The Aztec Treasure-House Part 23

"You see, Professor," said Young, "I don't want t' say anything against that big book you're writin'. I don't doubt that in its way it'll be a daisy; but you know yourself there won't be more'n about three cranks in th' whole o' G.o.d's universe who'll ever read more'n about ten lines of it; an' that's why I want you t' rush ahead with th' little book--that stands some chance o' bein' read outside o' lunatic asylums--so's folks'll know what a powerful queer time we've had. Don't be too cussed particular t' say just where that valley is--for, while it's not likely, we might want t' take a fightin' crowd along an' dynamite our way back there some day after more cash; but, exceptin' that, just give 'em th'

cold facts. I reckon they'll make some folks open their eyes."

From times to time, as my narrative has grown beneath my hand, I have read aloud to my fellow-adventurers what I have written, and have received from them suggestions in accordance with which it has been corrected or amended in its several parts; and it is but just to add, in this connection, that in every case where I have referred (as it seems to me now in words not nearly strong enough) to the loyalty to our common interests, and to the splendid bravery which Rayburn and Young constantly exhibited throughout that trying time, I have been compelled to exert the whole of my authority over them in order to win their grumbling permission that my words might stand. Even Pablo--for the love that there was between this boy and me was far too strong to permit me to leave him behind in Mexico, and we are like to live together as long as we live at all--has taken issue with me concerning what I have written of his steadfast faithfulness and courage; and this on the ground that he could not possibly be anything but faithful to those whom he loved, and that it is only natural for a man to fight for his own life, and for the lives of his friends. In thus applying the word _hombre_ to himself Pablo spoke a little doubtfully, as though he feared that I might question his right to it; yet did he roll it so relishingly under his tongue, and so well had he proved his manliness, that I suffered it to pa.s.s.

In point of fact, the only member of our party who has accepted my just tribute of praise with entire equanimity has been El Sabio. It was Pablo's notion, of course, that El Sabio should hear what I had written about him. "Not the whole of it, you know, senor," the boy said, earnestly; "for some of what you have written--while I know that it is true, and therefore must be told--would hurt his tender heart. It was not his fault--the angel!--that he gave us so much trouble when we swung him across the canon; and to tell him that there was even a thought of eating him, while we were in that dreadful valley where every one was dead, a.s.suredly would turn him gray before his time. No; we will hide all such unpleasant parts of the book from him; but we will read to him what you have said concerning his beauty and his wisdom--and, surely, you might have said of those a great deal more; and also about his gallant fight with the priests, when, all alone, he slew so many of them with his heels. And it would have been fairer to El Sabio, senor," Pablo added, a little reproachfully, as we walked out together to the paddock in which the a.s.s, grown to be very fat, was living a life of most royal ease, "had you told in the book how well he served us in bringing all the treasure, in many weary journeys, out through that dismal cave; and also how carefully he carried the Senor Rayburn down that steep mountain-side, and so to the little town beside the railway, and never hurt his wound."

However, El Sabio did not seem to notice these omissions from my narrative, though he certainly did exhibit a most curious air of interest and understanding as I read to him those laudatory portions of it which Pablo desired that he should hear. According to Pablo's understanding of his language, he even thanked me for speaking well of him; for when the reading was ended he thrust his nose far forward, laid his long ears back upon his neck, planted his little legs firmly, and as he erected in triumph his scrag of a tail, he uttered a most thunderous bray. "And now, Wise One," Pablo said, tenderly, as he infolded the head of the a.s.s in his arms and hugged it to his breast, "thou knowest that we not only love thee for thy goodness and thy wisdom, but that we also honor thee for thy n.o.ble deeds."

