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 Between Field and Cooking Pot

Babb_1903.pdf 2 7/31/2013 2:04:32 PM

 Texas Press Sourcebooks in Anthropology, No. 15

Babb_1903.pdf 7 7/31/2013 2:04:33 PM

 BETWEEN
FIELD AND
COOKING POT
The Political Economy of
Marketwomen in Peru

Revised Edition

BY FLORENCE E. BABB

4*m± University of Texas Press, Austin

Babb_1903.pdf 4 7/31/2013 2:04:32 PM

 Copyright © 1989 by the University of Texas Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America

Revised edition, 1998

Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work

should be sent to Permissions, University of Texas Press, Box 7819,
Austin, Texas 78713-7819.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Babb, Florence E.
Between field and cooking pot: the political economy of
marketwomen in Peru / Florence E. Babb. — 2nd ed.
p. cm. — (Texas Press sourcebooks in anthropology ; no. 15)
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-292-70870-x (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Women merchants—Peru. 2. Peddlers and peddling—
Peru. 3. Women—Employment—Peru. 4. Informal sector
(Economics)—Peru. I. Title. II. Title: Marketwomen in
Peru. III. Series.
HD6072.6.P4B23 1989
33i.4 / 8i38n8 / 0985—dci9 89-4800

ISBN 978-0-292-75583-3 (library e-book)

ISBN 978-0-292-79215-9 (individual e-book)

Babb_1903.pdf 7 7/31/2013 2:04:33 PM

 To the memory of my parents,
Marforie Knapp Babb
and
Roland Walker Babb

Babb_1903.pdf 7 7/31/2013 2:04:33 PM

THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK
 Contents

Preface to the Second Edition ix

Acknowledgments XV
i. Introduction 1
2. The Peruvian Political Economy 17
3. Marketwomen and Theory 43
4. The Marketplace 66
5. The Work of Marketwomen 99
6. Marketwomen, Family, and Society 131
7. Social Relations and Politics of Marketwomen 157
8. Economic Crisis and the Campaign against Marketers 177
9. Conceptualizing Marketwomen 196
Appendix 205
Notes 207
Glossary of Spanish and Quechua Terms 215
Bibliography 219
Index 239
Maps
1. Department of Ancash, Peru 19
2. City of Huaraz 23
3. Mercado Central (interior) 69
Tables
1. Huaraz Marketers by Market and Sex 85
2. Female and Male Sellers in Huarez Markets by Items Sold 93
3. Sample Wholesale and Retail Prices in Mercado Central 107
4. Shopkeepers on Three City Blocks by Sex 117

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THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK
 Preface to the
Second Edition

ON OCTOBER 19, 1987, the workers and sellers

of Mercado Central in Huaraz were dislodged from their market
with promises from their union and the mayor that within eight
months they would have a new model market. The sellers were
relocated in various places . . . Mama is next to the San Antonio
convent, rather far away, where there is little business. Her
compaheras, on the other hand, are closer in, perhaps for having
offered bribes to those in charge. On the 20th, that is, the next day
[after the dislocation], the market was demolished, left as though
there had been another earthquake. All this was very sad and it
wasn't easy to overcome; the marketwomen shed many tears and
there were many days of sorrow. They organized a procession and
brought out the Virgin [of Fatima], patron of the market. The
mayor was not seen again and when the sellers went to his office
he refused to come^ut, acting almost cowardly, pretending igno-
rance. Now neither the union nor the mayor is doing anything to
begin [construction of] a new market.
FROM A LETTER WRITTEN BY MY AHIJADA
(GODDAUGHTER), THEN SIXTEEN, JUNE 15, I 9 8 8 , HUARAZ, PERU
(MY TRANSLATION FROM THE SPANISH)

Thus began the original preface to this book, relating how I

learned that the market in Huaraz, which had miraculously with-
stood the impact of a major earthquake in 1970 and which had been
at the center of my research in Peru from 1977 to 1987, was suddenly
torn down and the marketers directed to sell in distant streets. I had
interviewed the mayor and a number of local planners, as well as
many marketers, just two months before, but no one had hinted that
such an action would be taken. Indeed, great concern had been ex-
pressed about the large number of "informal" street vendors, but the

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 x • Preface to the Second Edition

marketwomen selling at "permanent" stalls in Mercado Central

were expected to remain in their market until a new one was built.
Such dramatic measures were being taken in Peru, most notably
in Lima but in smaller cities, too, in the name of urban renewal and
of controlling informal commerce. In the process, the lives and work
of many marketers and street vendors were irrevocably changed. I
anticipated that when I returned to visit my friends in Huaraz, I
would find that many were experiencing more difficult working con-
ditions and that the community of women who sold together for as
long as thirty years would be gone.
Ten years passed before I returned to Peru in summer 1997. Politi-
cal unrest amounting to civil war in the country had kept me away,
and I had turned my attention to research in Central America. Dur-
ing the decade I was gone, a number of changes occurred at both the
national and local levels. Within a few years of the much-herialded
election of Alberto Fujimori in 1990, order was largely restored in
Peru, but economic troubles deepened as harsh measures were in-
troduced to restructure the market economy. Along with deregula-
tion and privatization, unemployment and underemployment were
up, and an increasing number of people had turned to trading and
other informal sector activities.
Peru had experienced austerity and structural adjustment pro-
grams in the 1970s and 1980s. However, the government of President
Fujimori, whose election was based on promises of political and eco-
nomic recovery, followed the neoliberal path of other Latin Ameri-
can nations in relying even more on free market principles. By 1997,
in his second term in office, his popularity had suffered a serious de-
cline. The decisive leader who had brought the country's political
conflict under control was under criticism for his autocratic ways.
Low-income Peruvians, including a majority of marketers and street
vendors, were concerned about initiatives to modernize the econ-
omy by removing what little price protection they had and by turn-
ing to private solutions to resolve social problems. Whatever safety
net of public support they had before was being eliminated.
In Huaraz, I found that the city had grown and so had the number
of sellers. I stayed with my compadres and revisited a number of
the women I had known before. The long-awaited model market had
finally been built and opened in 1994, eight years after it was prom-
ised. It was a large, two-story structure with more space for mar-
keters and the items they had for sale, but the situation was far from
ideal. Marketers complained that the building was cold and had
structural problems, such as rain entering and flooding the floors.
Even worse, the market had been privatized and only those sellers

