The Mighty Toltec: a romantic story of adventure

Front matter

THE MIGHTY TOLTEC The mighty toltec A Romantic Story of Adventure BY S. J. ADAIR FITZ-GERALU AND S. O. LLOYD London JOHN MACQUEEN HASTINGS HOUSE, NORFOLK STREET, STRAND 1897 AU Rights reserved. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE i. The Letter and the Foundling - i ii. Off to London 8 m. The New Life and the New World 19 iv. The Mysterious Stranger - - 26 v. The Man with the " Swivel Eye " - 34 vi. The Second Warning 44 vn. A Wonderful People 55 vin. Fifty Pounds on Account - - - 64 ix. The Five of Diamonds - - - 71 x. On the Road at Last - - - 83 xi. The First Day's Journey - - - 92 xn. The First Dilemma - 100 xiii. The Mysterious Shot - - - 112 xiv. Harold Proves Himself a Hero - 122 xv. At the Foot of the Mighty Toltec 134 xvi. Who Fired that Shot - - - 146 xvii. Remarkable Disappearance of Harold 156 xviii.

Ephraim Joins the Enemy - - - 163 xix. A Desperate Hazard - - - 175 xx. The Death of Dr. Pashley - - 186 xxi. What Had Become of Harold - contents. CHAPTER PAGE xxii. A Prisoner in the Aztec Temple - 208 xxm. The Subterranean River and the Monstrous Shaft - 219 xxiv. From One Fate to Another - - 228 xxv. Returned to Life .... 237 xxvi. The Expedition to the Cave - - 248 xxvn. The Writing on the Wall - - 256 xxvm. The Cipher and the Secret - - 272 xxix. At the Point of Death - - - 289 xxx. Ephraim Becomes His Own Master - 306 xxxi. The Conspiracy Unmasked - - 318 xxxn. Conclusion

Chapter I. The Letter And The Foundling

When a black-edged envelope arrived one morning to the address of Doctor Pashley, in a handwriting that was strange to his housekeeper, Mrs. Tivort, that good woman was much puzzled, and her curiosity to learn who the correspondent was quite overcame her honesty. She put the letter in her pocket, meaning to open it at leisure, but ere she could do so, it fell unnoticed to the floor, where it was found by the housemaid and promptly carried to the Doctor. When he read the brief note he sank upon his knees, and, with tears in his eyes, exclaimed, " Thank God ! Thank God ! " Then he pas sionately kissed the letter and walked up and down the room in a state of extraordinary excitement. After a few minutes, he re-read the note two or three times, half-aloud, to himself; and all the while B he was doing this there came over his face such a happy change that he did not seem to be the same man.

Once more he kissed the note, and then betook himself to his bedroom, humming an old, half forgotten melody. Doctor Pashley — who for four years had barely spoken to his immediate atten dants — was actually humming a love-song ! And, more wonderful still, in a quarter of an hour he emerged from his room, fully attired for a journey, and summoned Mrs. Tivort to inform her that he was called away. When the housekeeper heard this astonishing news, she instinctively put her hand in her pocket to feel for the mysterious letter. It was not there — her quick eye perceived it lying on the table — she at once determined to secure it. In his haste to be off, Doctor Pashley forgot all about the note : he was thinking only of the new object it had given him in life. He told Mrs. Tivort that he might not be back for a day or two — something of importance had happened, and he was required elsewhere.

He moved to the door, and with a quick and unseen snatch of her hand, Mrs. Tivort conveyed the letter from the table to her pocket. The Doctor went downstairs slowly and the housekeeper followed him with a beating heart — she even removed the letter and stealthily concealed it in her bosom. She was afraid of THE LETTER AND THE FOUNDLING 3 something she knew not what ; and great was her relief when her master finally left the house and set off towards Gatechester railway station. As soon as possible she sought the seclusion of her room, and there, with trembling hands, unfolded the purloined letter and read simply the following words : — " Dear Ephraim — " I am alone in the world. My husband died two days ago. If you can forgive the past — if only to do me one kindness — come to me without delay.

