The Glyphs/Chapter 14

I cannot look back on the days that followed our find of the Maya treasure without a mental shudder. It was as if the gods had put a curse upon us that was executed by nature herself. We started at dawn and had not reached the first edge of the jungle before one of the pack mules was bitten by a snake so venomous that within an hour the poor beast died despite all our efforts to save it. A case of tinned meats upon which we had depended for at least half rations, was found to have been spoiled by the heat and had to be thrown away. The game that we knew must exist in the jungle fled from us as if from a scourge, and not even the monkeys came within rifle shot. The very birds seemed to fly beyond gun range.

Twice we lost our way, once so seriously that we found ourselves in the borders of a swamp we could not cross, and had to retrace our steps through that steaming pestilential jungle behind, where we were tortured by venomous insects, and in constant fear of deadly snakes. We were lost for an entire day before we found the blazings of the trail we had made when entering, and the trail itself had become overgrown and tangled again with that marvelous and malignant rapidity which nothing save such a jungle can manifest. It was as if the jungle itself had become a huge enveloping serpent leisurely enfolding us, certain of crushing us in its embrace and leering at our puny, frantic efforts to escape. For unending hours at a stretch we struggled onward in silence, speaking never a word, irritable, weak, desperate. Sometimes thirst was added to our sufferings and starvation was ever gnawing us with sharpened fangs. A pony fell and could not rise, and had to be put out of its misery: A second pack burro succumbed through weakness, fell across a log, broke its leg, and had to be shot. Long before this we had abandoned every spare ounce of weight, and I shall not forget Wardy’s sigh when he considered which weapon he would keep, hesitated between a sporting rifle and a beautiful Gruener gun, chose the former, and left his prized gun case standing against a tree beside the trail.

“Good-by, old friends,” he murmured. “You have been with me through Africa, India, Ceylon, and around the world, but now we part!” And then, as if he could not bear a second’s delay, trudged ahead without a single backward look.

I began to be tortured by hallucinations. I could not sleep, save fitfully, and my rest was then broken by nightmares. I fancied that Ixtual had somehow discovered that we carried treasure in the packs upon our backs, and was becoming murderous. I’m not certain but that he did in reality suspect something after all! Benny began to croon in Arabic interminable and melancholy songs of the desert. The doctor took to muttering strange gibberish about glyphs, talking monotonously in a dead undertone for hours at a stretch. Only Juan, unimaginative, stolid, perhaps hardened to starvation, plodded doggedly on without ever a murmur of complaint or sign of wavering sanity.

And so, at last, ragged, staggering scarecrows of men, with scarred and scratched skeleton beasts, we emerged from that horrible jungle that seemed sullen and angry because we had escaped. I cannot to this day look at a brilliant orchid without hating it for the memories of those million orchids sometimes screening snakes that we saw in that hellish belt through which we survived.

There, almost within sight of a native farm, Ixtual added to our torture by obstinately, almost angrily insisting that we must take cover until nightfall, and add more miles to our travel before appealing to any one for succor. Wardy and I sought to influence him against his decision. Benny cursed him in frenzied, murderous Arabic, and the little doctor appealed and implored him; but he remained steadfastly obdurate and inflexible.

“The señores do not understand!” he said to me in hoarse, dry-throated Spanish. “We must not be seen here! We must not! Is it well to die after all we have endured, rather than be safe by suffering but a few hours more? Is it just to me to have been your friend and servant that I be killed for my follies of faithfulness?”

“Not by a damned sight!” croaked Wardy. “What say you, Hallewell? I vote we stick it out and do as Ixtual says.”

“And so do I,” I agreed; but Heaven only knows what that exertion of my last remaining resolution cost me; for I was at my limit of fortitude and did not care much whether I lived or died.

We lay, sweltering and weak, in cover for the three hours intervening between daylight and close darkness, and then wearily dragged ourselves onward again until nearly midnight, when we came to a clearing where we found a well; also a hut filled with maize with which we fed our starved animals, and ourselves munched with them. And so remarkable is human vitality that when we moved forward after two hours’ rest, life had begun to resume its strength. We were still in a land of unknown and perhaps deadly perils, practically unarmed, and yet no longer afraid. Our progress through unfrequented yet very passable roads was far more steady and rapid. We put miles behind us, rather than tens of yards as had been the case but a day previous. The packs on our backs, while still heavy, no longer felt unendurable. At dawn Ixtual led us to a place where he said we must camp, and himself disappeared. Within an hour he returned with food that was like the sweets of Paradise to our famished bodies, and after that wonderful meal we slept.

We crawled out and went to a pail of water thoughtfully provided by Juan, who grinned cheerfully and gave us his polite, “Buenos dias, señores,” as he began preparations for the evening meal.

“Where are Ixtual and Doctor Morgano?” I asked him.

“They have been gone more than three hours. Whither, I know not,” he answered with no sign of interest. “That Indian, Ixtual—who is but a bad Catholic—may the Holy Mother have pity on him in purgatory!—awoke the great doctor and whispered something to him. I am a light sleeper and was disturbed. Then the doctor got up quietly, as if to avoid awakening you other señores, and together they left, like this.” And he mimicked a man walking cautiously on tiptoes.