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 Preface to the Second Edition • xi

who could afford to buy their stalls were able to work there. While I
found some marketers there who had formerly sold in the old mar-
ket, many had remained outside in the streets, often in more remote
sites. The mayor's office had made a great effort the year before to
remove street vendors from the downtown area so that the city
would be more inviting to tourists, and, as a result, the sellers sought
other outdoor spaces and the new market remained half empty.
There are certain hallmarks of modernity in Huaraz today. Newly
paved streets and more developed plazas with arcades of shops and
restaurants attract a growing tourist industry to the Andean city.
The new Mercado Central signals that commerce, too, is undergoing
a process of modernization. At the same time, there is a degree of
public concern expressed about the lives and work of impoverished
women and children in the region. Offices for the promotion of
women's interests and for the defense of children's rights are now
found at the level of local government. Yet the attention to these
concerns benefits a very small number of those in need of social ser-
vices and economic support. Several officials voiced to me a middle-
class worry that the city of Huaraz is being taken over by undesirable
individuals like the street vendors. Containment of the "problem" of
their disorderly presence appeared to be the ultimate objective of
city planners, who proposed new locations for market "fairs" that, at
best, might be refashioned as local attractions.
If I were writing this book today, it would be different in some
significant ways. Not only would the neoliberal politics of the 1990s
and the consequences for marketwomen receive more attention, but
I would look more broadly at social and cultural aspects of the lives
of these marketwomen. When I wrote this work, I was convinced of
the need to examine closely the marketwomen's contribution to the
production process in the local and national economy and their
response to crisis conditions. Perhaps I was reacting in part to what
I perceived as an overemphasis on cultural continuities and tradi-
tions in some Andean studies. As such, I may have insisted too much
on the political-economic forces at play in marketers' lives, thus
overlooking some interesting and important cultural and historical
forces.
At this juncture, the cultural and political-economic orientations
have come together in useful ways in anthropology. I have been in-
spired by some recent studies of marketwomen that attend as much
to cultural questions as to economic and political ones. I review
these studies elsewhere (Babb n.d.) and here mention only a few. In
Andean studies, I have gained much by reading work that considers
the gendered nature of ethnic identity, cultural hybridity, and cul-

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 xii • Preface to the Second Edition

tural mediation among marketwomen (Seligmann 1989, 1993, n.d.;

Weismantel 1995; de la Cadena 1995; Crain 1996). I have been moved
by the life stories of Andeans whose work has centered around mar-
ketplaces (Valderrama and Escalante 1996; Buechler and Buechler
1996). And I have appreciated the broad historical treatment of An-
dean marketing offered in a recent collection (Larson and Harris
1995). Studies conducted elsewhere (Behar 1990, 1993; Kapchan
1996; Clark 1994) have also provided richly textured accounts of
marketwomen whose words and practices may empower them to
renegotiate gender relations and claim new social space even as they
confront harsh life conditions. These writings move us beyond sto-
ries of survival to ones of redemption.
Until recently, studies of marketwomen, including my own, fre-
quently emphasized the important economic contribution of
women's traditional market trade and informal commerce, on the
one hand, and the negative impact of western development on
women's marketing on the other. Current studies build upon the ear-
lier work, but they also benefit from newer currents in feminist and
anthropological analysis. These works often examine how cultural
differences, especially gender and ethnicity, are played out in mar-
ketplaces as sites of social exchange. In addition, as scholars are be-
coming more conscious of the mediation of identities among mar-
ketwomen, we are also recognizing and discussing publicly the ways
that, as researchers, our insertion in different field sites reflects our
own location in the world and our shifting intellectual preoccupa-
tions. This reflexive turn has enriched research and writing during
the past several years.
I entered the Huaraz streets and markets in the summer of 1997
with an eye to the ways that culture figures in the work lives of mar-
keters. The broad downtown streets were less congested with ven-
dors than in the past, but once I explored surrounding areas I discov-
ered vast numbers of sellers on side streets and in vacant spaces. I
began to notice the ways that some creative individuals were adapt-
ing to changing circumstances in the city, including the expansion of
tourism and a new sensibility among middle- and working-class resi-
dents. Fruit juice vendors announced the nutritional value of vita-
min C and a restaurant owner advertised vegetarian dishes, while
innumerable shoeshine boys suggested to well-heeled but dusty trav-
elers that they needed to attend to their appearance. These appeals
to modernity contrasted with the efforts of a young boy to market his
rural ethnic identity by offering to have his picture taken with a baby
alpaca for a tip ("to cover the cost of feed"). Similarly, women who
came by the hundreds to sell medicinal herbs twice a week in Huaraz

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 Preface to the Second Edition • xiii

enhanced sales by drawing on their rural identities and knowledge,

as well as on their awareness of the latest urban passion for tradi-
tional medicine. Other researchers working in the Andes have noted
the varied strategies of individuals who emphasize urban know-how
or traditional cultural differences to advance economically (Sikkink
n.d.; Crain 1996).
In addition to these culturally distinct economic strategies, mar-
keters and street vendors revealed various political strategies. These
varied between privileged marketers, who were the owners of stalls
in the new market, and the disenfranchised former renters from the
old market, who were now selling outside. Proprietors in the new,
private market claimed that they no longer required a market union,
as they were in command of their own commercial space,- their pro-
prietors' association worked to address problems they faced without
the old confrontations with city government. While some of those
selling outside participated in a market union, others were too scat-
tered to feel much unity.
Some of the differences between marketwomen selling in the new
market and elsewhere clearly relate to both social class and eth-
nicity. The modern space of the new market is occupied principally
by Spanish-speaking women with families based in the urban area,
while outside and in more distant locations Quechua-speaking
women with family ties in rural communities are greater in number.
Like many women, my comadre, who sold just across from the new
market, revealed cultural hybridity as she moved back and forth be-
tween Spanish and Quechua and as she continued to wear colorful
Andean skirts tucked beneath her dark city skirt. The cultural in-
terplay among marketwomen and with the public, marked by re-
gional and other differences, is traced in this book and should be con-
sidered as important as economic negotiations in shaping marketers'
lives.
Interestingly, during my latest visit to Huaraz, market adminis-
trators and city officials occasionally drew on the language of "com-
munity building" and "identity formation." The head of the priva-
tized market lamented the individualism and negativity of sellers
and spoke of the ways that he seeks to construct a positive commu-
nity among them. And a member of the city council commented on
the low self-esteem of city residents, who needed to work on an im-
proved self-identity. These discursive moves may be designed to
place responsibility on low-income people for their own difficulties,
once again turning attention from the structural inequalities that
marketers and others confront. It is a strategy somewhat akin to the
campaigns of the 1970s to bring goods "from the field to the cooking

Babb_1903.pdf 14 7/31/2013 2:04:33 PM

 xiv • Preface to the Second Edition

pot" (a slogan I heard only once in 1997), campaigns which scape-

goated small-scale sellers for problems in the national economy. Yet
there are still ways that marketwomen may forge cultural identities
and practices that are resistant to the onslaught of neoliberalism.
Marketwomen remain one of the major occupational groups in
many societies, and their place within wider economies will clearly
influence the way they participate in political struggles and social
change. It is heartening that anthropologists are now taking seri-
ously some cultural aspects of marketers that were earlier neglected.
It is also encouraging that we are drawing together perspectives that
are at once culturally, politically, and economically informed as we
continue to discuss marketwomen.
When I looked over a copy of my book with my compadres in
Huaraz, I discovered how painfully close they were, still, to the
events of a decade ago. My comadre and her daughter, my god-
daughter, remembered the tearing down of the old central market as
though it were yesterday. Their eyes filled when I read from my god-
daughter's letter, translating back into Spanish for them. Much has
changed, but much remains the same, as their family and the fami-
lies of many other marketers continue to seek meaning as well as a
livelihood in these neoliberal times. What is abundantly clear to me
now is that these Andean marketwomen are negotiating not only
their economic survival in the marketplace, but also the terms of
their very lives and cultural identities.

