on earth?”
“Yes, Don Juan. Still do you live, thanks be to the gods. Teoyamiqui has not yet brought you to her kingdom. Now, lie you still, Señor. So! Drink this, and speak not; you are so weak.”
Jack raised his head from the pillow, and greedily drank the contents of the cup held to his lips by Cocom. Then he closed his eyes, and fell into a refreshing sleep, while the old Indian sat quietly by the side of the couch, muttering some strange old song of a forgotten civilisation. Now and then a form would glide into the room and look at Jack sleeping in the bed, so still, so deathlike. Sometimes a man, more often a woman, and ever beside the couch sat the stolid Cocom, watching the face of his patient with intense interest.
How long he slept thus Jack did not know, but when he woke from a refreshing slumber all his delirium had departed. He felt weak, truly, but clear-headed and calm in his mind. Opening his eyes, he listened vaguely to the murmuring song of his attendant, and thought over the events which had preceded his illness. The entry into Acauhtzin; the dismissal of the deputation at the Palacio Nacional; the fight at the sea-gate; the interview in prison with Don Hypolito; and then utter blankness. He remembered fainting in the cell at Acauhtzin, and now he had wakened—where? With an effort he raised his head and looked round him.
In his delirium he had thought he was in a tomb, and truly the room wherein he now found himself was not unlike one of those strange Egyptian sepulchres, houses of the dead, wherein the highest art of that sombre civilisation was displayed. This low roof, formed of Titanic masses of stone; these heavy walls, gaudy with mural paintings, representing gods, kings, heroes strange sacrifices, and mystical ceremonies; all were redolent of the land of the Nile. Through a narrow slit in the wall filtered a pale light; skins of jaguar and puma carpeted the stone floor; rich coverlets of featherwork lay over the couch, and the entrance was draped with gaudy tapestries, dyed with confused tints, hinting at barbaric art. Jack, for the moment, thought he was indeed in Egypt, when, suddenly, at the side of the room he saw the hideous image of Huitzilopochtli, and heard the monotonous chant of his Watcher. Then, his true situation came vividly to his mind; this was a room in some Indian dwelling, yonder was the fierce god of the Aztecs, and by his bedside knelt Cocom.
“Where am I?” asked the young man, raising himself on his elbow, and looking at the Indian with a puzzled expression of countenance.
“In good hands, Señor,” was the evasive answer.
“Yes, yes! I know that. But am I still in Acauhtzin?”
“No. You are many miles from Acauhtzin.”
“But I was there last night.”
Cocom shook his head, and, producing a cigarette, lighted it carefully, blew some smoke through his nostrils, and looked steadily at Jack with his melancholy eyes.
“You were there five days ago, Señor.”
“What do you mean, Cocom?”
“Ah! the Señor forgets that he has been ill. For five days he has been in the land of everlasting darkness. Cocom has watched many hours by this couch and listened to the crying of the Señor. You have seen visions and heard voices, Don Juan. On the borders of Teoyamiqui’s land have you been, yet not within her kingdom. But Cocom knows many things, and by his art has cheated the goddess of one Americano. You are out of danger now, Señor, and I, Cocom, have cured you.”
“Mucha gracias!” murmured Jack, patting the Indian on the shoulder with a weak hand; “but tell me where I am now.”
“Where does your memory fail, Don Juan?”
Jack passed his hand across his brow. The confusion of his brain had departed. His senses were clear now, and he could recall everything up to a certain point.
“I remember the embassy from Tlatonac to Acauhtzin—the fight at the sea-gate. There I was struck down, and recovered my senses in prison. With Don Hypolito I held a long conversation, and, I suppose, fainted with his voice still in my ears. I wake here at a place you tell me is far from Acauhtzin, and find you by my side—you, Cocom, whom I supposed to be at Tlatonac!”
“Listen, Don Juan,” said Cocom, with great deliberation. “I will tell you many things that have taken place since your soul was in the realm of shadows. When you became insensible at Acauhtzin, a doctor was sent to attend to you by Don Hypolito. That doctor did what he could for you, but thought you would die as your soul was not within your body. Wildly did you cry, Don Juan, and many strange things did you say. Then, by the order of Don Hypolito, you were carried away on board a war-ship down the coast. At a certain point your body was taken ashore in a boat, and there delivered to certain people, who expected your coming. Having been placed on a litter, you were carried through the forest, across the salt desert, and again through the forest till you were placed on that bed. For two days have you tossed and turned, and cried, and fought. But now you are well, Don Juan—you will live; thanks be to the gods.”
Jack listened to all this as in a dream. The explanation fitted in with those vague visions which had haunted his delirious brain. The darkness—that was the cell at Acauhtzin; the light came when he was carried on board the war-ship. Then the sea-vision, the landing on the coast—that mirage of a tropical forest—the snowy plains of salt, and the climbing of many steps up to an antique temple. A sudden thrill shot through his enfeebled frame as he recalled the vision of the sacrifice, he recollected Cocom’s last words referring to the gods, he glanced terrified at the frightful image of Huitzilopochtli, and turning slowly towards the Indian, repeated his often-asked question, the answer to which he already guessed.
“What is this place?”
Cocom arose to his feet, drew himself up to his full height, and pointed majestically towards the idol.
“The temple of Huitzilopochtli! The shrine of the Chalchuih Tlatonac.”
“God!” cried Jack, in despair, as he recognised his position. “I am lost!”
He saw his peril at a glance. The threats of Don Hypolito regarding a frightful death were not mere words. With devilish ingenuity he had secured the death of his rival, with no possible chance of the truth becoming known. Jack saw that Xuarez had preserved his life, had delivered him to the Indians, to the end that he might be offered up on the altar of the war-god, as a sacrifice to the opal. No wonder his usually brave heart quailed at the prospect of such horrors. Captive to remorseless savages, in the heart of an impenetrable forest, there was no chance of a rescue by his friends. He was weak, unarmed, unfriended, in the power of a fanatic race; there was no help for it—he must die.
“Cocom,” whispered Jack, clutching the Indian’s arm, “why have I been brought here—why did Don Hypolito deliver me to the Indians? Is it for—for——”
His dry lips refused to form the horrible word; but Cocom, without the least emotion, supplied it.
“For sacrifice! Yes, Don Juan; you are to be offered to the god.”
“Horrible! When?”
“In three weeks. At the termination of the great cycle.”
“What do you mean?” asked Jack, with a shudder.
“Our time,” explained Cocom, with stolid apathy, “is divided into cycles of fifty-two years. This have we received from our Aztec ancestors. At the end of a cycle the sun will die out in the heavens, and the earth end, if the new fire is not lighted on the
