The Harlequin Opal: A Romance. Volume 2 of 3
Experience had taught Don Hypolito that the only way to fathom the feelings of others was to make them talk freely, listen attentively, and draw conclusions from chance observations. This method he now applied to Jack, and asked him to proceed in a grave tone of voice, all the time keeping his ears open to find out the underlying meaning of this impassive demeanour. He discovered nothing, because there was nothing to discover. Jack spoke truthfully and bluntly, giving voice to his real feelings, and Xuarez, accustomed to double dealing, to double meaning, was for once in his life utterly at fault.
"You have started this war, Señor," said Jack with painful candour, "entirely for your own ends. The excuse you make is that Gomez has broken the constitution of Cholacaca. This is false, as you know well. However, it is a good excuse upon which to work out your aims. In this war you wish the civilised world to be on your side – to look upon you as a great man, fitted to be the saviour of Cholacaca from a tyrannical Government. To this end you dare not act violently towards any representative nation of the civilised world. England is a representative nation, and you to-day saluted her flag. You respected the ambassadors from the Junta because they were accompanied by Englishmen, because they came here on an English ship. One of those men whom you thus respected is the war correspondent of a London paper, and you wished him of write home to his journal narrating the courtesy of Don Hypolito Xuarez, and thus interesting our nation's feelings in your favour. The attack made by the mob was, I firmly believe, made without your sanction. You wished the embassy to depart in safety, and they so departed. One man, however, you desired to detain, because he was your rival in the affections of a woman. That man is myself! So you made use of the riot to have me knocked down in the fight, and taken here to prison. Now that you think I am worn out with wounds, thirst, and imprisonment, you come to offer me my liberty on two conditions. First, that I surrender all right to the hand of Doña Dolores. Second, that I leave Cholacaca for ever. These, Señor Xuarez, are your motives in acting as you have done, dictated, as I said before, not, perhaps, by your real character, but by the noble character in which you wish to appear to the world."
Don Hypolito listened to this long speech with rapt attention, and could not help admiring the way in which the young man had fathomed his motives. When Jack ended, he raised his head and proceeded to lie – uselessly, as it afterwards proved – still he lied.
"In a great measure, what you say is correct, Don Juan. I do wish to stand well with the nations, of Europe, because I believe my cause to be a just one. Gomez was elected President by the aristocrats, not by the people. I believe in democracy. He governs so as to throw the whole power of the state into the hands of those who would take away the liberties of the people, won so gloriously by Zuloaga. You say I have begun this war from a personal ambition. That may be so. I wish to be Dictator – Supreme Dictator of the Republic, and to raise her to her rightful position as a power in the world. These, Señor, are political and personal questions. They need not be discussed. What you say about the embassy is true. Had the boat of Señor Felipe entered the harbour under the opal flag, I would have ordered the fort guns to sink her for such audacity. She however carried the English ensign. I respected that ensign; I received the deputation; I heard the insolent demand of the Junta, and gave my answer. They were free to depart without hindrance from me. The outbreak of the mob was solely due to the message sent. I did not create the riot. I did not make use of the tumult to get you into my power. But when in the mêlée you were stunned, my soldiers carried you off to the Palacio Nacional. I saw an opportunity of gaining my ends by thus having you in my power, and so put you in this prison. Now I come to make my terms. Accept them, and you are free. Refuse, and a terrible fate will befall you!"
"To remain in prison here, I suppose?" said Jack, contemptuously.
"No; worse!"
"What, would you kill me?"
"I will not harm a hair of your head. What your fate will be I refuse to tell you; but if you are a wise man you will accept my offer of freedom."
"And accept your conditions also. The conditions being those I have stated?"
"Precisely! You have rare penetration, Don Juan! My conditions are as you have guessed. Give up Doña Dolores! leave Cholacaca, and you are free."
"I refuse."
"Think well, Señor," said Xuarez, coldly. "I am not a man to threaten in vain. Your fate will be a terrible one."
"I quite believe you capable of any enormity, Don Hypolito," retorted Jack, with a curling lip; "but why waste any more time over the matter? I refuse!"
"On what grounds?"
