The Glyphs/Chapter 6

Wardy was so intent on the preservation of his black jaguar pelt, so rapturous over it as a trophy, so boastful because he claimed to be one of a bare half dozen living men who had shot one, that he was unapproachable. He and Benny were so smeared with their slaughterhouse work as they painstakingly picked and scraped and tore away minute pieces of fat from the inside of that unfortunate beast’s hide, that one might have thought the fate of generations of sportsmen to come hinged upon their doing this job thoroughly. Wardrop rhapsodized like a poet.

The doctor and Ixtual and Juan all clawed moss and lichen. I knew we couldn’t advance until the work was done, so, being the only practical man in the party, borrowed Wardrop’s shotgun and started out to get a few wild birds for the pot. I had heard in the dawn the screaming see-saw-see-saw whank of wild guinea fowl farther up the mountain’s side. I’d have given my watch for a good hunting dog just then, but within half an hour had three wild guinea hens, and one of those booming grouse that lived in that isolated place. After that I had rather bad luck and slow work for an hour or two and had by this time got pretty well up the mountain side. I had gone higher than I intended and was thinking of turning back a few yards farther, and then I made a discovery.

There was a shelf as if the land had slipped some time in past ages, and there, broken off at its very edge and in naked rock where not even the sparse grass of the higher altitudes grew, was a well-cut road. Not a mere path, but a road cut through living rock like those old Roman roads built by the Mediterranean conquerors when they moved northward. A road with gutters for freshet waters at its sides, and as well engineered as could be done by any man of this day. Here and there the sparse vegetation of the high altitude had found lodgement in a crevice; occasionally rubble stones from the sides had slipped across, and a few huge bowlders that had rolled from higher points had found lodgment. But the great highway was there, clear, passable, unbroken through all the lost ages, so well had those ancients built. Forgetful of game, I traversed it for nearly a mile as it wound like a modern switch-back to and fro by easy gradients on the steep mountain side.

And then I consulted my watch, saw that it was nearly noon, surmised that my companions below might begin to worry over my absence, and somewhat reluctantly retraced my steps. I arrived to find the camp half packed, and some anxiety or annoyance visible because of my nonappearance. But they all welcomed the game and speedily luncheon was being prepared.

The doctor was again off by himself with his notebook, and working like a madman over his interminable puzzles. He ate of those most palatable and delicious fried birds as if they were merely tinned tripe. The others of us, I record, gnawed the last tender morsels from the bones and wished for more. But I, in the meantime, had not divulged my discovery. I thought I was entitled to some archæological credit myself.

“The stone reads,” said the doctor, at last, “as follows: ‘This spring was opened and this basin built by the keepers of the Sacred Portals, Quantex and Totlipan, in their hours of idleness. It was begun in the latter part of the eighth cycle and completed in the beginning of the ninth to the glorification of the god Icopan, to whom it is humbly dedicated. The Great Road by which it is situated, leading up to the Sacred Portals of the Outer gate, was then narrow but has since been widened by the zealous labors of those who believe that it is fitting that the way should be made easy for those who visit the Sacred Temple City of the God of all Gods.’”

The doctor paused, looked up at us, and said, almost shame-facedly: “The inscriptions on the right-hand side I am not quite clear about. I require other links in this lost history. Those records seemingly chronicle the journeys of various persons of importance who passed this way. There is but one of them that is highly interesting, and that records that on a certain day there passed along this so-called sacred highway those who had fled from or abandoned Quirigua. Thus it ends. Now the next step for us is to direct our efforts to the discovery of that road.”

It was my turn.

“While you have been wasting your time in immaterial points here,” I said, “I have taken pains to search for and find that road. I knew we should need it,” I said loftily. “I will guide you to it whenever you are ready.”

By one o’clock we were on the old road,, and I think that all of us, men as well as beasts were grateful for the change. It was vastly different from burrowing our way through a jungle. It was, indeed, a highway. What it must have been in those past ages when it was carefully maintained and cleaned, we could readily conjecture. Higher and higher it led us by long angles, sometimes gently ascending and other times unavoidably abrupt, until in the very shadows of the peaks we could see it winding white and clean back to its beginning.

Ahead of us was a black and lofty opening into the very heart of the hills. On either side of it were watch towers cut from the rock itself, curiously ornate, profusely decorated with Maya art, and imposing even to us who had seen modern works attesting man’s ingenuity and fancy. Almost reverently we advanced until we came within the shadows of the opening. I was struck by the profound stillness of the late afternoon; the same feeling that one sustains on the summit of some lofty peak far beyond other voices, the murmur of humanity, or the rustling of growth and vegetation. It was as if we stood in the portals of a dead world.

