Heart of the World

HEART OF THE WORLD

and for aye. It 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 to his pleasure».

As the words passed his lips, and before we fully understood them, dazed as we were with the horror of our awful doom, Tikal stepped forward and – even now I shudder when I write of it – holding the poor infant, which at this instant began to wail again as though with pain or fear, over the mouth of the pit, suddenly he let it fall into the depths beneath.

The shriek of the agonized mother ran round the walls of the holy place, and before it had died away the señor had leaped forward – leaped like a puma – across the gulf of the open well and gripped Tikal by the throat and waist. He gripped him, and, rage giving him strength, he lifted him high above his head and hurled him down the dreadful place whither the child had gone before.

With a hoarse scream, Tikal vanished, and for a moment there was silence. It was broken by the voice of Maya, crying aloud, in accents of madness and despair –

«Not all the waters of the Holy Lake shall wash away our sin, yet may they serve to avenge us upon you, O you murderers of a helpless child!»

As she spoke, followed by the señor and myself, who I think alone of all the company guessed her dreadful purpose, Maya ran round the altar, and with both her hands grasped the symbol of the Heart which lay upon it.

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«Forbear!» cried the voice of Dimas, but she did not heed him. Before he or any of us could reach her, dragging at it with desperate strength, she tore the ancient symbol from its bed, and with a loud and mocking laugh had cast it down upon the marble floor, where it shattered into fragments.

For one second all was still; then from the altar there came a sudden twang as of harp-strings breaking, that was followed instantly by another and more awful sound, the sound of the roar of many waters.

«Fly! fly!» cried a voice, «the floods are loosed and destruction is upon us and upon the People of the Heart!»

Now the Council rushed one and all towards the door of the Sanctuary; but I, Ignatio, by the grace of Heaven, remembered the outer door, the secret door through which we had entered, that the priest had left ajar.

«This way!» I cried in Spanish to the señor, and seizing Maya by the arm 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 sprang a vast column of water, which 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 señor had hurled him, a shapeless mass ascending and descending with the column of water as alternately it struck and rebounded from the roof.

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Then, before the flood could reach it, I closed the door, and, possessing myself of the bunch of keys that still hung in the lock, we fled up the passages and stairs till we came to the hall where we had been imprisoned. Here, however, we dared not stay, for already strange gurgling sounds struck 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 their way upward and outward. Seizing lamps, we ran to the copper gates at the head of the hall, and not without trouble found the key that opened them. We had no time to spare, for as we left it the water rushed in at the further end of the chamber, a solid wave that in some few seconds filled it to the depth of six or eight feet. On we fled before the advancing flood, and well was it for us that our course lay upwards, for otherwise we must have been drowned as we searched for the keys to open the different gates and doors. But now fortune, which for so long had been our foe, befriended us, and the end of it was that 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 gathered a great multitude of people waiting to be admitted to celebrate the feast that on this day of the year was to be held, according to the custom, upon the summit of the 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 Sanctuary, and this night the Council sat late. As we looked at them a cry of fear

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and wonder rose from the multitude, and this was the cause of it. Along that street which ran from the landing-place to the great square rushed a vast foam-topped wall of water twenty feet or more in depth by a hundred broad. Now we learned the truth. The symbol on the altar – I know not how – was connected with secret and subterranean sluicegates which for many generations had protected the City of the Heart from flood. When it was torn from its bed these sluice-gates were opened, and the waters, rushing in, sought their natural level, which at this season of the year 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. Seeing us emerge from the watch-house, they ran towards us, wringing their hands, and asking what dreadful thing had come to pass. I replied that we did not know, but that seeing the water gather in our prison we had fled from it. How we had fled they never stopped to ask, but ran down the stairway of the pyramid, only to return again 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 vast lake. Whole streets went down before them, to vanish suddenly beneath their foaming face, while from the crowd below rose one continuous shriek of agony.

Maya heard it, and, casting herself face downward upon the surface of the pyramid, that she might not see her handiwork, she thrust her fingers into her ears to stop them, while

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the señor and I watched, fascinated. Now the flood struck the people, 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 they were gone, borne away as withered leaves are borne before a gale. Ere a man might count ten the most of the population of the City of the Heart had perished!

For a little while some of the more massive houses stood, only to vanish one by one, in silence as it seemed, for now the roar of the advancing waters mastered all other sounds. Before the sun was well up it was finished, and of that ancient and beautiful city, Heart of the World, there remained nothing to be seen except the tops of trees and the upper parts of the pyramids of worship rising above the level of the lake. The Golden City was no more. It was gone, and with it all its hoarded treasures, its learning and its ancient faith, and that which for many generations had been held to be a myth had now become a myth indeed. One short hour had sufficed to sweep out of existence the ripe fruit of the labour of centuries, and with it the dwindling remnant of the last pure race of Indians, who followed the customs and the creeds of my forefathers. Doubtless their day was done, and the Power above us had decreed 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 pyramids and 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,

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by tearing it away, could bury altar, temple, town, and all who lived therein, for ever beneath the surface of the lake? This they did to protect their homes and fanes against the foe, so that, if need were, they could prefer destruction to dishonour; but they did not foresee – indeed they never dreamed – that this foe might be of their own race, and that the hand of one of her children would bring disaster, utter and irredeemable, upon the proud head of their holy stronghold, the city Heart of the World.

