CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
THE MEMENTO FOR GENERATIONS—BUILT BY SERPENT KINGS
“Alcyesta, hast thou the silver casket safe?” asked Ben Hu Barabe, as soon as they were comfortably afloat.
“Yes.”
“Give it me.”
He leaned forward eager to take it, but she held back, saying:
“Dost thou remember the injunction to loosen the eagles in time of peril and to follow their lead?”
“Yes. I have freed both birds. Dost thou not hear the cowardly gulls screeching with fright because of the eagles’ presence?”
“Then thou hadst best confide thy secret.”
“Yermah, wilt thou hear me?”
“If it is to accuse thyself, no!”
“It is to give into thy hands a message from Akaza, and to impart to thee the manner of its coming.”
“Speak,” returned Yermah, in a whisper.
“Before the awful time of wrath, a pair of golden eagles trained in falconry were intrusted to me by our beloved high-priestess, who intended them to be thy companions in the chase. She gave me, also, a ring set with diamonds, which I carried safely until I met Akaza after we left our battered balsa. I should never have known how, or when, the ring and the birds left me, had I not received this from the hierophant.”
He handed over a tiny, silver locket taken from the casket in Alcyesta’s hand.
Yermah pressed the spring and revealed a ring, large enough for his thumb, and having a fine silk tissue evenly fitting its broad band.
“Before removing the contents of this locket, hear me fully,” pleaded Ben Hu Barabe. “This treasure was made fast in a leather pouch, which was securely tied to the wing, next the body, of one eagle. Here is the parchment slipped in beside it.”
Yermah reached out his hand, but Ben Hu Barabe retained it.
“Thou canst not read without more light. Hold a lantern close by,” he ordered.
When the tamane obeyed, Ben Hu Barabe gave Yermah the writing.
BELOVED:
The eagle shall lead thee into strange lands. Never again wilt thou be separated from Yermah. Withhold from him all knowledge of the birds until such time as thou shalt find him in great danger.
Then loosen and follow thy guides.
Akaza.
The Dorado was so astonished that he held the parchment on his knee and made no further effort to examine the tissue message for himself.
“Well do I remember how anxious Kerœcia was about this ring. She went every day to superintend its making.”
Alcyesta’s words aroused Yermah.
Unrolling the tissue, he saw a finely traced map, with a few lines written on the margin:
Yermah, Beloved of the Brotherhood:
Follow the way marked out before thee.
When one bird hovers in the air while the other sits on a rock with cactus flowering at its base, halt thou and receive thy future task from him who was appointed to aid thee.
Go willingly. Thou hast no further mission in Tlamco. Fear not.
I have been before thee—and am with thee even unto the end of time.
Akaza.
The eagles led them southward by sea for many days after leaving Monterey Bay, but on coming ashore they traveled inland until they reached the pueblos of the Colorado.
Here they were evidently expected by the Brotherhood, who reprovisioned and sent them forward.
“Thou art the forerunners of an exodus which will strip this fair land of the white race for ages to come. Ice imprisons every vestige of life to the north, and the seeds of total destruction are already planted in the Llama city. Whither thou goest, we, too, will follow. Peace be thy portion!” solemnly spoke the high-priest in adieu.
It would not have been a very difficult journey down the singularly even plateau stretching beyond the Colorado to far Anahuac, had it not been for the dread scourge of waters flooding the plains and settling in the deep cup now known as Tezcuco Lake.
Nature’s tropic prodigality had done much to hide the ugly scars earned in a life and death struggle between the raging water courses and the still smoking mountain peaks muttering curses to the clouds.
It looked as if the earth in trembling fright had shaken everything down, ready for the receding waves to wash into the sea.
Forty long, weary days, the little party pushed ahead.
Cibolo, the gallant, was as resolute and brave as any man among them; but even the eagles seemed to lose their bearings occasionally, and then Yermah called aloud to Akaza:
“Make me to know thy wishes. Humbly and obediently will I follow them.”
Instantly, Cibolo’s ears would go forward, and with a start he would shy at a dim, hazy outline directly in front of him. First it took the form of Akaza; then, gradually it changed into the beatific countenance of Kerœcia.
In the beginning only Yermah could discern them, but before the journey was completed every member of the party saw and recognized them.
“Thou art under Divine guidance,” they said to Yermah, and held him in higher esteem than ever.
On the last day, the eagles circled in the air, screaming uneasily, and refusing to go forward.
“We must be near the place,” the wanderers said to each other, in awe-stricken whispers.