Rayburn's fancy was mightily tickled by this performance in which El Sabio and Pablo and I had engaged--though Young evidently thought it but another proof of the addled state of my brains--when I told about it that evening as we all sat smoking comfortably in my library before the open fire. This was to be our last meeting for some time to come; for Rayburn was to start the next day for Idaho to look after some mining matters, and Young suddenly had decided that he would accompany him. In truth, Young was rather at a loss to know what to do with himself; for his plan for buying the Old Colony Railroad, in order to be in a position to discharge its superintendent, had been abandoned. "I'd like t' do it, of course," he said. "Bouncin' that chump th' same way that he bounced me would do me a lot o' good; but I've made up my mind it wouldn't be th' square thing t' do, considerin' that if he hadn't bounced me I'd still be foolin' round on top o' freight-cars, in all sorts o' weather, handlin' brakes. So I've let up on him, an' he can stay. What I want now is t' do some good with this all-fired big pile o'

money that I've got. That's one reason why I'm goin' out with Rayburn t'

Idaho. Right straight along from here t' Boise City I mean t' set up drinks for every railroader I meet. That'll be doin' good, for sure."

[Ill.u.s.tration: IN THE LIBRARY BEFORE THE OPEN FIRE]

Rayburn and I laughed a little at this odd method for benefiting humanity that Young had got hold of; and then Rayburn's face grew grave as he said: "Well, we're doing a little good, I suppose, in putting that old church in Morelia in good shape. I'm glad you thought of that, Professor. I don't suppose that anything we could have done would have pleased the Padre more than to have that church, that he loved so much, made as handsome as money can make it all the way through."

"Yes," Young added, "an' I guess th' Professor's head was level in havin' all th' new stuff that we've put in it made t' look like 't was about two hundred years old. I did kick at that at first, I'll allow.

What I wanted t' do was t' build a first-cla.s.s new church, with a rattlin' tall steeple, an' steam heat, an' electric lights, an' an organ big enough t' bust the roof off every time she was played. But th' Padre was as keen as th' Professor, a'most, for old-fashioned things; an' so I guess we've done that job just about as he'd 'a' done it himself. It makes me feel queer, though, puttin' up money on a Catholic church that way; an' when I was tellin' an old aunt o' mine, down t' Milton, about it, she just riz up an' rared. An' she didn't feel a bit better when I told her that if I thought it ud please th' Padre t' have me do it, I'd go smack off t' Rome an' shake hands with th' Pope. And I truly would do that very same thing," Young continued, earnestly, while his voice trembled a little, "for this side o' heaven I never expect t' meet anybody that's so near t' bein' a first-cla.s.s angel as th' Padre was.

An' when I think how he saved our mis'rable lives for us, as he surely did, by givin' away his own--that was worth more'n all of ours put together, an' ten times over--I don't care a continental what his religious politics was; an' I'll punch th' head of anybody who don't say that he was th' pluckiest an' th' best man that ever lived!"

Pablo had caught the word Padre in Young's talk, and as the lad looked up from the corner in which he was sitting, I saw that his eyes were full of tears; Rayburn's eyes also had an odd glistening look about them as he turned away suddenly, and emptied the ashes from his pipe into the fire; and I know that I could not see very clearly just then, as very tender, yet very poignant memories surged suddenly into my heart.

And when the others left me--as they did presently, for we could not fall again into commonplace talk--I bade Pablo be off to bed, and so sat there for a while alone. What I had planned to do that night was to revise an address that I was shortly to deliver before the Archaeological Inst.i.tute; but the pen that I had taken into my hand lay idle there, while my thoughts went backward through the channels of the past.

In that still season of darkness I seemed to live again through all the time that Fray Antonio and I had been together--from the moment when I first caught sight of him, as he knelt before the crucifix in the sacristy, to my last sad look at the dead body whence his soul had sped back again to G.o.d.

As my thoughts dwelt upon this most loving and most tender companionship, the like of which for perfectness I am confident was never known, and then upon the cruel violence that brought it to an end, so searching a pain went through my soul that I knew that either it must cease or I must die of it in a very little while. And then was borne in upon me the strong conviction--and so has it since been always, when thus my thoughts have been engaged--that because of my very love for Fray Antonio must I rejoice that he had died so savage a death; believing confidently that what he prayed for when first I found him in the Christian church of San Francisco was, in truth, that very crown of martyrdom that G.o.d granted to him when at last I lost him in the heathen city of Colhuacan. And with the pressing in upon me thus strangely of this strange thought, it seemed as though he himself said again to me, "I go to win the life, glorious and eternal, into which neither death nor sin nor sorrow evermore can come."

THE END.