"A thousand pardons, señor," he said in Spanish, with a shy and singularly engaging smile as he lifted his sombrero, showing his long hair, which, like his pointed beard, was almost white. "You must indeed have thought me rude, but it is my custom at the end of the week's work to attend worship with the peons—do not press round the noble Inglese, my children—also I did not think that you would arrive before the sun was down."
"Pray don't apologise, señor," answered Jones; "I have been much interested in watching all your servants at their devotions. What a beautiful chapel this is! May I look at it before you shut the doors?"
"Certainly, señor. Like the rest of the house, it is fine. The old monks who designed it two hundred years ago—for this was a great monastery—knew how to build, and labour was forced in those days and cost nothing. Of course I have repaired it a great deal, for those who lived here before me did not trouble about such things.
"You would scarcely think, señor, that in the old days, twenty years ago, this place was a nest of highway robbers, smugglers, and man–slayers, and that these people whom you see to–night, or their fathers, were slaves with no more rights than a dog.
"But so it was. Many a traveller has lost his life in this house or its neighbourhood. I, myself, was nearly murdered here once. Look at the carving of that altar–piece. It is fine, is it not? Those sapote wood columns date from the time of the old monks. Well, I have known Don Pedro Moreno, my predecessor, tie human beings to them in order to brand them with red–hot irons."
"To whom does that inscription refer?" asked Jones, pointing to the marble slab which has been described.
Don Ignatio's face grew very sad as he answered:
"It refers, señor, to the greatest friend I ever had, the man who saved my life at the risk of his own when I came by this limp, and one who was dear to me with a love passing the love of woman. But there was a woman who loved him also, an Indian woman too, and he cared for her more than he did for me, as was right, for has not God decreed that a man should leave his friends, yes, his father and mother even, and cleave unto his wife?"
"He married her then?" said Jones, who was growing interested.
"Oh, yes; he married her, and in a strange place and fashion. But it is an old story, señor, and with your permission I will not tell it; even to think of it revives too many painful memories, memories of death and loss, and disappointed ambition, and high hopes unfulfilled. Perhaps, one day, if I have the courage and live long enough, I will write it all down. Indeed, some years ago I made a beginning, and what I wrote seemed foolishness, so I gave up the task.
"I have lived a rough life, señor, and met with many adventures in it, though, thanks be to God, my last years have been spent in peace. Well, well, it is coming to an end now, and were it not for the thought that my people here may fall into evil hands when I am gone, that would not trouble me.
"But come, señor, you are hungry, and the good father, who has promised to eat with us, must ride to–night to celebrate a mass to–morrow at a village three leagues away, so I have ordered supper early. The porter with your bag arrived safely; it has been placed in your chamber, the Abbot's room it is called, and if you will follow me I will show you a short path to it from the chapel."
Then he led the way to a little door in the wall. Unlocking this door, they passed up some narrow stairs, at the head of which was a landing–place with a window, or rather grille, so arranged that, while it was invisible from below, an observer standing there could hear and see all that passed in the chapel.
"This was the place," said Don Ignatio, "whence the old abbots kept secret watch upon the monks, and it was here that once I saw a sight which I am not likely to forget."
Then he passed on through several long and intricate passages, till he came to a sitting–room filled with handsome old Spanish furniture.
"Your sleeping–place lies beyond, señor," he said, opening another door that led into a large and dreary–looking chamber, lighted by heavily–barred windows, of which the sills were not less than ten feet from the ground.
On the walls were frescoes of the Last Judgment, and of scenes inspired by the bloody drama of the Inquisition, grim to look on and somewhat injured by damp, but executed with great power and vivid, if distorted, imagination. Below the centre window, and reaching to within three feet of the floor, was an ancient full–length portrait of one of the abbots of the monastery, life–size and painted in oils upon a panel, representing a man of fierce and evil countenance, over whose tonsured head the Holy Spirit was shown hovering in the shape of a dove. For the rest, the room was well, if lightly, furnished, and boasted the luxury of squares of matting laid upon the brick floor.
"I fear that you will think this but a dismal apartment, señor," said Don Ignatio, "still it is our guest–chamber; moreover, there is a room attached which I thought might be useful to you to write in, should you wish to do so. The people here say that the place is haunted, but I know you Englishmen do not bother about such things. It is not wonderful, however, that they talk thus, seeing that murders were done in this chamber in the time of Don Pedro Moreno. Indeed, he laid a plot to kill me and my friend here, and, though he did not succeed in that instance, when I came into possession afterwards, I found several skeletons beneath the floor—two of them, I remember, just where the bed stands now—and gave them decent burial."
Jones, as in honour bound, declared himself to be totally indifferent to representations of tortures of the Inquisition, memories of departed abbots, skeletons of murdered men beneath the floor, ghosts, and hoc genus omne. Still, though he never confessed it to his host, his first night in the abbot's chamber, owing probably to the strong coffee which he had drunk, was not altogether a pleasant experience. In after days, however, he became well accustomed to the place, and, indeed, preferred it to any other room in the hacienda.
In contrast to the rude and ill–dressed fare with which Jones was fain to satisfy himself at the mine, Don Ignatio's supper was a feast worthy of Epicurus, especially as it was free from the horrible messes, compounded of oil and the inward parts of animals, that figure so largely in Mexican cookery.
After their meal, cigars and black coffee were handed round, of which the raw materials had been grown on the estate, and never in his life did Jones smoke better tobacco. When the padre—a gentle and well–informed man—had departed, Jones began to speak of the antiquities of the country. Soon he found that his host's knowledge of the subject had not been exaggerated, seeing that he was even able to decipher hieroglyphic writings of which the key was supposed to be lost, and to give an outline of the history of the races who built the great temples and palaces, whereof so many ruins are to be found in the Palenque district.
"It is sad to think," said Jones presently, "that nothing in which the breath of life remains is left of all this civilisation. If only the old legend of the Golden City, hidden away somewhere in the unexplored recesses of Central America, were true, I think that I would give ten years of my existence to visit it. It would be a glorious thing to step back into the past, to see a system at work, and mingle with a people of which the world has lost all count and knowledge; for, let the imagination be active as it will, it is practically impossible to reconstruct these things from ruins and traditions. In fact, Don Ignatio, I do not understand how it is that you, who have never seen the antiguos in the flesh, can talk about them so certainly."