"On what grounds?" reiterated Jack, in a haughty tone. "Simply that it does not suit my convenience either to give up Doña Dolores or to leave Cholacaca at your bidding."
Xuarez was nettled at Jack's elaborately insulting manner; but he did not lose his temper. He was too clever a man to do that. With a sudden change of front, he took a hint from card-players, and tried to force Jack's hand.
"You love Doña Dolores?"
"That is not a question for you to ask."
"Pardon me, Señor; I also love Doña Dolores, therefore I am interested in your reply."
"Are you?" said Jack, facing his questioner sharply; "then you shall have it. I do love Doña Dolores; and, what is more, she returns that love. One person only will she marry, and that person is myself, John Duval!"
"You will never marry her!" exclaimed Xuarez, vehemently. "She is mine! – mine! Before a month is gone, she becomes my wife!"
"Ah!" sneered Jack, with a world of meaning in his tone, "I knew you lied when you said she was not in Acauhtzin."
"Carrai!" cried Don Hypolito, who was beginning to lose his temper; "I did not lie. She is not in Acauhtzin. She is – "
"Where?" asked Duval, impetuously.
"In a place you will never discover, Señor. Not that it matters much, for, in any case, you will not marry her. No! You are reserved for a worse fate! – a fate which will bitterly punish you for daring to be my rival."
"I am not a child, to be frightened of big words," said Jack, scornfully, though his heart quailed at the deadly menace of the Mestizo's tones. "My friends know I am in Acauhtzin. They will come back for me."
"They have already tried to do so," retorted Xuarez, triumphantly. "When they left the harbour, I suppose they discovered you were left behind. The boat returned; but a few shot from the forts, and the war-ships made her retreat, and when I last saw her she was steaming full speed for Tlatonac."
"Yes? I knew as much. To bring back an army to level Acauhtzin to the ground. To capture you! to rescue me!"
"No one can rescue you!" replied Xuarez, in a sombre tone. "Your only chance of escape is to give up Doña Dolores!"
"To you! to you!" cried Jack, fiercely. "You who love her not for herself, but because she is the guardian of the opal stone! Ah, yes, Señor Xuarez! I know well what you design. You wish to marry Dolores – to secure the opal stone, to gain over the Indians to your cause. All ambition; there is no love. I tell you, Señor, such a thing can never be. Dolores would sooner die than give herself up to a villain like yourself. You will never possess Dolores – you will never be master of the Chalchuih Tlatonac! Turn your ambitions to other things, Don Hypolito. Dolores is not for you!"
Don Hypolito sprang to his feet with a cry of rage. Hitherto he had restrained himself in a most admirable manner; but now the insulting speeches of his prisoner proved too much for even his well-trained temper. A torrent of passion swept away all his reserve, and he burst out into a furious speech.
"Dolores is for me! She will be mine in another week or so. She is the guardian of the opal, and that also will be mine. When I am possessed of the devil stone, the Indians will flock round my standard. I have the fleet, I have an army, I will have the Indians, too, my allies, guided by the devil stone. That, also, will be mine, and Dolores with it. I will become Dictator of Cholacaca. I will raise her to a pinnacle of power. She will rule the South – nay, the North also. Mexico, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Guatemala, they will all be mine. In the North, the United States; in the South, the Empire of the Opal, with myself as Ruler. It is a grand – "
"Dream!" interrupted Jack, faintly, for the pain of his wound was telling on his frame. "It is a dream! a dream!"
"It is no dream! Or, if a dream, it will soon turn out a reality. And you – you low-born Englishman, would dare to bar my way to this fame. Lie there, Señor, and wait my commands. You will die, and by a death which will break even your spirit. You will die and be forgotten, while I, Hypolito Xuarez, will reconstruct on this continent the Empire of Montezuma!"
He spoke to deaf ears, for, overcome by fatigue and pain, Duval had fainted. Xuarez bent over him, and held the lantern to his face. It was deadly pale, and the eyes were closed.
"I do not want him to die," muttered the remorseless Mestizo, going towards the door. "I shall send a doctor to look after his wound. He shall be made whole again, but only to perish in tortures. Not for you, Don Juan, is Dolores; not for you the opal, but death and dishonour. You fall! I rise! My star quenches yours in its burning splendour."