“Dost thou not see the rock and the flowering cactus?”
“One eagle sits and the other circles—”
“O Thou seen and unseen powers! Search our hearts, that thou mayst know all our gratitude,” cried the Dorado, falling to his knees, and prostrating himself on the ground, an act which was quickly imitated by his comrades.
“I am Gautama,” said a voice.
When Yermah looked up, a man old as Akaza, stood making the hierophant sign of blessing over him.
“Rise and receive from me word from thy beloved teacher.
“Fear me not.
“These hands have guided thy puny baby footsteps, and now thou must lend thy strength to me. We have some days yet before thou art at rest.”
The survivors were near the ancient site of Tenochtitlan,[24] then a dreary waste of water, with its first city ingulfed, but to have rebirth again and again until the present time.
Gautama was accompanied by two of the Brotherhood and some tamanes, amply provided with food and fresh raiment, which they gave to the travelers.
“Thou art the last admitted, and art the youngest initiate,” said Gautama to Yermah, later. “But thine is a special mission. When once in Cholula, I shall tell thee all. Thou art anxiously awaited.”
The augmented company went into camp for the rest of the day but they resumed travel shortly after sunrise, the next morning.
The holy city of Cholula[25] did not exist in those days.
There was nothing on the plain but the splendid “Memento for Generations,” built by the men of Atlantis, whose descendants were gathered into the hungry maw of the sea.
This massive pile is twice the length of the Pyramid of Cheops, but not nearly so high. A long circular stairway led to its top, which measured an acre in its area, and supported a teocalli—the last temple of the Brotherhood of the White Star which was built in America.
Nothing could be more sublime and beautiful than the view from the top of this pyramid. Toward the west stretches the bold barrier of porphyritic rock which nature has reared around the valley of Mexico, with huge Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl standing like two colossal sentinels guarding the entrance to this incomparable region.
The word pyramid means a place of fire, while Palai, or Pele, of the Hawaiians, is the spirit of the volcano center, or precipice of fire, as a pyramid was often called. The Arabic word Alcyone means the center, or cone, the spiritual apex around which the sun and all the sidereal galaxy are circling.
The two mountains represented the masculine potency and the feminine passivity of all which is generated in nature giving all things their proportion. Acting on this principle, the ancient sculptors down to and including Phidias, fixed the respective heights of man and woman as twenty and nineteen palms of one-third of a foot each, up to the organs of casualty and comparison, at the roots of the hair on the forehead.
Comparison with casualty on each side is the psychometric eye—the Cyclopean third eye, scouted by the would-be wise. Comparison is feminine; casualty is masculine.
The union of these forms the true vision of the soul, which, developed to its fullest capacity, gives that mysterious faculty of psychic perception, comparison and deduction beyond the intellectual comprehension of ordinary man, and marks the adept.
It was this transcendent power which the Pyramid of Cholula, built to the east of these two volcanoes, symbolized.
Farther in the same direction, towers Orizaba, correlated to the macrocosm, of which the Pyramid of Cholula was the microcosm.
Orizaba equals the height of Popocatepetl, signifying that the adept manifesting energy on the subjective plane is equal in function to the cosmic mind.
In this capacity the initiate is Quetzalcoatl, who, like Osiris, Krishna, etc., was black—that is, the unknowable and mysterious in Deity. This is why Quetzalcoatl is always shown with a black face, although he was called the Fair God. He belonged to the white race, and was the Aztec Yermah.
The antediluvians—the men who invented architecture—used the human form, the pyramid, the pentagram, and the interlaced triangles as a basis of measure and form.
The pyramid and pentagram denote the cone, or center, of sacred fire; the interlaced triangles were the balance of spirit and matter; while the obelisk was intended to show the purified nature of man.
The pillar of fire of Jacob was an obelisk. So were Stonehenge, Ellora, the Babel towers of Central America, Babylon and Judea, the gigantic ruins over all Tartary and India, and the totem-pole of the Eskimo—even the tombstones have the same grand origin.
That the obelisk everywhere outside of Egypt became a sign of the phallus does not alter its primal significance nor militate against it.
The pyramid was often called the Pillar of the Cosmos because it is the ideal form of the principle of stability, and cannot be assailed by any of the four elements.
Its tapering form guards it from destruction by earthquake; nor can it be overturned; and it is probably the only fireproof structure in the world.
The immense base and weight render it secure from floods; nor can the wind get sufficient purchase to do any damage.
Even the insidious encroachments of Time itself are baffled and outwitted by this cunningly constructed pile. It is, also, a perfect instrument for estimating the weight of the earth; and, it is an excellent astronomical observatory.
