Heart of the World

Chapter V The Beginning of the Quest

Something more than a month from the day when the Señor Strickland and I made our compact to search for the secret city of the Indians, we found ourselves, together with Molas, at Vera Cruz, waiting for a ship to take us to Frontera, where we proposed to disembark. This port we had chosen in preference to Campeche, although the latter was nearer to the ruins where we hoped to find the Indian Zibalbay, because from it we could travel in canoes up the Grijalva and other rivers, unobserved by any save the natives.

Things are changed now in these parts, but in those days the white men who lived thereabouts beyond the circle of the towns were too often robbers, as Molas had found to his cost some few weeks before.

At Vera Cruz we purchased such articles as were necessary to our journey, not many, for we could not be sure of finding means to carry them. Among them were hammocks, three guns that would shoot either ball or shot, with ammunition, as many muzzle–loading Colt's revolvers, the best that were to be had twenty years ago, some medicines, blankets, boots, and spare clothes.

Also we took with us all the money that we possessed, amounting to something over fifteen hundred dollars in gold, which sum we divided between us, carrying it in belts about our middles. At Vera Cruz, where people are very curious about the business of others, we gave out that the Señor Strickland was one of those strange Englishmen who love to visit old ruins, for which purpose he was travelling to Yucatan; that I, Ignatio, was his guide and companion, and that Molas, my foster–brother, was our servant.

Now we purposed to leave Vera Cruz by a fine American vessel, a sailing ship, that, after touching at the ports along the coast, traded to Havana and New York. As it chanced, the departure of this ship was delayed for a week, so, being pressed for time and fearing lest we should catch the yellow fever that was raging in the town, unhappily for ourselves we took passage in a Mexican boat called the Santa Maria.

She was an old sailing vessel of not more than two hundred and fifty tons burden, that had been converted by her owners into a paddle–wheel steamer, with the result that, except in favourable weather, she could neither sail nor steam with any speed or safety. Her business was to trade with passengers and cargo between Vera Cruz and the ports of Frontera and Campeche.

"Where for?" asked the agent of the Señor Strickland, as he filled in the tickets.

"Frontera," he answered. "Your boat stops there, does she not?"

"Oh! certainly, señor," he said, as he pocketed the dollars, and yet all the while this shameless rogue knew that she had orders to touch at Campeche, which is the furthest port, first, and return to Frontera a week later. But of this more in its place.

That afternoon the Santa Maria, with us on board of her, was piloted out of the harbour of Vera Cruz, and we heard the pilot swearing because she would not answer properly to her helm. Standing by the engines we noticed also that, though they had not been working for more than half an hour, it was found necessary to keep a stream of water in constant play upon the bearings.

The señor asked the reason of this of the man who was mate and engineer of the boat, and he answered, with a shrug, that sand had got into the machinery when she was steaming over the bar of the Grijalva river, but that he thought the bearings, should it please the Saints, would last this voyage, unless they had the bad luck to run into a norther, as you English call el Norte; the fearful gales that in certain seasons of the year sweep over the Gulf of Mexico.

"And if we 'run into a norther'?" he asked—whereupon the man made a grimace, crossed himself to avert the omen, and vanished down the stoke–hole.

Now we began to feel sorry that we had not taken passage in the American ship, since of late northers had been frequent, but as, for good or ill, we were on board the Santa Maria, we amused ourselves by studying our fellow–passengers.

Of these there were several on board, perhaps twenty in all, Mexican landowners and officials returning to their haciendas and native towns after a visit to Vera Cruz, or the capital, some of them pleasant companions enough and others not so. Three or four of these gentlemen were accompanied by their wives, but the ladies had already retired to the bunks opening out of the cabin, where, although the sea was quite smooth, they could be heard suffering the pains of sickness.

Among the passengers was one, a man of not more than thirty years of age, who particularly attracted our attention because of the gorgeousness of his dress. In appearance he was large, handsome, and coarse, and he had Indian blood in his veins, as was shown by the darkness of his colour and the thick black eyebrows that gave a truculent expression to his face. While I was wondering who he might be, Molas made a sign to me to come aside, and said:

"You see yonder man with the silver buttons on his coat: he is Don José Moreno, the son of that Don Pedro Moreno who waylaid and robbed me of the nuggets which the old Indian gave me for the cost of my journey to find you. I heard at the time that he was away from the hacienda in Vera Cruz or Mexico, and now doubtless he returns thither. Beware of him, lord, and bid the Englishman to do the same, for, like his father, he is a bad man—" and he told me certain things connected with him and his family.

