CHAPTER V
Xlapakh
THE ruins of Uxmal shone in the oppressive heat. Yellowish clouds veiled the sun, bathing the stones in a dull tawny light and making the sultriness intolerable.
Not a leaf stirred in the trees. Only the monkeys playing in the branches caused the dry withered creepers to stir and rustle. All growth seemed to have ceased. Nature was parched for water and waited in dull resignation for the nearing rainy season.
“What shall we do, Mr. Burns?”
Patson was endeavoring to wrinkle his cheerful brow. He looked in utter perplexity at his chief. Burns was thoughtfully whittling at a cactus. He did not reply.
Before the entrance of the temple-pyramid stood erect one of the four Indian laborers, as though intending to protect the holy place with his body. His black eyes from their deep sockets shone trickily under his bushy eyebrows as he gazed at the white scientists. The other ragged chaps were squatting in the moss a bit to one side, stupidly and apparently unconcerned.
“We won't give you the pay you've earned, if you don't keep your contract!” Patson cried over and over again to the spokesman of the Indians, in Spanish.
“We keep our contract,” the latter replied calmly, “but we will not permit the destruction of the sacred tree.”
“Go to the devil, you rogues!” burst out the Irishman angrily and took a few steps toward the Indian.
“Heed the wrath of the gods who dwell in Xlapakh!” hissed the red man. He held his arm straight out and did not budge. His comrades arose and moved slowly nearer.
“Shall I land you a good smash on your jaw, my boy—you and your famous ghosts?” Patson began rolling up his sleeves in an unmistakable manner. “Get away from there, or something is going to break!”
With a most engaging smile he held his clenched fist under his adversary's long hooked nose.
“Don't do anything foolish, Pat!” cried Sums in English. “There's no sense in using force. They are four to two of us, and if we use our weapons we shall stir up all the Mayas in the vicinity against us and finally get ourselves in Dutch with the police. That must absolutely be avoided.”
“Then are we to let these gutter-pups triumph, sir? That will be a dreadful shame—for sons of old England ! They will lose all respect for English scientists.”
Burns could not help smiling. “Is it more dignified for sons of old England to indulge in fisticuffs with gutter-pups?”
“It's terrible, damn it!” growled the angry Patson. “But what shall we do now?”
“To-day we shall go on digging at the Koh monument!” decided the archaeologist shortly. “Forward march!”
Cursing, Patson gave in and followed his chief, who was striding along rapidly. The Mayas followed silently, trotting along as though nothing had happened. Only occasionally half-concealed looks of hostility fell on the Irishman.
Burns smiled thoughtfully to himself. He knew to whom he owed this revolt. Then he suddenly thought of the tiny guardian of Tutankhamen's rocky tomb. It was an insignificant poisonous fly, which by an almost imperceptible sting had killed Lord Carnarvon, the bold intruder into the mysteries of the ages. Was it the revenge of Pharaoh?
* * * * *
It is a dark moonless night! There is intolerable silence about. Even the buzzing of the mosquitos is stilled in the frightful drought. Heavily, as though storing up trouble, the electrically charged air lies motionless above the sea of withered green.
In uncertain outline the cross of the tree of life stands out against the black sky. Now and then there is a ripple of sand from the cracks of the rocks split by the heat.
Cautious steps approach. The narrow beam of light from an electric torch moves over mossy ruins. Like a cool groping hand it touches the trunk of the ancient oak. It remains fixed on the roots. These massive roots extend into the earth on all sides, spanning great holes, as bare as skeletons. It is the grave among the roots. There is the shadow of a tall powerful man...the sound of falling earth and crumbling sandstone.
* * * * *
Burns straightens up. The light has gone out. A fresh battery must be put in. He searches his coat pockets. Then he suddenly stops.
He hears a soft, dull sound, like a very distant pistol shot. He raises his head to listen. Again he hears the sound! It is no shot. It comes from the near-by wall of the temple court.
* * * * *
From the maze of agaves and climbing cactuses on the wall two eyes shine like those of a puma on the hunt. A slim brown hand clutches the prickly knobs and creepers. A panting breath comes through half-opened lips.
The hand trembles, slightly shaking the splendid cereus plant to which it is clinging. With a dull sound the buds of the strange cactus spring open.
* * * * *
The Encounter at the Grave
BURNS again bends over the excavation and digs further between the roots of the sacred tree.
He understands now. On the wall a noble flower has suddenly opened for its brief nightly blooming, the queen of the night.
The woman in the shrubbery gnashes her teeth. He is digging in her mother's grave!
Her slim body trembles as in a fever. The eyelids are lowered, the pupils turned upward. The blood pounds in her temples.
Every thought sinks into a bottomless sea. Vainly reason struggles against the demon which is taking possession of her. Black veils are floating about her like the inaudibly flapping wings of a night bird...
A dreadful cry sounds from her tortured breast. A supple dark shadow speeds like lightning across the grass.
The scientist starts up. A heavy object plunges on him, and presses him down. Two hands madly clutch his throat.
In falling Burns stretches out his hands in the excavation. His fingers seek some hold. They grasp a round hard object and hold it fast mechanically, in senseless terror.
Suddenly the sky lights up unaccountably with a weird yellowish light! All around it becomes bright. A cloud shimmers as pale as dull frosted glass before the light.
Isabella's fingers release the throat of the Englishman and clasp behind his neck. The girl's body rests on his broad breast, with no life except in her eyes, while her firm white teeth are pressed against his lips,
In confusion Burns strokes her thick black hair.
“Tuxtla!”
“Sir?” whispers the mestiza questioningly.
The pale glowing cloud moves about in the sky, this way and that, like the light from a giant reflector of more than earthly power.
In amazement the two human beings watch the uncanny nocturnal spectacle. Hand in hand they cower at the foot of the tree of life and stare upward, until suddenly, without gradual transition, the mysterious cloud vanishes.
Again complete darkness veils the ruins of the enchanted primeval city at the Tropic of Cancer.
“Tuxtla! Why did you wish to kill me?”
“You were disturbing the peace of my mother, sir!”
“But not now?”
“No! Tonight my mother has died.”