CHAPTER XIII.
THE LAST OF TETZCATL.
A week had gone by and a little cavalcade rode slowly on along a fairlywell marked forest road. In front was a man on a fine-looking horse,but at his side a mule was carrying a rider who almost lay down, withhis arms around the animal's neck.
"Can you stand it to get there?" asked the man on the horse.
"Bowie, you are in the valley now," was the faint-voiced response."Ride on, Tetzcatl cannot die but in the house of Huitzilopochtli."
"Pretty nigh gone, old chap?" was the not unkindly inquiry from thenext horseman behind them. "We'll git you thar. You may pull through.You're as tough as a hickory knot."
They could have seen how beautiful was the valley they were ridingthrough if they had not been in it. As soon, however, as the path theywere in began to climb a steep ascent and they could look back throughthe trees, they broke out into strong expressions of admiration.
"It was a'most worth while comin'," said Jim Cheyne, "if 'twas only tosee this 'ere. If Americans got hold of sech a country as this isthey'd make something out of it."
"They never will," remarked Bowie. "Best timber. Best farm land inthe world. Fine climate----"
"Gold! gold! Silver!" gasped the sufferer on the mule."Americans--all men will come some day. I die, but the lands of theMontezumas will not be held by the Spaniards."
It was as if he could bear the idea of leaving his mountains andvalleys and their riches to any other race than the one which hadbroken the empire of its ancient kings and destroyed the temples of theAztec gods.
The Texans could also see more clearly now the grand height of themountain chain into which they were climbing. They were evidently in apass, partly natural and partly artificial. In places which wouldotherwise have been difficult the narrow roadway had been solidlyconstructed of massive stonework, for the greater part unhewn. Therehad been excavations also, but before long Joe was justified inremarking,--
"I say, colonel, this might do for mules, but it won't for mustangs.I'd rather go afoot."
He sprang to the ground as he spoke, and his comrades followed hisexample. Well they might, for at their right arose an almostperpendicular cliff, while at their left the side of the mountain wentdown, for hundreds of feet, without a tree or a bush to prevent man orhorse from rolling the entire descent.
"How far have we now to go?" asked Bowie of his guide. "Red Wolf, holdon."
"Red Wolf find road," came back in Lipan-Spanish. "Big Knife bring oldman. Tetzcatl heap dead."
"Pitch ahead, then!" exclaimed the colonel. "Boys, wait here with thecritters. I'll go on and find the place. The boy can come back afteryou."
"All right, colonel," replied Jim. "He won't last long now."
"On! on!" exclaimed Tetzcatl, his fierce, black eyes burning with thefire of the fever which had set in upon him, caused by his hurts. "Weare at the door! I will die in the house!"
He was very weak and in pain, but at the end of a hundred yards more ofthat steep and dangerous pass he halted his mule, slipped off to theground, and actually stood erect.
"Stay here," he said. "No Spaniard ever entered the last house ofHuitzilopochtli. I go on!"
He turned, bracing himself with all his remaining strength, and wentforward as if he believed that his injunctions had been obeyed.
"Fever crazy," said the colonel, in a low voice. "Keep just behindhim. If we can follow without his knowing."
That was by no means difficult, for he did not turn his head, and therewere many bushes, but it was best to let him keep a number of paces inthe advance.
It was a winding pathway as well as steep. There were sudden turnsaround rocky projections, and now the gorge at the left was deeper andmore terrible to look down into.
"What?" exclaimed Bowie, as he and his boy companion turned one ofthese corners. "Where is he? Did he tumble off the path? There isn'ta trace of him!"
Vacant indeed was the narrow way before them, but Red Wolf sprangforward. The mountain-side above was not perpendicular at this pointand there were bushes.
"Too much heap bush," said Red Wolf. "Track rabbit into hole. Ugh!"
He parted the luxuriant growth as he spoke and uncovered somethingplainer than a rabbit-track.
"Go ahead!" said the colonel. "Don't make a sound. He was trying toget away. He never meant to show it to us at all. Thunder! A manmight hunt for this a hundred years and never find it."
"Ugh!" came warningly from Red Wolf, for right before him was the cleftin the rock.
No guard was there to hinder them, but they pushed forward with allcaution. Tetzcatl could not be many paces farther on. He must, asyet, be entirely unaware that he had been so closely followed.
"It's a hole into a den," muttered Bowie. "We've got to all but go onall-fours."
It was an exciting moment with so much mystery and uncertainty justahead of him, but he did not betray any excitement. Hardly as muchcould be said for the Red Wolf, for he was on an entirely new kind ofhunt and it did excite him.
