Daughter of the Sun

  CHAPTER XV

  OF THE ANCIENT GARDENS OF THE GOLDEN TEZCUCAN

  He supposed that Zoraida was conducting him to the barbaric chamber inwhich she had received him the other evening. For she led, as thelittle maid had done, out under the stars, along the rear corridor,into the house again by the same door. Once more in the building theycame to that heavy door which in time was thrown open by theevil-looking Yaqui with the sinister weapons at his belt. The manbowed deeply as Zoraida swept by him. Another moment and Zoraida andJim were in the room which appeared always to be pitch black. But fromhere on the way was no longer the same.

  He heard Zoraida's quiet breathing at his side. She stood a long timewithout moving, apparently waiting or listening, and he stood as still.Then she put out her hand and caught his sleeve and he followed heragain. Their footfalls were deadened by a thick carpet; Kendric couldsee nothing. Never a sound came to him save that of their own quietprogress. They went forward a dozen steps and Zoraida paused abruptly.Another dozen steps and again a pause. Then he heard the soft jingleof keys in her hands; lock after lock she found swiftly in the darkuntil she must have shot back five or six bolts; a door opened beforethem. He could not see it, since beyond was a dark no lessimpenetrable, but caught the familiar creak of hinges. He heard thedoor close softly when they had gone through; he heard the severalbolts shot back. Then Zoraida left him, groped a moment and thereafterthe tiny flare of a match in her upheld hand showed her to him and,vaguely, his surroundings. They stood in a low-vaulted, narrowpassageway through what appeared to be rock.

  Set in a shallow niche in the wall was a small lamp which Zoraidalighted. She held it high and continued along the passageway. NowKendric saw that a long tunnel ran ahead of them, walls and ceilingrudely chisseled, the uneven floor pitching gently downward. Hereintwo men, their elbows striking, might walk abreast; here a man as tallas Kendric must stoop now and then. The tunnel ran straight a score ofpaces, then turned abruptly to the right. Here was another door withits reenforcement of riveted steel bars and its half dozen bolts andpadlocks. Zoraida gave him the lamp to hold, then produced a secondbunch of keys and one after the other opened the padlocks. The doorswung back noiselessly; they went through, Zoraida closed it anddropped into place the steel bars.

  "Doors and bars and locks and keys enough," mocked Kendric, "to guardthe treasure of the Montezumas!"

  She turned upon him with her slow, mysterious smile.

  "And not alone in doors and locks has Zoraida put her faith," she said."If I had not prepared the way neither you nor another man, though heheld the keys, could ever have come so far! I have been before andremoved certain small obstructions. Come! I will show you others,Zoraida's true safeguards."

  They were in a small square chamber faced with oak on all sidesexcepting ceiling and floor which were of hewn rock. The panels of thewalls, each some two feet wide, had, all of them, the look of narrowdoors, each with its heavy latch. Zoraida put her hand to the nearestlatch and opened the door cautiously. Kendric saw only a long, verynarrow and dark passageway.

  "Listen," commanded Zoraida.

  He heard nothing.

  "Toss something down into the passage," said Zoraida. "Anything, acoin if you have no other useless object upon you."

  So a coin it was. He heard it strike and roll and clink against rock.Then he heard the other sound, a dry noise like dead leaves rattlingtogether. Despite him he drew back swiftly. Zoraida laughed andclosed the door.

  "You know what it is then?"

  He knew. It was the angry warning of a rattlesnake; his quickenedfancies pictured for him a dark alleyway whose floor was alive with thedeadly reptiles and he felt an unpleasant prickling of the flesh.

  "If you went on," she told him serenely, "and you chose any door butthe right one--and there are twelve doors--you would never come to theend of a short hallway. And, even though you happened to choose theright door, it were best for you if Zoraida went ahead. Come, myfriend."

  She opened another door and stepped into the narrow opening. Though hehad little enough liking for the expedition, Kendric followed. Oncemore he heard a rustling as of thousands of dry, parched leaves, andwas at loss to know whence came the ominous sound. Again Zoraidalaughed, saying: "I have been before and prepared the way," and theywent on. Then came another door with still other bars and locks.Zoraida unlocked one after the other, then stood back, looking at himwith the old mischief showing vaguely in her eyes.

  "Open and enter," she said.

  He threw back the door. But on the threshold he stopped and stared andmarveled. Zoraida's pleased laughter now was like a child's.

  "You are the first man, since Zoraida's father died, to come here," shetold him. "And never another man will come here until you and I aredead. It is a place of ancient things, my friend; it is the heart ofAncient Mexico."

