The phantom city; a volcanic romance

Chapter I. Senor Don Domingo

On a certain very warm day in November, 186-, the Royal Mail steamer, Guadalquivir , whose surgeon I happened at the time to be, was lying off St. Peter’s Island (of the Virgin group). We had arrived a few hours previously from England, and most of our cargo, and the majority of our passengers, had already been transferred to the smaller steamers bound for the Gulf, the Windward and Leeward Islands, the Spanish Main, and elsewhere.

A surgeon’s life in these latitudes is generally rather an idle one — except when Yellow Jack pays you a visit, and then the chances are that if you escape him you die of overwork and anxiety — and, having nothing particular to do, I was sauntering about the quarter-deck, smoking a fragrant Havana, and talking with the mail agent and some of the passengers who were going to Jamaica, the Guadilquivir's ultimate destination, when Herbert, the second officer, came aft, touched me on the shoulder, and drew me aside.

“ You are wanted on board the Tobasco , Carlyon,” he said.

“What for?”

“To see a sick passenger,”

“A sick passenger! Nothing serious, I hope-— not

I said, with a look which he well understood.

“No, not Yellow Jack this time, thank God. We had enough of that on the last homeward trip. Nothing very particular, I fancy ; only Handsome Tommy would like you to see the man — a Spaniard of some consequence, I believe— before he weighs anchor.”

“ I will go at once, then.”

“Oh, there is no hurry. The Tobasco will not be ready to weigh for an hour or more. There is a boat alongside there — on the starboard quarter.”

THE PHANTOM CITY.

After finishing my cigar, and hearing the conclusion of the mail agent’s story — he was a capital story-teller, poor fellow — I stepped into my cabin, put my instrument case into my pocket, and, waving my hand to my friends on the quarter-deck, got down into the boat. I little thought that I had seen them for the last time, and that I should never again set foot on the stately Guadalquivir.

Handsome Tommy, otherwise Thomas Tobias, was the Tobased' s skipper, a fine-looking fellow, with a tawny beard, immense vitality, and great bodily strength.

I found him on deck, under a white umbrella, watching the stowing of his cargo.

“ Who and where is the sick man ?” I asked.

“Either a Spaniard or a Greaser (Mexican), I am not sure which. Anyhow, they call him Senor Don Domingo. It was so confoundedly close in his bunk that I made the steward sling him a hammock near the after coaling port, where you will find him. I really believe it is cooler there than on deck. ”

“That was very thoughtful of you, Tobias. You did quite right. Nothing like plenty of air for the sick, and the sound too, for that matter.”

I was turning away to seek my patient, when the skipper observed, in the quiet way which was natural to him, that he thought there was likely to be a change of weather.

“And quite time, too,” I said, mopping the perspiration from my face ; “ it is almost too hot to breathe. But I see no signs of a change. The sky is clear, and the sea as calm as a mill-pond.”

“I think if you look hard towards the sou’- west there, you will see something” (handing me his glass).

“I see nothing but a small cloud, about the size of a man’s hand,” I said, after looking for several minutes as hard as I could in the direction indicated.

“It will be bigger before it is less,” answered Tommy, quietly. “The glass is beginning to fall, too. I wish I was out of this. If I don’t get away before dark I shall lie here until morning.”

Here the first officer came to ask some question about the cargo, and I went below to look after my patient, hoping that Handsome Tommy would be right in his forecast ; for even a gale of wind would be preferable to that stifling intolerable heat — and a good deal more wholesome.

As I knew Spanish pretty well, I spoke to Senor Don Domingo in his own language. He was a meagre, middle-aged man, with a saffron-colored, leathery skin, deep black eyes, a rather undershot lower lip, and heavy jaws. Albeit his tern-

SEffOR DON DOMINGO.

perament seemed in no way strumous, there were signs about his neck which showed that he had some time or other suffered either from scurvy or blood-poisoning. His present complaint, however, was apparently low fever, of a form common in the West Indies, and easily cured if taken in time. After feeling his pulse and testing his temperature, I sent the steward for the captain’s medicine chest, gave Senor Domingo a cooling draught, and prepared him a mixture of which quinine was the principal ingredient.

