Chapter 23

Hugo had no friends. One single individual whom he loved, whom he could have taken fully into his confidence, might, in a measure, have resolved his whole life. Yet so intense was the pressure that had conditioned him that he invariably retreated before the rare opportunities for such confidences. He had known many persons well: his father and mother, Anna Blake, Lefty Foresman, Charlotte, Iris, Tom Shayne, Roseanne, even Skorvsky--but none of them had known him. His friendlessness was responsible for a melancholy yearning to remain with his kind. Having already determined to go away, he sought for a kind of compromise.

He did not want to be in New York, or Washington, or any other city; the landscape of America was haunted for him. He would leave it, but he would not open himself to the cruel longing for his own language, the sight of familiar customs and manners. From his hotel in New York he made excursions to various steamship agencies and travel bureaus. He had seen many lands, and his Wanderlust demanded novelty. For days he was undecided.

It was a chance group of photographs in a Sunday newspaper that excited his first real interest. One of the pictures was of a man--erect, white-haired, tanned, clear-eyed--Professor Daniel Hardin--a procession of letters--head of the new expedition to Yucatan. The other pictures were of ruined temples, unpiled stone causeways, jungle. He thought instantly that he would like to attach himself to the party.

Many factors combined to make the withdrawal offered by an expedition ideal. The more Hugo thought about it, the more excited he became. The very nascency of a fresh objective was accompanied by and crowded with new hints for himself and his problems. The expedition would take him away from his tribulations, and it would not entirely cut him off from his kind: Professor Hardin had both the face and the fame of a distinguished man.

A thought that had been in the archives of his mind for many months came sharply into relief: of all human beings alive, the scientists were the only ones who retained imagination, ideals, and a sincere interest in the larger world. It was to them he should give his allegiance, not to the statesmen, not to industry or commerce or war. Hugo felt that in one quick glimpse he had made a long step forward.

Another concept, far more fantastic and in a way even more intriguing, dawned in his mind as he read accounts of the Maya ruins which were to be excavated. The world was cluttered with these great lumps of incredible architecture. Walls had been builded by primitive man, temples, hanging gardens, obelisks, pyramids, palaces, bridges, terraces, roads--all of them gigantic and all of them defying the penetration of archæology to find the manner of their creation. Was it not possible--Hugo’s heart skipped a beat when it occurred to him--that in their strange combination of ignorance and brilliance the ancients had stumbled upon the secret of human strength--his secret! Had not those antique and migratory peoples carried with them the formula which could be poured into the veins of slaves, making them stronger than engines? And was it not conceivable that, as their civilizations crumbled, the secret was lost, together with so many other formulæ of knowledge?

He could imagine plumed and painted priests with prayer and sacrifice cutting open the veins of prehistoric mothers and pouring in the magic potion. When the babies grew, they could raise up the pyramids, walls, and temples; they could do it rapidly and easily. A great enigma was thus resolved. He set out immediately to locate Professor Hardin and with difficulty arranged an interview with him.

Preparations for the expedition were being carried on in an ordinary New York business office. A secretary announced Hugo and he was conducted before the professor. Daniel Hardin was no dusty pedagogue. His knowledge was profound and academic, his books were authoritative, but in himself he belonged to the type of man certain to succeed, whatever his choice of occupation. Much of his life had been spent in field work--arduous toil in bizarre lands where life depended sometimes on tact and sometimes on military strategy. He appraised Hugo shrewdly before he spoke.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Danner?”

Hugo came directly to the point. “I should like to join your Yucatan expedition.”

Professor Hardin smiled. “I’m sorry. We’re full up.”

“I’d be glad to go in any capacity--”

“Have you special qualifications? Knowledge of the language? Of archæology?”

“No.”

The professor picked up a tray of letters. “These letters--more than three hundred--are all from young men--and women--who would like to join my expedition.”

“I think I should be useful,” Hugo said, and then he played his trump, “and I should be willing to contribute, for the favour of being included, a sum of fifty thousand dollars.”

Professor Hardin whistled. Then his eyes narrowed. “What’s your object, young man? Treasure?”

“No. A life--let us say--with ample means at my disposal and no definite purpose.”

“Boredom, then.” He smiled. “A lot of these other young men are independently wealthy, and bored. I must say, I feel sorry for your generation. But--no--I can’t accept. We are already adequately financed.”

Hugo smiled in response. “Then--perhaps--I could organize my own party and camp near you.”

“That would hamper me.”

“Then--a hundred thousand dollars.”

“Good Lord. You are determined.”

“I have decided. I am familiar with the jungle. I am an athlete. I speak a little Spanish--enough to boss a labour gang. I propose to assist you in that way, as well as financially. I will make any contract with you that you desire--and attach no strings whatever to my money.”

