Show HEART OF THE WORLD I BY H RIDER EIAGGAl Copyright 1S91 by H Kider Haggard Written for The Salt Lake Herald CHAPTER XXVL FAPEWELL Nahua ceased and satdown and so great was the astonishment or rather the awe of the council at the tale that she had told that for a while none of them spoke At length Dimas rose and said i Maya Lady of the Heart raid you strangers you have heard the awful charge that is brought against you What do you say in answer to it We say it is true answered Maya We were forced to choose between our j i lives and the doing of this deed and i we chose to live It was Mattai who I hatched the nlot and executed the for I gery and now it seems that we must suffer for his sin as well afe for our own One word more Ignatio here did not enter into this plot willingly but was forced into it by my husband and myself and chiefly by myself Dimas made no answer but at a sign the two priests who guarded the altar with drawn swords came forward and drove us into the passage that led J from the sanctuary to the Hall of the 3Vad where they shut us in between th double doors leaving us in the darkness Ilere as all was finished I knelt t down to offer my last prayers to heaven hea-ven while Maya wept in her husbands arms taking farewell of him and of her child Truly he said you were wise wife when you urged us not to enter this country of the Heart Still what is done cannot be undone and having been happy together for a little space let us die together as bravely as we may hoJing that still together we may awake presently in some new world of peace While he spoke the door was opened and the priests with drawn swords led us back into the Sanctuary As Maya crossed the threshold first of the three of us she was met by Tikal who with a sudden movement but without roughness took the child from her Ljt arm CLrmNow we saw what was prepared for us for the stone in front of the altar had been lifted and at our feet the black shaft yawned from which ascended as-cended a sound of waters They placed us with our backs resting against the altar but Tikal stood in front and between be-tween him and us lay the mouth of the nit Maya daughter of Zibalbay white Ian Son of the Sea Ignatio the anderer and Mattai the priest horn being dead in the body we J Fummon in the spirit began Dimas 7 in a cold and terrible voice you by I our own confession are proved guilty of the greatest crimes that can be dreamed of in the wicked brain of man and executed by his impious hands You have broken your solemn oaths taken in the presence of heaven and your fcreihreruyou have offered insult to the god we worship and violated his s Sanctuary and you have palmed off his heavensent prince upon the people who trusted you a bastard and a child of sin For all these and other crimes which you have committed why we know not it is not in our power to mete out to you a just punishment that must be measured to you elsewhere when you have passed our judgment seat and your names are long forgotten upon the earth This is the sentence of the Council of the Heart That your name Mat tal be erased from the list of the offl ers of the Heart that your memory t lv proclaimed accursed that your fire and dwelling place be burned with ith salt that ho site of it strewn with our 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 I I ft for aye This is the sentence of the Council of the Heart upon you Maya daughter of Zibalbay white man Son of the Sea and Ignatio the Wanderer That jour names be erased from the roll oC the Brethren of the Heart and proclaimed pro-claimed accursed in the streets of the city that you be gagged bound hand cnd foot and chained living to the walls of the Sanctuary and there left If before the altar of the god which you ft have violated till death from thirst and hunger shall overtake you that your corpses be laid upon the pyramid as prey to the birds of the air and that your souls be handed over to the tormentors tor-mentors of the under world to deal with according to their pleasure forever and for aye UIt 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 accord-ing to his pleasure i As these words passed his lips and before we fully understood them dazE > das d-as we were with the terror of our awful doom Tikal stepped fonvard and even c now I shudder as I write of itholding the poor infant which at this instant Itegan to wail as though with ain > or fear over the mouth of the pit suddenly sud-denly let it fall into the depths beneath be-neath nMThe The shriek of the agonized mother ran round the walls of the holy place I I i I end before it had died away the senor lad leaped forward leaped like a puma across the open well and gripped Tikal by the throat and wrist He gripped W him and rage giving him strength he 11 lifted him high above his headband hurled him down the dreadful place where the child bad gone before i i With a hoarse scream Tikal vanished I and for a moment there was silence It was broken by the voice of Maya crying aloud in accents of madness ana despair I I Aot an the waters of the Holy Lake li7 11 wash away our sin yet may they serve to avenge us upon you Oh you nmrderers of a helpless child t i Aif she fepoke followed by the senor nd 1Uself who I think alone of all tIll company guessed her mad purpose Maya ran round the altar and with both her hands grasped the symbol of the Heart which lay i upon it 1 I I Forbear cried the voice of Dimas j I hut she did not heed him and before 1 I he or any of us could leach her drag ging at it with desperate strength she had torn the ancient symbol from its bed and with a loud and mocking laugh cast it down upon the marble floor where it shattered into ments fragj j 1 From the altar there came a sound as of harp strings brealdng that was followed by another and more hW sound the sound of the roar of awful many Waters j f Ply fly cried a voice The floods 7 r are loosed and destruction is upon us and upon the people of the Heart I 1 Now the CouncIl rushe bneand alr + toward the door of Sanctuary but I Ignatio by the grace of heaven remembered I