FLORENCE E. BABB
IOWA CITY, IOWA
FEBRUARY I 9 9 8

Babb_1903.pdf 15 7/31/2013 2:04:33 PM

 Acknowledgments

FOR OVER TEN YEARS I lived with this book, then

ten years later I revisited the site of my research once again. Follow-
ing my original fieldwork in 1977 and until the publication of my
book a decade later, my summers included either visits to Peru or
analysis and writing based on my research there. During those ten
years, I also underwent the transformation from graduate student to
new faculty member to tenured professor. Along the way I incurred
debts to many people in the United States and Peru who assisted me.
As a doctoral student in anthropology at the State University of
New York at Buffalo, I had the exceptional support of my advisor,
William W. Stein, who made it possible for me to conduct my first
period of research in Peru under a grant from the SUNY Research
Foundation. Also at Buffalo, Elizabeth Kennedy lent her encourage-
ment and her feminist insights to my study. Both of these individu-
als served as my mentors in the fullest sense of the word.
At Colgate University and the University of Iowa, my colleagues
in anthropology and women's studies offered invaluable support.
Most of all, I am grateful to Margery Wolf, who was the major force
urging me on to finish writing this book. She has been a fine critic
and an inspiration through her work. My students were also a source
of encouragement, and several research assistants provided much-
needed services. In particular, Sharon Wood offered superb assistance
in editing chapters and preparing the index. Maria Elena Mujica had
a special relationship to later phases of my research, accompanying
me to Peru in 1987 and contributing data she collected for my study.
At the University of Iowa, I received institutional support through
Old Gold Summer Scholarships, a grant from the Center for Inter-
national and Comparative Studies, and scholarly facilities at Uni-
versity House.

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 xvi • Acknowledgments

Other scholars in the Unites States, especially Andeanists, have

offered critical support. I wish to acknowledge my intellectual debt
to Elsa Chaney, June Nash, Carmen Diana Deere, Margo Smith,
Judith-Maria Buechler, William Roseberry, and many others, includ-
ing the reviewers of my manuscript, Jane Collins and Kay Warren,
whose thoughtful remarks proved very useful in the final writing of
this book. It has been a pleasure to work with the staff at the Uni-
versity of Texas Press, whose encouragement and close attention to
my manuscript kept the project on course.
My most hearty thanks go to the people of Huaraz, Peru, who wel-
comed me into their homes, allowed me to raise seemingly endless
questions about their lives and work, and shared with me their
knowledge. My compadres, Socorro Sanchez and Vicente Camino,
drew me into their family and gave me their warmth and assistance
throughout all my visits to Peru. Their oldest son, Tomas Camino,
was an excellent field assistant during the early period of my
reasearch, and the three younger children all helped in various ways
to educate me regarding families and marketing in the region.
Throughout my study, the names of marketers and their families
have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals. Though
their names do not appear, I hope that those who participated in the
research will accept my most sincere appreciation.
My special thanks are due to several others in Huaraz, includ-
ing Blanca Tarazona, feminist schoolteacher, and Jose Sotelo, local
scholar and former mayor, for their interest and cooperation as well
as their friendship. Personnel in the Ministries of Food, Agriculture,
Transportation, and Commerce and in the Huaraz Public Library and
the library of the CORDEANCASH (an agency for regional develop-
ment) aided me in gathering needed materials. Faculty at the Uni-
versidad Nacional de Ancash and members of the Instituto Nacional
de la Cultura offered me opportunities to exchange ideas with per-
sons knowledgeable about the situation in Huaraz.
In Lima, point of entry and departure for my trips to Peru, I bene-
fited from my association with the organization Peru Mujer, and par-
ticularly with Blanca Figueroa and Jeanine Anderson, feminist social
scientists whose concerns, like mine, included urban women and de-
velopment issues. On my first trip to Peru, Blanca opened her home
to me, and Jeanine shared unpublished research data from a study of
marketwomen in Lima. My return to Peru in 1982 was due in large
part to an invitation and financial support from Peru Mujer to par-
ticipate in a congress on Andean women, after which I spent several
months doing research in Huaraz. Other Peruvians, including Carlos

Babb_1903.pdf 17 7/31/2013 2:04:34 PM

 Acknowledgments • xvii

Wendorff and Jorge Osterling, whose work has concerned the infor-
mal sector in Lima, also offered valuable suggestions.
In summer 1997 I was able to return to Peru thanks to the gener-
ous support of the University of Iowa, which awarded me a Spelman
Rockefeller grant and an Arts and Humanities grant, as well as in-
ternational travel funds. I was most fortunate to be able to include
Rachel Garcia, a research assistant who proved invaluable as well as
wonderful company. My son Daniel, just four when my book was
first published and now twelve, was able to accompany me on his
first trip to Peru, making this visit a special pleasure.
Finally, I owe many thanks to Theresa May, my editor, for her
early encouragement and sage advice as I wrote this book, and for her
continued interest in keeping it in print.

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THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK
 One Introduction

THE STRAINS OF traditional Andean music poured

out of the large double doors leading into Mercado Central, the cen-
tral market. Native flutes and drums mixed freely with brass instru-
ments in a familiar dance tune, or huayno, popular in towns of the
region. Once I was inside the market, the source of these sounds
became apparent as I saw a dozen men parading between rows of
women selling vegetables, fruits, and assorted cooked foods. The
men's festive dress was enhanced by embroidered sashes worn across
their shoulders, a marked contrast to the plain white aprons and
simple blouses and skirts of the marketwomen.
The musicians were followed by a group of younger men and boys
dressed in white tunics and pants, with bundles of seeds tied to their
lower legs. As they danced, the seeds provided a rhythmic percus-
sion for the musicians. These shaqsha dancers, as they are called in
Quechua, are a frequent presence at Andean fiestas, and the market-
women nodded with pleasure as the young men passed by.
Mass had just been celebrated at a small chapel located at the cen-
ter of the market. A flower-strewn litter carried the Virgin of Fatima,
patron saint of the market, from her usual place in the chapel on
a tour of the market. The procession of musicians, dancers, and
the Virgin wound through the aisles of fresh produce and then out
into the streets, accompanied by a hoard of children running along
behind.
The central market had an air of gaiety on this weekday morning
as sellers paused in their work and customers leaned on market
stalls to enjoy the music and admire the Virgin in all her finery. The
color and festivity of the scene were enhanced by the melange of
smells emanating from the stalls of fresh produce, meats, poultry,
fish, and the regional specialties prepared for on-the-spot consump-

Babb_1903.pdf 20 7/31/2013 2:04:34 PM

 2 • Introduction

tion. For the moment, however, even these culinary temptations

could not compete with the excitement of the procession.
These were the sights, sounds, and smells that greeted me the
first time I ventured into Mercado Central in Huaraz, Peru. My mind
was on becoming acquainted with some marketwomen, but I was
distracted by the array of stimuli to my senses. What I saw surprised
me because it so closely fit the folkloric view of Latin American
markets as colorful places of recreation to which women come to
gossip as much as to sell.
In fact what I saw was not at all typical. Although I was assisted
on that day by a young woman knowledgeable about the markets,
neither she nor any of the sellers I spoke to thought to tell me that
they were having a once-a-year celebration of their market's patron
saint. To them it was obvious. Surely one only sees processions and
shaqsha dancers and garlands of flowers on holidays of one sort or
another. And while marketwomen were once required to wear white
aprons every day, the aprons are now worn only on special occasions.
Moreover, only on such occasions do marketers slow their pace to
any degree. Any child in Huaraz would have known this. Yet it was
several days before my questions and observations made clear to me
the circumstances surrounding my first day in the market.
Perhaps it was fortuitous that I should arrive in the market on
a day so unlike other days. Just as I had learned to question ap-
pearances in the wider Peruvian society, I now began to question
appearances in the Huaraz marketplace. I already appreciated the
paradox of a country so rich in natural splendor and cultural diver-
sity yet so marked by desperate poverty. In Huaraz, I began to ob-
serve the difficult conditions and hard work of marketing beneath
the appearance of persistent cultural tradition. The contradictions
experienced by marketwomen—picture-postcard figures with full
skirts, broad-rimmed hats, and long braids who in fact underwrite
the Peruvian national economy—became a major focus of my re-
search in Huaraz.