  The heart of Ancient Mexico! Without her words he would have known,would have felt. For old influences held on and the atmosphere of thetime of the Montezumas still pervaded the place. He forgot evenZoraida as he stepped forward and stopped again, marveling.

  Here was a chamber of colossal proportions and more than a chamber inthat it gave the impression of being without walls or roof. And in away the impression was correct for straight overhead Kendric saw aragged section of the heavens, bright with stars, and at first hefailed to see the remote walls because of the shrubbery everywhere.Here was a strange underground garden that might have been thecourtyard to an oriental monarch's palace, a region of sprayingfountains, of heavily scented flowers, of berry-bearing shrubs, ofbirds of brilliant plumage. It was night; the stars cast small lightdown here into the depths of earth; and yet it was some moments beforethe startled Kendric asked himself the question: "Where does the fulllight come from?" And it was still other moments before he located thefirst of the countless lamps, lamps with green shades lost behindfoliage, lamps set in recesses, lamps everywhere but cunningly placedso that one was bathed in their light without having the source of theillumination thrust into notice.

  That here, at some long dead time of Mexican history, had been theretreat of some barbaric king Kendric did not doubt from the firstsweeping glance. He knew something of the way in which the ancientmonarchs had builded pleasure palaces for their luxurious relaxation;how whole armies of slaves, captured in war, were set at a giant tasklike other captives in older days in Egypt; he knew how thousands, tensof thousands of such poor wretches hopelessly toiled to build withtheir misery places of flowers and ease; how to celebrate many a templeor palace completed these poor artificers in a mournful procession ofhundreds or thousands as the dignity of the endeavor required, went tothe sacrifice. Now, standing here at Zoraida's side in this greatstill place, these thoughts winged to him swiftly, and for the momenthe felt close to the past of Mexico.

  "What was once the country place of Nezahualcoyoti, the Golden King ofTezcuco," said Zoraida, "is now the favorite garden of Zoraida. Forthe great Nezahualcoyoti captive workmen, laboring through the days andnights of many years, builded here as we see, my friend. Here he waswont to come when he would have relief from royal labor and intrigue,to shut himself up with music and feasting and those he loved. Here hecame, be sure, with the beloved princess whom he ravished away from theold lord of Tepechpan. And here she remained awaiting him when hereturned to the royal place at Tezcotzinco. And here were placed, fourhundred and fifty years ago, the ashes of the golden king and of hisbeloved princess--and here they remain until this night. Come, SenorAmericano; you shall see something of Zoraida's garden which afterNezahualcoyoti came in due time to be Montezuma's and after him,Guatamotzin's."

  Kendric found himself drawn out of his angry mood of a few minutespast, charmed out of himself by his environment. Following Zoraida hepassed along a broad walk winding through low shrubs and lined on eachside with uniform stones of various colors that were like jewels.These boundaries were no doubt of choice fragments of finely polishedchal
cedony and jasper and obsidian; they were red and yellow and blackand, at regular intervals, a pale exquisite blue which in the rays ofthe lamps were as beautiful as turquoises. They passed about a screenof dwarf cedars and came upon a tiny lakelet across which a boy mighthave hurled a stone; in the center, sprayed by a fountain that shonelike silver, was a life-sized statue in marble representing a slendergraceful maiden.

  "The beloved princess," whispered Zoraida.

  They went on, skirting the pool in which Kendric saw the starsmirrored. Now and then there was a splash; he made out a tortoisescrambling into the water; he caught the glint of a fish. Theydisturbed birds that flew from their hidden places in the trees; alittle rabbit, like a tiny ball of fur, shot across their path.

  Before them the central walk lay in shadows, under a vine-coveredtrellis. A hundred paces they went on, catching enchanting glimpsesthrough the walls of leaves. Here was a column, gleaming white,elaborately carved with what were perhaps the triumphs of the goldenking or some later monarch; yonder the walls of a miniature temple,more guessed than seen among the low trees; on every hand some relic ofthe olden time. Suddenly and without warning amidst all of this tenderbeauty of flowers and murmurous water and birds and perfumes Kendriccame upon that which lasted on as a true sign to recall the strangenature of the ancient Aztec, a nation of refinement and culture andhideous barbarism and cruelty; a nation of epicures who upon greatfeast days ate of elaborately-served dishes of human flesh; a peoplewho, in a garden like this, could find no inconsistency, no clash ofdiscordancy, in introducing that which bespoke merciless cruelty anddeath, a grim token and reminder that a king's palace was a slaughterhouse as well; a strange race whose ears were attuned to ravishingstrains of music and yet found no breach of harmony if those singingnotes were pierced through with the shrieks of the tortured dying.Just opposite the most enchanting spot in these underground groves ofpleasure was a great pyramidal heap of human skulls, thousands of them.