In another moment he had quitted the prison, leaving his rival stretched out in the darkness, to all appearances lifeless and lost.
CHAPTER V
IN SHADOWLAND
Weary body, aching brain,Tortured mind, and heavy soul,Fourfold being, one existence!Life with troublous insistence,To ye brings but constant dole,Ceaseless weeping, endless pain;Yet is all this sorrow vainWhen the waves of slumber rollOver body, over soul.In such slumber should ye list, henceFlies the spirit to attainThat far land of dreams and stories,Misty realms of airy glories,Where the body hath no being,Nor the eyes an earthly seeingAnd the mind makes no resistanceTo events which overleapNature's laws, which bind existence;From our sphere the spirit fleeingDwells but in the realm of sleep.After that extraordinary interview with Don Hypolito in the prison, Jack ceased to take any interest in earthly matters, and went for a space into shadow-land. He was not dead, but delirious. As a captive balloon is anchored to earth, so Jack's soul had flown into the realms of dream, yet was held to his body by a small amount of life.
Yet curiously enough he retained a dull impression of earthly events. All things actually done to his body coloured his dreams and decided his visions. As the fancies of the sleepers are determined by external actions, so as through a veil the wounded man faintly perceived the every-day life going on around his inert body. Through the chain extending from body to soul which held the latter captive to earth passed the thrills hinting at corporeal-existence, and these dominating his spirituality whirled him hither and thither, according as they happened. We in health feel in slumber the power of the unseen world guiding our every action; this man, in sickness dwelt, spiritually speaking, in the world of shadows, whereof we have no knowledge, and therefrom felt rather than saw the happening of earthly events which coloured his ghostly being.
Oh those dreams, those visions apocalyptical, what agonies, what ecstacies, what feelings did they not beget? Now of earth, now of heaven, frequently of hell. Years afterwards, Jack remembering portions of these fantasies, would shudder and turn pale at the mere thought of having endured them. Wild as the visions of Ezekiel, gorgeous as the Arabian Nights, hideous as De Quincey's dreamings, delicate and spiritual as the songs of Aeriel, those chimeras, at once terrible and fascinating, racked his spiritual being with the pangs of pleasure and pain. As thus: —
… Darkness! the infinite darkness of chaos, before the light-creating word was spoken by the Deity. Ages and ages and ages of gloom, of horror, of thick opacity. No light, no glimmer, no glow to break this all-pervading blackness. No earth beneath, no sky above, nothing but clinging gloom on all sides. So chill, so freezing – surely hell were not more terrible…
Ha! a burst of light penetrating the gloom. The word is spoken, the light is here… Day divides itself from night … from the womb of the darkness springs the faint radiance of dawn. Then the sun, the glorious sun, rises like a god to conquer the foul fiends of shadow. See how his arrows fly, golden and swift, from his never-empty bow … east, west, north, south … and the glory of light spreads over all creation… I am borne along on the wings of a mighty wind blown from the gates of the dawn … faster and faster and faster… I swim through the crystalline air… I poise myself like a bird in the opaline glories of a whirling sphere… In the heart of the rainbow … still no earth … but air and the coruscation of infinite colours – red and yellow and green and blue… They swirl in circles, they shoot on all sides from a spot of brilliance as the spokes of a wheel… They range themselves in lines of ever-changing hues … and now I am blown resistlessly onward by that mighty wind…
The sea! gloom once more! I can see nothing but darkness, yet penetrated by faint gleams of light… The wash of many waves break on my ears… Overhead a sky veiled in clouds, beneath the black breast of ocean, heaving restlessly in white lines of foam… I smell the salt brine of the ocean… The keen wind lashes my face as with a whip… Ho! yeo, ho!.. the sailors are at work… Hark! the throb of a heart. Beat! beat! beat! beat! It is the beating of the propeller blades now striking the water … I am in the engine-room … the pistons slide silently in and out of the cylinders… Now the giant cranks rise and fall with monotonous motion … and yon gleaming steel shaft, revolving rapidly, turns the screw in the dark waters without … the hiss of escaping steam … the whirling of wheels … the sudden burst of red flame from the furnace … I am carried across the ocean … whither?
