Part 2 (1/2)
”The Tribe of Fire. You've heard of it - an ancient group among the Mayas that continued into Aztec times. Men something like the thugs of India, who killed to please the G.o.d they represented. Yes, there was such a tribe once. Perhaps it still exists today - the cult of Xitli -”
He broke off suddenly and threw a suspicious glance toward Andy, something that the professor always did when he had voiced his thoughts aloud.
But this time Hedwin's glance seemed cannier than ever. His lips snapped shut like a clamsh.e.l.l; then curved themselves into a twisted smile. Stooping, Hedwin gripped one side of the basalt stone andnodded for Andy to do the same.
The black rock was not heavy, though it needed their combined strength to carry it out through the pa.s.sages without dropping it. After a brief rest, Hedwin and Andy continued into camp, bringing the stone with them.
Immediately upon their arrival the superst.i.tious workers scattered.
Daylight was full by this time. The discordant strum of distant drums had ended. Andy, too, was beginning to mop his forehead, when he turned to see a man who stared at him with unbelieving eyes.
The arrival was Panchez; the mestizo leader was holding a carbine under his arm. Andy noted that the weapon was shaking, as though it had been imbued with life and was trying to jump from its owner's grasp.
”Well, Panchez?”
At Andy's words, Panchez recovered himself. He decided that ghosts did not rove by daylight, nor did they talk with human voice. Panchez licked his lips, smiled.
”I am glad, Senor Ames,” he said, ”to find that you are still alive. It was very bad, last night, the fight we have with the banditti.”
”Along the pedregal?”
”Si, senor,” acknowledged Panchez. ”We hear you fight them and we come with carbines. We shoot” - he gestured with his carbine - ”and pouf! - they run away. But we look for you and do not find you.
”I think, senor” - Panchez had laid the carbine aside and was beginning to roll a cigarette - ”that maybe you have gone into Mexico City to tell the police of trouble.”
Panchez was lying, and Andy knew it from the way the mestizo had averted his eyes. But there was no use pressing the issue. It was Hedwin's job, not Andy's, to reprimand the guards for any faults. At present the professor was too exuberant about finding Xitli's temple and the throne seat of the fire G.o.d to be interested in anything else.
Besides, Hedwin's find meant that the expedition had completed its purpose. Soon the professor would order a start for Mexico City, and men would be needed to carry the basalt stone.
Since the Indian workers would not touch the piece of basalt, that task would have to go to Panchez.
When Andy pointed out the stone to Panchez, the rogue nodded and summoned a pair of mestizos, who took up the burden.
WHEN camp was broken, Andy suggested a detour across the pedregal, to which Panchez agreed. His hand ready to reach for his revolver, Andy kept a sharp eye on Panchez's carbine as they strolled along together. He asked Panchez where the trouble had begun, and the mestizo shook his head.
”It is different now, senor,” he said. ”Day and night they are different. Sometime we make mistake, senor.
My men, perhaps, could not tell who you were. You may have mistake banditti for mestizos.”
Nowhere among the open cisterns did Andy see a cavity that resembled the pit of the night before. He looked for a crack in the lava rock, but failed to find one. The slab had been fitted tightly into place; even Panchez looked puzzled when Andy was not gazing his way. ”What about your men?” demanded Andy suddenly. ”You are short-handed today, Panchez.”
”Some have been wounded,” returned Panchez blandly. ”Others, they were killed. You will see them, senor, when we reach Tlalpan, the place where I have sent them.”
Arriving at Tlalpan, Andy did see Panchez's corps of cripples; their wounds testified to a larger fight than the one that Andy had made against them. Andy half believed that Panchez and his men had actually encountered bandits, and that he had therewith misjudged them, so he simply congratulated Panchez on having put up an excellent fight.
Later that day a train took Hedwin and Andy to Mexico City, along with a supply of Mayan relics, including the Xitli throne stone, and Andy saw no signs of any luggage belonging to Panchez.
Still, some of the mestizos were not accounted for, and Andy knew that they could have gone ahead with their loot. He decided to forget Panchez and the rest, as he would a bad dream.
Yet there was something that Andy could not forget, and it belonged in the dream cla.s.s. Vaguely he could recall brief periods when he had been conscious; after his fall into the pit.
Out of such recollections came a person cloaked in black who spoke in a strange, weird whisper to a pair of squatty Indians. Andy recalled a floating sensation, which made him believe that the Indians had carried him into camp at the cloaked rescuer's order.
He was still thinking of that episode when evening came and he visited Senor Cuzana and Graham Talborn. Andy was with Professor Hedwin, who was too busy talking about Xitli to note the broken beat of Aztec drums that seemed to float in from the mountains.