There is a singular muscular power that often comes with the deliriumof fever. It sometimes even exceeds, for a moment, the utmost strengthof health.
Not at all feeble, but firm and elastic, was the step with whichTetzcatl walked out from the entrance burrow into the great hall of thecavern. He went forward without a pause at first, and withoutspeaking, although something more than ordinary was going on.
The sculptured head of the war-god stood out in full relief from thedark face of the rock, for a great glare fell upon it from the altar.The fire was blazing high, revealing here and there the ghastly,ghostly figures of the priestly worshippers. They seemed to be more innumber than on the day of his departure, but there were also otherhuman beings present. Several of these latter stood immediately infront of the altar with rope fetters on their wrists.
A species of monotonous chant was sounding, by discordant voices, inthe tongue of the ancient race. Every now and then, as the weird,hoarse cadences rose and fell, a club was lifted, a heavy blow wasstruck, followed by a flash of steel and the fall of one of thefettered persons. Each shriek of fear or agony seemed to act as asignal for louder chanting, that had in it a sound of angry mockery.
"God in heaven!" exclaimed Bowie, in a hushed whisper, at the upper endof the cave. "I've heard of it! I've read of it! That's an idol.They are offering human sacrifices. It's awful, and I can't do onething for 'em. There went the last of 'em, as far as I can see. RedWolf, keep close by me. I'm going to see this thing clean through.There goes Tetzcatl."
"Ugh!" was all the reply of Red Wolf, but he was apparently quite readyto charge forward, lance in hand, if such were his orders from hiswhite chief.
Bowie had drawn his knife and had taken a heavy belt-pistol in his lefthand, cocking it. He had not halted for an instant, and he was nowhalf-way down the cavern. Here, however, he almost lay down, with RedWolf at his side, in so deep a shadow that there was little danger oftheir presence being speedily discovered. At that moment, moreover,the cave-dwellers were giving all their attention to Tetzcatl, as hestood haranguing them at the highest pitch of his sepulchral voice. Ifhe were giving them an account of his journey into Texas, only thosewho understood his dialect could tell, and before long he turned andwalked away toward the lower end of the cave, still talking andgesticulating fiercely. All the others moved when he did, and theywere dragging with them the lifeless forms of the victims that had beenslain in front of the altar.
"This is a terrible piece of work," muttered Bowie to himself. "I'dlike to kill every one of those fellows. I knew they were still doingthis kind of thing in Africa, wholesale and retail, thousands onthousands, all the while, but I'd reckoned it was long ago played outon this continent. There are loads of things that we don't know.Anyhow, this must be about the last of it."
Not even Africa itself exceeded some parts of America in the bloodynature of their old-time idol-worship. There could be, moreove
r, nosound reason for supposing that altogether unreclaimed heathen, here orthere, would change their ways or cease from observing their ritesmerely because other men had become civilized.
Tetzcatl and his companions reached the level at the brink of thechasm, and the booming sound came loudly up.
"What can it be?" thought Bowie. "I'll see what they're going to do,cost what it may. There isn't a shooting-iron among 'em. Some of 'emare stark naked. If it's got to be a fight, I believe I could wipe outthe whole crowd, but I don't mean to run any risks. What I want is tolearn all I can this trip and get out alive."
Red Wolf went forward at his side, lance in hand, with the crouching,springing step of a young panther rather than the gliding of a wolf.
"Big Knife strike!" he said. "Heap kill. Ugh! Red Wolf! Son ofCastro!"
The chanting began again, and Tetzcatl seemed to be leading it,gesticulating furiously, while body after body was lifted from thefloor and hurled into the chasm to go down to the gods. As the lastoffering disappeared, he turned and pointed at the planks. In aninstant these were raised and slipped across the chasm.
"Bridge," muttered Bowie. "I've been in caves before, but this is apretty big one. There's more of it, I suppose, away in yonder. Bestkind of hiding-place. Now, what are they going to do?"
Up to this moment Tetzcatl had exhibited the strength of the hot feverwhich was consuming him. Now, however, he tottered and reeled as hewalked out to the middle of the bridge. Standing here, staggering backand forth, he shouted a few words in his own tongue and then plungeddown, head foremost.
"That's the last of him!" exclaimed Bowie.
"Ugh!" whispered Red Wolf. "Heap look!"
The chanting began again, as if a sacrifice had been offered. Oneafter another the withered guardians of the cave of Huitzilopochtliwalked slowly across the bridge, and their torches speedily disappearedin a vast and vaulted gloom upon the other side.
"Now!" exclaimed Bowie.