  "The builders," explained Zoraida calmly. "Those who obeyed thecommands of the Tezcucan king, who made his dream a reality, who werein the end sacrificed here. Five priests, alternating with anotherfive, were unremitting night and day until at last the great sacrificewas complete. The records are there," and she pointed to a remotecorner of the garden where vaguely through the greenery he made outstone columns; "I have seen them and I have made my own tally. Notless than ten thousand captives expired here." It struck Kendric thatthere was a note of pride in her tone. "Look; yonder is the greatstone of sacrifice."

  He drew closer, at once repelled and fascinated. A few yards from thebase of the heap of skulls was a great block of jasper, polished and ofa smoothness like glass. Upon this one after another of ten thousandhuman beings, strong struggling men and perhaps women and children hadlain, while priests as terrible as vultures held them, while one priestof high skill and infinite cruelty drove his knife and made his gashand withdrew the anguished beating heart to hold it high above hishead. Again Zoraida pointed; on the stone lay the ancient knife, ablade of "itztli," obsidian, dark, translucent, as hard as flint, aproduct of volcanic fires.

  Kendric turned from stone and knife and human relics and looked withstrange new wonder at Zoraida. She claimed kin with the royalty ofthis ancient order; perhaps her claim was just. He had wondered if shewere mad; was not his answer now given him? Was she not after all thatnot uncommon thing called a throw-back, a reversion to an ancestraltype? If in fact there flowed in her veins the blood of that princessof the golden king of Tezcuco who could have smiled at the whisperingsof her lord and the tender cadences of music floating through thegardens his love had made for her, while just here his priests madetheir sacrifices and she, turning her eyes from his ardent ones, nowand then languorously watched--was Zoraida mad or was she simplyancient Aztec or Toltec or Tezcucan, born four or five hundred yearsafter her time? Her slow smile now as she watched him and no doubtread at least a portion of what lay in his mind, was baffling; he mighthave been looking back through the long dead years upon the Tezcucan'sprincess: in her eyes were tender passion and a glint that might havebeen a reflection of light from the sacrificial knife.

  Speculation aside, here was one point which Zoraida herself had vouchedfor: since girlhood she had been accustomed to coming here. It wouldappear inevitable that the atmosphere of the place would have deeplyinfluenced young fancies; that what she was now was largely due tothese conflicting influences. What wonder that she saw nothingunlikely in her dreamings of herself as queen of a newly createdempire? All that Zoraida was, all that she did, all that shethreatened to do, the passion and the regal manner and the look of anaked knife in her eyes, was but to be expected.

  Zoraida led on and he followed. Their way led toward the stonework hehad glimpsed through the shrubs and vines. Here was a many-roomedbuilding, walls richly carved into records of ancient feasts andglories, battles and triumphs. They passed in through a wide entrance;within the walls were lined with satiny hardwoods, the panels chosenwith nice regard to color and grain. Doors opened to right and leftand ahead, giving views of other chambers on some walls of which stillhung ancient cloths; there were chairs and tables and benches andchests. Zoraida went on, straight ahead and to the doorway of a muchlarger, high-vaulted chamber. And again was Kendric treated to a freshsurprise.

  As she stood in the door and he looked over her shoulder, six old men,evidently awaiting her arrival, bent themselves almost to the floor ina reverential posture that expressed greeting and adoration. AgainKendric's fancies were drawn back into ancient Mexico. They wore loosewhite cotton robes; their beards fell on their aged breasts; in theirsashes were long knives of itztli, like that upon the sacrificialstone. They might have been the old priests who sacrificed for theTezcucan, their existences prolonged eternally here in an atmosphere ofantiquity.

  Zoraida spoke and they straightened, and one man answered. Kendriccould not understand a word. Then, shuffling their sandaled feet, thesix went out through a door at the side.

  "I thought you said," said Kendric, "that since your father's death noman had entered here?"

  "And do these six look as though they had come here recently from theoutside world?" she retorted, smiling. "The youngest of them, SenorJim, first came to Nezahualcoyotl's gardens more than sixty years ago.When he was less than a year old, hence bringing with him no knowledgeof any other place than this."

  "And you mean that they have never gone out from here?"

  "Would they thrust their heads through solid rock? Would they treadalong corridors carpeted with snakes? Would they grow wings and soarto the stars up there? Not only have they never gone out; they do notso much as know that there is an Outside to go to."

  "But you come to them!"

  Zoraida laughed.

  "And I am a spirit, a goddess to worship, the One who has always been,the power that created this spot and themselves!"