“We must investigate these sentinel houses,” said the doctor, and with Ixtual at his heels turned toward the nearest. It was overhung by the cliffs above, which protected it—hollowed out like those temples and habitations of long-dead cave dwellers in the cañons of the Colorado, and not unlike them, save that here were evidences of a higher state of civilization.

In silence all of us followed the archæologist and his Maya companion, peering over their shoulders as they advanced. The doctor paused just inside the door, bent forward, and then in a hushed voice said: “Peace to the sentinel! He died at his post.”

We saw the crumbling remnants of a man’s skeleton, persisting with that singular obstinacy of human relics in mute attestation to the fact that once here had lived and died a man. By its side lay something that still preserved its shape in that dead and motionless atmosphere, a shape that had been a spear shaft and at its end gleamed dully a spear head that we examined. It was of hardened copper; hardened by that lost art of the ancients; so hard that I could not so much as mar it with the file in my pocketknife. What was left of the skull was adorned with a head-band of similar metal but bearing curious marks like the insignia of a modern regiment. We learned afterward that this was the emblem worn only by the. Guard of the Gate.

We found inside this artificially made cave house several rooms. One of them was evidently the dining room, or mess, for on a stone table there stood plates of copper, ancient jugs betokening the development of Maya ceramics, and tiny heaps of dust which I think must have been some time food. Beds were there, with their garnishings mere heaps of dust and dry mold. In one room on a stone table we found round pieces of carefully cut bronze that I think must have been coins from an ancient purse.

But of the cause of death, or the story of that last sentinel’s end, there was no trace. It was as if he, the last of the watch, had died across the portals of his lookout when some dread plague had stricken the land.

The sentinel house on the other side of the roadway was bare. Evidently something had happened in the end that made it difficult, or unnecessary, to maintain a double watch, and its belongings had been removed to the opposite side by the last of the guardians. The doctor believed from the glyphs above the doors that on one side had dwelt those who guarded by day, and on the others those who watched by night; but aside from the ceramics and smaller relics, he found but little to arouse his enthusiasm. Wardrop and I thought we should bury the bones of the last sentinel; but the doctor insisted that they should be left until he could collect them and transport them to some museum. He could not be dragged away until he had made measurements of the skull, constantly bemoaning the need of an expert osteologist who could have pointed out to us the difference between the poor bones of this dead soldier and those of a modern man.

“It doesn’t seem quite fair to the poor bloke’s remains,” said Wardy to me, outside the place. “As far as I can guess, he stuck it like a Briton and so he shouldn’t be mauled about after his job was done.”

“I agree with you,” I said, and we went out to where Juan was draped over the withers of a mule, patiently and unexcitedly waiting for orders.

When the doctor and Ixtual returned to us, we held a consultation and decided it might be wise to investigate before proceeding with the outfit. Accordingly we advanced into the great cavern but came to a halt before we had gone more than twenty paces. Above us was a half-lowered gate of great bronze bars, ornate in design.

“I think we’d better prop the thing up somehow before passing it,” said Wardrop, eying its prodigious height and estimating its great weight. “If the thing was to jar loose and fall after we had passed through, it might—might be awkward.”

His caution was heeded even by Ixtual, although Doctor Morgano raged, passed beneath the barrier, out again, and besought us to continue our exploration. He was overruled, and we decided to camp that night in the empty guard house to the right and devote some time to blocking up the gate. It was well that we did; for when, on the following day, we had piled rocks in the slots to the height of a man’s reach the prodigious weight was unaccountably released and slid downward as if endowed with a malevolent wish of its own to cut us off from what lay behind.

“You see?” Wardy called to the doctor. “That mass of metal has been sometime suspended by ropes or cables, and they had rotted away and if we hadn’t taken the precaution to stuff up those slots with rock, some of us would have been shut off behind there for the Lord knows how long.”

But the doctor didn’t answer, being at that moment more interested in solving the mystery of the mechanical appliances by which the great gate had originally been raised or lowered. Indeed, had we not pointed out to him that this was a puzzle that could be unraveled when we had more provisions on hand and more time, I think he would have delayed all further progress.

We advanced into that enormous and overwhelming darkness as if entering some vast, high-vaulted, unlighted cathedral in the middle of the night and had not gone more than a hundred yards before we came upon a set of gates and outposts similar to those at the entrance, save that these had been fastened up by great bronze pins, as if the outer sentries, finding their numbers diminished, had taken this precaution before it was too late. Here, too, were guard houses on either side of men who dwelt in artificial light during their time of duty. These houses had other ceramics, and signs of habitation in those long-past days, but we found no skeleton remains of the post. There were racks of spears, javelins, and arrow heads, as if this had been an armory. There were glyphs on the walls that the doctor deciphered and then walked out to investigate.