“Oh, there they are! Seem to have a lot to talk about.”

They came slowly through the old roadway, stopping now and then as if involved in some discussion; but even then I noted a peculiar difference in Ixtual’s attitude toward the doctor that was unusually marked.

By gradual stages we made our way back to the coast, Wardy, the doctor, and I taking turns in keeping jealous guard over the treasure we had won from the subterranean chambers beneath the sacred peaks. And Wardy and I when alone on the long trails frequently spoke of the chamber filled with gold that was corded up in tiers—the gold we had left behind. And there on the coast we stopped in the hotel waiting for the steamer that would take us northward to New Orleans.

We had presented Juan with the animals that had suffered with us, knowing that he would care for them.

Ixtual puzzled us somewhat by his behavior, and with great dignity declined a peso more than the wage he had stipulated. I am not certain that we were sorry to part with him. No, I qualify that by saying that in some ways I was; for I respected him as being something vastly above the peons of that country, or any native I ever met. We carried our belongings aboard the steamer and locked them in our staterooms, and felt that our great adventure had come to its close.

The little steamship was to sail in the early hours of the morning. She seemed clean and elegant to us after all we had endured. It was like entering into the heart of luxury once more. Only Doctor Morgano seemed silent and absorbed on that evening when, after dinner, we sat on the after deck beneath the awnings with the electric lights shining dully on the table where again we could have long-forgotten drinks and idly stir the cracked ice in the tall glasses. Off on the shore we could see the lamps of the town. Under the lights of the wharf the stevedores were bringing aboard the last of the cargo. A dark, lithe figure flitted across the wharf, stared at us for a moment, and sauntered slowly shoreward.

“Ixtual, as surely as I’m alive!” exclaimed Wardy, half rising from his chair and peering at the retreating shape. “Well, here’s luck to him, even if he was a rum sort!”

But I noticed that the doctor seemed unaware of our toast and still sat hunched up in his deck chair with his legs sprawled before him and his hands in his pockets, his chin on his breast and his eyes fixed absently toward the west as if still visioning all the great secrets he had so regretfully left behind. He was in the same mood when we bade one another good night and separated for our cabins.

I was but vaguely disturbed when the steamer sailed, and heard the mellow notes of the ship’s bell telling me that it was two o’clock in the morning. Lulled by the slow, cradling swing of the open sea, I slept heavily, delightfully, dreamlessly, and awoke with a sense of profound well-being. Through the thin deal partition I could hear Wardy singing as he made his morning toilet, and Benny’s voice in English: “I have gotten out your white linen suit, sair.” I was the first at breakfast and had nearly finished when Wardy entered, breezy, fresh, and well groomed.

“Where’s our little encyclopedia?” he asked. “Hope he’s not found more of those blamed glyphs. I’m going to decoy him to the engine room and see if he can read the manufacturers’ names on the engines. Ha!”

One of the stewards came in and said: “Pardon, gentlemen; but which of you is Mr. Hallewell? I have a note for him.”

We were so astounded by this communication that for a full moment we sat with our mouths open and eyes equally wide, staring at each other, then as if actuated by a single motor center we hurried to the doctor’s cabin. It was in a peculiar state of confusion. Thrown carelessly on the floor were all his spare shirts, linen, underwear, and clothing, and his sole piece of luggage, a suit case, was missing. A worn, stained, slightly frayed canvas sack lying limp and empty on the floor told the tale. He had emptied out his suit case and thrown away such mere superfluities as changes of linen and underwear and placed the crown jewels of the Maya tribe therein.

Wardy and I again stared at each other and then, despite the loss of the loot and our estimable and beloved partner, burst into laughter.

“I’m at least glad that you and I acted as custodians for the unmounted stones, Wardy,” I said.

He picked up from the floor the rusty old sack that had for so many days contained wealth sufficient to ransom a prince and now felt inside it tentatively. He found down in one corner a wad of torn canvas, unrolled it, and disclosed a single ring mounting a unique seal cut in some semiprecious stone. He slipped it on one of his fingers as if to test its size, learned that it fitted, and then said, quite cheerfully and with his habitual generosity:

“If you don’t mind, old man, I’ll keep this. If you will pay back the thousand pounds I advanced for Juan, and give Beni Hassan a similar amount, all the rest is yours. I’ve all the money I can ever use, without it. The dear old doctor has his. And I fancy the sale of the other stuff will provide more than you can ever use.”

And despite my protests it was thus settled, and as far as the final profit was concerned, his prediction proved true.

We went out to the deck, where we learned from the chief officer that Doctor Morgano had quietly informed him at midnight that he had decided not to sail with us, and had gone down the gangway, where he was met by one the mate believed to be an Indian servant, to whom the doctor handed the suit case to carry, and that they had leisurely walked from sight, talking in some strangely barbaric tongue.