  "They are captives and caretakers of a sort?" he supposed. "But whenthey are dead? Who then will keep up your elaborate gardens?"

  "Wait. They are returning. There is your answer."

  The six ancients filed back. Each man of them led by the hand a littlechild, the oldest not yet seven or eight. All boys, all bright andhandsome; all filled with worship for Zoraida. For they broke awayfrom the old men and ran forward, some of them carrying flowers, andthrew themselves on their knees and kissed Zoraida's gown. And then,with wide, wondering eyes they looked from her to Jim Kendric.

  "Poor little kids," he muttered. And suddenly whirling wrathfully onZoraida: "Where do they come from? Whose children are they?"

  "There are mysteries and mysteries," she told him, coldly.

  "Stolen from their mothers by your damned brigands!" he burst out.

  She turned blazing eyes on him.

  "Be careful, Jim Kendric!" she warned. "Here you are in Zoraida'sstronghold, here you are in her hand! Is act of hers to be questionedby you?"

  She made a sudden signal.
The six little boys withdrew, walkingbackward, their round worshipful eyes glued upon their goddess. Thenthey were gone, the old men with them, a heavy door closing behind them.

  "Again I did not lie to you," said Zoraida. "Since though these havecome recently, they are not yet men. Follow me again."

  They went through the long room and into another. This time Zoraidathrust aside a deep purple curtain, fringed in gold. Here was asmaller chamber, absolutely without furnishings of any kind. ButKendric did not miss chairs or table, his interest being entirely givento the three young men standing before him like soldiers at attention.Heavy limbed, muscular fellows they were, clad only in short whitetunics, each with a plain gold band about his forehead. In the hand ofeach was a great, two-edged knife, horn handled, as long as a man's arm.

  "These came just before my father gave his keys to Zoraida," the girltold him: "There are three more of them who sleep while these guard."

  Again Kendric saw in the eyes turned upon them a sheer worship ofZoraida, a wonder at him. Zoraida lifted her hand; the three bowedlow. She spoke softly and they withdrew slowly to the further wall,walking backward as the children had done. Then one of them lifteddown the five bars across a door, employing a rude key from his ownbelt. And when he had done so and stepped aside Zoraida with her ownkeys in five different heavy steel locks opened the way. She swung thedoor open and Kendric followed her. As in the adobe house here was aplace where a curtain beyond the doorway hid from any chance eyes whatmight lie in this room. Only when the door was again shut and lockeddid Zoraida push the curtain aside. Another match, another big lamplighted--and Kendric needed no telling that he was in an ancienttreasure chamber.

  There were long gleaming-topped tables of hardwood; there wereexquisitely wrought and embroidered fabrics covering them; strewnacross the tables were countless objects of inestimable value. Vasesand pitchers and plates of hammered gold; golden goblets set with richstones; ropes of silver; vessels of many curious shapes, some as smallas walnuts, some as large as water pitchers, but all of the preciousmetals; knives with blades of obsidian and handles of gold; mirrors ofselected obsidian bound around in gold; necklaces, coronets, polishedstone jars heaped with gold dust. One table appeared to be heaped highwith strange-looking books; ancient writings, Zoraida told him,heiroglyphs on the _mauguey_ that is so like the papyrus of the Nile.

  "And look," laughed Zoraida. "Here is something that would open thegreedy eyes of your friend Barlow."

  She opened a cedar box and poured forth the contents. Pearls, pearlsby the double handful, such as she had worn that night at Ortega'sgambling house, many times in number those which Barlow had declaredwould make Kendric's twenty thousand dollars "look sick." In thelamplight their soft effulgence stirred even the blood of Jim Kendric.

  "When the great Tzin Guatamo knew that he would die a dog's death atthe hands of the conquerors," Zoraida said, "he had as much of theroyal treasury as he could lay his hands on brought here. TheSpaniards guessed and demanded to be told the hiding place.Guatamotzin locked his lips. They tortured him; he looked calmly backinto their enraged eyes and locked his lips the tighter. They killedhim but he kept his secret."

  She had mentioned Barlow, and just now Kendric's thoughts had more todo with the present and the immediate future than with a remote andlegendary history.

  "So," he said, "while Barlow and I made our long journey south, seekingthe treasure of the Montezumas, you already had had it safe under lockand key for God knows how long!"

  "Choose what pleases you most, Senor Jim," she said. "That I may makeyou a rich gift."

  But though for a moment the glowing pearls, the gold and silvertrinklets held his eyes, he shook his head.

  "It strikes me," he said bluntly, "that you and I are not such friendsthat rich gifts need pass from one to the other of us."

