Heart of the World | Page 4

portrait of one of the abbots
of the monastery, life-size and painted in oils upon a panel,
representing a man of fierce and evil countenance, over whose tonsured
head the Holy Spirit was shown hovering in the shape of a dove. For
the rest, the room was well, if lightly, furnished, and boasted the luxury
of squares of matting laid upon the brick floor.
"I fear that you will think this but a dismal apartment, señor," said Don
Ignatio, "still it is our guest-chamber; moreover, there is a room
attached which I thought might be useful to you to write in, should you
wish to do so. The people here say that the place is haunted, but I know
you Englishmen do not bother about such things. It is not wonderful,
however, that they talk thus, seeing that murders were done in this
chamber in the time of Don Pedro Moreno. Indeed, he laid a plot to kill
me and my friend here, and, though he did not succeed in that instance,
when I came into possession afterwards, I found several skeletons
beneath the floor--two of them, I remember, just where the bed stands
now--and gave them decent burial."
Jones, as in honour bound, declared himself to be totally indifferent to
representations of tortures of the Inquisition, memories of departed
abbots, skeletons of murdered men beneath the floor, ghosts, and /hoc
genus omne/. Still, though he never confessed it to his host, his first
night in the abbot's chamber, owing probably to the strong coffee which
he had drunk, was not altogether a pleasant experience. In after days,
however, he became well accustomed to the place, and, indeed,

preferred it to any other room in the /hacienda/.
In contrast to the rude and ill-dressed fare with which Jones was fain to
satisfy himself at the mine, Don Ignatio's supper was a feast worthy of
Epicurus, especially as it was free from the horrible messes,
compounded of oil and the inward parts of animals, that figure so
largely in Mexican cookery.
After their meal, cigars and black coffee were handed round, of which
the raw materials had been grown on the estate, and never in his life did
Jones smoke better tobacco. When the /padre/--a gentle and
well-informed man--had departed, Jones began to speak of the
antiquities of the country. Soon he found that his host's knowledge of
the subject had not been exaggerated, seeing that he was even able to
decipher hieroglyphic writings of which the key was supposed to be
lost, and to give an outline of the history of the races who built the
great temples and palaces, whereof so many ruins are to be found in the
Palenque district.
"It is sad to think," said Jones presently, "that nothing in which the
breath of life remains is left of all this civilisation. If only the old
legend of the Golden City, hidden away somewhere in the unexplored
recesses of Central America, were true, I think that I would give ten
years of my existence to visit it. It would be a glorious thing to step
back into the past, to see a system at work, and mingle with a people of
which the world has lost all count and knowledge; for, let the
imagination be active as it will, it is practically impossible to
reconstruct these things from ruins and traditions. In fact, Don Ignatio,
I do not understand how it is that you, who have never seen the
/antiguos/ in the flesh, can talk about them so certainly."
"If I had never seen them, señor," he answered, quietly, "it would be
wonderful. Indeed, you might be justified in setting me down as a teller
of tales, but it chances that I /have/ seen the Golden City of fable and
its civilisation, and I can assure you that its wonders were far greater
than any that have been told of in legend, or even by the Spanish
romancers."

"What!" gasped Jones, "what! Have I been drinking too much of your
excellent wine? Am I asleep, or did I hear you say that you, the
gentleman sitting before me, with your own eyes had seen the secret
city of the Indians?"
"You heard me say so, señor, though I did not in the least expect you to
believe me. Indeed, it is because I cannot bear to be thought a liar, that
I have never said anything of this story, and for this same reason I shall
not repeat it to you, since I do not wish that one whom I hope will
become my friend should hold me in contempt.
"In truth I am sorry that I have spoken so freely, but, in support of my
veracity, I will beg you to remember that among the huge forests,
wildernesses,