The Aztec Treasure-House

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Aztec Treasure-House, by Thomas Allibone Janvier

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Title: The Aztec Treasure-House
Author: Thomas Allibone Janvier
Release Date: May 26, 2007 [EBook #21618]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE
By Thomas Allibone Janvier

Copyright, 1890, by Harper & Brothers.
All rights reserved.

TO C. A. J.

Departimiento y ha entre los enga?os. Catales y ha que son buenos, e tales que malos, e buenos son aquellos que los omnes fazen a buena fe e a buena intencion.--ALONZO el SABIO, Setena Partida, Titulo xvi., Ley ii.

[Illustration: The Dying Cacique.]

CONTENTS.
PROLOGUE
I. FRAY ANTONIO
II. THE CACIQUE'S SECRET
III. THE MONK'S MANUSCRIPT
IV. MONTEZUMA'S MESSENGER
V. THE ENGINEER AND THE LOST-FREIGHT MAN
VI. THE KING'S SYMBOL
VII. THE FIGHT IN THE CA?ON
VIII. AFTER THE FIGHT
IX. THE CAVE OF THE DEAD
X. THE SWINGING STATUE
XI. THE SUBMERGED CITY
XII. IN THE VALLEY OF DEATH
XIII. UP THE CHAC-MOOL STAIR
XIV. THE HANGING CHAIN
XV. THE TEMPLE IN THE CLOUDS
XVI. AT THE BARRED PASS
XVII. OF OUR COMING INTO THE VALLY OF AZTLAN
XVIII. THE STRIKING OF A MATCH
XIX. THE SEEDS OF REVOLT
XX. THE PRIEST CAPTAIN'S SUMMONS
XXI. THE WALLED CITY OF CULHUACON
XXII. THE OUTBREAK OF REVOLUTION
XXIII. A RESCUE
XXIV. THE AFFAIR AT THE WATER-GATE
XXV. THE GOLD-MINERS OF HUITZILAN
XXVI. THE GATHERING FOR WAR
XXVII. AN OFFER OF TERMS
XXVIII. THE SURRENDER OF A LIFE
XXIX. THE ASSAULT IN THE NIGHT
XXX. THE FALL OF THE CITADEL
XXXI. DEFEAT
XXXII. EL SABIO'S DEFIANCE
XXXIII. IN THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE
XXXIV. A MARTYRDOM
XXXV. THE TREASURE-CHAMBER
XXXVI. THE VENGEANCE OF THE GODS
XXXVII. THROUGH DARKNESS TO LIGHT
XXXVIII. KING CHALTZANTZIN'S TREASURE
EPILOGUE

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
THE DYING CACIQUE
THE LETTER FROM THE DEAD
PACKING IN THE CORRAL
THE FIGHT IN THE CA?ON
THE CAVE OF THE DEAD
AFLOAT ON THE LAKE
EL SABIO'S PREDICAMENT
MAKING THE PEACE-SIGN
THE FULFILMENT OF THE PROPHECY
THE STRIKING OF A MATCH
CHECKING YOUNG'S OUTBREAK
THE LEAP FROM ABOVE THE WATER-GATE
THE TLAHUICOS AND THEIR GUARDS
IN THE GATE-WAY OF THE CITADEL
THE LAST RALLY
EL SABIO'S DEFIANCE
FRAY ANTONIO'S APPEAL
YOUNG'S STRUGGLE WITH THE PRIEST CAPTAIN
IN THE LIBRARY BEFORE THE OPEN FIRE

Who'd hear great marvels told-- Come listen now! Who longs for hidden gold-- Come listen now! Who joys in well-fought fights, Who yearns for wondrous sights, Who pants for strange delights-- Come listen now!
For here are marvels told To listen to! Here tales of hidden gold To listen to! Here gallant men wage fights, Here pass most wondrous sights, Here's that which ear delights To listen to!

THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE

PROLOGUE.
"God sends nuts to them who have no teeth:" which ancient Spanish proverb of contrariety comes strongly to mind as I set myself to this writing.
By nature am I a studious, book-loving man, having a strong liking for quiet and orderliness. Yet in me also is a strain that urges me, even along ways which are both rough and dangerous, to get beyond book-knowledge, and to examine for myself the abstractions of thought and the concretions of men and things out of the consideration whereof books are made. And I hold that it is because I have thus sought for truth in its original sources, instead of resting content with what passes for truth, being detached fragments of fact which other men have found and have cut and polished to suit themselves, that I have gathered to myself more of it, and in its rude yet perfect native crystals, than has come into the possession of any other modern investigator. In making which strong assertion I am not moved by idle vanity, but by a just and reasonable conception of the intrinsic merit of my own achievement: as will be universally admitted when I publish the great work, now almost ready for the press, upon which, in preparatory study and in convincing discovery, I have been for the past ten years engaged. For I speak well within bounds when I declare that a complete revolution in all existing conceptions of American arch?ology and ethnology will be wrought when Pre-Columbian Conditions on the Continent of North America, by Professor Thomas Palgrave, Ph.D. (Leipsic), is given to the world.
Upon this work I say that I have been engaged for ten years. Rather should I say that I have been engaged upon it for forty years; for its germs were implanted in me when I was a child of but six years old. Before my intelligence at all could grasp the meaning of what I read, my imagination was fired by reading in the pages of Stephens of the wonders which that eminent explorer discovered in Yucatan; and my mind then