"This is the sentence of the Council of the Heart, that your name, Mattai, be erased from the list of the officers of the Heart; that your memory be proclaimed accursed; that your dwelling–place be burned with fire, and the site of it strewn with salt; that your corpse be torn from its grave and laid upon the summit of the pyramid till the birds of the air devour it; and that your soul be handed over to the tormentors of the lower world to deal with according to their pleasure for ever and for aye.
"This is the sentence of the Council of the Heart upon you, Maya, daughter of Zibalbay the cacique, Lady of the Heart; white man, Son of the Sea, and Ignatio the Wanderer: That your names be erased from the roll of the Brethren of the Heart, and proclaimed accursed in the streets of the city; that you be gagged, bound hand and foot, and chained living to the walls of the Sanctuary, and there left before the altar of the god which you have violated, till death from thirst and hunger shall overtake you; that your corpses be laid upon the pyramid as a prey to the birds of the air; and that your souls be handed over to the tormentors of the under–world to deal with according to their pleasure for ever and for aye. It is spoken. Let the sentence of the Council be done. But first, since this bastard babe is too young to sin and suffer punishment, let him be handed into the keeping of the god, that the god may deal with him according to his pleasure."
As the words passed his lips, and before we fully understood them, dazed as we were with the horror of our awful doom, Tikal stepped forward and—even now I shudder when I write of it—holding the poor infant, which at this instant began to wail again as though with pain or fear, over the mouth of the pit, suddenly he let it fall into the depths beneath.
The shriek of the agonized mother ran round the walls of the holy place, and before it had died away the señor had leaped forward—leaped like a puma—across the gulf of the open well and gripped Tikal by the throat and waist. He gripped him, and, rage giving him strength, he lifted him high above his head and hurled him down the dreadful place whither the child had gone before.
With a hoarse scream, Tikal vanished, and for a moment there was silence. It was broken by the voice of Maya, crying aloud, in accents of madness and despair—
"Not all the waters of the Holy Lake shall wash away our sin, yet may they serve to avenge us upon you, O you murderers of a helpless child!"
As she spoke, followed by the señor and myself, who I think alone of all the company guessed her dreadful purpose, Maya ran round the altar, and with both her hands grasped the symbol of the Heart which lay upon it.
"Forbear!" cried the voice of Dimas, but she did not heed him. Before he or any of us could reach her, dragging at it with desperate strength, she tore the ancient symbol from its bed, and with a loud and mocking laugh had cast it down upon the marble floor, where it shattered into fragments.
For one second all was still; then from the altar there came a sudden twang as of harp–strings breaking, that was followed instantly by another and more awful sound, the sound of the roar of many waters.
"Fly! fly!" cried a voice, "the floods are loosed and destruction is upon us and upon the People of the Heart!"
Now the Council rushed one and all towards the door of the Sanctuary; but I, Ignatio, by the grace of Heaven, remembered the outer door, the secret door through which we had entered, that the priest had left ajar.
"This way!" I cried in Spanish to the señor, and seizing Maya by the arm I dragged her with me into the passage. When all three of us were through I turned to close the door, and as I did so I saw an awful sight.
Out of the mouth of the pit before the altar sprang a vast column of water, which struck the roof of the Sanctuary with such fearful force that already the massive marble blocks began to rain down upon the crowd of fugitives, who struggled and in vain to open the door and escape into the Hall of the Dead. One other thing I saw; it was the corpse of Tikal, vomited from the depth into which the señor had hurled him, a shapeless mass ascending and descending with the column of water as alternately it struck and rebounded from the roof.
Then, before the flood could reach it, I closed the door, and, possessing myself of the bunch of keys that still hung in the lock, we fled up the passages and stairs till we came to the hall where we had been imprisoned. Here, however, we dared not stay, for already strange gurgling sounds struck upon our ears, and we felt the mighty fabric of the pyramid shake and quiver beneath the blows of the imprisoned waters as they burst their way upward and outward. Seizing lamps, we ran to the copper gates at the head of the hall, and not without trouble found the key that opened them. We had no time to spare, for as we left it the water rushed in at the further end of the chamber, a solid wave that in some few seconds filled it to the depth of six or eight feet. On we fled before the advancing flood, and well was it for us that our course lay upwards, for otherwise we must have been drowned as we searched for the keys to open the different gates and doors. But now fortune, which for so long had been our foe, befriended us, and the end of it was that we reached the summit of the pyramid just as the dawn began to break.
The dawn was breaking and seldom perhaps has the light of day revealed a more wonderful or terrible sight to the eyes of man. Outside the gates of the courtyard of the pyramid were gathered a great multitude of people waiting to be admitted to celebrate the feast that on this day of the year was to be held, according to the custom, upon the summit of the pyramid. Indeed, they should have already been assembled there, but it was the rule that the gates could not be opened until the Council had left the Sanctuary, and this night the Council sat late. As we looked at them a cry of fear and wonder rose from the multitude, and this was the cause of it. Along that street which ran from the landing–place to the great square rushed a vast foam–topped wall of water twenty feet or more in depth by a hundred broad. Now we learned the truth. The symbol on the altar—I know not how—was connected with secret and subterranean sluice–gates which for many generations had protected the City of the Heart from flood. When it was torn from its bed these sluice–gates were opened, and the waters, rushing in, sought their natural level, which at this season of the year was higher than the housetops of the city.
On the summit of the pyramid were two priests who tended the sacred fire and made ready for the service to be celebrated. Seeing us emerge from the watch–house, they ran towards us, wringing their hands, and asking what dreadful thing had come to pass. I replied that we did not know, but that seeing the water gather in our prison we had fled from it. How we had fled they never stopped to ask, but ran down the stairway of the pyramid, only to return again presently, for before they reached its base their escape was cut off.
Meanwhile the terror thickened and the doom began. Everywhere the waters spread and gathered, replenished from the inexhaustible reservoir of the vast lake. Whole streets went down before them, to vanish suddenly beneath their foaming face, while from the crowd below rose one continuous shriek of agony.
Maya heard it, and, casting herself face downward upon the surface of the pyramid, that she might not see her handiwork, she thrust her fingers into her ears to stop them, while the señor and I watched, fascinated. Now the flood struck the people, some thousands of them, who were gathered on the rising ground at the gates of the enclosure of the temple, and lo! in an instant they were gone, borne away as withered leaves are borne before a gale. Ere a man might count ten the most of the population of the City of the Heart had perished!