" Your Unworthy "Milly. It was not a very striking note after all — as far as we can see ; but the reading of it threw the housekeeper into a fit of uncontrollable rage. " Oh ! if I had only read that letter when it first arrived ! " she exclaimed at length. And, as she uttered the words, her clenched hands, compressed lips, and flashing eyes, served to exhibit Mrs. Tivort in anything but a pleasing light, and spoke but poorly for the purity of her motives, the honesty of her character, or the sweetness of her disposition. **=■*:* Four years prior to the time of which we write, Doctor Pashley had immured himself, a morose and broken-hearted man, in the gloomy old house b — that was known as The Towers. The father of his fiancee had failed in business, and, to retrieve the credit of her parent, the girl surrendered her lover and married a man whom she positively loathed.

Pashley was stricken as by a mortal agony ; he retired to Gatechester, and burying himself in his study, tried to alleviate his misery by indulging his passion for scientific experiment. It was at this critical time that Mrs. Tivort, who had formerly been a servant in his mother's household, again came upon the scene. She pro fessed that she had been deserted by her husband, and that she was willing to serve the Doctor as housekeeper if he would employ her. He did employ her, and placed the management of his domestic affairs entirely in her hands. Now it so happened that some few months after Mrs. Tivort had been installed in her position of housekeeper, she was taken suddenly ill, and re fused to leave her apartments. Then, when she found that the Doctor insisted upon attending to her professionally, she expressed a determination to go home to her own people for a while, saying that she would prefer to place herself under their care, and thus save the Doctor any unnecessary trouble.

This course she insisted upon carrying out, and so home she went, "wrapped up in blankets and ready to die," as the housemaid put it. THE LETTER AND THE FOUNDLING 5 Whatever may have been the matter with Mrs. Tivort, in a little more than two months she returned to the Doctor's house, looking a trifle pale and haggard, but otherwise well enough, and prepared to resume her duties. There was something odd about all this, though it was difficult to actually say where the oddity came in ; but about four months later another very strange thing happened. There was a new housemaid in the place, and one morning, when she went to the front door to beat the mats, she discovered on the doorstep — what ? a baby's cradle ! and in the cradle a baby ! How it came there, or what was its object in being there, was a conundrum of the profoundest character.

The household was roused in an instant, even the Doctor himself coming down from his quiet study to see what the extraordinary fuss was about. A baby on the premises ! Good gracious ! " Let it be sent to the workhouse at once," said he. But Mrs. Tivort, who for some unaccountable reason, was in a nervous state altogether unusual with her, over-ruled that mandate, and declared that if the Doctor would not look after the poor little waif that Providence had sent them — cradle and all ! — she herself would take charge of it. And take charge of it she did. Subsequently she did something more than this. Mrs. Tivort could be eloquent when she chose, and the Doctor was anything but a hard-hearted man. Here was a dear little mite of humanity, evidently not more than six months old, coming from no one knew where, and going, who could tell whither ? — unless someone took compassion upon its helpless innocence, and gave it a home.

The Doctor was alone in the world ; who knew how he might some day long to listen to the merry laughter and childish prattle of a little fellow like this, grown bigger of course, and not addicted, as at the present time, to gasp ing mysteriously and rolling his big brown eyes about in a most reckless and inconsequent fashion ! In short, Mrs. Tivort, to use a familiar expression, "twisted the Doctor round her thumb" by her well-timed cajolery, and actually induced him to adopt the foundling, which forthwith became a recognised item in, and part of, the household. The baby boy grew up finely under Mrs. Tivort's fostering care, for this stern and otherwise cold hearted woman relaxed her hard nature wonderfully in the presence of the child, and in very deed " behaved like a mother to it," as all the other servants said.

