b9bd780c9c95 Administrator (the red fox clan .txt) 📖

sacrificed for the Tezcucan, their existences prolonged eternally here in an atmosphere of antiquity.

Zoraida spoke and they straightened, and one man answered. Kendric could not understand a word. Then, shuffling their sandaled feet, the six went out through a door at the side.

"I thought you said," said Kendric, "that since your father's death no man had entered here?"

"And do these six look as though they had come here recently from the outside world?" she retorted, smiling. "The youngest of them, Señor Jim, first came to Nezahualcoyotl's gardens more than sixty years ago.

When he was less than a year old, hence bringing with him no knowledge of any other place than this."

"And you mean that they have never gone out from here?"

"Would they thrust their heads through solid rock? Would they tread along corridors carpeted with snakes? Would they grow wings and soar to the stars up there? Not only have they never gone out; they do not so much as know that there is an Outside to go to."

"But you come to them!"

Zoraida laughed.

"And I am a spirit, a goddess to worship, the One who has always been, the power that created this spot and themselves!"

"They are captives and caretakers of a sort?" he supposed. "But when they are dead? Who then will keep up your elaborate gardens?"

"Wait. They are returning. There is your answer."

The six ancients filed back. Each man of them led by the hand a little child, the oldest not yet seven or eight. All boys, all bright and handsome; all filled with worship for Zoraida. For they broke away from the old men and ran forward, some of them carrying flowers, and threw themselves on their knees and kissed Zoraida's gown. And then, with wide, wondering eyes they looked from her to Jim Kendric.

"Poor little kids," he muttered. And suddenly whirling wrathfully on Zoraida: "Where do they come from? Whose children are they?"

"There are mysteries and mysteries," she told him, coldly.

"Stolen from their mothers by your damned brigands!" he burst out.

She turned blazing eyes on him.

"Be careful, Jim Kendric!" she warned. "Here you are in Zoraida's stronghold, here you are in her hand! Is act of hers to be questioned by you?"

She made a sudden signal. The six little boys withdrew, walking backward, their round worshipful eyes glued upon their goddess. Then they were gone, the old men with them, a heavy door closing behind them.

"Again I did not lie to you," said Zoraida. "Since though these have come recently, they are not yet men. Follow me again."

They went through the long room and into another. This time Zoraida thrust aside a deep purple curtain, fringed in gold. Here was a smaller chamber, absolutely without furnishings of any kind. But Kendric did not miss chairs or table, his interest being entirely given to the three young men standing before him like soldiers at attention. Heavy limbed, muscular fellows they were, clad only in short white tunics, each with a plain gold band about his forehead. In the hand of each was a great, two-edged knife, horn handled, as long as a man's arm.

"These came just before my father gave his keys to Zoraida," the girl told him: "There are three more of them who sleep while these guard."

Again Kendric saw in the eyes turned upon them a sheer worship of Zoraida, a wonder at him. Zoraida lifted her hand; the three bowed low.

She spoke softly and they withdrew slowly to the further wall, walking backward as the children had done. Then one of them lifted down the five bars across a door, employing a rude key from his own belt. And when he had done so and stepped aside Zoraida with her own keys in five different heavy steel locks opened the way. She swung the door open and Kendric followed her. As in the adobe house here was a place where a curtain beyond the doorway hid from any chance eyes what might lie in this room. Only when the door was again shut and locked did Zoraida push the curtain aside. Another match, another big lamp lighted--and Kendric needed no telling that he was in an ancient treasure chamber.

There were long gleaming-topped tables of hardwood; there were exquisitely wrought and embroidered fabrics covering them; strewn across the tables were countless objects of inestimable value. Vases and pitchers and plates of hammered gold; golden goblets set with rich stones; ropes of silver; vessels of many curious shapes, some as small as walnuts, some as large as water pitchers, but all of the precious metals; knives with blades of obsidian and handles of gold; mirrors of selected obsidian bound around in gold; necklaces, coronets, polished stone jars heaped with gold dust. One table appeared to be heaped high with strange-looking books; ancient writings, Zoraida told him, heiroglyphs on the mauguey that is so like the papyrus of the Nile.

"And look," laughed Zoraida. "Here is something that would open the greedy eyes of your friend Barlow."

She opened a cedar box and poured forth the contents. Pearls, pearls by the double handful, such as she had worn that night at Ortega's gambling house, many times in number those which Barlow had declared would make Kendric's twenty thousand dollars "look sick." In the lamplight their soft effulgence stirred even the blood of Jim Kendric.

"When the great Tzin Guatamo knew that he would die a dog's death at the hands of the conquerors," Zoraida said, "he had as much of the royal treasury as he could lay his hands on brought here. The Spaniards guessed and demanded to be told the hiding place. Guatamotzin locked his lips. They tortured him; he looked calmly back into their enraged eyes and locked his lips the tighter. They killed him but he kept his secret."

She had mentioned Barlow, and just now Kendric's thoughts had more to do with the present and the immediate future than with a remote and legendary history.

"So," he said, "while Barlow and I made our long journey south, seeking