“You are treating me for fever, Senor Doctor,” he said, after he had taken the draught.

“Certainly! It is fever you are suffering from — fever and the terrible heat. But this draught and the medicine I shall ask you to take later on will, I hope, set you to rights. I admit, though, that a good rattling sea-breeze would probably do you more good than either. I am sorry, both for your sake and my own, that I cannot command one.”

“You are very kind. The fever is nothing; it will readily yield to your skill, I am sure. But I have something here ” (laying his left hand on the deltoid muscle of his right shoulder) — “I have something here that neither sea-breeze nor medicine can cure. It has troubled me two years, and I fear will trouble me as long as I live.”

“What is it?”

“An old wound.”

“ An old wound ! Old wounds are sometimes rather intractable, F know, but not always incurable. Would you mind letting me see it?”

“ On the contrary, I should like you to see it very much,” and Senor Domingo, without more ado, bared his shoulder. He was terribly thin, poor fellow.

“ An old wound ! ” I repeated. “ Why, it looks as if it were only a few days old.”

“ It is two years since I got it, though.”

I had never seen such a wound. It was not wide ; it did not seem to be deep, and it had evidently been produced by a sharp instrument. But the skin was as much discolored as if it had been made by a burnt stick. There were marks of old abscesses, too, and a new one was forming close to the cicatrix, which bore every appearance of having only recently healed.

“ It breaks out after healing, I suppose ?”

‘ ‘ Continually ; and those abscesses — I am hardly ever free from them. They make my life miserable, and sometimes reduce me to a state of great weakness. I have been to doctor after doctor, but none of them seem able to do me any good. ”

“ Very strange,” I said, continuing to examine the wound,

THE PHANTOM CITY.

which presented some very peculiar symptoms in addition to those I have mentioned. ‘ ‘ How did you get this hurt, may I ask ? ”

“ From a poisoned arrow.”

“ A poisoned arrow ! That accounts for it all ; I never saw a wound from a poisoned arrow before. And two years ago, you say ? ” I felt curious to know what my patient had been doing to get himself shot with such a missile.

“Yes, I got it two years ago, and the wonder is that I survived to teU the tale,” he answered, gloomily. “ But do you think you can cure me ? I fear it is almost past hoping for — still, you know, one does not like to abandon hope.”

A difficult question to answer, my experience of the effects of poisoned arrows being decidedly limited ; and, judging from the appearance of the shoulder, I could not honestly say that there was much likelihood of a speedy cure. Under the continuous heat of the tropics, the cellular tissue, becoming relaxed, loses much of its contractile power, and the defective lymphatic circulation thence resulting makes the healing of wounds and bruises sometimes very difficult. The nervous system, moreover, gets singularly irritable ; the slightest hurts are often very painful, with a tendency to tetanus, which, when once it sets in, is absolutely beyond control. In the present instance, moreover, there were signs of blood-poisoning, and my prognosis of the case was far from favorable. But it is never wise to dishearten a patient, and I did all I could to encourage the unfortunate Spaniard.

“ Oh, you must not despair,” I said, cheerily. “Nil despercmdum, you know ; and I do not regard your case as at all hopeless. The doctors you have consulted are Spanish doctors, I suppose ? ”

“ Spanish and Creole.”

‘ ‘ The same thing. And I dare say they have given you a lot of physic ? ”

“ Bucketsful ; I might almost say oceans. I have been doctoring for two years ; and to tell the truth, Senor Doctor, I am on my way now to St. Jago de Cuba to consult a celebrated physician there, who is said to be able to cure anything.”