And thus the waif became the Doctor's adopted son. It is true that Dr. Pashley took but little interest in the acquisition he had so easily, though somewhat reluctantly, made ; but he consented to pretty nearly everything that was proposed in the infant's behalf, and when, at Mrs. THE LETTER AND THE FOUNDLING 7 Tivort's suggestion, a christening was decided upon, he " capped " all that he had already done by allowing the little fellow to be duly invested with his own own patronymic, and to start fairly on the voyage of life under the name of Ephraim Pashley.

Chapter II. Off To London

! As Mrs. Tivort predicted, great events took place at The Towers from the day on which the Doctor received that enigmatic letter from the lady who signed herself " Milly." Mrs. Tivort bewailed the new order of things which bade fair to ensue, because it promised to unravel the net of influence she had so long been weaving around her employer, with such wily intentions as we can here only guess at. Now, however, all would be changed ; and certainly all was changed. On his return, after a week's absence, Dr. Pashley had the whole house re-furnished and renovated, and actually became cheerful and light-hearted in his own manner, as he had once been in days gone by ! He looked up his old acquaintances, and gave small dinner parties ; and on the whole he acted in such a way as to suggest that he had quite forgotten his old grief, and perhaps even the cause thereof.

Life, indeed, had once more found charms for him, as he told everyone, but what those charms really were nobody knew for certain, though everybody guessed, and the guesses were not far wrong. " Milly," the writer of the letter, was the Doctor's old love, and even now his love was as strong for her as it had ever been. So that, when he called upon her in response to her entreaty, and gazed into the eyes that had thrilled him years before, although his lips gave forth no utterance, his heart spoke volumes. He knew how she had been forced into the hateful marriage that had ruined his prospects at the time, and when she pleaded for forgiveness and begged that they might be friends, there was only one answer that he could give, and he gave it. They should be friends — very good and sincere friends — nothing else.

To this they both agreed. But he knew, and perhaps she knew, that it might lead to something more, in time. Indeed, he was sure of this, and he was right : they met, and thenceforth they loved each other with greater ardour than they had ever known before. In her heart there swelled the great tenderness and sympathy that constancy always awakens in woman ; and sympathy is the key to love. Dr. Pashley's affection for Milly was that noble type of passion that is sometimes found in devoted, whole-souled men — the love that can suffer in silence, but never dies. And so it came to pass, when the year was growing old, that Doctor Pashley and his first love were married, and a twelvemonth of unalloyed happiness was theirs. Then came the severest blow of all, the blow that crushed the life of Ephraim Pashley for ever — his bride of a year, won after long waiting and hopeless despair, died in giving birth to a son ; and all the world was dark, and there seemed an end to all things.

Even Mrs. Tivort, who had earnestly hated the Doctor's wife, was touched by his intense grief and misery, and did all in her power to assuage his sorrow. But he — he felt that for him there was no relief save that which would come in Death, the unfailing healer of all earthly woe. He could not endure the sight of ordinary people, and the every day round of life was to him an agony, now that he was alone and desolate. The child that was born, the child that had caused his wife's death, he would not allow to be even mentioned, and Mrs. Tivort had strict instructions to see that it never by any chance came within sight or hearing of its grief-stricken father. This unnatural and unjustly cruel man date Mrs. Tivort was bound to obey, and certainly she had little sympathy with the baby new-comer.

In fact she to some extent hated the innocent little creature from the first moment of ts arrival, for reasons which were at that time best known to herself; and though the little one contrived to grow up well and hearty side by side with the adopted infant, Ephraim, it owed all this to a vigorous constitution much more than to the fostering care of the ill-natured housekeeper. To its own father the child owed absolutely nothing. No words of kindness, no look of affection, no manifestation of interest, had ever transpired to prove that Doctor Pashley cared one jot or tittle for the welfare of this helpless atom of humanity. Time passed, however, at The Towers as in other parts of the world, and in due course the two boys were bundled off to school ; Ephraim Pashley, the elder, who had no real right to his name, and Harold Pashley, the younger, who was his father's lawful heir.