In its central chamber the temperature never varies.
Does any one believe this is the result of chance?
Will any part of to-day’s civilization survive the same flight of years?
Posterity has no claim on us which individualism—the god of the age—respects; nor will it require a cataclysm to destroy any of the works of to-day on any plane.
Science and invention make many discoveries, but our mental flights fall far short of the ancients in the discernment of the basic principles of philosophy.
In religion we have lost the meaning of the simplest symbols, and, apparently, we do not understand where to place the credit for the principles and precepts we profess to believe and practice.
Gautama led the travelers on by the west, while far away to the east was seen the conical head of Orizaba, soaring high into the clouds.
Near by was the barren, though beautifully shaped, Malinche Sierras, casting broad shadows over the plains of Tlaxcala. At their feet lay the Pyramid of Cholula, reposing in denuded gardens in the once fairest portion of the plateau of Puebla.
“Thou seest but a remnant of former glory,” said Gautama. “We, too, have bowed to the chastening rod. Only such as climbed the long flight of steps to the top of the pillar escaped destruction. Thou, too, art able to bear witness?”
It was like probing an old wound, but Yermah answered bravely:
“The lash found my tender parts, but I am learning to be content.”
“It is to assist thee in this endeavor that I am come. When once thou art ascended to the teocalli heights, thou mayst not return again until thou art fully prepared. Thy next labor is to quash doubtful inspiration. Thou art still leaning on thy earth loves, when thou art commanded to have but one ideal—”
“I stand face to face with inner consciousness, and hear the still small voice.”
“He hears the bells, but he does not know where they hang,” commented the priests of the Brotherhood, smiling at each other.
“Seclusion in rarefied atmosphere, where the whole basin of the earth has been purified, will give peace beyond thy present capacity for understanding,” returned Gautama.
“Thy will be done!” responded Yermah.
“Thou art a doer of penance, and must be able to say literally, ‘Thy will be done!’”
The devotees were nearing the pyramid, when they were met by a delegation of priests, who crowned them with garlands, and conducted them up the first flight of steps. On the truncated face of the terrace was the inscription:
BEFORE THE LIGHT WAS OBSCURED
THIS MEMENTO FOR GENERATIONS
WAS BUILT BY SERPENT KINGS
THEY WERE SCATTERED OVER THE EARTH
TO CARRY TRUTH AND WISDOM
THEY WILL COME AGAIN
TO RECEIVE THE TREASURES
HIDDEN IN THY BOWELS
ALL MEN WILL SPEAK AND HEAR THE
I AM I
The thoughtful band was allowed to rest at this juncture of their pilgrimage after partaking of some refreshment; but they ascended to the top of the pile in time to see the sunset.
Next morning, Yermah called his small aggregation of faithful adherents together, and told them that he had received Akaza’s final commands.
“It imposes upon me seclusion in this spot. There is work for me here,” he said with an odd smile. “The temple requires a central spire, and I shall build and cover it with pure gold. Go thou all to the valley, and make thy life apart from me. I love thee well and need thee sadly, but even this love must be merged into the universal.”
“What wilt thou have me do?” asked Hanabusa.
“Go thou and build a balsa capable of riding the storm and stress of an angry sea. In twenty lunations more thou must be prepared to go voyaging with me.”
“To what task dost thou appoint me?” It was Ben Hu Barabe who spoke.
“Go thou amongst thy fellows and teach them the arts of peace. Show them how to coax back fertility to the denuded soil, and build up civil power, until I call thee.”
“Hast thou no thought for me?” asked Ildiko.
“The Brotherhood will guard thee until such time as a new Temple of Venus shall arise on this fair plain. Seek thou knowledge diligently, that thou mayst be able to teach the virgins committed to thy care. When thou art separated from thy beloved Alcyesta, thou wilt be conducted to a refuge in this teocalli, where other women are waiting to return to their homes.”
Seeing that she made a brave effort to keep back tears, he added gently:
“Be not downcast. The first days of loneliness will find me near thee. Shouldst thou need, call, and I shall come straightway.”
To Alcyesta, he said, covering her hand with both his own, and holding it close to his breast:
“Promise if thine unborn shall be of thy sex, thou wilt name her, Kerœcia?”
“I promise,” she returned, “and if it should be a son, wilt thou give him thy name?”
“I shall be to thy son what Akaza was to me, but thou must call him Gautamozin. In after years, he will understand the significance of this command.”[26]