these strangers and each of us shall play in the fate that is to be. Oh! nobles, and my people, let not your sight be dimmed nor your heart hardened, and put not away the fortune and the future that lie before you. I have dared much for your sake; dare a little for your own. Shut your ears and your gates and rise in rebellion against me, and I tell you that soon there shall remain of you and of your glorious home scarcely a memory; but be gentle and be guided by my wisdom and the will of your gods, and your fame and power shall cover the world; ay! you shall be to what you were as is the sun in all its glory to some faint and fading star. I have spoken—now choose.”
He ceased and for a while there was silence, the silence of amaze, for the nobles stared each on each, and such of the common people as were within earshot stood gaping at him with open mouths, since to them who did not meddle in matters of polity, and, indeed, thought little for themselves, his words had small meaning. Presently it was broken, and by Tikal, who sprang from his seat and cried aloud:
“Of a truth they were wise who said that this old man was mad. Have you heard and understood, O people of the Heart? This is what you must do to fulfil the will of Zibalbay: First, you must set him in his place again, giving him all power, and me you must condemn to death or chains; next, you must pardon him his breaches of the law,—the law that he of all men was bound to keep. Then you must hand over your treasures—the treasures hoarded by your forefathers for many a generation—to these wandering thieves whom he has brought with him; and, lastly, you must open your gates, which have been kept secret for a thousand years, to other thieves that they shall lead here, to whom, forsooth, you must give your women in marriage that the race may be increased. Say, will you do these things, children of the Heart?”
Now all the nobles who stood behind Tikal shouted “Never!” and the people beyond took up the cry with a voice of thunder, though the most of them understood little of what was passing.
Tikal held up his hand, and there was silence.
“You will not do them,” he said, “and base indeed were you had you answered otherwise. What, then, will you do? Tell me, first, whom do you choose as your ruler, my uncle, who now is mad and would bring you to shame and ruin; or me, who have sworn to preserve your ancient laws?”
“We choose you, Tikal, Tikal!” came the answer.
“I thank you,” he cried, “but what then shall be done with this old man, and those whom he has brought with him to spy out our secrets and to rob us?”
“Kill them before the altar!” they shouted, waving their swords.
Tikal thought for a moment, then pointed towards us and said,
“Seize these men.”
At his word a hundred or more of the nobles, who evidently had been instructed to execute his orders, rushed at us suddenly. As they came across the open space I saw the señor put his hand to his belt, and said to him:
“For the love of God! do not strike, for should you touch one of them they will certainly kill us.”
“That they will do in any case,—but as you wish,” he answered.
Then they broke on us. As they came, all those nobles who had followed Zibalbay to the crest of the pyramid gave way before their rush, leaving the three of us and the Lady Maya standing alone.
“Cowards!” said Zibalbay, glancing behind him. Then he drew his machete and with a shout cut down the foremost of those who assailed us—a great noble. In another instant the weapon was struck from him, and the señor and I were being dragged towards the altar, followed by Zibalbay and the Lady Maya, upon whom, however, our assailants laid no hand.
“What shall we do with these men?” cried Tikal again.
And again the nobles answered, “Kill them!”
So they threw us down, and men came at us with swords to make an end of us, which indeed they would have done quickly, had not the Lady Maya sprung forward, and, standing over the señor, cried, “Hold!” in so piercing a voice that they stayed their hands.
“Listen, people of the Heart,” she said, “would you do murder upon your own holy altar, staining it with the blood of innocent men? You talk of broken laws. Is there not a law in the city that none can be put to death except after trial before the cacique and his Council? Have these men been tried, and if so, by whom? You say that my father, your lawful ruler, is deposed. If that is so, not Tikal, but I, who am his heir, rule in his stead, and I have passed no judgment on them.”
Now at her words there was a murmur of mingled doubt and applause, but Tikal answered her, saying:
“Lady, the law you quote holds good for you, for your father, and for every citizen of the Heart, however humble; but in the case of these men it does not hold, for they are wandering strangers and spies, who can claim no protection from our justice, and therefore it is right that they should die.”
“It is not right that they should die,” she answered passionately. “You, Tikal, have usurped my father’s place, and now you would celebrate the beginning of your rule by a deed of the foulest murder. I tell you that these men are innocent of all offence. If any are guilty it is my father and I, and if any should suffer we should suffer. More,” she went on, with flashing eyes, “if these men to whom we have sworn safe-conduct must die, then for my part I will die with them, and whether I pass by your hands or by my own, may the curse of my blood rest upon you for ever and for ever.”
As she spoke she snatched a knife from her jewelled girdle, and stood before them, its bare blade glittering in the sunlight, looking so beautiful and fierce that the nobles fell back from her, and hundreds of the people applauded, saying:
“Hear the Lady Maya, and obey her. She is cacique, and no other.”
Now Zibalbay, who had covered his eyes with his hands, looked up and said:
“You are right, daughter. Since the people reject us, and we cannot even protect our guests, it is best that we should die with them,” and once more he covered his eyes with his hands.
Then there came a pause and a sound of whispering. I looked up between the sword-blades which were pointed at my throat, and saw that Nahua was standing at the side of her lord, and pleading with him. They were so close to me that my hearing, always keen, being sharpened moreover by the fear of instant death, enabled me to catch some of their talk.
“She will do what she says,” said Nahua, “and that will be your ruin; for if her father is hated, she is beloved, and many will arise to avenge her.”
“Why should she kill herself because of a white wanderer?” he asked.
Nahua shrugged her shoulders, and smiled darkly, as she answered:
“Who can tell; he is her friend, and women have been known to give their lives for their friends. Do as you will, but if Maya dies I do not think that we shall live to see another dawn,” and, leaving his side, she sought her chair again.
Now Tikal looked at the señor, who was stretched upon the ground beside me, and seeing that there was hate in his eyes I trembled, thinking that the end had come, then turned my head aside, and began to commend my soul to the care of Heaven. As I prayed he spoke, addressing himself to Maya:
“Lady,” he said, “you have appealed to the law on behalf of these wanderers, of your father, and of yourself, and by the law you shall be dealt with. To-morrow the judges shall be chosen, and hold their court here before the people.”
“It cannot be, Tikal,” she answered calmly, “there is but one court which can try us four, all of whom are Brethren of the Heart, and that is the Council of the Heart sitting in the Sanctuary, which assembles on the eighth day from now, on the night of the Rising of Waters. Is it not so, nobles?”
“If you are of the number of the Brethren of the Heart, all of you, it is so,” they answered.
“So be it,” said Tikal; “but till then I must hold you in safe-keeping. Will it please you to follow Mattai, Lady, and you, my Lord Zibalbay. Guards, bring these men to the watch-house yonder, and keep them there till I come to you.”
Maya bowed, and, turning to the audience, she said in a clear voice, “Farewell, my people. If we are seen no more you will know that my father and I have been done to death by Tikal, who has usurped our place, and to you I leave it to take vengeance for our blood.”