Beadle's New York Dime Library No. 150 — page 12: what you’re looking at

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

12 El Rubio Bravo, King of the Swordsmen. ** Below me the valley seemed to be all ablaze with lights, and as I went on I saw that a tall white teocalli was erected at the end of the val- ley, with a huge bonfire blazing on its summit, around which the priests of the War God were dancing and singing, while processions with torches were winding to and fro beneath. ‘*T cduld see the whole city, and a grand one it was, with white palaces and houses, all sur- rounded by trees and gardens, a lake in the valley covered with boats, and a stream run- ning out to the lower end. ‘*T went as far as I dared, and found that the valley was surrounded ‘by perpendicular walls, except in one place, where there was a narrow road down which the procession was g. ** Then J bid in some bushes and watched. ‘*T was not eight hundred feet from the sum- mit of the great teocalli and could see it plain- ly, for my eyes were Mg Hew in those da The I few thie procession with the white victim go down into the valley and up the side of the teocalli; I saw them lay the victim on the t black stone of sacrifice, just as we read about in the days of Cortez; and I saw them finally cut out his heart with two fearful gashes, and hold it up to the War God. “Then, I own, senores, that my sensesseemed to give way. I felt as if Il were going mad, and I leaped up and fled like a deer. ‘*T don’t even know how long I fled or where IT was; but when I came to my senses I found myself by the little pool with the turtles, cut- ting one of them apart and devouring it raw like a wild beast.” The old man shuddered and hid his face. ‘* Don’t be so shocked,” observed Don Jose soothingly. ‘‘ You were excusable. I should have done the same in your place.” ‘*] suppose so, senor, but you are not a priest sworn to mortify the flesh. “I was shocked and terrified beyond measure, added to which I was assailed by the most horrible pains.” ‘* No wonder, eating raw flesh after a five or six days’ fast.” “TI do not know how long it was, senor, but I know I fell sick by that pool and a nearly died; and when I finally got back to the con- vent they had given me up as being killed by ars. e stopped as if he had finished, and Olaf asked, with some disappointment: ‘‘Ts that all, padre?” ‘*That isall, my son. I have never seen the Lost City since.” CHAPTER XIV. SETTING OUT. **Bur surely you have spoken of it to others,” said Don Jose, earnestly. ‘‘ Why they have even a road which they call the Lost City road somewhere here.” “It is true, my son; they have such a road, but it is nowhere near the Lost City, though I am inclined to think that the ple of the t City sometimes go out in raids on that road.” ‘* What makes you think so?” **From the fact of their having a white man for their captive when I saw them. Of course I told my superior of my adventure, and he cautioned me never to speak of it, for he at- tributed it toa dream brought on by extreme hunger, and doubted my sanity at the time. my I hardly know to-day if | did not dream if all. ‘Did you ever hear of any traveler being Porson about that time?” asked Brown, thought- fully. The padre sighed deeply. ‘Yes, my son; and that is one of my reasons for believing I did not dream.” ‘**How? hy?” ‘There was a party of engineers making a survey at the time, and they were all found dead on the Lost City road. And astrange and terrible peculiarity of their death was that every One seemed to have had his heart cut out of his body.” “That settles it,” observed Olaf, rising; ‘‘and it settles another thing. These wretches are the same that Cortez found, and it is our place to drive them from the face of the earth. It is too late in the world’s history for human sacrifices, Padre Miguel shook his head gravely. ‘*My son, beware of passion. It is true that these men are wicked devils, but it is not for us to punish them. I have thought over that.” * But ge say they infest the Lost City road, and make traveling unsafe there. Why even now there are two ladies there. Suppose these fiends should attack them?” The possibility so excited the Dane that he om up and down the room with his hands in is hair. Padre Miguel spoke as calmly as ever. ‘‘T think there is no danger, my son.” “Why not?” ‘* Because in all the seventy years of my life I have never heard of but two parties being killed on the Lost City road.” ‘And what were those?’ ‘‘One was the surveying party of which I have spoken, the other a French naturalist, who went up into the mountains on that road.” ** And what do you infer from that?” “Simply this: that the people of the Lost City keep a watch over that road from some unseen post, but that they are only bent on pre- serving the secret of their own existence.” ‘*T don’t understand you.” **It is easy enough, my son. If they kept the road in turmoil all the time it ferent * sEovact attention to it.” ‘** 1 see that of course.” ‘* But if they find any person making a long stay on the road and trying to penetrate into the country where they are hidden, they fear an attempt on their liberty, and in that case they always kill every soul of the party coming.” ‘* Are you sure of that?” ‘Yes. Those that are not found dead with their hearts cut out disappear. No one ever escaped from them only wounded.” ‘* Yet the legend has spread.” ‘*True; but that is ail on account of the {n- dians, some of whom have visited the town, and all of whom are friendly to it.” ‘* How comes that, father?’ ‘‘Simple enough, my son. These Indians know they come of a conquered race and cherish dreams of some day -recovering their indepen- dence. And more than that: they hope to regain it by mean: of the people of this very Lost City, whom they respect and admire, Therefore you may lay it down as an axiom that none of our Indians willever betray the secret of the Lost City and that its people will always have scores of spies on our side ready to tell them of any effort to discover their whereabouts.” ‘*Do any of them know that you have seen the city, padre?” ‘‘No,my son. I did not dare to speak of it for many years, and it was not till the death of the Father Superior released me from my romise that I mentioned it by chance to the Prone naturalist of whom I spoke. Poor fel- low! it was probably the cause of his death. If the Indians about here knew that I had seen with my own eyes the Lost City, I think the would kill me, and I am sorry | told you. It was only the joy of seeing you after so longa riod of loneliness, I suppose, that opened m eart to you, but I shall never cease to regret it if it be the cause of your death.” Olaf and Don Jose smiled with some con- tempt. “The Indian does not live that can killa Goth of the ancient blood,” said Ramirez with all the pride of a Spaniard. ‘‘ Here are we three Rubios, all of the same stock, the old Goths that destroyed the Roman Empire. One branch settled in Scandinavia and called it Gothland, another in in, another in Angle land, and here we are all three, the conquering races of the earth.” Padre Miguel stared. He had never heard this branch of ethnography discussed before. ‘*Whatever you may be, senores,” he ob- served, ‘I would not advise gon to try to go to the Lost City. I was therein the night by an accident not likely to aoe again, but 1 saw enough to convince me that none but a pow- erful army could penetrate there,” ‘Why? How “The people are numerous and well-armed, and we know from all past and present history that they are as brave as lions in battle. See what trouble they gave Cortez.” ‘*But he beat them with his guns. They have no artillery or gunpowder.” ‘* How do you know that, senores?”’ The padre looked very wise as he said this. Don Jose laughed. ‘*Oh, come, padre, you don’t think they have.” “Why not, senores? Our Indians can shoot and do shoot, and some of them make guns and trabucos. Why not these men? They are not slow to learn, | can tell you.” 4 But you saw no firearms among them, did you?’ “* No, senor, etme: but spears. But I saw they had horses, cattle and sheep, all of which they must have taken from the whites in for- mer times. It is reasonable to suppose that they must know about our weapons, and equal- ly reasonable to suppose that they have copied them to some extent, knowing the terrible advantage they gave Cortez in his struggle with their ancestors.” Olaf thought a moment, and then burst, out: ‘Don Jose, if you'll go, I'll follow. I am resolved to see this Lost City beforel die, if I die in getting there.” They got up from table and took their leave of the old monk, after receiving from him full directions about the Lost City road which went on the other side of the mountains from that on which the padre himself had ascended on his famous “ retreat.” The Dane himself was sorely tempted to try the regular track, taking his chance of stum- bling on the outlying post of the mysterious people, but Brown, with his stolid British Sagacity, observed: ‘Andif you do, that’s just what the beggars want, colonel. They don’t believe it possible for any one to get up on this side, or else Padre Mig- ue would have run on some of them in his little trip. Don Jose backed Brown in this opinion, but