Now foot by foot the waters found their level, filling up the cup in which the town had stood, and the bright sunlight shone upon 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 which already the water-eagles began to gather, and that was all.

Presently Maya rose to her knees and looked out from beneath the hollow of her hand, for the light was dazzling there upon the white summit of the pyramid. Then she flung her arms above her head and uttered and great and bitter cry.

«Behold my handiwork», she said, «and the harvest of my sin! Oh! my father, that dream which you sent to haunt my sleep was dreadful, but it did not touch the truth. Oh! my father, the people whom you would have saved are dead; lost is the city that you loved, and it is I who have destroyed them. Oh! my father, my father, your curse has found me out indeed, and I am accursed».

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Some such words as these she spoke, then began to laugh, and turning to the señor, she said,

«Where is the child, husband?»

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 came first to him and next to me, saying –

«Look, is he not a pretty boy? Am I not happy to be the mother of such a boy?»

I made pretence to look, but the sight of her pitiful face and of the empty arms, as she swayed them, was so dreadful that I was forced to turn away to hide my tears. Now I saw the truth. Weariness, sorrow, and shock had turned her brain, and she was mad.

We led her to the watch-house, where there was shelter, and the priests, who had returned, gave us food so soon as we could make them understand that we needed it, for they too were almost mad. Here her last illness seized the Lady Maya. It began with a hardening of the breast, which changed presently to fever. Two days and nights, with breaking hearts, we nursed her there upon the pyramid, striving not to listen to her sick 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 which seem almost too holy to set down.

«Alas!» she ended, «as my heart foretold 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

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a year ago, if that were needful, sooner than commit the sin we 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. Yet, believe me, husband, that when I did the deed of death, I was mad, for I had seen our child murdered before my eyes and I heard a voice within me bidding 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 or the instrument of Fate predestined to bring destruction upon a race already doomed, and on a faith outworn. That faith I no longer believe in, for you have taught me another worship, 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 my love of you that led me to them. Husband, I trust that you may escape from this ill-omened place, and live on for many years in happiness; but most of all I trust that in the land which 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 I may have deserved it, I think that you loved me truly and will love my memory even when I am dead. To you also, Ignatio, farewell. You have been a true friend to me, though I brought you no good luck, and at times I was jealous of you. Think kindly of me if you can, though had it not been for me you might have attained your ends, and, as in the old days before we met, comfort my husband with your friendship».

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Then once more she turned to the señor and in a gasping and broken voice prayed of him not to forget her or her child. I heard him answer that this she need not fear, as his happiness died with her, and, even if he should escape, he thought that they would not be parted for very long, nor could any other woman take her place within his heart.

She blessed him and thanked him, caressing his face with her dying hands, and, unable to bear more of such a sight, I left them together.

An hour later the señor came from the watch-house, and though he did not speak, one glance at him was enough to tell me that all was over.

So died Maya, Lady of the Heart, the last of the ancient royal blood of the Indian princes, myself alone excepted, a very sweet and beautiful woman, though at times headstrong, passionate, and capricious.

Now while Maya lay dying we learned that some Indians still lived on the mainland, men and women who had been sent there to tend the crops, for we saw a canoe hovering round what once had been the Island of the Heart. The two priests who were with us on the pyramid tried to signal to it to come to our rescue, but either those in the boat did not see us, or they were terror-stricken and feared to approach the pyramid. Still we kept the body all that day, hoping that help might reach us, so that we could take it ashore for burial. Towards night, however, when none came, we made another plan. On the roof of the watch-house the sacred fire still burned, for the two priests had tended it, more

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from custom, I think, than for any other reason. Hither we brought some of the gilded stools that were used by the nobles of the Heart on days of festival, and all the fuel that had been stored to replenish the fire, building the whole into a funeral pyre around and above the brazier. Then, as it caught, we carried out the body of Maya, wrapped in her white robes, and laid it upon the pyre and left it.

Presently the great pile was alight and burning so fiercely that it lit up the whole summit of the pyramid and the darkness which surrounded it. All that night we watched it, while the two priests lamented and beat their breasts after their fashion, till at length it flared itself away, and the holy fire that had burned for more than a thousand years died down and was extinguished. It seemed very fitting that the latest office of this ancient and consecrated flame should be to consume the body of the last of the royal race who had tended it for so many generations. Towards dawn a wind sprang up with drizzling rain, and when we approached the place at daybreak it was to find it cold and blackened. No spark remained alight, and no ash or fragment could be seen of her who was once the beautiful and gracious Lady of the Heart.

Now we set ourselves sadly enough to find a means of escape to the mainland, which indeed it was time to do, for the waters, working in its centre, were sapping the foundations of the great pyramid, portions of which had already fallen away. Our plan was to form a raft by lashing together some benches that were at hand, and on it to float or paddle ourselves to the shore. This, however, we were

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