While Molas was talking, a bell had rung for dinner, but I waited till he had finished before going down. At the door of the cabin I met the captain, a stout man with a face like a full moon and a bland smile.

"What do you seek, señor?" he asked.

"My dinner, señor," I answered.

"It shall be sent to you on the deck," he said, not without confusion. "I do not wish to be rude, señor, but you know that these Mexicans—I am a Spaniard myself and do not care—hate to sit at meat with an Indian, so, if you insist upon coming in, there will be trouble."

Now I heard, and though the insult was deep, it was one to which I was accustomed, for in this land, which belongs to them and where their fathers ruled, to be an Indian is to be an outcast.

Therefore, not wishing to make a stir, I bowed and turned away. Meanwhile, it seems that the Señor Strickland, missing me in the cabin, asked the captain where I was, saying that perhaps I did not know that the meal was ready.

"If you refer to your servant, the Indian," said the captain, "I met him at the door and sent him away. Surely the señor knows that we do not sit at table with these people."

"Captain," answered the Señor Strickland, "if my friend is an Indian, he is as good a gentleman as you or anybody else in this cabin; moreover, he has paid for a first–class fare and has a right to first–class accommodation. I insist upon a seat being provided for him at my side."

"As you wish," answered the captain, smiling, for he was a man of peace, "only if he comes there will be trouble." And he ordered the steward to fetch me.

Now this steward was an Indian who knew my rank. Therefore not wishing to offend me by repeating what had passed, he said simply that the captain sent his compliments and begged that I would come down to dinner. The end of it was that I went, though doubtfully, and, seeing me in the doorway the Señor Strickland called to me in a loud voice, saying:

"You are late for dinner, friend, but I have kept your place here by me. Sit down quickly or the food will be cold."

I bowed to the company and obeyed, and then the trouble commenced, for all present had heard this talk. As I took my seat the Mexicans began to murmur, and the passenger who was next to me insolently moved his plate and glass away. Now almost opposite to me sat Don José Moreno, that man of whom Molas had told me. As I took my seat he consulted hastily with a neighbour on his right, then, addressing the captain, said in a loud voice:

"There is some mistake; it is not usual that Indian dogs should sit at the same table with gentlemen."

The captain shrugged his shoulders and answered mildly:

"Perhaps the señor will settle the question with the English señor on my left. To me it does not matter; I am only a poor sailor, and accustomed to every sort of company."

"Señor Strickland," said Don José, "be so good as to order your servant to leave the cabin."

"Señor," he answered, for his temper was quick, "I will see you in hell before I do so."

"Caramba," said the Mexican, laying a hand upon the knife in his belt, "you shall pay for that, Englishman."

"When and how you will, señor. I always pay my debts."

Then the captain broke in, in a strange way. First he put a hand behind him, and, drawing a large pistol from his pocket, he laid it by his plate.

"Señors, both," he said in a soft voice and with a gentle smile, "I am loth to interfere in a quarrel of two esteemed passengers, but though I am only a poor sailor, it is my duty to see that there is no bloodshed on board this vessel. Therefore, much as I regret it, I shall be obliged to shoot dead the first man who draws a weapon," and he cocked the pistol.

Now the Mexican scowled, and the Señor Strickland laughed outright, for it was a curious thing to hear a man with the face of a sheep growl and threaten like a wolf. Meanwhile I had risen, for this insult was more than I could bear.

"Señors," I said, speaking in Spanish, "as I see that my presence is unwelcome to the majority of those here, I hasten to withdraw myself. But before I go I wish to say something, not by way of boasting, but to justify my friend, the English gentleman, in his action on my behalf. However well–born you may be, my descent is nobler and more ancient than yours, and therefore it should be no shame to you to sit at table with me. Least of all should the Don José Moreno, whose father is a murderer, a highway robber, and a man without shame, and whose mother was a half–bred mestiza slut, dare to be insolent to me who, as any Indian on board this ship can tell you, am a prince among my own people."

Now every eye was fixed upon Don José. His sallow complexion turned to a whitish green as he listened to my words, and for a moment he sank back in his chair overcome with rage. Then he sprung up, once more gripping at his knife.

"You dog!" he gasped, "let me but come at you and I'll cut your lying tongue out."

"You will do nothing of the sort, Don José Moreno," I answered, fixing my eyes upon his face; "what I have said of your father is true; more, there is a man on board this ship whom, not three months since, he robbed with violence. If the gentlemen your companions would like to hear the story I can tell it to them. For the rest, I am well able to defend myself. Moreover this vessel is manned by Indians who know me, and should any harm come to me or to my friend, the Señor Strickland, I warn you that you will not reach your home alive. Gentlemen, I salute you," and I bowed and left the cabin.

