Hearts of Three 28

Hearts of Three 28

“Yes, Senor,” the peon muttered humbly. “It seems, when I became mad for

the woman I gave up my freedom for, that God destined me always

afterward to be the property of some man. The Cruel Just One is right.

It is God’s punishment for mating outside my race.”

 

“You made a slave of yourself for what the world has always considered

the best of all causes, a woman,” Francis observed, cutting the thongs

that bound the peon’s hands. “And so, I make a present of you to

yourself.” So saying, he placed the neck-rope in the peon’s hand.

“Henceforth, lead yourself, and put not that rope in any man’s hand.”

 

While the foregoing had been taking place, a lean old man, on foot, had

noiselessly joined the circle. Maya Indian he was, pure-blooded, with

ribs that corrugated plainly through his parchment-like skin. Only a

breech-clout covered his nakedness. His unkempt hair hung in dirty-gray

tangles about his face, which was high-cheeked and emaciated to

cadaverousness. Strings of muscles showed for his calves and biceps. A

few scattered snags of teeth were visible between his withered lips. The

hollows under his cheek-bones were prodigious. While his eyes, beads of

black, deep-sunk in their sockets, burned with the wild light of a

patient in fever.

 

He slipped eel-like through the circle and clasped the peon in his

skeleton-like arms.

 

“He is my father,” proclaimed the peon proudly. “Look at him. He is pure

Maya, and he knows the secrets of the Mayas.”

 

And while the two re-united ones talked endless explanations, Francis

preferred his request to the sackcloth leader to find Enrico Solano and

his two sons, wandering somewhere in the mountains, and to tell them

that they were free of all claims of the law and to return home.

 

“They have done no wrong?” the leader demanded.

 

“No; they have done no wrong,” Francis assured him.

 

“Then it is well. I promise you to find them immediately, for we know

the direction of their wandering, and to send them down to the coast to

join you.”

 

“And in the meantime shall you be my guests while you wait,” the

haciendado invited eagerly. “There is a freight schooner at anchor in

Juchitan Inlet now off my plantation, and sailing for San Antonio. I can

hold her until the noble Enrico and his sons come down from the

Cordilleras.”

 

“And Francis will pay the demurrage, of course,” Henry interpolated with

a sly sting that Leoncia caught, although it missed Francis, who cried

joyously:

 

“Of course I will. And it proves my contention that a checkbook is

pretty good to have anywhere.”

 

To their surprise, when they had parted from the sackcloth men, the peon

and his Indian father attached themselves to the Morgans, and journeyed

down through the burning oil-fields to the plantation which had been the

scene of the peon’s slavery. Both father and son were unremitting in

their devotion, first of all to Francis, and, next, to Leoncia and

Henry. More than once they noted father and son in long and earnest

conversations; and, after Enrico and his sons had arrived, when the

party went down to the beach to board the waiting schooner, the peon and

his Maya parent followed along. Francis essayed to say farewell to them

on the beach, but the peon stated that the pair of them were likewise

journeying on the schooner.

 

“I have told you that I was not a poor man,” the peon explained, after

they had drawn the party aside from the waiting sailors. “This is true.

The hidden treasure of the Mayas, which the conquistadores and the

priests of the Inquisition could never find, is in my keeping. Or, to be

very true, is in my father’s keeping. He is the descendant, in the

straight line, from the ancient high priest of the Mayas. He is the last

high priest. He and I have talked much and long. And we are agreed that

riches do not make life. You bought me for two hundred and fifty pesos,

yet you made me free, gave me back to myself. The gift of a man’s life

is greater than all the treasure in the world. So are we agreed, my

father and I. And so, since it is the way of Gringos and Spaniards to

desire treasure, we will lead you to the Maya treasure, my father and I,

my father knowing the way. And the way into the mountains begins from

San Antonio and not from Juchitan.”

 

“Does your father know the location of the treasure?—just where it is?”

Henry demanded, with an aside to Francis that this was the very Maya

treasure that had led him to abandon the quest for Morgan’s gold on the

Calf and to take to the mainland.

 

The peon shook his head.

 

“My father has never been to it. He was not interested in it, caring not

for wealth for himself. Father, bring forth the tale written in our

ancient language which you alone of living Mayas can read.”