For the half year I remained in Huaraz in 1977 and during the sum-
mers of 1982, 1984, and 1987 when I returned to that provincial city,
I considered the work and social lives of marketwomen within the
broad framework of economic underdevelopment in Peru. Only in
that context could the most vexing questions of the Huaraz market-
place be understood. For example, what attracts so many women
to petty commerce, probably the leading occupation for women in
Huaraz and second only to domestic service as a source of female
employment throughout Peru? What kind of work do marketers per-

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seized him. Taking the helmet from the head of his ancient kin, he
placed it on his own head. Likewise did he drape the rotten mantle
about his form, and equip himself with the great sword and the
great floppy boots that almost fell to pieces as he pulled them on.
Next, half tenderly, he deposited the nude mummy on its back in the
dark shadows behind the other mummies. And, finally, in the same
spot at the end of the line, his hand resting on the sword-hilt, he
assumed the same posture he had observed of the mummy.
Only his eyes moved as he observed the peon venturing slowly and
fearfully along the avenue of upright corpses. At sight of Torres he
came to an abrupt stop and with wide eyes of dread muttered a
succession of Maya prayers. Torres, so confronted, could only listen
with closed eyes and conjecture. When he heard the peon move on
he stole a look and saw him pause with apprehension at the narrow
elbow-turn of the passage which he must venture next. Torres saw
his chance and swung the sword aloft for the blow that would split
the peon’s head in twain.
Though this was the day and the very hour for the peon, the last
second had not yet ticked. Not there, in the thoroughfare of the
dead, was he destined to die under the hand of Torres. For Torres
held his hand and slowly lowered the point of the sword to the floor,
while the peon passed on into the elbow.
The latter met up with his father, Leoncia, and Francis, just as
Francis was demanding the priest to run the knots again for fuller
information of the how and what that would open the ear of Hzatzl.
“Put your hand into the mouth of Chia and draw forth the key,” the
old man commanded his reluctant son, who went about obeying him
most gingerly.
“She won’t bite you——she’s stone,” Francis laughed at him in
Spanish.
“The Maya gods are never stone,” the old man reproved him. “They
seem to be stone, but they are alive, and ever alive, and under the
stone, and through the stone, and by the stone, as always, work
their everlasting will.”
Leoncia shuddered away from him and clung against Francis, her
hand on his arm, as if for protection.
“I know that something terrible is going to happen,” she gasped. “I
don’t like this place in the heart of a mountain among all these dead
old things. I like the blue of the sky and the balm of the sunshine,
and the widespreading sea. Something terrible is going to happen. I
know that something terrible is going to happen.”
While Francis reassured her, the last seconds of the last minute for
the peon were ticking off. And when, summoning all his courage, he
thrust his hand into the mouth of the goddess, the last second ticked
and the clock struck. With a scream of terror he pulled back his hand
and gazed at the wrist where a tiny drop of blood exuded directly
above an artery. The mottled head of a snake thrust forth like a
mocking, derisive tongue and drew back and disappeared in the
darkness of the mouth of the goddess.
“A viperine!” screamed Leoncia, recognising the reptile.
And the peon, likewise recognising the viperine and knowing his
certain death by it, recoiled backward in horror, stepped into the
hole, and vanished down the nothingness which Chia had guarded
with her feet for so many centuries.
For a full minute nobody spoke, then the old priest said: “I have
angered Chia, and she has slain my son.”
“Nonsense,” Francis was comforting Leoncia. “The whole thing is
natural and explainable. What more natural than that a viperine
should choose a hole in a rock for a lair? It is the way of snakes.
What more natural than that a man, bitten by a viperine, should step
backward? And what more natural, with a hole behind him, than that
he should fall into it——”
“That is then just natural!” she cried, pointing to a stream of crystal
water which boiled up over the lips of the hole and fountained up in
the air like a geyser. “He is right. Through stone itself the gods work
their everlasting will. He warned us. He knew from reading the knots
of the sacred tassel.”
“Piffle!” Francis snorted. “Not the will of the gods, but of the ancient
Maya priests who invented their gods as well as this particular
device. Somewhere down that hole the peon’s body struck the lever
that opened stone flood-gates. And thus was released some
subterranean body of water in the mountain. This is that water. No
goddess with a monstrous mouth like that could ever have existed
save in the monstrous imaginations of men. Beauty and divinity are
one. A real and true goddess is always beautiful. Only man creates
devils in all their ugliness.”
So large was the stream that already the water was about their
ankles.
“It’s all right,” Francis said. “I noticed, all the way from the entrance,
the steady inclined plane of the floors of the rooms and passages.
Those old Mayas were engineers, and they built with an eye on
drainage. See how the water rushes away out through the passage.
—Well, old man, read your knots, where is the treasure?”
“Where is my son?” the old man counter-demanded in dull and
hopeless tones. “Chia has slain my only born. For his mother I broke
the Maya law and stained the pure Maya blood with the mongrel
blood of a woman of the tierra caliente. Because I sinned for him
that he might be, is he thrice precious to me. What care I for
treasure? My son is gone. The wrath of the Maya gods is upon me.”
With gurglings and burblings and explosive air-bubblings that
advertised the pressure behind, the water fountained high as ever
into the air. Leoncia was the first to notice the rising depth of the
water on the chamber floor.
“It is half way to my knees,” she drew Francis’ attention.
“And time to get out,” he agreed, grasping the situation. “The
drainage was excellently planned, perhaps. But that slide of rocks at
the cliff entrance has evidently blocked the planned way of the
water. In the other passages, being lower, the water is deeper, of
course, than here. Yet is it already rising here on the general level.
And that way lies the only way out. Come!”
Thrusting Leoncia to lead in the place of safety, he caught the
apathetic priest by the hand and dragged him after. At the entrance
of the elbow turn the water was boiling above their knees. It was to
their waists as they emerged into the chamber of mummies.
And out of the water, confronting Leoncia’s astounded gaze, arose
the helmeted head and ancient-mantled body of a mummy. Not this
alone would have astounded her, for other mummies were over-
toppling, falling and being washed about in the swirling waters. But
this mummy moved and made gasping noises for breath, and with
eyes of life stared into her eyes.
It was too much for ordinary human nature to bear——a four-
centuries old corpse dying the second death by drowning. Leoncia
screamed, sprang forward, and fled the way she had come, while
Francis, in his own way equally startled, let her go past as he drew
his automatic pistol. But the mummy, finding footing in the swift
rush of the current, cried out:
“Don’t shoot! It is I—Torres! I have just come back from the
entrance. Something has happened. The way is blocked. The water
is over one’s head and higher than the entrance, and rocks are
falling.”
“And your way is blocked in this direction,” Francis said, aiming the
revolver at him.
“This is no time for quarreling,” Torres replied. “We must save all our
lives, and, afterwards, if quarrel we must, then quarrel we will.”
Francis hesitated.
“What is happening to Leoncia?” Torres demanded slyly. “I saw her
run back. May she not be in danger by herself?”
Letting Torres live and dragging the old man by the arm, Francis
waded back to the chamber of the idols, followed by Torres. Here, at
sight of him, Leoncia screamed her horror again.
“It’s only Torres,” Francis reassured her. “He gave me a devil of a
fright myself when I first saw him. But he’s real flesh. He’ll bleed if a
knife is stuck into him.—Come, old man! We don’t want to drown
here like rats in a trap. This is not all of the Maya mysteries. Read
the tale of the knots and get us out of this!”
“The way is not out but in,” the priest quavered.
“And we’re not particular so long as we get away. But how can we
get in?”
“From the mouth of Chia to the ear of Hzatzl,” was the answer.
Francis was struck by a sudden grotesque and terrible thought.
“Torres,” he said, “there is a key or something inside that stone
lady’s mouth there. You’re the nearest. Stick your hand in and get
it.”
Leoncia gasped with horror as she divined Francis’ vengeance. Of
this Torres took no notice, and gaily waded toward the goddess,
saying: “Only too glad to be of service.”
And then Francis’ sense of fair play betrayed him.
“Stop!” he commanded harshly, himself wading to the idol’s side.
And Torres, at first looking on in puzzlement, saw what he had
escaped. Several times Francis fired his pistol into the stone mouth,
while the old priest moaned “Sacrilege!” Next, wrapping his coat
around his arm and hand, he groped into the mouth and pulled out
the wounded viper by the tail. With quick swings in the air he beat
its head to a jelly against the goddess’ side.
Wrapping his hand and arm against the possibility of a second
snake, Francis thrust his hand into the mouth and drew forth a piece
of worked gold of the shape and size of the hole in Hzatzl’s ear. The
old man pointed to the ear, and Francis inserted the key.
“Like a nickle-in-the-slot machine,” he remarked, as the key
disappeared from sight. “Now what’s going to happen? Let’s watch
for the water to drain suddenly away.”
But the great stream continued to spout unabated out of the hole.
With an exclamation, Torres pointed to the wall, an apparently solid
portion of which was slowly rising.
“The way out,” said Torres.
“In, as the old man said,” Francis corrected. “Well, anyway, let’s
start.”
All were through and well along the narrow passage beyond, when
the old Maya, crying, “My son!” turned and ran back.
The section of wall was already descending into its original place,
and the priest had to crouch low in order to pass it. A moment later,
it stopped in its old position. So accurately was it contrived and fitted
that it immediately shut off the stream of water which had been
flowing out of the idol room.