re-membered the other door the secret door through which we had entered I that the priest had left ajar I This way I cried in Spanish to the 1 senor and seizing Maya by the arm I 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 i sprang a vast column of water which I I 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 senor had hurled him a shapeless mass ascending and de scending with the rnlnmn r > f io n n u V alternately it struck and rebounded from the roof I Then before the flood could reach it I closed the door and possessing my ih self of the bunch of keys that still I I sages hung in and the lock we fled UP the Pas stairs till we came to the hall wllere We had been imprisoned Here however we dared not stay for already strange gurgling SOUndS Struck I 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 an1 outward their way upward Seizing lamps we ran t he t gates at the copper end of the hall and not with out trouble found the key that them opened Ye had no time to we left it the spare for as ther end water rushed in rrt the fur of the hall a solid wave that in some few seconds filled it to the depth of six or eight feet On we tIed before the advancing flood and well was it for us that our course lay upward for ay otherwise we must have beell drowned as we searched for the l keys to open the different gates and door But now fortune which for sooneTart so long hall been was our foe that befriended us and the end of6 it 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 gather a great multitude of people waiting to be admitted to celebrate the feast that on this day of the year was to be held ac cording the to custom > upon the summit of 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 sanc tuary and this night the council sat late As we looked at them a cry of fear anJ wonder rose from the multitude and this was the cause of it long that street which ran from the landing place to the great sQuare rushed n vn f iron nf to twenty feet or more in depth by one hun dred broad Now we learned the truth The symbol on the altar I know not how was connected with secret sluice gates which for many generations had nrotted the City of the Heart from flond When it was torn from its bed the e sluice pates were opened andthe water rushing in sought their natural level which 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 celebrat-ed Seeing us emerge from the watch house thev ran toward us wringing their hands and asking what dreadful thing had come to pass I replied that we lid not knpw but that seeing the water gather gath-er in our prison we had flown from it How we had fled they never stopped to apk but ran down the stairway of the pyramid only to return asrain 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 lake Whole streets went down with them to vanish suddenly beneath their foaming face while from the crowd below rose one con I tinuous shriek io agony Maya heard ol1t I and casting herself face downward upon the surface of the pyramid that she might not see her handiwork thrust her fingers into her ears while the senor and I watched fascinated Xow the flood struck the people1 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 in-stant they were gone borne away as withered leaves are borne before a gale Fre a man might count ten the moat of I the population of the City of the Heart had perished For a little while some of the most massive mas-sive houses stood only to vanish one by one in silence it seemed for now the roar of the waters covered all other rounds Before the sun was well up it was finished and of the ancient and beau tiful city Heart of the World there remained re-mained notling to be seen except the tops of the trees and the upper parts of i the pyramids of worship rising above the level of the lake j The Golden City was no more It was Jdit lth 1iL edIir gone and with it all its hoarted trea ures its learning and its ancient faith and that which for many generations hail been held to bea myth had now become a myth indeed One short hour had suf ficed to sweep out of existence the ripe fruit of the labor of centuries and with it the dwindling remnant of the last pure race of Indians who followed the customs land creeds of our forefathers Doubtless their day was done and the Power above us dccred their fall still so vast and sudden a ruin was a thing awful to behold or even to think upon What I wondered would the founders of this great city and the fashioners of its solemn sanctuary have thought and felt could they have foreseen the manner of its end Would they then have set the holy symbol so cunningly upon its altar that the strength of a maddened woman I by tearing it away could forever bury altar temple town and all that lived I therein forever beneath the surface of the lake This they did to protect their homes and sanctuaries against the foe so that if need were they could prefer destruc tion to dishonor but they did not fore see indeed they never dreamed that this foe might be of their own race and that the hand Of one of her own child ren would bring disaster utter and fIre deemable upon the proud head of their holy stronghold the City Heart of the World Now the waters found their level fill ing up the cup in which the town had stood and the bright sunlight shone on their placid surface as they rippled round the sides of the pyramid and over the flat roofs of the submerged houses Here and there floated a mass of wreckage and here and there a human corpse over wthich already the water eagles began be-gan to gather and that was all Presently Maya ose to her knots anti looked out from beneath the holnw of her hand for the light wis dazzling there upon the white summit of the pyramid pyr-amid Then she flung her arms above her head and utttered a great and bitter 1 cry cryBehold my handiwork she said and the harvest of my sin 0 my father that dream which you sent to haunt my sleep was dreadful but it did not touch the truth 0 my father the people whom you would have saved are dead And lost is the city that you loved and it is I wha have