Olaf speasiinas, and finally gave his reasons. ‘“* If we ride fast we are likely to overtake the pane? that has gone on ahead with five mules oaded with treasure and with two ladies who are the affianced, respectively, of the doctor and myself. We may save their lives, for if these fiends come down on them they will kill the whole party and very ibly carry off the irls to offer as a sacrifice to some god who ikes young virgins cut up before him. ‘* In that case,” said Don Jose, ‘‘we shall be better able to rescue them if they be taken by coming on the captors by surprise. I am still in favor of trying the padre’s route.” And after some discussion it was so agreed, Padre Miguel told them that the where the English fee) ite Ss $ and the French naturalist had been killed was at least a hundred and fifty miles off by a long circuit, while the Lost City could not be more than seventy in a straight line from the Mission. ‘‘ And you will be able to get there long before the slow-traveling mules of that party get to the dangerous P ace, senores. Therefore, God speed you and fare you well.” The old man stood waving his hat as they rode away and watched them down into the forests of the lowlands. When he hobbled back to his arm-chair he said to himself mournfully: ‘I shall never see them again. And they are sO * Sem -and brave-looking too! It is a pity!” eantime the party of lancers, im all their glory of glittering steel and brass, with their p ted and well-s aReoanes horses, rode down e slope from the Mission, and found them- selves on broad lonely savannas that bad not known a scythe for fifty years,and yet stood out green and waving with luxuriant crops of wild wheat and barley, remnants of what had once been the farm of the Mission. They traveled on till the sun was low in the sky, when they went into camp at the edge ofa dense forest, whose tangled vines and under- growth proclaimed the near vicinity of a swamp. ‘“* To-morrow, if we keep our course right, we shall reach the padre’s rock,” said Don Jose. ‘* After that, our real work begins.” CHAPTER XYV., THE FUGITIVES. Ovt on a lonely bridle-path, that wound to and fro among gigantic trees, faintly indicated by a series of white ‘* blazes” on the tall trunks, full of mud-holes and pools of water, a small caravan of loaded mules was stringing wearily forward on the road to Chiapas, under the shadows of the grand Cordilleras. Down in the forest one could not see far in any direction, but whenever it opened into a glade, there overhead towered the silent, solemn mountains crowned with snow. There were about twenty mules in the party, of which only six were ridden, the rest plodding sullenly along after an old white mare with a bell round her neck trotting at the head of the caravan and known as the madrina—little mother. Of the ridden mules, two were mounted by old men dressed as rich Spanish merchants or rancheros; two carried armed servants and two bore ladies. Three Indian muleteers trudged along in the mud beside the mules, and the whole party looked weary and haggard. “If we only get to Chiapas safe, I shall not mind the privations, Don Ramon,” said old Ximenes, with a sigh; ‘but I fear very much we shall not get there without meeting some guerrilleros. Padre Miguel said that they—” “For the love of Heaven, Don Carlos, don’t let us a my trouble,” interrupted Don Ramon irritably. ‘It’s bad enough to know we have failed and to see Ortega plucking the fruit we ripened, without imagining all sorts of evil before it comes.” Don Carlos Ximenes groaned. ‘I have all the savings of my life on those mules and you tell me not to be anxious.” ‘Anxiety won’t help us. We are in the a of ey meme, my friend,” retorted Don amon. ‘“* Do you suppose I feel very jolly in my turn? But Padre Miguel says sah we “a in no danger on this road. The only men ever seen on it are the Gomez brothers, and they bave not been out this year.” ‘All the more reason for them to be cut now,” answered Ximenes, obstinately. ‘‘I tell you, Don Ramon, I shall not be easy till I am safe inside the gates of the city.” ‘And that is the very pace where we may be in most danger, Don Carlos.” ** Why, my friend?” ‘* Because These that they have a change of government there also,” ‘“What! Another revolution? Dios! why did I not stay in Cuba? There was not so much money there, but it was safe, at least,” “That is your affair.” ‘*] know it. But who is in Chiapas now?” ‘* A namesake of the man who cheated me out of the presidency of Honduras, General Ortega. I hear he is levying forced loans to make an effort against the central power in Mexico. He GOMIGERVOOKS: CO