Angry drums, menacing in tone, the same that Andy had heard at dawn, they seemed to spell a message that certain men would surely heed.
Unfortunately, the story of those drums had not yet carried to distant Guatemala, where The Shadow, otherwise Kent Allard, was bidding farewell to the Xinca tribe that acknowledged him as ruler. Wisely, The Shadow did not deny the rumor that worried the Xincas: namely, that the cult of Xitli was about to form anew.
He let his two Xinca servants make the report. They testified that they had been to Mexico with their great white king and had heard the beat of Aztec drums that told of theft alone. They had seen men engaged in such theft, and had watched their powerful chief drive away the marauders.
The robbers had been punished, hence no revenge was needed. Protection of the stolen treasure was the duty of the Aztecs, not of the Xincas.
But when his servants had finished with their story, The Shadow told them to remain with the tribe when he had gone. They were to be alert, still on the watch for any revival of the Xitli cult.
It was a wise decision on The Shadow's part, considering that the Xitli legend was firmly fixed in Xinca minds. It strengthened The Shadow's authority with the tribe. When he took off in the autogiro, he saw the Xincas gathered about their jungle fire, their arms folded as a token of farewell.
The Shadow's wisdom was to prove twofold. The time was coming shortly when the Xitli rumor was to prove reality. Then would the Xincas more than ever acknowledge the foresight of their ruler, The Shadow, who had warned them to remain alert, even when the menace of the Xitli cult had seemed to be disproven! Moreover, they would be pleased because their black-clad chief had left the servants who knew how to reach him and carry such tidings. When that time came, not one among the Xinca tribe would believe that at the time of his actual departure, The Shadow, master of mystery, had in his own mind cla.s.sed all talk of Xitli as a legend without foundation!
CHAPTER V. THE MAYAN MUSEUM.
VIEWED from the window of an arriving pa.s.senger plane, New Orleans formed an intriguing sight, a city spread upon a broad plain cut by the curving ribbon of the Mississippi. Toy s.h.i.+ps were anch.o.r.ed all along the river front, while beyond, the city showed an array of buildings that marked the new town from the old.
New Orleans, however, differed from most American cities. Others were distinguishable by modern skysc.r.a.pers, impressive even when viewed from a high alt.i.tude. New Orleans lacked buildings that were really tall. A structure of a dozen stories rated high in the Louisiana metropolis.
Perhaps it was quite as well that New Orleans lacked a mammoth skyline. Otherwise, the city's newest landmark, the Mayan Museum, would not have dominated the scene as remarkably as it did.
The museum, built in the form of a pyramid, stood on the outskirts of the city, and its glistening white steps immediately caught the eye. Though only a hundred-odd feet in height, its shape made it appear much greater, and the architectural beauty gained a final touch from the surmounting temple that capped the pyramid.
It was The Shadow's first view of the great stone structure, which had been completed in a rush after a long delay through lack of funds. Other pa.s.sengers in the same airliner were also intrigued by sight of the pyramid, and they scarcely noticed the hawk-faced traveler with them.
The Shadow was no longer Kent Allard. His hawkish features were fuller, less gaunt. His whole pose seemed leisurely, indolent. His face had a mask-like expression that seemed a token of reserve. Actually, it signified a disguise. The Shadow had a.s.sumed a different ident.i.ty, yet one with which he was quite familiar.
He was pa.s.sing as Lamont Cranston, millionaire globe-trotter, who traveled where whim might call him.
Why he had come to New Orleans was something which seemed logically explained as soon as the plane landed.
At the airport, Lamont Cranston was greeted by James Carland, the haggard-eyed oil operator who had so recently left Mexico City, where the government had emphatically ousted him from his concessions.
Carland did not in any wise recognize Cranston as Allard. The resemblance between The Shadow's old face and his new was traceable only in vague fas.h.i.+on, and Carland was not interested in comparisons. As he shook hands with Cranston, Carland failed utterly to guess the significance behind the visitor's slight but inscrutable smile.
The Shadow was thinking of the meeting in Mexico City, where Carland had ignored Kent Allard as a person of no consequence, a broken-down aviator. Here in New Orleans, Carland was sparing no effort at welcoming Lamont Cranston, man of reputed wealth. The contrast gave an excellent index to Carland's nature.
Carland's motto was ”cash and carry”; others could supply the cash, and he would carry it. If they ever saw the cash again, it would mean simply that Carland had slipped. Not that Carland was crooked in the legal sense of the term. On the contrary, Carland was noted for his ironclad methods, as witness his Mexican oil concessions, to which he still argued a valid claim. Carland simply never missed a trick when it lay within the rules of a game called business.