Hearts of Three 35

Hearts of Three 35

It was too much for ordinary human nature to bear——a four-centuries old

corpse dying the second death by drowning. Leoncia screamed, sprang

forward, and fled the way she had come, while Francis, in his own way

equally startled, let her go past as he drew his automatic pistol. But

the mummy, finding footing in the swift rush of the current, cried out:

 

“Don’t shoot! It is I—Torres! I have just come back from the entrance.

Something has happened. The way is blocked. The water is over one’s head

and higher than the entrance, and rocks are falling.”

 

“And your way is blocked in this direction,” Francis said, aiming the

revolver at him.

 

“This is no time for quarreling,” Torres replied. “We must save all our

lives, and, afterwards, if quarrel we must, then quarrel we will.”

 

Francis hesitated.

 

“What is happening to Leoncia?” Torres demanded slyly. “I saw her run

back. May she not be in danger by herself?”

 

Letting Torres live and dragging the old man by the arm, Francis waded

back to the chamber of the idols, followed by Torres. Here, at sight of

him, Leoncia screamed her horror again.

 

“It’s only Torres,” Francis reassured her. “He gave me a devil of a

fright myself when I first saw him. But he’s real flesh. He’ll bleed if

a knife is stuck into him.—Come, old man! We don’t want to drown here

like rats in a trap. This is not all of the Maya mysteries. Read the

tale of the knots and get us out of this!”

 

“The way is not _out_ but _in_,” the priest quavered.

 

“And we’re not particular so long as we get away. But how can we get

in?”

 

“From the mouth of Chia to the ear of Hzatzl,” was the answer.

 

Francis was struck by a sudden grotesque and terrible thought.

 

“Torres,” he said, “there is a key or something inside that stone lady’s

mouth there. You’re the nearest. Stick your hand in and get it.”

 

Leoncia gasped with horror as she divined Francis’ vengeance. Of this

Torres took no notice, and gaily waded toward the goddess, saying: “Only

too glad to be of service.”

 

And then Francis’ sense of fair play betrayed him.

 

“Stop!” he commanded harshly, himself wading to the idol’s side.

 

And Torres, at first looking on in puzzlement, saw what he had escaped.

Several times Francis fired his pistol into the stone mouth, while the

old priest moaned “Sacrilege!” Next, wrapping his coat around his arm

and hand, he groped into the mouth and pulled out the wounded viper by

the tail. With quick swings in the air he beat its head to a jelly

against the goddess’ side.

 

Wrapping his hand and arm against the possibility of a second snake,

Francis thrust his hand into the mouth and drew forth a piece of worked

gold of the shape and size of the hole in Hzatzl’s ear. The old man

pointed to the ear, and Francis inserted the key.

 

“Like a nickle-in-the-slot machine,” he remarked, as the key disappeared

from sight. “Now what’s going to happen? Let’s watch for the water to

drain suddenly away.”

 

But the great stream continued to spout unabated out of the hole. With

an exclamation, Torres pointed to the wall, an apparently solid portion

of which was slowly rising.

 

“The way out,” said Torres.

 

“_In_, as the old man said,” Francis corrected. “Well, anyway, let’s

start.”

 

All were through and well along the narrow passage beyond, when the old

Maya, crying, “My son!” turned and ran back.

 

The section of wall was already descending into its original place, and

the priest had to crouch low in order to pass it. A moment later, it

stopped in its old position. So accurately was it contrived and fitted

that it immediately shut off the stream of water which had been flowing

out of the idol room.

 

* * * * *

 

Outside, save for a small river of water that flowed out of the base of

the cliff, there were no signs of what was vexing the interior of the

mountain. Henry and Ricardo, arriving, noted the stream, and Henry

observed:

 

“That’s something new. There wasn’t any stream of water here when I

left.”

 

A minute later he was saying, as he looked at a fresh slide of rock:

“This was the entrance to the cave. Now there is no entrance. I wonder

where the others are.”