"Friend, I thank you," I said to the señor, when he came upon deck after the dinner was ended. "Knowing who I am and seeing how, in common with my race, I am accustomed to be treated by such hounds as these, can you wonder that I am not fond of Mexicans?"

"No, Ignatio," he answered; "but all the same I advise you to be careful of this Don José. He is not a man to kiss the stick that beats him, and he will make an end of you, and me too for the matter of that, if he can."

"Do not be afraid, señor," I answered, laughing; "besides the steward and Molas there are twenty Indians on board, most of them belonging to the tribe that dwells beyond Campeche, the finest race in Mexico. Two of these men are associates of the Heart, and all the rest know my rank, and will watch that man day and night so that he can never come near us without finding them ready for him. Only we shall do well to sleep on deck and not below."

That night we spent, wrapped in our serapes, upon two coils of rope on the forecastle of the Santa Maria, with Molas sleeping close behind us. It was a lovely night and we whiled away the hours in telling tales to each other of our adventures in past years, and in wonderings as to those that lay before us, till at length, fearing nothing, for we knew that our safety was watched over, we fell asleep, to be awakened by the sudden stoppage of the vessel.

The day was on the point of dawn; a beautiful and pearly light lay upon the quiet surface of the sea; above us the stars still shone faintly in the heavens, but to the east the cloud–banks were tinged with pink and violet. We sat up wondering what had happened, and saw the captain, wrapped in a dirty blanket, engaged in earnest conversation with the engineer, who wore a still dirtier shirt, and nothing else. Hearing that something was wrong, the Señor James went to the captain and asked him why we had stopped.

"Because the engines won't go any more, and there is no wind to sail with," he answered politely. "But have no fear, my comrade says that he can mend them up. He has nursed them for years and knows their weak points."

"Certainly there is not much to fear in weather like this," said the señor, "except delay."

"Nothing, nothing," replied the captain, glancing anxiously at a narrow black band of cloud, that lay on the rim of the horizon beneath the fleecy masses in which the lights of dawn were burning.

"Do you think that we are likely to have a norther?" asked the señor in his blunt white man's way.

"No, no," exclaimed the captain, crossing himself at the name of that evil power—el Norte, "but quien sabe! God makes the weather, not we poor sailors." And with another glance at the threatening line of cloud, he hurried away as though to avoid further conversation.

Presently the engines began to work again, though haltingly, like a lame mule, and as the morning drew on the day became clear and the thin black cloud vanished from the horizon. Towards three o'clock in the afternoon Molas, pointing to a low coast–line, and a spot on the sea where the ocean swell showed tipped with white, told us that yonder was the bar of the Grijalva river, and that behind it lay the village of Frontera, our destination.

"Good," said the señor, "then I think that I will get my things on deck," and going to his cabin he brought up a sack containing some wraps and food.

"Why do you fetch your baggage?" asked the captain presently, "you may want it to–night."

"That is why I brought it up," he answered. "I do not wish to land at Frontera with nothing."

"Land at Frontera, señor? No one will land at Frontera from this ship for another six or seven days. We pass Frontera and run straight on to Campeche, which, by the blessing of the Saints, we shall reach to–morrow evening."

"But I have taken a ticket for Frontera," said the señor. "The agent gave them to me, and I insist upon being put on shore there."

"That is quite right, señor. All being well we shall call at Frontera this day week, and then you can go ashore without extra charge, but before this my orders are to put into no port except Campeche—that is, unless a norther forces me to do so."

"May the norther sink you, your ship, your agents, and every thing you have to do with," answered the señor in so angry a voice, that the Mexican passengers who were listening began to laugh at the Englishman's discomfiture, though the more thoughtful of them crossed themselves to avert the evil omen.

Then followed a storm, for the señor—whose temper, as I have said, was not of the coolest—raged and swore in no measured terms; the captain shrugged his shoulders and apologised; the passengers smiled; and, seeing that there was no help for the matter, I looked on patiently after the manner of my race. At length the captain fled, wiping his brow and exclaiming:

"What manner of men are these English that they make such a trouble about a little time? Mother of Heaven! why are they always in a hurry? Is not to–morrow as good as to–day—and better?"

That evening we dined together upon deck; for neither of us were in any good mood to descend to the cabin and meet Don José Moreno, of whom we had seen nothing since the previous night. As we were finishing our meal the light faded and the sky grew curiously dark, while suddenly to the north there appeared a rim of cloud similar to that which we had seen upon the horizon at dawn, but now it was of an angry red and glowed like the smoke from a smelting–furnace at night.