Now, be it said, Mrs. Tivort, who managed to exercise an evil influence over most things, had done her utmost to deaden little Harold's true nature, and sow the seeds of hatred in his heart towards his father, whom he had actually seen only once, and to whom he had never spoken. But the housekeeper's schooling had quite an opposite effect, for the boy having in reality no one to love, bestowed all his juvenile affection upon the very one who would not receive it — his unnatural and hard-hearted father. To Harold, Doctor Pashley was a mysterious being, and the very mystery that enwrapped him made him an object of interest to his youthful mind. So the son loved the father in secret, and, boy-like, he determined that one day he would do some great deed that should command his father's attention, something that should touch his heart and inspire his affection.

In character the two foster-brothers were very dissimilar. Harold, though as strong and brave as a young lion, possessed a heart as tender as his mother's had been, and pined all the time for the sympathy that was never given to him. Ephraim, on the contrary, while not lacking in courage, was of a cruel and fickle disposition, cold-hearted, and not always to be relied upon. In consequence of this the two boys had not a few disagreements, never very serious, it is true, but generally arising out of some act of Ephraim which the higher and better nature of Harold could not sanction. They always contrived to make up their differences amicably, however, for they felt equally alone in the world, and neither of them had any great liking for Mrs. Tivort. Although Doctor Pashley's sour-tempered house keeper cordially detested Harold, who was a stumbling-block in the way of certain plans of hers, she had always shown much affection for Ephraim.

Still, she never strove to inculcate in the mind of the latter any noble or honourable principles— on the contrary, she endeavoured to imbue him with the feeling that Harold was in a large measure his enemy and his rival, and her reason for this we shall presently understand. The idea was an odious one, but for all that, it took root in Ephraim's breast, and without knowing exactly why, he began to regard his foster-brother with sentiments that were anything but kindly. Mrs. Tivort had told him that, were Harold to die, he (Ephraim) would one day be a wealthy man, and this piece of mischievous information he cherished as an excuse for many an unfriendly act towards his foster-brother. One day Mrs. Tivort was much surprised by a message to the effect that Doctor Pashley desired to speak to her in private.

Wondering what he could want, she obeyed the summons and repaired to the Doctor's lonely and cheerless study to learn his wishes. He spoke to the point at once. "Those two boys, I see, are about in the gardens again." " Yes, they have come home for the holidays," replied Mrs Tivort. " Well, send them away again, at once. I won't have them here. Send them back to school, any where. They musn't come here again. The younger is now, I believe, nearly sixteen years old — next year let them start out to earn their living. Here, I have drawn a cheque for five hundred pounds. I entrust it to you to give them a start in some way, I care not how. Let them finish their schooling this year, and then place them in some business. If more money is necessary, come to me, but of one thing be certain — they shall never return to this house to stay."

With these extraordinary words the Doctor turned on his heel and walked away — cold, hard, heartless, to a degree that affected even the callous scheming woman who listened to him. She knew, however, from the tone of her master's voice that she would have to carry out his instructions to the very letter ; so she set to work to devise some plan which would accord with her personal advantage. The boys must be got rid of somehow, and she saw a very profitable way of doing it. Ephraim (who was now nearly eighteen) was called in, and a long conversation passed between him and Mrs. Tivort, in the course of which the boy received certain instructions of a most important nature. Mrs. Tivort then sent for Harold, and told him, as she had told Ephraim, all that Doctor Pashley had said. She would now write to the schoolmaster, and they must prepare to go back to the school on the morrow.

Go back to school ! Dreadful news this for Harold, who had been looking forward to the holidays with a degree of pleasure that not even the thought of his dull and cheerless home could quench. Like every English boy who is worthy of the name, he loved the holidays, though to him they had never meant half so much as they do to most boys of his age. That night when both the lads were asleep, Mrs. Tivort wrote two letters — one of them a very lengthy epistle, which she carefully sealed up and addressed to " Mr. Job Tivort," in a certain street of a certain town, which we may say is situated on the eastern coast of Central America, and which we will call San Marco, chiefly because that is not its right name. Then, taking Ephraim's coat, she securely stitched this letter between the lining and the cloth.

