He paused again.
"Very like," said Colin. "If 'twas so very many years ago I must have been a small, ignorant spalpeen in Kerry when it happened. 'Tis no wonder I never heard of you."
"I was younger myself," the other answered reflectively. He might almost have been talking to himself, instead of Colin-arguing that old case that every man argues eternally before the inner tribunal "Young and impetuous. For all the standing I had achieved in the archeological field-I know now how young I was! Very proud, too. Twenty-five, and set at the head of a scientific expedition! I wonder who has since done in Yucatan the things I set out to accomplish?
"And our party! Did any one of them survive to carry back a report? Wiped out by the Yaquis, and poor young Biornson, too! I can see the dear old gray-beards who sent me out shaking their heads and sighing for another young promise lost-and sighing, too, for the work that had not been done. And I, who had been chosen, could have later taken them news whose confirmation would have made the university world-famous-I-fell in love and cast in my lot with Tlapallan! A trust betrayed and youth served! It isn't the biography that was prophesied for Svend Biornson!"
"If that's all you have on your conscience," consoled Boots, "it's lighter than most men's! Sure, to carry tales for the world is an interesting occupation, but I cannot see how you were damned in neglecting it. By your manner, I had thought you left a trail of murder and arson behind you!"
Biornson stirred impatiently and seemed ill at ease. "I'm a fool!" he said. "What is science or a scientific reputation to an ignorant boy like you? Of course you can't understand! But-it isn't only, that! They are my friends, these folk. Sometimes I think they are the last remnant of a forgotten race, older than Toltec or Mayan, or even the Olmecs, who have left nothing to archeology but a memory.
"And sometimes-I have other thoughts of them, thoughts that I can't put into words, for there are no words to express them. I know that they speak the Aztec tongue in all its ancient purity, and yet they are surely not of Aztec blood. However it be, they are good, true comrades, and my own wife is one of them, but I sometimes wonder if I have not-have not lost my soul in living here! I am saying too much-you can't understand and you must not. You shall go back to your own people and your own God — "
Stooping unexpectedly Biornson seized the surprised Irishman's hand and gripped it hard.
"Boy," and his voice was a harsh whisper, "never bow your head to the gods of a strange race! Never! Not for our nor love, nor wealth, nor friendship! Not for wonders, nor miracles! You speak of mysteries. There is a mystery I could tell you of-but your soul would be sick afterward-sick-you might even desert your Christ-as I did, God help me!"
"I am a good Catholic," said Boots, gravely and simply.
"Then stay so! You are in a city where mercy and kindness excel, and their roots are set in a monstrous cruelty. Where beauty springs out of horror, and they worship benignant gods with the powers of devils! Don't seek to know the heart of Tlapallan! Go, if they'll let you-and once away forget that you ever set foot in the Collados del Demonio!"
With no farewell but a final squeeze of the hand Biornson was gone.
A memory flashed across the mind of Kennedy. Tlapallan! The White People of Tlapallan! Grant that myth to be true, he thought, and anything was possible-anything!
For the rest of the afternoon the materialist sat with his head in his hands, silent and glum, till Boots, who could accept miracles, gave up trying to get at the cause of the other man's perturbation, and fell peacefully asleep.
CHAPTER IV. Tlapallan or —
"ARE we to rot here forever?"
Jerking to his feet, Kennedy glared as if it were some contumacious obstinacy of his companion which still kept them prisoners.
Six days had passed since Biornson's visit, and brought no increase of knowledge nor change in their condition.
Boots, whose wounds had closed with a rapidity that did credit to either an unusual constitution or the medicaments originally used, sat up lazily and stretched his arms.
"A few hours yet till night. Dye ever notice how still it all is, Mr. Kennedy?"
"Still as the tomb. Silent as the desert. I've thought of nothing but that silence for days. I wondered how long it would be before a glimmer of its meaning reached you."
"You've the unfortunate disposition to hold your thoughts till they sour on you. Never mind how thick my head is. Be kind to me, and say out the meaning, if you know it."
"I will if you'll shut up a minute yourself. The meaning is clear enough. It is simply that your dear friend Biornson is a particularly effective and artistic liar. That all his talk of Quetzalcoatl and Tlapallan is so much empty rubbish. I told you in the beginning that there were mines in these hills. I'm doubly sure of it now.
"Let us suppose, what is probably true, that Biornson is a man well and unfavorably known by the rurales, and in consequence a man who doesn't dare apply to the government for a mining concession. Suppose, then, that he sees a certain opportunity in the current superstitions about these hills. What would be simpler than to strengthen them with the aid of a few white followers and a pack of hounds, and proceed therewith to make his fortune in safe secrecy?"
"I can think of a lot of simpler things," said Boots reflectively, "though I'll not say you're wrong. But what's that then?" He pointed to the polished white wall opposite the window. "The back of a mining shack, maybe? It must be a magnificent fine one to be built of white marble!"
"That," Kennedy retorted, "is part of the same ruins that his men brought me down through blindfolded that first night. I'll grant you that we are in a city of the Aztecs, or possibly of the Mayas. But it is a city as dead as the bygone civilizations of those races. Once out of this cell, and I promise you the sight of empty ruins, and no more."
"You've got a good head on your shoulders," conceded Boots rather sadly. "I misdoubt you're right. And here I'd hoped to be seeing the strange wild city of a tale, with its priests and its multitudes bowing down to their poor false gods, and maybe a bloody sacrifice or so to make it the more interesting!"
For once the older man laughed, but it was a contemptuous merriment.,j
"From the curiosity of children and fools, good Lord deliver us! Biornson conjures up a frightful dream, and here you are ready to weep because it isn't real! Do you, know the meaning of Tlapallan?"
"I've been trying to wring it out of you for a week," was Boots' bitter reply.
"In the old mythology of Anahuac, Tlapallan was a city of white wizards. It was to rule this fanciful Community that Quetzalcoatl deserted the Chollulans. In Yucatan they still expect him to return leading the magic race of white giants who are to restore all Mexico to the Aztecs. It was clever in Biornson to use that legend as a kind of scarecrow. His men are costumed to the part, and I dare say more than one Indian or greaser has been well frightened by them and the pack of hounds in their trail.
"What I appreciate, though, is his nerve in trying to put the illusion over on me. He didn't want to do it. He was deathly afraid we'd run across some of his stage settings before he got rid of us. When we did, he decided to take the bull by the horns and try to victimize us through our imaginations, just as he's done for years with the Indians."
"But what's he to gain by cooping us here, and-what of the queer language they all speak?"
"Aztec. You've heard it spoken in half a dozen Indian villages, but they give a queer twist to it here which I'll admit deceived even me. They are some white hill tribe over whom Biornson has got a hold, but take my word, the whole affair is a kind of elaborate hoax.