“ Ho doctor can do that, Senor Don Domingo. The man who says he can is a charlatan ; and, in my opinion, no amount of physic, no mere medical treatment, will do you good — rather harm, indeed. Yet, there is a way ”

“ I thank Heaven and St. Dominic to hear you say so, Senor Doctor. Do me the favor to point out the way to health, and I will follow it. You English physicians are so surpassingly clever. The way, Sefior Doctor, the way ! ”

SEffOR DON DOMINGO.

“ If you want to get better,” I answered, bowing in acknowledgment of the compliment ; “if you want to get better you must leave this part of the world at once for a more temperate climate. Go, if possible, to some Swiss or Tyrolese mountain resort, seven or eight thousand feet above sea-level, where the air is absolutely pure, and the rapid evaporation causes quick renewal of the tissues. Take, at the same time, a course of sulphur baths and hydropathic treatment, and in six months you will be another man.”

“You think that would cure me ? ”

“Ido.”

“ By the powers, I’ll go then ! A thousand thanks for your your advice, Doctor Carlyon. You have given me new hope,” exclaimed the Senor Don, in a decided Irish accent.

To say that my breath was taken away would be an inadequate description of my feelings. If a mermaid had jumped through the port ; if a shark had walked down the after-hatchway ; if Handsome Tommy had appeared before us and danced a hornpipe, I could hardly have been more surprised.

“ Have I actually been lavishing my best Castilian all this time on a fellow-countryman ? ” I asked, with some warmth ; for though I knew Spanish fairly, English was a good deal easier.

‘ ‘ I don’t know about the fellow-countryman ; but I am Irish, if that is what you mean,” said Domingo, dryly.

“Fellow-subject, then, if you like that better. But as my mother was Irish, I cannot consider myself more than half English.”

‘ ‘ So much the better. Let us be friends, countrymen, and lovers then. For your advice sounds sensible, and if the treatment you recommend restores me to health, you will have rendered me a great service. I suppose you are surprised at finding that I am ”

“ Hot a Senor Don ? Rather.”

“You looked so. Would you like to know how I became a Senor Don, as you call it ? ”

“And came by that poisoned-arrow wound on your shoulder? Very much indeed.”

“Well, I will tell you. Light a cigar, sit down on that Southampton chair, and listen.”

THE PHANTOM CITY.

Chapter II. A Strange Story

“I am not going to tell you the story of my life in extenso ,” said Senor Domingo, settling himself in his hammock, “it would take too much time, and you’ll be after going back to the Guadalquivir presently — only the main incidents. Well, as you know already, I was born an Irishman, and my people, who, I must tell you, did not occupy a very exalted position in the world, albeit they were in tolerably easy circumstances, destined me, from an early age, for the priesthood. Domingo is merely the Hispaniolized version of my family name, Dominick. My name in religion was Father Polycarp. After getting my schooling, and spending two or three years at college, I went to Spain, and completed my clerical education at Salamanca. It w r as my own wish. I wanted to travel, and I wanted, above all, to see Spain, a country which had always possessed a great attraction for me — I think through reading ‘ Don Quixote ’ and ‘Gil Bias.’

“Some time after being ordained, I found favor with the archbishop, and was appointed to a very good post in the cathedral. But I was never content to remain long in the same place, and when a chance was offered me of going to Costa Rica, I embraced it eagerly. I was always after exploring foreign countries ; and if I had not gone into the Church, I dare say I might have become a great traveler. ”

“We seem to have similar tastes,” I observed ; “ I am rather a rolling stone myself, and like nothing so well as knocking about the world and seeing out-of-the-way places. That was my principal reason for becoming a surgeon. There are sick people everywhere, and a doctor, like a sailor, can travel and get his living at the same time, and he is so far superior to a sailor, that he can get along either afloat or ashore. I have done a pretty big mileage already. Besides several voyages across the North and South Atlantic, I have gone with a shipload of emigrants from London to New Zealand, and a cargo of coolies from Calcutta to Guiana. But I am interrupting you. Pray continue.”