Earth! at last the land… Mother of all things, I salute thee … this bleak beach on which dash the waves … the soft odour of the wind sways the trees on yonder promontory… I hear the measured dip of oars … the grating of the boat's keel on the stones… Ha! I am in the hands of demons … their eyes glare as they lift me from boat to litter… The curtains are dropped, and I feel the swing and sway of the litter being carried up steep heights…
This is a primeval forest … green as the sea … scarcely so restless … the warm wind stirs the giant branches … what crowded hues … and lo! the flash of brilliant flowers … the odour of spices… Brilliant birds flit from branch to branch like flying gems… I hear the singing of choirs invisible … the birds!.. Yes, birds only… Garlands of flowers trail from the trees … beneath their shadow the grass is crowded with blossoms … wherever I step a flower springs to being … those pools of still water blue as turquoise … the Indian conjurer!.. I see him hiding amid the frondage … look!.. the saurian!.. Oh, the frightful monster… Preadamite!.. begotten in chaos slime… Trees! trees! trees without end… The earth is one vast forest, and I alone wander therein…
Snow!.. a vast expanse of snow … for miles and leagues… No! it is salt lying in thin flakes on the brown earth … the surface glitters in the moonlight as if it were ice… Far and wide whirl thin white pillars of salt in the grip of the wind… Lot's wife! Ha! Ha! Nay, no woman do I see, but salt on all hands … like snow … and moon freezing crystals…
The forest again … more trees … birds … odours… Hark! a song … 'tis the dancing-girls who sing … I heard them call … I see them shake their anklets of gold … the cymbals crash … the trinkets shine. Can you not hear the roll of the serpent-skin drums?..
Oh, this interminable avenue of stone gods … on either side the faces of solemn sphinxes… I am in Egypt … I go up to offer sacrifice to the god Thoth … lines of sphinxes … statues of kings with their hands placed on their knees … then this great flight of steps… Up, and up and up… Are we going to heaven?.. I will bow down to my God… Horror! Huitzilopochtli… This is not my God… I sacrifice to Thoth… To Isis… Ah, you would make of me the victim… Oh, foul priest, knife in hand … the stone of the sacrifice … you raise the obsidian knife … Again the chant of the priests … the light clash of the dancing-girls' anklets … drums … cymbals and death…
I am in the tomb … yes; fold my hands on my breast, for I have done with life … straight and white I lie, with cerements swathing my form … this is a king's tomb … these walls are painted with many colours … yonder are gods and kings and heroes walking in long files … here they sacrifice to their god … there they lead captive trains of prisoners… A splendid tomb, but the roof crushes me down … oh, Heaven! can those pillars, those caryatides support the cyclopean architecture?.. It will fall and crush me, like Samson… Yes, I thirst! I am dead, but I thirst… Dives in hell … give me…
… What! a woman's face?.. I have seen that face before … those dark eyes, that smiling mouth … it is thou! Dolores! Oh, my heart's best love, I again find you, – in the tomb?.. we have done with life … then we were divided; but Death, more merciful, has joined us again… Place your cool white hand on my brow … it burns … it burns… No, no! do not leave me … oh, I see you fade in the darkness like a vision … and this phantom which rises between us?.. Oh, Xuarez! liar! thief! murderer!.. thus do I slay thee!.. So weak; so weary; I know nothing … where am I?.. what am I?.. whither have my visions fled?.. I am dead! not in hell, nor heaven … but where? I know not … I am dead … you, Dolores … you, Xuarez … you all, dreams… I lie here dead and still … in my ear the chant of a slave… Could I only turn my head … ah! the slave rises … he bends over me… Cocom!..
"Yes, Señor, it is Cocom," said a well-known voice, as a gentle hand skilfully adjusted the bandages.
"Cocom!" repeated Jack, in a weak voice. "Am I dead? Do I dream? Am I dead?"
"No, Señor Juan. You were nearly dead, and for days you have dreamed of many things. Now you are better, and will live."
"Still 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!"