Outside, save for a small river of water that flowed out of the base
of the cliff, there were no signs of what was vexing the interior of
the mountain. Henry and Ricardo, arriving, noted the stream, and
Henry observed:
“That’s something new. There wasn’t any stream of water here when
I left.”
A minute later he was saying, as he looked at a fresh slide of rock:
“This was the entrance to the cave. Now there is no entrance. I
wonder where the others are.”
As if in answer, out of the mountain, borne by the spouting stream,
shot the body of a man. Henry and Ricardo pounced upon it and
dragged it clear. Recognizing it for the priest, Henry laid him face
downward, squatted astride of him, and proceeded to give him the
first aid for the drowned.
Not for ten minutes did the old man betray signs of life, and not until
after another ten minutes did he open his eyes and look wildly
about.
“Where are they?” Henry asked.
The old priest muttered in Maya, until Henry shook more thorough
consciousness into him.
“Gone——all gone,” he gasped in Spanish.
“Who?” Henry demanded, shook memory into the resuscitated one,
and demanded again.
“My son; Chia slew him. Chia slew my son, as she slew them all.”
“Who are the rest?”
Followed more shakings and repetitions of the question.
“The rich young Gringo who befriended my son, the enemy of the
rich young Gringo whom men call Torres, and the young woman of
the Solanos who was the cause of all that happened. I warned you.
She should not have come. Women are always a curse in the affairs
of men. By her presence, Chia, who is likewise a woman, was made
angry. The tongue of Chia is a viperine. By her tongue Chia struck
and slew my son, and the mountain vomited the ocean upon us
there in the heart of the mountain, and all are dead, slain by Chia.
Woe is me! I have angered the gods. Woe is me! Woe is me! And
woe upon all who would seek the sacred treasure to filch it from the
gods of Maya!”
 CHAPTER XVI

Midway between the out-bursting stream of water and the rock-

slide, Henry and Ricardo stood in hurried debate. Beside them,
crouched on the ground, moaned and prayed the last priest of the
Mayas. From him, by numerous shakings that served to clear his
addled old head, Henry had managed to extract a rather vague
account of what had occurred inside the mountain.
“Only his son was bitten and fell into that hole,” Henry reasoned
hopefully.
“That’s right,” Ricardo concurred. “He never saw any damage,
beyond a wetting, happen to the rest of them.”
“And they may be, right now, high up above the floor in some
chamber,” Henry went on. “Now, if we could attack the slide, we
might open up the cave and drain the water off. If they’re alive they
can last for many days, for lack of water is what kills quickly, and
they’ve certainly more water than they know what to do with. They
can get along without food for a long time. But what gets me is how
Torres got inside with them.”
“Wonder if he wasn’t responsible for that attack of the Caroos upon
us,” Ricardo suggested.
But Henry scouted the idea.
“Anyway,” he said, “that isn’t the present proposition——which
proposition is: how to get inside that mountain on the chance that
they are still alive. You and I couldn’t go through that slide in a
month. If we could get fifty men to help, night and day shifts, we
might open her up in forty-eight hours. So, the primary thing is to
get the men. Here’s what we must do. I’ll take a mule and beat it
back to that Caroo community and promise them the contents of
one of Francis’ check-books if they will come and help. Failing that, I
can get up a crowd in San Antonio. So here’s where I pull out on the
run. In the meantime, you can work out trails and bring up all the
mules, peons, grub and camp equipment. Also, keep your ears to
the cliff——they might start signalling through it with tappings.”