Next, she put the other letter she had written, together with three or four bank notes, into the breast pocket of the same coat, and, after this, went quietly to bed with a sense of duty accom plished. In the morning, after a very poor breakfast, the two boys started on their journey, little thinking what a long and wonderful journey it was destined to be. Ephraim so clearly had something on his mind that Harold, after a long silence, bluntly asked him what was the matter. Then Ephraim spoke out. " Why should we go back to school ? " he asked. " This is to be our last term at any rate, and for my part I'm sick of school ! " " But what can we do ? " queried Harold, in no small astonishment. " Why, anything is better than going on as we have to go on. Doctor Pashley seems to me to hate us both, and Mrs. Tivort doesn't waste much love over us.

We are alone in the world, let us strike out together ! " " Next year we shall have to do that," said Harold, sorrowfully. " Next year we must go to work." " Work ! yes, and what at ? I know I'm not going to work at anything the Doctor chooses to put me to. I'm not going to be a clerk or a shop man. I'm going to see the world, and enjoy myself." Thus spoke Ephraim, and for a time Harold was silent. Many a time had the boys talked together of a life of adventure in the wilds of Australia or America, and often had they longed to be able to take part in some great expedition. Now they had a very uncertain future ahead of them. Doctor Pashley was rich, of course, but then he might not give them any money. The chances were that he would not, for, in any case, he had said they would have to commence earning their own living soon.

Why should they not earn it in their own way ? In the midst of his soliloquy Harold was inter rupted by Ephraim shouting : " Here's the station ! Now, which shall it be— School or Freedom ? " " Freedom ! " exclaimed Harold, suddenly ; " let's chance it, Ephraim ! " " Hurrah," cried the other, " freedom it shall be ! Let us go to America — I've got plenty of money, or, at least, I know where I can get plenty in London." For a moment Harold looked up, astonished. He had quite forgotten that they would need money, and when Ephraim said he could get plenty of that very necessary article, he hardly knew what to make of it, though Ephraim had always had more money to spend than he. But then, of course, Ephraim was Mrs. Tivort's favourite, and was the elder of the two. " Whom do you know in London ?

" Harold asked presently, when they were already on the platform. " Never mind, Harold ; you trust to me. I have been making up my mind to this for a long time, and I once met a captain of a vessel, who said he would always be a friend to me if I wanted to go abroad." This, we are sorry to say, was not the truth. It was merely the result of Ephraim's talk with Mrs. Tivort. But Harold believed it all, and, with the impetuosity of youth, conceived quite an admira tion for Ephraim's shrewdness and foresight. So, without further hesitation, the two boys determined to go forth and seek for adventures and fortunes c in unknown lands — which, simply because they are unknown, are generally believed to abound in wealth and other delightful things. Thus the pre liminary stage of Mrs. Tivort's scheme was being duly carried into effect. In course of time we shall see whether its result will be what she hoped for.

Chapter III. The New Life And The New World

The journey to the great Metropolis occupied only a couple of hours, and in the train the two boys were naturally in a state of considerable excitement as they speculated upon the possibili ties of the new life before them. Ephraim had always entertained a certain jealousy of Harold (largely inspired, as we have already shown, by Mrs. Tivort) ; but he had never found any real cause for disliking his frank, open-hearted foster brother, and now that the two were to be companions in the battle of life, he was as straight forward as he could be, and entered with much earnestness into the discussion of plans for the future. In due course, Paddington Station was reached, and as Mrs. Tivort had carefully instructed Ephraim as to what he was to do, and where he was to go when they arrived in London, he was fairly able to pick out his way, and guide Harold c — through the great maze of streets that lay between the West End and the Docks.