destroyed them 0 my father my father your curse has found me out indeed and I am accursed Where is the child husband l He could not answer her but she took no note of it only she bent her arms rocking them and crooning as though the infant lay upon her breast then she came first to him and next to me saying I Look is he not a pretty boy Am I not happy to be the mother of such a boy 1 made pretense to look but the sight of her pitiful face and of the empty arms as she swayed them was so dreadful dread-ful that I was forced to urn awn to hide my tears Now 1 saw the truth Weariness sorrow and shock had turned her brain and she was mad We Jed her to the watch house where theta was shelter and the priests who had returned gave us food as soon as we could make them understand that we nepdtd it for they too Were almost mad Herat her > last illness seized her Jtbe1 r t C gan with a hardening of the breast which changed presently to fever Two days and nights with Urcaking hearts we nursed her there upon the pyramid striving not to listen to her mad ravings and piteous talk about the child and at dawn upon the third day she died Before she died her senses returned to her and she spoke to her husband beautiful and tender words whUh seem almost too holy to set down Alas she ended as my heart foretold fore-told me I have brought you nothing but evil and now the time has come for me to go away from you Ignatio was right and we were wrong or rather I was wrong We should have died together a year ago for that were needful sooner than commit the sin we have worked in the sanctuary for then at least our hands would have been clean nor would the blood of the people have rested on my head headVet believe me husband that when I I did the deed of death I was mad for I had seen our child murdered before our eyes and I heard a voie within me bidding bid-ding me to be avenged Well it is done and I have suffered for it and perhaps shall suffer more yet I think that I was but the hand of the instrument of fate predestined to bring destruction upon a race already doomed and a faith outworn out-worn wornThat faith I no longer believe in for you have taught me another worship and therefore I do not fear the vengeance of the god of my people May my other sins find forgiveness if they are sins for it was love of you that led me to them Husband I trust that you may escape from this illomened place and live on for many years in hoppiness but most of all 1 trust that in the land that you will reach at last you may find us waiting for you the child and I together Farewell to you This is a sad parting and my life has been short and sorrowful yet I am glad to have lived it since it brought me to your arms and however little li-ttle I may have deserved it I think that you loved me truly and will love my memory even when I art dead To you also Ignatio farewel You have been a true friend to me though I brought you no good luck and at times was jealous of you Think kindly of me if you can though had it not been for me you might have attained your endsand as in the old days before we met comfort i com-fort my husband with your friendship fogleYolll A ll i It eIf Then once more she turned to the senor and in a gasping and broken voice prayed of him not to forget her or her child 1 I heard him answer that this she need not fear as his happiness died with her and I I oven if he should escape the thought that I they would not bo parted for very long i nor could any other woman take her place in his heart I She blessed him and thanked him ca I re sing his face with her dying hands and unable to bear more of such a sight I left them together II I An hour later the senor came from the watch house arid though he did not speak I I one glance at his face was epough to tell me that all was over I Thus died Maya Lady of the Heart the last of the ancient royal blood of the Indian I In-dian princes myself alone excepted avery I a-very sweet and beautiful woman though at times headstrong and capricious Now while Maya lay dying we learned i that some Indians still lived on the mainland main-land men and women who had been sent I there to tend the crops for we saw a canoe ca-noe hovering round what once had been I the Island of the Heart The two priests I who were with us on the pyramid trIed Ito I-to signal to it to come to our rescue but i either those in the boat did not see us or I they were terror stricken and feared to rAIell ffc1d approach the pyramid Still we kept the I body all that day hoping that help might reach us so that we could take it ashore I for burial Toward nirht however when none came we made another plan On the roof I of the watch house the sacred fire still burned for the two priests had tended J I it more from custom I think than forf f any other reason Hither we brought I some of the gilded stools that were used by tho nobles of the Heart on days of festivals fes-tivals and nil the fuel that had been stored to replenish the fire building the whole into a funeral pyre around and j j I above the brazier Then as it caught we carried out the bodv of Maya wranped jn her white robes and laid it upon the pyre I and left it Presently the great pile was alight and I burning so fiercely that it lit up the whole summit of the pyramid anti the darkness which surrounded it All that I night we watched it while the priests lamented and beat their 1 breasts after i i tliia li tJ1b fl their fashion till at length it flared it I I pelf away and the holy fire that had I burned for more than a thousand years Jlego ach hleJeaH i died down and was extinguished It deemed very fitting that the latest office I of this ancient and consecrated flame should be to consume the body oraih i last of the royal race who had tended It for so many generations I Toward dawn a wind sprang up and when we approached the place at day I break it was to findtfit cold and blick ended No spark remained alight and no ash or fragment could be seen of her I j who was once the beautiful and gracious Lady of the Heart Now we set ourselves sadly enough to I find a