Into the village of the Caroos Henry forced his mule——much to the
reluctance of the mule, and equally as much to the astonishment of
the Caroos, who thus saw their stronghold invaded single-handed by
one of the party they had attempted to annihilate. They squatted
about their doors and loafed in the sunshine, under a show of
lethargy hiding the astonishment that tingled through them and
almost put them on their toes. As has been ever the way, the very
daring of the white man, over savage and mongrel breeds, in this
instance stunned the Caroos to inaction. Only a man, they could not
help but reason in their slow way, a superior man, a noble or over-
riding man, equipped with potencies beyond their dreaming, could
dare to ride into their strength of numbers on a fagged and
mutinous mule.
They spoke a mongrel Spanish which he could understand, and, in
turn, they understood his Spanish; but what he told them
concerning the disaster in the sacred mountain had no effect of
rousing them. With impassive faces, shrugging shoulders of utmost
indifference, they listened to his proposition of a rescue and promise
of high pay for their time.
“If a mountain has swallowed up the Gringos, then is it the will of
God, and who are we to interfere between God and His will?” they
replied. “We are poor men, but we care not to work for any man,
nor do we care to make war upon God. Also, it was the Gringos’
fault. This is not their country. They have no right here playing
pranks on our mountains. Their troubles are between them and God.
We have troubles enough of our own, and our wives are unruly.”
Long after the siesta hour, on his third and most reluctant mule,
Henry rode into sleepy San Antonio. In the main street, midway
between the court and the jail, he pulled up at sight of the Jefe
Politico and the little fat old judge, with, at their heels, a dozen
gendarmes and a couple of wretched prisoners——runaway peons
from the henequen plantations at Santos. While the judge and the
Jefe listened to Henry’s tale and appeal for help, the Jefe gave one
slow wink to the judge, who was his judge, his creature, body and
soul of him.
“Yes, certainly we will help you,” the Jefe said at the end, stretching
his arms and yawning.
“How soon can we get the men together and start?” Henry
demanded eagerly.
“As for that, we are very busy——are we not, honorable judge?” the
Jefe replied with lazy insolence.
“We are very busy,” the judge yawned into Henry’s face.
“Too busy for a time,” the Jefe went on. “We regret that not to-
morrow nor next day shall we be able to try and rescue your
Gringos. Now, a little later——”
“Say next Christmas,” the judge suggested.
“Yes,” concurred the Jefe with a grateful bow. “About next Christmas
come around and see us, and, if the pressure of our affairs has
somewhat eased, then, maybe possibly, we shall find it convenient
to go about beginning to attempt to raise the expedition you have
requested. In the meantime, good day to you, Senor Morgan.”
“You mean that?” Henry demanded with wrathful face.
“The very face he must have worn when he slew Senor Alfaro
Solano treacherously from the back,” the Jefe soliloquized ominously.
But Henry ignored the later insult.
“I’ll tell you what you are,” he flamed in righteous wrath.
“Beware!” the judge cautioned him.
“I snap my fingers at you,” Henry retorted. “You have no power over
me. I am a full-pardoned man by the President of Panama himself.
And this is what you are. You are half-breeds. You are mongrel pigs.”
“Pray proceed, Senor,” said the Jefe, with the suave politeness of
deathly rage.
“You’ve neither the virtues of the Spaniard nor of the Carib, but the
vices of both thrice compounded. Mongrel pigs, that’s what you are
and all you are, the pair of you.”
“Are you through Senor?—quite through?” the Jefe queried softly.
At the same moment he gave a signal to the gendarmes, who
sprang upon Henry from behind and disarmed him.
“Even the President of the Republic of Panama cannot pardon in
anticipation of a crime not yet committed——am I right, judge?” said
the Jefe.
“This is a fresh offense,” the judge took the cue promptly. “This
Gringo dog has blasphemed against the law.”
“Then shall he be tried, and tried now, right here, immediately. We
will not bother to go back and reopen court. We shall try him, and
when we have disposed of him, we shall proceed. I have a very
good bottle of wine——”
“I care not for wine,” the judge disclaimed hastily. “Mine shall be
mescal. And in the meantime, and now, having been both witness
and victim of the offense and there being no need of evidence
further than what I already possess, I find the prisoner guilty. Is
there anything you would suggest, Senor Mariano Vercara é Hijos?”
“Twenty-four hours in the stocks to cool his heated Gringo head,” the
Jefe answered.
“Such is the sentence,” the judge affirmed, “to begin at once. Take
the prisoner away, gendarmes, and put him in the stocks.”
Daybreak found Henry in the stocks, with a dozen hours of such
imprisonment already behind him, lying on his back asleep. But the
sleep was restless, being vexed subjectively by nightmare dreams of
his mountain-imprisoned companions, and, objectively, by the stings
of countless mosquitoes. So it was, twisting and squirming and
striking at the winged pests, he awoke to full consciousness of his
predicament. And this awoke the full expression of his profanity.
Irritated beyond endurance by the poison from a thousand
mosquito-bites, he filled the dawn so largely with his curses as to
attract the attention of a man carrying a bag of tools. This was a
trim-figured, eagle-faced young man, clad in the military garb of an
aviator of the United States Army. He deflected his course so as to
come by the stocks, and paused, and listened, and stared with
quizzical admiration.
“Friend,” he said, when Henry ceased to catch breath. “Last night,
when I found myself marooned here with half my outfit left on
board, I did a bit of swearing myself. But it was only a trifle
compared with yours. I salute you, sir. You’ve an army teamster
skinned a mile. Now if you don’t mind running over the string again,
I shall be better equipped the next time I want to do any cussing.”
“And who in hell are you?” Henry demanded. “And what in hell are
you doing here?”
“I don’t blame you,” the aviator grinned. “With a face swollen like
that you’ve got a right to be rude. And who beat you up? In hell, I
haven’t ascertained my status yet. But here on earth I am known as
Parsons, Lieutenant Parsons. I am not doing anything in hell as yet;
but here in Panama I am scheduled to fly across this day from the
Atlantic to the Pacific. Is there any way I may serve you before I
start?”
“Sure,” Henry nodded. “Take a tool out of that bag of yours and
smash this padlock. I’ll get rheumatism if I have to stick here much
longer. My name’s Morgan, and no man has beaten me up. Those
are mosquito-bites.”
With several blows of a wrench, Lieutenant Parsons smashed the
ancient padlock and helped Henry to his feet. Even while rubbing the
circulation back into his feet and ankles, Henry, in a rush, was telling
the army aviator of the predicament and possibly tragic disaster to
Leoncia and Francis.
“I love that Francis,” he concluded. “He is the dead spit of myself.
We’re more like twins, and we must be distantly related. As for the
senorita, not only do I love her but I am engaged to marry her. Now
will you help? Where’s the machine? It takes a long time to get to
the Maya Mountain on foot or mule-back; but if you give me a lift in
your machine I’d be there in no time, along with a hundred sticks of
dynamite, which you could procure for me and with which I could
blow the side out of that mountain and drain off the water.”
Lieutenant Parsons hesitated.
“Say yes, say yes,” Henry pleaded.