 

As if in answer, out of the mountain, borne by the spouting stream, shot

the body of a man. Henry and Ricardo pounced upon it and dragged it

clear. Recognizing it for the priest, Henry laid him face downward,

squatted astride of him, and proceeded to give him the first aid for the

drowned.

 

Not for ten minutes did the old man betray signs of life, and not until

after another ten minutes did he open his eyes and look wildly about.

 

“Where are they?” Henry asked.

 

The old priest muttered in Maya, until Henry shook more thorough

consciousness into him.

 

“Gone——all gone,” he gasped in Spanish.

 

“Who?” Henry demanded, shook memory into the resuscitated one, and

demanded again.

 

“My son; Chia slew him. Chia slew my son, as she slew them all.”

 

“Who are the rest?”

 

Followed more shakings and repetitions of the question.

 

“The rich young Gringo who befriended my son, the enemy of the rich

young Gringo whom men call Torres, and the young woman of the Solanos

who was the cause of all that happened. I warned you. She should not

have come. Women are always a curse in the affairs of men. By her

presence, Chia, who is likewise a woman, was made angry. The tongue of

Chia is a viperine. By her tongue Chia struck and slew my son, and the

mountain vomited the ocean upon us there in the heart of the mountain,

and all are dead, slain by Chia. Woe is me! I have angered the gods. Woe

is me! Woe is me! And woe upon all who would seek the sacred treasure to

filch it from the gods of Maya!”

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XVI

 

 

Midway between the out-bursting stream of water and the rock-slide,

Henry and Ricardo stood in hurried debate. Beside them, crouched on the

ground, moaned and prayed the last priest of the Mayas. From him, by

numerous shakings that served to clear his addled old head, Henry had

managed to extract a rather vague account of what had occurred inside

the mountain.

 

“Only his son was bitten and fell into that hole,” Henry reasoned

hopefully.

 

“That’s right,” Ricardo concurred. “He never saw any damage, beyond a

wetting, happen to the rest of them.”

 

“And they may be, right now, high up above the floor in some chamber,”

Henry went on. “Now, if we could attack the slide, we might open up the

cave and drain the water off. If they’re alive they can last for many

days, for lack of water is what kills quickly, and they’ve certainly

more water than they know what to do with. They can get along without

food for a long time. But what gets me is how Torres got inside with

them.”

 

“Wonder if he wasn’t responsible for that attack of the Caroos upon us,”

Ricardo suggested.

 

But Henry scouted the idea.

 

“Anyway,” he said, “that isn’t the present proposition——which

proposition is: how to get inside that mountain on the chance that they

are still alive. You and I couldn’t go through that slide in a month. If

we could get fifty men to help, night and day shifts, we might open her

up in forty-eight hours. So, the primary thing is to get the men. Here’s

what we must do. I’ll take a mule and beat it back to that Caroo

community and promise them the contents of one of Francis’ check-books

if they will come and help. Failing that, I can get up a crowd in San

Antonio. So here’s where I pull out on the run. In the meantime, you can

work out trails and bring up all the mules, peons, grub and camp

equipment. Also, keep your ears to the cliff——they might start

signalling through it with tappings.”

 

* * * * *

 

Into the village of the Caroos Henry forced his mule——much to the

reluctance of the mule, and equally as much to the astonishment of the

Caroos, who thus saw their stronghold invaded single-handed by one of

the party they had attempted to annihilate. They squatted about their

doors and loafed in the sunshine, under a show of lethargy hiding the

astonishment that tingled through them and almost put them on their

toes. As has been ever the way, the very daring of the white man, over

savage and mongrel breeds, in this instance stunned the Caroos to

inaction. Only a man, they could not help but reason in their slow way,

a superior man, a noble or over-riding man, equipped with potencies

beyond their dreaming, could dare to ride into their strength of numbers

on a fagged and mutinous mule.