  "Then not even all this," and with a quick gesture she indicated all ofthe wealth that surrounded him, "can move you? Are you man, JimKendric, or a mechanical thing of levers and springs set into a man'sform?"

  "I have never had the modern madness of lusting for gold; that is all,"he told her.

  "Not entirely modern," she retorted, "since here are ancient hoardings;nor yet entirely mad, since it is pure wisdom to put out a hand for thesupreme lever of worldly power. You are a strange man, Senor Jim!"

  "I am what I am," he said simply. "And, like other men, content withmy own desires and dreamings."

  She studied him, for a while in open perplexity, then in as frank aglowing admiration. That he should set aside with a careless hand thatwhich meant so much to her, but made of him in her eyes a sort ofsuperman.

  "The thing to do," said Kendric out of a short silence, "is to openyour doors and let me go back to the States. I came here looking fortreasure trove; your claim antedates mine and I am no highwayman."

  Zoraida seated herself in a big carved chair by the long table whereonlay the ancient writings, folded like fans and protected between leavesof decorated woods of various shapes and colors.

  "Let me tell you two things, my friend. Three, rather. You saw thesky just now and thought to yourself that all of my safeguards herewould be foolish and unavailing if a man sought the way to make hisentrance from above? Be sure the way is guarded there, too. Above ustowers Little Quetzel Hill, which is a long dead volcano; the hole yousaw was in the bottom of the cone. If a man sought to come to it,first he must climb a steep and dangerous mountain flank. The oldkings did not forget so obvious a thing. Captives toiled up therewhile their fellows burrowed down here; the hazardous way throughinfinite labor continuing through many years, was made infinitely morehazardous. There are balanced rocks of a thousand tons' weight thatare secure in the outward seeming, placed to hurl to destruction theadventurer who sets an unwary foot on them; there is a spring, and itis death to drink of it; there are pits for a man to slide down intoand in the bottoms of these pits are countless venomous snakes; thereare traps set such as men of our time know nothing of. There have beenchance travelers up yonder at infrequent intervals and for every suchtraveler there has been a death so that the mountain bears an evilname. And, further, should a hardy spirit once win to the hole in thebottom of the volcano's cone and find the way to lower himself hundredsof feet into the gardens, there is always, night and day, one ofZoraida's guards at the spot where he must descend, and that guard,night and day, is armed and eager to grapple with a devil whom he hasbeen told to expect soon or late."

  "I have told you," said Kendric, "that I have no wish to steal thatwhich is another's."

  "One thing I have told you; here is another. I speak it franklybecause I may gain by it and am not in the least afraid of losing,since your destiny lies in my hands! It is that only a portion of thegreat treasure is here with us; another portion was hidden outside."She put her hand on one of the tinted manuscripts. "The tale is here.The treasure bearers were trapped in the mountains by the Spanish; theyhad no time to come here. One by one they were killed. They hid muchgold where they must. That is the 'loot' of which your friend Barlowspeaks; that is the treasure which the Spanish priests knew of and heldaccursed. And that, Senor Jim, I would add to what I have here!"

  She amazed him. Her eyes glittered, the fever of gold lust was in herblood. With all this hers--his eye swept the wealth-laden tables andchests--she still coveted gold, other gold!

  "The third thing," said Zoraida sharply, "that you may understand why Imention to you the second, is this: You will never go free until I saythe word! And I shall never say the word until you and I have broughtthe rest and placed it here!"

  So there was other treasure! Like this, rich, wrought vessels, finegold, pearls perhaps! And Zoraida did not yet know where it was;Barlow had had enough sense to keep his mouth closed. Jim Kendric'sthoughts flew back and forth rapidly; the strange thing was that at atime like this the vision which shaped itself, vivid and clear cut inhis mind, was of little Betty Gordon with a double string of pearlsaround
her throat!

  "Of what are you thinking?" demanded Zoraida sharply. She had beenwatching him keenly. "There is a look in your eyes----"

  For an instant she almost dared think that that look was for her; Jimflushed. Zoraida's black brows gathered, her eyes went as deadly cruelas ever were the eyes of her ancient forebears though they watched thepriests at the sacrificial stone.

  "You think of her!" she cried angrily. She stamped upon the stonefloor, she clenched her hands and lifted them high above her head in asudden access and abandon of rage. "You think that, having made mockof me, you shall turn to her? Fool! Seven times accursed fool! Iwill show you the doll-faced, baby-eyed girl--and you will see, too,what fate I have reserved for her. To cross the path of Zoraidameans---- But what are words? You shall see!"

  With a strange sick sinking of his heart Kendric followed her,forgetting the treasure about him.