Back in the heart of the sacred mountain, the three imprisoned ones
found themselves in total darkness the instant the stone that
blocked the exit from the idol chamber had settled into place.
Francis and Leoncia groped for each other and touched hands. In
another moment his arm was around her, and the deliciousness of
the contact robbed the situation of half its terror. Near them they
could hear Torres breathing heavily. At last he muttered:
“Mother of God, but that was a close shave! What next, I wonder?”
“There’ll be many nexts before we get out of this neck of the
woods,” Francis assured him. “And we might as well start getting
out.”
The method of procedure was quickly arranged. Placing Leoncia
behind him, her hand clutching the hem of his jacket so as to be
guided by him, he moved ahead with his left hand in contact with
the wall. Abreast of him, Torres felt his way along the right-hand
wall. By their voices they could thus keep track of each other,
measure the width of the passage, and guard against being
separated into forked passages. Fortunately, the tunnel, for tunnel it
truly was, had a smooth floor, so that, while they groped their way,
they did not stumble. Francis refused to use his matches unless
extremity arose, and took precaution against falling into a possible
pit by cautiously advancing one foot at a time and ascertaining solid
stone under it ere putting on his weight. As a result, their progress
was slow. At no greater speed than half a mile an hour did they
proceed.
Once only did they encounter branching passages. Here he lighted a
precious match from his waterproof case, and found that between
the two passages there was nothing to choose. They were as like as
two peas.
“The only way is to try one,” he concluded, “and, if it gets us
nowhere, to retrace and try the other. There’s one thing certain:
these passages lead somewhere, or the Mayas wouldn’t have gone
to all the trouble of making them.”
Ten minutes later he halted suddenly and cried warning. The foot he
had advanced was suspended in emptiness where the floor should
have been. Another match was struck, and they found themselves
on the edge of a natural cavern of such proportions that neither to
right nor left, nor up nor down, nor across, could the tiny flame
expose any limits to it. But they did manage to make out a rough
sort of stairway, half-natural, half-improved by man, which fell away
beneath them into the pit of black.
In another hour, having followed the path down the length of the
floor of the cavern, they were rewarded by a feeble glimmer of
daylight, which grew stronger as they advanced. Before they knew
it, they had come to the source of it——being much nearer than they
had judged; and Francis, tearing away vines and shrubbery, crawled
out into the blaze of the afternoon sun. In a moment Leoncia and
Torres were beside him, gazing down into a valley from an eyrie on a
cliff. Nearly circular was the valley, a full league in diameter, and it
appeared to be mountain-walled and cliff-walled for its entire
circumference.
“It is the Valley of Lost Souls,” Torres utterly solemnly. “I have heard
of it, but never did I believe.”
“So have I heard of it and never believed,” Leoncia gasped.
“And what of it?” demanded Francis. “We’re not lost souls, but good
flesh-and-blood persons. We should worry.”
“But Francis, listen,” Leoncia said. “The tales I have heard of it, ever
since I was a little girl, all agreed that no person who ever got into it
ever got out again.”
“Granting that that is so,” Francis could not help smiling, “then how
did the tales come out? If nobody ever came out again to tell about
it, how does it happen that everybody outside knows about it?”
“I don’t know,” Leoncia admitted. “I only tell you what I have heard.
Besides, I never believed. But this answers all the descriptions of the
tales.”
“Nobody ever got out,” Torres affirmed with the same solemn
utterance.
“Then how do you know that anybody got in?” Francis persisted.
“All the lost souls live here,” was the reply. “That is why we’ve never
seen them, because they never got out. I tell you, Mr. Francis
Morgan, that I am no creature without reason. I have been
educated. I have studied in Europe, and I have done business in
your own New York. I know science and philosophy; and yet do I
know that this is the valley, once in, from which no one emerges.”
“Well, we’re not in yet, are we?” retorted Francis with a slight
manifestation of impatience. “And we don’t have to go in, do we?”
He crawled forward to the verge of the shelf of loose soil and
crumbling stone in order to get a better view of the distant object
his eye had just picked out. “If that isn’t a grass-thatched roof——”
At that moment the soil broke away under his hands. In a flash, the
whole soft slope on which they rested broke away, and all three
were sliding and rolling down the steep slope in the midst of a
miniature avalanche of soil, gravel, and grass-tufts.
The two men picked themselves up first, in the thicket of bushes
which had arrested them; but, before they could get to Leoncia, she,
too, was up and laughing.
“Just as you were saying we didn’t have to go into the valley!” she
gurgled at Francis. “Now will you believe?”
But Francis was busy. Reaching out his hand, he caught and stopped
a familiar object bounding down the steep slope after them. It was
Torres’ helmet purloined from the chamber of mummies, and to
Torres he tossed it.
“Throw it away,” Leoncia said.
“It’s the only protection against the sun I possess,” was his reply, as,
turning it over in his hands, his eyes lighted upon an inscription on
the inside. He showed it to his companions, reading it aloud:
“DA VASCO.”
“I have heard,” Leoncia breathed.
“And you heard right,” Torres nodded. “Da Vasco was my direct
ancestor. My mother was a Da Vasco. He came over the Spanish
Main with Cortez.”
“He mutinied,” Leoncia took up the tale. “I remember it well from my
father and from my Uncle Alfaro. With a dozen comrades he sought
the Maya treasure. They led a sea-tribe of Caribs, a hundred strong
including their women, as auxiliaries. Mendoza, under Cortez’s
instructions, pursued; and his report, in the archives, so Uncle Alfaro
told me, says that they were driven into the Valley of the Lost Souls
where they were left to perish miserably.”
“And he evidently tried to get out by the way we’ve just come in,”
Torres continued, “and the Mayas caught him and made a mummy
of him.”
He jammed the ancient helmet down on his head, saying:
“Low as the sun is in the afternoon sky, it bites my crown like acid.”
“And famine bites at me like acid,” Francis confessed. “Is the valley
inhabited?”
“I should know, Senor,” Torres replied. “There is the narrative of
Mendoza, in which he reported that Da Vasco and his party were left
there ‘to perish miserably.’ This I do know: they were never seen
again of men.”
“Looks as though plenty of food could be grown in a place like this
——” Francis began, but broke off at sight of Leoncia picking berries
from a bush. “Here! Stop that, Leoncia! We’ve got enough troubles
without having a very charming but very much poisoned young
woman on our hands.”
“They’re all right,” she said, calmly eating. “You can see where the
birds have been pecking and eating them.”
“In which case I apologize and join you,” Francis cried, filling his
mouth with the luscious fruit. “And if I could catch the birds that did
the pecking, I’d eat them too.”
By the time they had eased the sharpest of their hunger-pangs, the
sun was so low that Torres removed the helmet of Da Vasco.
“We might as well stop here for the night,” he said. “I left my shoes
in the cave with the mummies, and lost Da Vasco’s old boots during
the swimming. My feet are cut to ribbons, and there’s plenty of
seasoned grass here out of which I can plait a pair of sandals.”
While occupied with this task, Francis built a fire and gathered a
supply of wood, for, despite the low latitude, the high altitude made
fire a necessity for a night’s lodging. Ere he had completed the
supply, Leoncia, curled up on her side, her head in the hollow of her
arm, was sound asleep. Against the side of her away from the fire,
Francis thoughtfully packed a mound of dry leaves and dry forest
mould.
 CHAPTER XVII