 

From within his loin-cloth the old man drew forth a dirty and

much-frayed canvas bag. Out of this he pulled what looked like a snarl

of knotted strings. But the strings were twisted sennit of some fibrous

forest bark, so ancient that they threatened to crumble as he handled

them, while from under the touch and manipulation of his fingers a fine

powder of decay arose. Muttering and mumbling prayers in the ancient

Maya tongue, he held up the snarl of knots, and bowed reverently before

it ere he shook it out.

 

“The knot-writing, the lost written language of the Mayas,” Henry

breathed softly. “This is the real thing, if only the old geezer hasn’t

forgotten how to read it.”

 

All heads bent curiously toward it as it was handed to Francis. It was

in the form of a crude tassel, composed of many thin, long strings. Not

alone were the knots, and various kinds of knots, tied at irregular

intervals in the strings, but the strings themselves were of varying

lengths and diameters. He ran them through his fingers, mumbling and

muttering.

 

“He reads!” cried the peon triumphantly. “All our old language is there

in those knots, and he reads them as any man may read a book.”

 

Bending closer to observe, Francis and Leoncia’s hair touched, and, in

the thrill of the immediately broken contact, their eyes met, producing

the second thrill as they separated. But Henry, all eagerness, did not

observe. He had eyes only for the mystic tassel.

 

“What d’you say, Francis?” he murmured. “It’s big! It’s big!”

 

“But New York is beginning to call,” Francis demurred. “Oh, not its

people and its fun, but its business,” he added hastily, as he sensed

Leoncia’s unuttered reproach and hurt. “Don’t forget, I’m mixed up in

Tampico Petroleum and the stock market, and I hate to think how many

millions are involved.”

 

“Hell’s bells!” Henry ejaculated. “The Maya treasure, if a tithe of what

they say about its immensity be true, could be cut three ways between

Enrico, you and me, and make each of us richer than you are now.”

 

Still Francis was undecided, and, while Enrico expanded on the

authenticity of the treasure, Leoncia managed to query in an undertone

in Francis’ ear:

 

“Have you so soon tired of ... of treasure-hunting?”

 

He looked at her keenly, and down at her engagement ring, as he answered

in the same low tones:

 

“How can I stay longer in this country, loving you as I do, while you

love Henry?”

 

It was the first time he had openly avowed his love, and Leoncia knew

the swift surge of joy, followed by the no less swift surge of mantling

shame that she, a woman who had always esteemed herself good, could love

two men at the same time. She glanced at Henry, as if to verify her

heart, and her heart answered yes. As truly did she love Henry as she

did Francis, and the emotion seemed similar where the two were similar,

different where they were different.

 

“I’m afraid I’ll have to connect up with the _Angelique_, most likely at

Bocas del Toro, and get away,” Francis told Henry. “You and Enrico can

find the treasure and split it two ways.”

 

But the peon, having heard, broke into quick speech with his father,

and, next, with Henry.

 

“You hear what he says, Francis,” the latter said, holding up the sacred

tassel. “You’ve got to go with us. It is you he feels grateful to for

his son. He isn’t giving the treasure to us, but to you. And if you

don’t go, he won’t read a knot of the writing.”

 

But it was Leoncia, looking at Francis with quiet wistfulness of

pleading, seeming all but to say, “Please, for my sake,” who really

caused Francis to reverse his decision.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XIII

 

 

A week later, out of San Antonio on a single day, three separate

expeditions started for the Cordilleras. The first, mounted on mules,

was composed of Henry, Francis, the peon and his ancient parent, and of

several of the Solano peons, each leading a pack-mule, burdened with

supplies and outfit. Old Enrico Solano, at the last moment, had been

prevented from accompanying the party because of the bursting open of an

old wound received in the revolutionary fighting of his youth.

 

Up the main street of San Antonio the cavalcade proceeded, passing the

jail, the wall of which Francis had dynamited, and which was only even

then being tardily rebuilt by the Jefe’s prisoners. Torres, sauntering

down the street, the latest wire from Regan tucked in his pocket, saw

the Morgan outfit with surprise.

 

“Whither away, senors?” he called.

 

So spontaneous that it might have been rehearsed, Francis pointed to the

sky, Henry straight down at the earth, the peon to the right, and his

father to the left. The curse from Torres at such impoliteness, caused

all to burst into laughter, in which the mule-peons joined as they rode

along.

 

Within the morning, at the time of the siesta hour, while all the town

slept, Torres received a second surprise. This time it was the sight of

Leoncia and her youngest brother, Ricardo, on mules, leading a third

that was evidently loaded with a camping outfit.