Professor Hardin pondered for a long time. His eyes twinkled when he replied. “You won’t believe it, but I don’t give a damn for your money. Not that it wouldn’t assist us. But--the fact is--I could use a man like you. Anybody could. I’ll take you--and you can keep your money.”

“There will be a check in the mail to-morrow,” Hugo answered.

The professor stood. “We’re hoping to get away in three weeks. You’ll leave your address with my secretary and I’ll send a list of the things you’ll want for your kit.” He held out his hand and Hugo shook it. When he had gone, the professor looked over the roof-tops and swore gleefully to himself.

Hugo discovered, after the ship sailed, that everyone called Professor Hardin “Dan” and they used Hugo’s first name from the second day out. Dan Hardin was too busy to be very friendly with any of the members of his party during the voyage, but they themselves fraternized continually. There were deck games and card games; there were long and erudite arguments about the people whom they were going to study. What was the Mayan time cycle and did it correspond to the Egyptian Sothic cycle or the Greek Metonic cycle. Where did the Mayans get their jade? Did they come from Asia over Bering Strait or were they a colony of Atlantis? When they knew so much about engineering, why did they not use the keystone arch and the wheel? Why was their civilization decadent, finished when the conquistadores discovered it? How old were they--four thousand years or twelve thousand years? There were innumerable other debates to which Hugo listened like a man new-born.

The cold Atlantic winds were transformed overnight to the balm of the Gulf stream. Presently they passed the West Indies, which lay on the water like marine jewels. Ages turned back through the days of buccaneering to the more remote times. In the port of Xantl a rickety wharf, a single white man, a zinc bar, and a storehouse filled with chicle blocks marked off the realm of the twentieth century. The ship anchored. During the next year it would make two voyages back to the homeland for supplies. But the explorers would not emerge from the jungle in that time.

An antiquated, wood-burning locomotive, which rocked along over treacherous rails, carried them inland. The scientists became silent and pensive. In another car the Maya Indians who were to do the manual labour chattered incessantly in their explosive tongue. At the last sun-baked stop they disembarked, slept through an insect-droning night, and entered the jungle. For three weeks they hacked and hewed their way forward; the vegetation closed behind them, cutting off the universe as completely as the submerging waves of the sea. It was hot, difficult work, to which Hugo lent himself with an energy that astounded even Hardin, who had judged him valuable.

One day, when the high mountains loomed into view, Hugo caught his first glimpse of Uctotol, the Sacred City. A creeper on the hillside fell before his machete, then another--a hole in the green wall--and there it stood, shining white, huge, desolate, still as the grave. His arm hung in mid-air. Over him passed the mystic feeling of familiarity, that fugitive sense of recognition which springs so readily into a belief in immortality. It seemed to him during that staggering instant that he knew every contour of those great structures, that he had run in the streets, lived, loved, died there--that he could almost remember the names and faces of its inhabitants, dead for thousands of years--that he could nearly recall the language and the music--that destiny itself had arranged a home-coming. The vision died. He gave a great shout. The others rushed to his side and found him trembling and pointing.

Tons of verdure were cut down and pushed aside. A hacienda was constructed and a camp for the labourers. Then the shovels and picks were broken from their boxes; the scientists arranged their paraphernalia, and the work began, interrupted frequently by the exultant shouts that marked a new finding. No one regretted Hugo. He made his men work magically; his example was a challenge. He could do more than any of them, and his hair and eyes, black as their own, his granite face, stern and indefatigable, gave him a natural dominion over them.

All this--the dark, starlit, plushy nights with their hypnotic silences, the vivid days of toil, the patient and single-minded men--was respite to Hugo. It salved his tribulations. It brought him to a gradual assurance that any work with such men would be sufficient for him. He was going backward into the world instead of forward; that did not matter. He stood on the frontier of human knowledge. He was a factor in its preparation, and if what they carried back with them was no more than history, if it cast no new light on existing wants and perplexities, it still served a splendid purpose. Months rolled by unheeded; Hugo gathered friends among these men--and the greatest of those friends was Daniel Hardin.

In their isolation and occasional loneliness each of them little by little stripped his past for the others. Only Hugo remained silent about himself until his reticence was conspicuous. He might never have spoken, except for the accident.

It was, in itself, a little thing, which happened apart from the main field of activity. Hugo and two Indians were at work on a small temple at the city’s fringe. Hardin came down to see. The great stone in the roof, crumbled by ages, slipped and teetered. Underneath the professor stood, unheeding. But Hugo saw. He caught the mass of rock in his arms and lifted it to one side. And Dan Hardin turned in time to perceive the full miracle.

When Hugo lifted his head, he knew. Yet, to his astonishment, there was no look of fear in Hardin’s blue eyes. Instead, they were moderately surprised, vastly interested. He did not speak for some time. Then he said: “Thanks, Danner. I believe you saved my life. Should you mind picking up that rock again?”