“ You are a fortunate man. I wish I had gone in for medicine, for to tell the truth — but I am anticipating.

“Well, I went to Costa Rica, and after staying a while there, got myself transferred to Merida, in Yucatan. I liked Merida much. True, it is very hot ; yet it suffers neither from yellow

A STRANGE STORY.

fever, hurricanes, nor earthquakes, which, for a Central American city, is something wonderful. It is a quaint place, too, contains buildings actually 300 years old, and the people are interesting — many of them really charming — and my position brought me in contact with some of the best people in the state. But what interested me most were the ruined cities of the wilderness. Within a hundred miles of Merida are the magnificent ruins of Mayapan — Ake, Kabah, Laban, and many more ; above all Uxmal, which is only sixty miles from Merida. I went there many times, and gazed with wonder, almost awe, on those superb relics of a lost civilization, and was continually asking myself and inquiring of others, whence had come and whither gone the mysterious people by whom it was created. Were they Toltecs, or Aztecs?

“Nobody could tell me, and the books I consulted did not throw much light on the subject. But there was a legend in which, though the educated did not place much faith, the Mayan people (Indians of the locality) firmly believed. The legend runs, that in an unexplored part of the country — the vast region lying between Chiapas, Tobasco, Yucatan, and Guatemala, a region never trod by the white man’s foot — there is a great aboriginal city, with white walls, grand temples, and gorgeous buildings, in the same style of architecture as the ruins of Uxmal and Palenque, and inhabited by the same race as that which once held sway over the greater part of Central America, centuries before Columbus discovered the Western Continent. Several attempts were said to have been made to reach this hidden city, but all had failed. According to one account three young men actually got there, but, falling into the hands of the Indians, one was sacrificed on the high altar of the Temple of the Sun, and the other two were put to death with every refinement of cruelty.

“ This story, however, must needs be purely apocryphal. For, if all three were killed, who was there left to tell the tale ? The fact, I suppose, is, that three men once started on some such expedition, and never came back. Still another account had it that the Phantom City, as the Indians call it, had been seen, and not very long before, by the cura of a place in the South, from the top of a high mountain, that he had actually beheld its great walls, and mighty temples, glistening like silver in the sun, and reflected in the shining waters of the vast lake by which it is surrounded. Neither did I much believe this story, but I felt very curious to see that cura”

“But why,” I asked, “should there be any difficulty in testing the truth of this legend and these stories ? Guatemala and Yucatan are not extensive countries. They are not like Africa

THE PHANTOM CITY.

and Australia, and I never heard of there being any impassable deserts in Central America.”

“ True, and Central America is a long way from being as big as Central Australia. But you forget that a tropical forest may be even more impassable than a waterless desert, and ranges of mountains, like those among which the mighty Usamacinta gathers its waters, are not quite as easily crossed as the Alps or the Pyrenees. But the merely physical difficulties might be overcome ; the great trouble is that all this unexplored region is beset by Lacandones, Manches, and other tribes of fierce and unsubdued Indians, whom, in order to reach the Phantom Island and City, you must either evade or subdue. I do not say that it is impossible to evade them, but nobody has done it yet ; while, as for subduing, it is enough to say that the Spanish conquistadores found it expedient to let them alone. It is the other way about, indeed. The Indians who were conquered in times past are fast regaining their savage independence. Even Merida, with its 50,000 inhabitants, is in mortal terror of them. In 1846 the Indians swept a great part of Yucatan with fire and sword. Valladolid and Tekax were abandoned, and thousands of square miles of territory, and hundreds of towns and villages, once occupied by a Creole population, mostly of Spanish blood, have reverted to their original owners.