means of escape to the mainland which indeed it was time to do for the waters working in its renter were snap I ping the foundations of the great pyramid pyra-mid portions of which had already fallen I i fall-en away Our plan was to form a raft by lashing together some benches that II were at hand and on it to float or pad I dle ourselves to the shore This however we were spared the pains of doing for when our task was I half completed we saw a large canoe manned by three Indians advancing toward to-ward us and signalled to them to pad die round to the steps of the pyramid i They did so and taking with us all the food and such few articlcs of value as were to be found in the watch house the four of us embarked though not without with-out difficulty for the current ran so strong juiidthie crumbling angles of the pyramid thdt it was hard to bring the canoe up to the stails From the Indians we learned that those onshore were sOl overwhelmed with horror hor-ror at the catastrophe which liad fallen tipon their holy city that they did not i dare to approach the place where it had stood1 Butwhen last nightthoj saw tM j 4 great flame of Mayas funeral pyre they i knew that men still lived on the pyramid pyra-mid who as they thought were signal ling to them for help and ventured out to save them They asked us how it came about that the waters had overwhelmed the city which had stood among them safely I from the beginning of time We replied re-plied that we did not know and the priests with us now that they had escaped i es-caped with their lives seemed too pros trated to tell our deliverers that we had been imprisoned itt the hollow of the pyramid even if they knew that this was soOn so-On reaching the shore we found a lit I tle gathering of < awestricken Indians J I perhaps there may have been 15 of them the sole survivors of the people of the I Heart Openmouthed and almost without with-out comment they listened to the terri ble tale of the sudden destruction of the cityWhen When it was done one among them sug I v4 L3 i J J Jfl O tz7 j 4 L k 1 1Ir rTi I iM 4L j TIKAI CASTS THE BAKE INTO THE PIT H H I gested that the white man should be killed i kill-ed as without doubt he had brought misfortune mis-fortune and the vengeance of heaven upon I up-on their race but this proposal seemed to lind no favor with the rest of them Indeed In-deed had they known the part which we I played in the disaster I doubt if they would have found the spirit to make an end of us Online other hand they gave I us what food and clothing we required and even weapons Birchas hatchets1 bows and arrows and blowpipes and let us go our way Often I have wondered what became of them and if any of their number or of their children still survive So we turned our faces to the mountains and on the second day crossed cross-ed them safely for Maya had told us the secret of the passage which we had passed blindfolded Thus at length having looked our last upon the blue waters of the Holy lake sparkling in the sunshine above the palaces of he ciy and the bones of its inhabitaus > ifl vc leave that accursed Country of the 1 i Heait I where so much evil had befallen us ENVOI My friend nov I have finlshel writing that story of now i camo to visit the Golden City of the lull tas whch so many have believed to be fabulous I and which now exists no more Ic is a strange story and I trust it may interest inter-est you to read it when I am dead and I buried I Perhaps you would like to know the details de-tails of our homeward journey but in truth I have neither the strength nor the patience to set them down It was a terrible journey and once we both of us fell ill with fever from which I thought we should not recover but recover we did with the help of some wandering Indians In-dians who nursed us and at length reached this place from which we had fled for our lives nearly two years before be-fore Then the hacienda was deserted for it had the reputation of being haunted though some of the Indian dependents or rather slaves of that great villian Don Pedro Moreno still worked patches of the land Well the senor took a fancy to stay in the place for it was here that he had first seen his wife nail so we sold that girdle of emeralds which Maya took from the chest of ornaments and gave to me when we were imprisoned in the hall of the pyramid by tae way do not lose the clasp for it is the only remaining remain-ing relic of the People of the Heart and with the proceeds bought at a cheap rate from the government of the day who had entered into possession of them this house and the wle lands around it that I have cultivated ever since For my friend now my ambitions were finished I had played my last card and it had failed me and albiet with a sorrowful sor-rowful mind I abandoned my hope for the regeneration of the rndians which I had no longer the means or the vigor to attempt Also I was no longer Lord of the Heart for it was lost yonder beneath be-neath the waters of the Holy Lake and with it went much of my power For five years the senor and I lived here together but I think that during all this time he was dying He who used to be so strong in body and merry in mind never regained his health or spirits from that hour when Maya died upon the pyramid and though he seldom sel-dom spoke of her I know that she was always present in his thoughts Twice in the spring season he suffered from calenturas as we call the fever of the country which left him sallow in face and shrunken in body and when the spring came round for the third time I begged him to go to Mexico for a change returning to the hacienda In the summer In vain he would not do it indeed I 10 not think that he cared whether he lived or tiled So the end of it was that the calentura tooK him again and die lie did in my arms happily hap-pily as a child that falls asleep Now my days are accomplished also and I go to join him My friend farewell fare-well Perhaps you will think of me from time to time and though you are a heretic her-etic send up a prayer to heaven for the welfare of my soul THE END |