To Harold, the wonderful panorama of London life was a source of the deepest interest and amazement, and gladly would he have spent the entire day in rambling about the mighty city, even at the risk of becoming hopelessly lost in the labyrinth of highways and byways ; but Ephraim hurried him on, saying they must not tarry, or they would be too late. " Too late ? " queried Harold, in surprise. "Yes, too late," returned Ephraim, colouring slightly. " The truth is, and you'd better know it at once. I told Mrs. Tivort 1 was not going back to school, and when she found that I meant what I said, she told me that a sea trip would soon cure me, and gave me a letter to Captain Welwyn, a friend of hers, who is the owner of a ship that will sail for America in a day or two. Then I thought it would be great fun for us to go to gether ; and so — here we are !

" Harold listened in astonished silence to this speech, which was all truth except one part that does not matter much just now. He scarcely knew what to think of it all — everything had come so suddenly, and was altogether so very remarkable. He had half a mind to go back, having a vague fear of something — he knew not what. Then he reflected : if he went back he would be sent to THE NEW LIFE AND THE NEW WORLD 21 school, and later on to business, and there was no one in the whole world who seemed to care for him at all. On the other hand, if he went with Ephraim he would be no worse off in one way, while he would have freedom, and be able to do as he liked. Again, his choice was made, and again he decided for the new life, with all its uncertainties and possible adventures. By this time they were at Fenchurch Street, and very shortly were once more in a train, bound for the London Docks.

Arrived there, Harold had fully made up his mind to "chance it," so away they went, boldly through the gates and into the midst of the busy, bustling crowd, where Ephraim made energetic enquiries for Captain Welwyn and the schooner Sally Scallop. After a deal of seeking and questioning, they eventually found the sturdy old Captain leaning against a great pile of boxes, lazily casting his eyes over the animated scene around him, and chewing tobacco with great vigour. Ephraim, having assured himself that the square set, weather-beaten " salt " before him was indeed Captain Welwyn, drew forth the letter that Mrs. Tivort had placed in his pocket on the previous night, and politely handed it to his new acquaint ance. When he had perused the epistle, which both Ephraim and Harold observed to contain bank notes, and which made the old man start per ceptibly (the note not the notes), Captain Welwyn turned to the boys and exclaimed in a voice loud enough to be heard two or three hundred yards away : " Lay to, my hearties !

Which of ye's Ephraim ? ' " I am," said Ephraim. " Dash me, if I didn't think so — as like as two peas," muttered the Captain, mysteriously ; then adding, " How's your — how's mother Tivort ? " " Mrs. Tivort is in perfect health, thank you," politely responded Ephraim. " Ay, ay, devil doubt her ! And I s'pose t'other chap's Harold, eh lad ? All right ! You want to go to sea and to expand your minds. Very good, I'll see as you shall. Job Tivort was a pal of mine." " When we was boys, merry, merry boys, When we was boys to-geth-er ! " Thus said Captain Welwyn, breaking hoarsely into song at the end, much to the astonishment of the boys, who didn't know what to make of this sort of reception. " We weigh anchor in two days from now. Get your traps aboard ; see Goliath. We'll fix you up all right ; and there you are !

" And moving away as he spoke, the Captain muttered under his breath, " She's a devil — she's a devil ! " He would doubtless have left them THE NEW LIFE AND THE NEW WORLD 23 without any further explanation, but Ephraim ran after him, and asked him where the vessel was, and where they were bound for when they sailed. All the reply the Captain vouchsafed to these questions was conveyed in words from two different songs, sung more hoarsely than before : " When the stormy winds do blow-ow-ow At the bottom of the deep blue sea ! " This was not at all encouraging, and with a feeling of dismay the boys saw Captain Welwyn turn on his heel, roll along the dock, roll around the corner, and vanish from their sight, still lustily bawling various snatches of nautical song. Harold and Ephraim were not favourably im pressed with the turn events were taking, and were quite undecided as the best course to pursue.