"The sky looks very strange, Ignatio," said the señor to me, and at that moment we heard Molas and an Indian sailor speaking together in brief words.

"El Norte,' said Moras, pointing towards the red rim of light.

"Si, el Norte," answered the sailor as he went towards the cabin.

Presently the captain hurried up the companion–ladder and studied the horizon, of which the aspect seemed to frighten him. In another minute the mate joined him, appearing from the engine hatch, and the two of them began to converse, or rather to dispute. I was sitting near, unobserved in the darkness, and, so far as I could gather, the mate was in favour of putting the ship about and running for Frontera, from which port we were now distant some forty miles.

On the other hand, the captain said that if they did so and the norther came up, it would catch them before they got there, and wreck them upon the bar of the Grijalva river; but he added that he did not believe there would be any norther, and if by ill–luck it should come, their best course was to stand for the open sea and ride it out.

The mate answered that this would be an excellent plan if the ship were staunch and the engines to be relied on, but he declared loudly that they might as well try to sail a boat with a mast made of cigarettes, as to attempt to lie head on to a norther with leaking boilers, worn–out engines, and a strained paddle–wheel.

After this the discussion grew fierce, and as full of oaths as a shark's mouth with teeth, but in the end the two sailors determined that their safest plan would be to hold on their present course, and, if necessary, round Point Xicalango and take shelter behind Carmen Island, or, if they could, in the mouth of the Usumacinto river. Then they parted, the captain adjuring the mate to say nothing of the state of the weather to the passengers, and above all to that accursed Englishman, who had called this misfortune upon them because he was not put off at Frontera, and whose evil eye brought bad luck.

Another two hours passed without much change, except that the night grew darker and darker, and stiller and yet more still. The Señor Strickland, who had been walking up and down the deck smoking a cigar, came and sat beside me on a coil of rope, and asked me if I thought the norther was coming.

"Yes, it is coming," I answered, "and I fear that it will sink us, at least so say the Indian sailors."

"You take the idea of being drowned like a puppy in a sack very coolly, Ignatio. How far are we from Point Xicalango?"

"About twelve miles, I believe, and I take it coolly because there is no use in making an outcry. God will protect us if He chooses, and if He chooses He will drown us. It is childish to struggle against destiny."

"A true Indian creed, Ignatio," he answered; "you people sit down and say—'It is fate, let us accept it'—but one that I and the men of my nation do not believe in. If they had done so, instead of being the first country in the world to–day, England long ago would have ceased to exist, for many a time she has stood face to face with Fate and beaten her. For my part, if I must die, I prefer to die fighting. Tell me, are any of these people to be relied on if it comes to a pinch?"

"The Indian sailors are Campeche men and brave, also they know the coast, and if need be they will do anything that I tell them. For the rest I cannot say, but the captain seems to understand something of his business. Look and listen!"

As I spoke a vivid patch of lightning pierced the heavens above us, followed by a deafening peal of thunder. In its fierce and sudden glare we could see the coast some three or four miles away, and almost ahead of us the bolder outline of Point Xicalango. The water about our ship was dead calm, and slipped past her sides like oil; the smoke in the funnel rose almost straight into the air, where at a certain height it twisted round and round; and a sail that had been hoisted flapped to and fro for lack of wind to draw it.

A mile or so to windward, however, was a different sight, for there came the norther, rushing upon us like a thing alive; in front of it a line of white billows torn from the quiet surface of the sea, and behind it, fretted by little lightnings, a dense wall of black cloud stretching from the face of ocean to the arc of heaven.

Now the captain, who was on deck, saw his danger, for if those billows caught us broadside on we must surely founder. In the strange silence that followed the boom of the thunder, he shouted to the helmsman to bring the ship head on to the sea, and to the sailors to batten down the after–hatch, the only one that remained open, shutting the passengers, except ourselves and Molas, into the cabin.

His orders were obeyed well and quickly, the Santa Maria came round and began to paddle towards the open water and the advancing line of foam. It was terrible to see her, so small a thing, driving on thus into what appeared to be the very jaws of death. Now the unnatural quiet was broken, a low moaning noise thrilled through the air, the waters about the ship's side began to seethe and hiss, and spray flying ahead of the ship cut our faces like the lash of a whip.

A few more seconds and something white and enormous could be seen looking above our bows, and the sight of it caused the captain, whose face looked pale as death in the gleam of the lightnings, to shriek another order to his crew.

"Lie down and hold on tight to the rope," I said to the Señor Strickland and Molas, who were beside me, "here comes el Norte, and he brings death for many of us on board this ship."