"I have not much idea where this dwelling is to be found, unless it be subterranean, as I begin to suspect."
"You have almost guessed it. The place I inhabit, if not subterranean in the strict sense of the word, is at least a dwelling covered by the ground. Few have entered it to leave it again safe and sound, as you shall."
"So much the worse," retorted roundly the hacendero; "so much the worse for them and for you."
The Tigercat frowned, but immediately replied, in the light and careless tone he had affected for the last few minutes:
"Look you, I will clear up this mystery. Listen; the story is interesting enough. When the Aztecs quitted Azlin, which signifies 'the country of herons,' to conquer Anahuac, or 'the country between the waters,' their peregrinations were long, extending over several centuries. Disheartened at times by long travel, they halted, founded cities, in which they installed themselves as if they never intended to abandon the place they had chosen; and, perhaps with the object of leaving behind them ineffaceable traces of their passage through the wild countries they traversed, they constructed pyramids. Hence the numerous ruins littering the soil of Mexico, and the teocalis one meets with occasionally, last and mournful vestiges of a people that has disappeared. These teocalis built on a system of incredible solidity far from crumbling under the strenuous embrace of time, have ended in becoming a part of the ground which supported them, and so completely, that there is often difficulty in recognising them. I can give you no better proof of my assertion than what you have now before you. The elevation you are now ascending is not, as you might suppose, a hill caused by some perturbation of the earth, it is an Aztec teocali."
"A teocali!" exclaimed Don Pedro, in astonishment.
"It is, indeed," continued the freebooter; "but so many centuries have elapsed since the day it was built, that, thanks to the vegetable matter incessantly conveyed by the winds, nature has apparently resumed her rights, and the Aztec watchtower has become a green hill. You are doubtless aware that the teocalis are hollow?"
"I am aware of it," answered the hacendero.
"It is in the interior of this one I have fixed my dwelling. See, we have reached it. Allow me to show you the way into it."
In fact, the travellers had arrived at a kind of coarse portal a Cyclopean construction which gave admittance to a subterranean building, in which a profound obscurity prevailed, forbidding any estimate of its dimensions.
The Tigercat stopped, and gave a peculiar whistle. Immediately a dazzling light broke forth from the interior, and illuminated it in all its vastness.
"Let us enter," said the freebooter, preceding his companions.
Without hesitation Don Pedro prepared to follow, after making a sign to his attendants, warning them to conceal their rising fears.
For a moment the unknown found himself, so to speak, alone with the hacendero, and bending swiftly down, whispered softly in his ear, "Be prudent; you are entering the tiger's den."
Saying this, he rapidly left them, as he feared the freebooter might perceive that he was giving a last word of warning to the stranger.
But, good or bad, the advice came too late: hesitation would have been folly, for flight was impossible.
On all sides, on every jutting rock, appeared as by enchantment, the dark shadows of a host of persons, who had started up around the strangers without their understanding whence they came, so stealthy had been their approach.
The Mexicans entered, then, although not without feelings of dread, into the terrible cavern, whose mouth opened yawning before them. The building was vast, the walls were lofty.
After proceeding for about ten minutes, the Mexicans found themselves in a species of rotunda, in the centre of which a huge brazier was flaming; four long corridors crossed the rotunda at right angles. The Tigercat, still followed by the travellers, entered one of these. He stopped on reaching a door formed of a reed hurdle.
"Make yourselves at home," said he; "your lodgings consists of two chambers, which have no communication with the rest of the cave. By my orders you will be supplied with food, with wood to make a fire, and torches of ocote to give you light."
"I thank you for these attentions," replied Don Pedro. "I had little reason to expect them."
"And why not? Do you think that I do not know how to practise Mexican hospitality, in its fullest extent, whenever it suits me?"
"Sir!" said the hacendero, with a gesture of deprecation.
"Silence!" said the bandit, interrupting him; "You are my guests for the night. Sleep in peace; nothing shall disturb your rest. In an hour I will send you a potion for the lady to drink. We shall meet again tomorrow." And, bowing with an ease and courtesy little expected by Don Pedro from such a man, the Tigercat took his leave and quitted the chamber.
For a few seconds the step resounded under the dark vault of the corridor; then it was silenced. The travellers were alone, and the hacendero determined to investigate the chambers prepared for them.
CHAPTER IV
SUPERFICIAL REMARKS
The haciendas of Spanish America were never feudal tenures, whatever certain badly informed authors may assert, but simply large agricultural holdings, as their name clearly indicates.
These haciendas, scattered over Mexico at great distances from each other, and surrounded by vast stretches of country, for the greater part uninhabited, are generally situated on the top of abruptly rising hills, in positions easy of defence.
As the hacienda, properly so called, i. e. the habitation of the proprietor of the estate, forms the nucleus of the colony, and, in addition to the barns and stables, contains also the out houses, the lodgings of the peones, and, above all, the chapel, its walls are high, massive, and surrounded by a ditch, so as to put it out of danger from a coup-de-main.
These numerous haciendas frequently maintain from six to seven hundred individuals of all trades, the lands belonging to a farm of this description being often of greater extent than a whole province in France.
They are the wholesale breeding places of the wild horses and cattle that graze at freedom in the prairies, watched over at a distance by peones vaqueros as untamed as themselves.
The Hacienda de las Norias de San Antonio i. e. St. Anthony's Wells rose gracefully from the summit of a hill covered with thick groves of mahogany, Peru trees and mesquites, forming a belt of evergreen foliage, the palish green of which contrasted agreeably with the dead white of the lofty walls, crowned with almenas, a kind of battlement intended to announce the nobility of the proprietor of the holding.
In fact, Don Pedro de Luna was what is called a cristiano viejo (old Christian), and descended in a direct line from the first Spanish conquerors, without a single drop of Indian blood having been infused into the veins of his ancestors. So, although after the Declaration of Independence the ancient customs began to fall into disuse, Don Pedro de Luna was proud of his nobility, and clung to the almenas as marks of distinction which only noblemen were allowed to adopt in the time of the Spanish rule.