He sprang to the altar and snatched from it a branch of blazing pine.Red Wolf did the same, and they were without other company when theystood together at the brink of the chasm.
"We won't go across," said Bowie; "but what's this? God in heaven!It's the treasure!"
There they lay, the stacks of ingots and the heaps of nuggets. Hecould not even roughly estimate their value, but he exclaimed,--
"Enough to pay the entire debt of Texas; equip an army; build a navy;buy out Mexico from all the land, west, to the Pacific."
It was the golden dream of a new empire, and he stood as still as astatue for a half-minute, dreaming it, while Red Wolf lifted his torchand peered into the yawning gulf and across the bridge.
"Just as old Tetzcatl said," remarked Bowie, when his thoughtful fitended. "But we can't take it now. There may be a hundred men inyonder. What's more, if we tried it on we might be caught in the passby a swarm of 'em. It won't do. There are not enough of us this time.We'll have to come again. I'll take along some samples, but gold isheavy."
He began at once to cut off long strips from the serape which Tetzcatlhad thrown upon the floor. They answered for straps with which to tieup for himself and Red Wolf as many gold bars as they couldconveniently carry. They worked rapidly, for time might be precious.Not merely for the present matter of their own life or death, but thatno returning idol-worshipper might know that the secret of the cavernhad been discovered.
"Out now," said Bowie. "This is all we can do this time, but I don'twant to see any more high old Mexican religion."
"Ugh!" said Red Wolf. "Tetzcatl gone. Heap fool jump!"
"Well," replied Bowie, coolly, "the old rascal was about dead anyhow."
After that he was silent and so was his companion, while they hurriedout of the cave. They hardly uttered a word until they stood amongtheir comrades in the pass.
"Hurrah!" shouted Jim Cheyne. "We've been up and we've been downhuntin' ye. What kept ye so long, colonel?"
The fagots of golden bars were held up before the astonished eyes ofthe rangers, and they crowded around to see and to feel the wonderfulyellow metal.
"Colonel," gasped Joe, "I don't believe a word of it, but just tell uswhat it is."
"The Montezuma treasure!" shouted Bowie. "Heaps on heaps of it in thecave."
"We'll go right in," responded voice after voice, in feverish eagerness.
"Not to-day, we won't," he said, and then, while they listened inawe-struck silence, he told them all there was to tell and what heintended doing.
"Your head's level," said Jim, at the conclusion of it. "We mustn't goin. We'd be followed by an army of 'em all the way to the Rio. Notone of us 'd git thar."
"Just so," said the colonel. "Now I'll swear you all in to keep thesecret, and then we must be moving. We can come back with threehundred men, and even then nobody must know we're coming till the job'sdone clean."
Every man was ready to be sworn to secrecy, but the Texan patriot madethem swear to one thing more. One full half of all that might berecovered from the cave, over and above the expenses of an expeditionto obtain it, was to go into the treasury of Texas, to be spent infighting for its freedom. They were of one accord as to that, withouta dissenting voice, but Bowie was a liberal man as well as patrioticand prudent, and as soon as the future was duly cared for, he saw thatit was right and wise to provide them with a sufficient reward fortheir services in the present expedition.
"You've done well this first time," had come from Jim Cheyne.
"Well," said the colonel, "these things are near of a size. We'lldivide 'em, share and share alike, every fellow to tote his ownwinnings. It 'll be the best four weeks' work any of you were everpaid for----"
"Half to Texas anyhow!" shouted Jim, as he handled the bars that fellto his lot. "The republic can have my whole pile if I'm knocked on thehead. Hurrah! Now for home! We've done enough!"
As for Red Wolf, he hardly knew what to do with three long, heavy,dingy sticks of metal that were assigned to him. He fastened thembehind the saddle which now adorned his mustang, but he did so out ofrespect for Big Knife. The saddle itself was a kind of palefaceemcumbrance, but he had won it at the hacienda, and he rode in it forthe sake of glory, as a prize of war.
As for regarding a gold bar as a silver dollar, he had not yet climbedas high as that. The nearest he came to an understanding was when Joeheld up one of his own bars and shouted,--
"I say, colonel, just what we've got here would buy anothereighteen-pounder as big as the one in the Alamo."
"Two of 'em," replied Bowie, "and a dozen rounds apiece of powder andball. That's what we want,--powder and ball. Boys! One more secret!I'm going to take you right thar! We'll go home with cash enough toput the Alamo in first-rate order, rations, rifles, and all. Forward,march!"
On they went, down the mountain, carrying with them the secret of thetreasures of the Montezumas.