“Above us,” he said, pointing his electric torch, “are tons and tons of balanced bowlders that could be released by following the directions embossed in those stone tablets. You see all they had to do was, when things became desperate, to seize the stone levers referred to and which I think must be behind the second gates, and there would fall upon an enemy standing where we now stand, hundreds of tons of stone. Enough possibly to fill this entire cavern. Maybe it would run into thousands of tons. That we can learn only by investigation.”

“It’s a long tunnel all right,” Wardy had just said to me, when we had walked at least two miles.

“It is that,” I agreed, holding the white flaring carbide reflector lower to see if any impediment lay at our feet. And it was well that I did so, for there, scarcely ten yards ahead of us, lay the black edge of a gulf.

Cautiously we advanced to its verge and threw the light downward. Powerful as was that reflector and its acetylene blaze, it fell upon nothing save the void.

“Here’s a pebble,” said Wardy in an awestruck voice. “Listen, everybody, and see if you can hear it strike.”

He pitched the chunk of rock forward. It vanished into the gloom. We listened for a long time. There came no audible sound. We drew back and stared at each other in the ghastly white light. It was as if we had stood on the verge of a bottomless pit.

“There must be some way around this place,” said Ixtual. “Surely there was some way of crossing or avoiding it.”

“There,” said I, throwing the light forward at my feet, “is the answer,” and pointed at what in some ancient time had been seats for girders hewn into the solid rock. Lifting the reflector upward into the gloom we saw the remnants of what at some time had been a roof support to fortify a suspended span. The other side of the chasm could not be discerned. It was as if we had come to the final and hopeless end of the road.

It is impossible to tell of all the expedients we tried to light that cavern sufficiently to expose the opposite side in the hours that followed. We went outside and collected from the lower-lying jungle mule-loads of fagots that we piled and made from them a huge bonfire. We used carbide flares, and electric torches, and everything we could call to resource to augment the light; but it was useless; for beyond us still lay that wall of impenetrable darkness. We searched for secret side passages and found none, and then when about despairing, held another consultation.

“There must have been some other road,” insisted Ixtual. “Surely they must have had an emergency way so that if by accident the bridge was destroyed they could rebuild it. How was it ever built in the first instance?”

That set us to effort again. This time we decided to fasten together all reatas of rawhide, all pack ropes, and lower a man into the depths as far as we could. I insisted that this risk must be mine. Wardrop with equal insistence said he believed he should be the one to go, at which we all laughed derisively, for his weight would have required the use of much stronger ropes than the make-shift lot on which whoever descended must trust his life. I finally had my way and we rigged a bosun’s chair into which I seated myself and was swung out over that somewhat terrifying blackness, and lowered away. The edge proved to be a projecting shelf, so that I swung clear of the wall. There were several anxious questions I asked myself as the depth increased, among which was whether the lines by which I was suspended were anywhere weak, whether the knots might hold, and also whether the air into which I was dropping might not be foul. To my considerable satisfaction I discovered that the air remained as pure as above, and there was no sign of the ropes yielding or parting; but the light from my electric torch showed nothing in the wall in the way of steps or break. It was as nature had left it, smooth and unbroken. When at last a shout from above told me that our entire line was paid out, I cast the light downward. Blackness alone was still below me. I took from my pocket a chunk of rock which I had brought with me and dropped it. I thought it would never strike, and so far away was it that when it did the sound was barely audible. For an instant I had a sickening feeling of giddiness brought on by imagining what my fate would be if I tumbled after that stone.

“All right! Hoist away!” I shouted, and was slowly drawn upward.

In my slow and laborious ascent I swung the torch to and fro sidewise, and suddenly observed something that had escaped my attention before, something away over to the side that appeared to be either a deeper shadow or a break.

“Hold fast a moment!” I called, and strove to discern more clearly whether I had been mistaken; but there was no doubt of it, that fully thirty yards to my left there was a deeper shadow. Whether it was cast by an out jutting stratum of rock or was a hole, I could not decide. I tried to estimate the distance, and shouted to my companions above to measure by making a mark on the line as they brought me upward, the depth at which I then hung.

When they brought me up over the top I was amazed at a strange silence and relief that fell over them. Wardrop suddenly caught my hand and clutched it tightly. The doctor patted me on the back nervously, and Ixtual looked at me gravely.

“What’s the matter?” I demanded.

For answer Benny picked up the improvised line behind and held up to the light of his torch a section of pack rope. It had parted until but a single strand remained.

My knees abruptly and uncontrollably trembled and weakened, for now I realized that for a time I had hung suspended above that awful black abyss by a strand of hemp not much thicker than my little finger.