Daybreak in the Valley of the Lost Souls, and the Long House in the
village of the Tribe of the Lost Souls. Fully eighty feet in length was
the Long House, with half as much in width, built of adobe bricks,
and rising thirty feet to a gable roof thatched with straw. Out of the
house feebly walked the Priest of the Sun——an old man, tottery on
his legs, sandal-footed, clad in a long robe of rude home-spun cloth,
in whose withered Indian face were haunting reminiscences of the
racial lineaments of the ancient conquistadores. On his head was a
curious cap of gold, arched over by a semi-circle of polished golden
spikes. The effect was obvious, namely, the rising sun and the rays
of the rising sun.
He tottered across the open space to where a great hollow log
swung suspended between two posts carved with totemic and
heraldic devices. He glanced at the eastern horizon, already red with
the dawning, to reassure himself that he was on time, lifted a stick,
the end of which was fiber-woven into a ball, and struck the hollow
log. Feeble as he was, and light as was the blow, the hollow log
boomed and reverberated like distant thunder.
Almost immediately, while he continued slowly to beat, from the
grass-thatched dwellings that formed the square about the Long
House, emerged the Lost Souls. Men and women, old and young,
and children and babes in arms, they all came out and converged
upon the Sun Priest. No more archaic spectacle could be witnessed
in the twentieth-century world. Indians, indubitably they were, yet in
many of their faces were the racial reminiscences of the Spaniard.
Some faces, to all appearance, were all Spanish. Others, by the
same token, were all Indian. But betwixt and between, the majority
of them betrayed the inbred blend of both races. But more bizarre
was their costume——unremarkable in the women, who were
garbed in long, discreet robes of home-spun cloth, but most
remarkable in the men, whose home-spun was grotesquely
fashioned after the style of Spanish dress that obtained in Spain at
the time of Columbus’ first voyage. Homely and sad-looking were the
men and women—as of a breed too closely interbred to retain joy of
life. This was true of the youths and maidens, of the children, and of
the very babes against breasts——true, with the exception of two,
one, a child-girl of ten, in whose face was fire, and spirit, and
intelligence. Amongst the sodden faces of the sodden and stupid
Lost Souls, her face stood out like a flaming flower. Only like hers
was the face of the old Sun Priest, cunning, crafty, intelligent.
While the priest continued to beat the resounding log, the entire
tribe formed about him in a semi-circle, facing the east. As the sun
showed the edge of its upper rim, the priest greeted it and hailed it
with a quaint and medieval Spanish, himself making low obeisance
thrice repeated, while the tribe prostrated itself. And, when the full
sun shone clear of the horizon, all the tribe, under the direction of
the priest, arose and uttered a joyful chant. Just as he had dismissed
his people, a thin pillar of smoke, rising in the quiet air across the
valley, caught the priest’s eye. He pointed it out, and commanded
several of the young men.
“It rises in the Forbidden Place of Fear where no member of the
tribe may wander. It is some devil of a pursuer sent out by our
enemies who have vainly sought our hiding-place through the
centuries. He must not escape to make report, for our enemies are
powerful, and we shall be destroyed. Go. Kill him that we may not
be killed.”

About the fire, which had been replenished at intervals throughout

the night, Leoncia, Francis, and Torres lay asleep, the latter with his
new-made sandals on his feet and with the helmet of Da Vasco
pulled tightly down on his head to keep off the dew. Leoncia was the
first to awaken, and so curious was the scene that confronted her,
that she watched quietly through her down-dropped lashes. Three of
the strange Lost Tribe men, bows still stretched and arrows drawn in
what was evident to her as the interrupted act of slaying her and her
companions, were staring with amazement at the face of the
unconscious Torres. They looked at each other in doubt, let their
bows straighten, and shook their heads in patent advertisement that
they were not going to kill. Closer they crept upon Torres, squatting
on their hams the better to scrutinize his face and the helmet, which
latter seemed to arouse their keenest interest.
From where she lay, Leoncia was able privily to nudge Francis’
shoulder with her foot. He awoke quietly, and quietly sat up,
attracting the attention of the strangers. Immediately they made the
universal peace sign, laying down their bows and extending their
palms outward in token of being weaponless.
“Good morning, merry strangers,” Francis addressed them in English,
which made them shake their heads while it aroused Torres.
“They must be Lost Souls,” Leoncia whispered to Francis.
“Or real estate agents,” he smiled back. “At least the valley is
inhabited.—Torres, who’re your friends? From the way they regard
you, one would think they were relatives of yours.”
Quite ignoring them, the three Lost Souls drew apart a slight
distance and debated in low sibilant tones.
“Sounds like a queer sort of Spanish,” Francis observed.
“It’s medieval, to say the least,” Leoncia confirmed.
“It’s the Spanish of the conquistadores pretty badly gone to seed,”
Torres contributed. “You see I was right. The Lost Souls never get
away.”
“At any rate they must give and be given in marriage,” Francis
quipped, “else how explain these three young huskies?”
But by this time the three huskies, having reached agreement, were
beckoning them with encouraging gestures to follow across the
valley.
“They’re good-natured and friendly cusses, to say the least, despite
their sorrowful mug,” said Francis, as they prepared to follow. “But
did you ever see a sadder-faced aggregation in your life? They must
have been born in the dark of the moon, or had all their sweet
gazelles die, or something or other worse.”
“It’s just the kind of faces one would expect of lost souls,” Leoncia
answered.
“And if we never get out of here, I suppose we’ll get to looking a
whole lot sadder than they do,” he came back. “Anyway, I hope
they’re leading us to breakfast. Those berries were better than
nothing, but that is not saying much.”
An hour or more afterward, still obediently following their guides,
they emerged upon the clearings, the dwelling places, and the Long
House of the tribe.
“These are descendants of Da Vasco’s party and the Caribs,” Torres
affirmed, as he glanced over the assembled faces. “That is
incontrovertible on the face of it.”
“And they’ve relapsed from the Christian religion of Da Vasco to old
heathen worship,” added Francis. “Look at that altar——there. It’s a
stone altar, and, from the smell of it, that is no breakfast, but a
sacrifice that is cooking, in spite of the fact that it smells like
mutton.”
“Thank heaven it’s only a lamb,” Leoncia breathed. “The old Sun
Worship included human sacrifice. And this is Sun Worship. See that
old man there in the long shroud with the golden-rayed cap of gold.
He’s a sun priest. Uncle Alfaro has told me all about the sun-
worshipers.”
Behind and above the altar, was a great metal image of the sun.
“Gold, all gold,” Francis whispered, “and without alloy. Look at those
spikes, the size of them, yet so pure is the metal that I wager a child
could bend them any way it wished and even tie knots in them.”
“Merciful God!—look at that!” Leoncia gasped, indicating with her
eyes a crude stone bust that stood to one side of the altar and
slightly lower. “It is the face of Torres. It is the face of the mummy in
the Maya cave.”
“And there is an inscription——” Francis stepped closer to see and
was peremptorily waved back by the priest. “It says, ‘Da Vasco.’
Notice that it has the same sort of helmet that Torres is wearing.—
And, say! Glance at the priest! If he doesn’t look like Torres’ full
brother, I’ve never fancied a resemblance in my life!”
The priest, with angry face and imperative gesture, motioned Francis
to silence, and made obeisance to the cooking sacrifice. As if in
response, a flaw of wind put out the flame of the cooking.
“The Sun God is angry,” the priest announced with great solemnity,
his queer Spanish nevertheless being intelligible to the newcomers.
“Strangers have come among us and remain unslain. That is why the
Sun God is angry. Speak, you young men who have brought the
strangers alive to our altar. Was not my bidding, which is ever and
always the bidding of the Sun God, that you should slay them?”
One of the three young men stepped tremblingly forth, and with
trembling forefingers pointed at the face of Torres and at the face of
the stone bust.
“We recognised him,” he quavered, “and we could not slay him for
we remembered prophecy and that our great ancestor would some
day return. Is this stranger he? We do not know. We dare not know
nor judge. Yours, O priest, is the knowledge, and yours be the
judgment. Is this he?”
The priest looked closely at Torres and exclaimed incoherently.
Turning his back abruptly, he rekindled the sacred cooking fire from
a pot of fire at the base of an altar. But the fire flamed up, flickered
down, and died.
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