Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 189, No. 4 — page 100: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

570 penal chamber, and the swift judgment of the Sun.” — oe CHAPTER XIV. IN THE PENAL CHAMBER. ENCH had heard so much about the penal chamber that he wanted to see it. However, he had learned one thing since the council had accepted him as a full-fledged Mayan. He was not ex- pected to ask questions. Being a Mayan, it was presumed that he knew everything Mayan. While he had been under guard, on probation, he had been able to cross-question Xlaco, but now the old man did not encourage him to ask questions. A few days after the accident at the mine, and when he had fully recovered from his slight bruises, he said to Xlaco: “I do not see in the village the place where the wicked are kept.” Xlaco was startled, and looked at his adopted son askance. ‘“‘ May you never know it!” he exclaimed. “But it is well for a man to know all things,” Tench insisted. ‘‘ When I am with my people, I always like to see the jail.” ‘The Mayans are your people,” Xlaco reproved him, “ and it is not well for a good Mayan ever to see the penal chamber. That which is not known does no harm.” Tench was more tactful, as he replied: “We Mayans are told that if we do not behave we will be sent to the penal cham- ber. Is it not good therefore to know just what it is, so that we may be more eager to avoid it?” Xlaco raised his hands_ protestingly. “The Sun god forbid!” His lips were sealed on the subject henceforth. _ During the conversation, however, Tench had observed that once or twice Xlaco had glanced instinctively toward the south into the jungle. It was the direction in which Tench had not traveled. The cliffs and the mesa were toward the north, the mine toward the east, and the rocky glen in the west. Tench shrewdly concluded that the penal chamber lay to- ward the south. He said no more at the ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. moment, but resolved to make an explora- tion of his own at the first opportunity, Before dawn of the following day he was up and off into the jungle. He felt that he had investigated the Mayans rather thor- oughly. He knew their method of govern- ment through the council. He had seen their system of mating in the dance of the maidens. He had participated in the an- nual games and in the annual mining for their precious stones. A little later, when the summer was at its height, they would snare humming birds so that they might save the select breast feathers for the further embellishment of the huitzin. The water test he could not observe until the next spring when the stream would be in flood. The greatest mystery of all was the Sun test. That he hoped to witness some day, little dreaming in what poignant manner this knowledge would come to him. The only unsolved feature of the Mayan life which was at his hand to probe was the penal chamber, and his active young mind could not wait longer to delve into it. As he left the village and entered the jungle, the way was unmistakable. Along a well-worn path under the spreading oaks and through the gnarled sycamores, skirting thickets of greasewood, dodging the eccen- tric Joshua trees, he passed for the better part of a mile until suddenly he came to a broad ledge of rock. The undergrowth had been cleared away for fifty yards in every direction. Unsus- pecting, he walked on the ledge, and halted as he came to its further lip. He looked down on a spectacle that dis- gusted him. It lay at his feet, a rocky bowl about the size of a sprawling six-room bungalow. Along the sides of its bottom they had scooped out seven or eight tiny caves, Most of them appeared to be shallow, affording shelter for no more than a good- sized bear. In them sprawled several speci- mens of woebegone humanity, dirty and list- less, barely alive. The stench from the place ascended revoltingly. It was a fetid spot in a clean jungle. | The especially distinguishing feature of the Mayan life, as Tench had seen it, was ‘comicbooks. (E(0)