“However, to resume my story. While I was pondering these things, making occasional visits to ruined cities, and forming rather aimless plans for more distant excursions, I heard of a project for establishing a new mission in the Verapaz country, and offered to take charge of it. My offer was accepted. Most of my friends thought me a great fool for exchanging the pleasures of Merida for the hard life of a missionary priest in a region remote from civilization, inhabited, as they said, only by Indians, mosquitoes, and alligators. But it was exactly the place I wanted to go to — between Cozabon and Coban, and on the borders of the country where was to be found, if anywhere, the aboriginal city and the Phantom Island of the legend. So I went, and stayed there a pretty long time. I cannot say I liked it very much, however. True, my flock, consisting of tame Indians and half-breeds, and a few Creoles, were good and kind, and treated me with almost too much reverence and respect. But the dullness of the place was terrible, the climate detestable, and the insects were as trying as all the plagues of Egypt put together ; for Puebla lies low down in the tierra caliente. Pride, and other considerations, however, forbade me to go back, and want of means and the impossibility of leaving my charge for long together, prevented me from attempting to carry out my great object— the discovery of the Phantom City. Yet

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I made several excursions and picked up some useful information, and by a strange chance I met the cur a who was said to have seen it from the top of a high mountain south of the Usamacinta. It turned out, however, that it was not himself that had seen it, but a Chichi Indian whom he had known. He said - the man was thoroughly trustworthy, and quite believed his story. It was that the Indian had once seen the city a long way off , and his account so far confirmed the legend that he declared the walls were white, and some of the buildings covered with plates of silver and gold. When asked why he did not enter the Phantom Country (the only name we had for it), he said that its inhabitants, the Children of Light, as they call themselves, are in alliance with certain of the Lacandones and Manches, who remorselessly put to death all strangers who approach their territory, and that he himself could not have gone a step farther without the certainty of falling into their hands. As it was, he only escaped them by stealth, and got back with great difficulty. Another thing he said was, that the Children of Light are quite a different race of men from the wild tribes that haunt the forests and the mountains — which is very likely, I should say.

“ I thought that, on the whole, this account might be true — perhaps because I wanted it to be. The trouble was that I could get no precise information, either as to the city or the mountain from which it had been seen. South of the Usamacinta might mean almost anywhere north of the eighteenth degree of south latitude, for the great river rises nobody knows where, and falls into the Gulf of Mexico at the Laguna de los Terminos. But the point was of less importance than it might have been, as at that time I saw no chance of my being able to engage in an enterprise of so much pith and moment as a search for the mysterious city. A little later, however, circumstances became more propitious. An old friend at Merida, a Yucatanero, who had made money in the United States of the North, left me a legacy w T hich, though perhaps small when judged by European ideas, was for me a small fortune. So I gave up the priesthood — for which, to tell the truth, I had never any real vocation — and resolved to make at least one attempt to penetrate to the unexplored regions of Yerapaz. The first thing was to fix on a starting point, which, after mature consideration, I decided should be a little to the westward of Santa Rosa ; the next, to engage and organize a force of friendly Indians who would act both as escort, carriers, and guides : for I was about to adventure into a country where beasts of burden could not travel, w T here I was not sure of finding food, and where I might at any moment be attacked by the savage Lacandones, or the still more

THE PHANTOM CITY.

savage Manches. We should, therefore, have to carry our supplies on our backs and our lives in our hands. Carriage, however, presented no difficulty ; the Indians of Central America being accustomed to transport heavy burdens great distances. About their stanchness, however, I was far from confident ; Christianized natives are terribly afraid of their wild kinsfolk ; and I did not feel at all sure that my men would not desert me when I most needed their help, the more especially as, being compelled by the custom of the country to pay them beforehand, I could have no security for their good behavior.

‘ ‘ But all went well for a while. Certainly, there was no track, and, like ships at sea, we had to steer by compass ; though, unlike ships, we could not go straight, and made very slow progress. We had to make so many detours, sometimes to avoid a swamp, sometimes to find a pass over a mountain, or a ford over a river, that, after a fortnight’s hard work, we were not more than forty miles from our starting point, as the crow flies, though I suppose we had really traveled three times that distance.

‘ ‘ My men were beginning to grumble — they forgot the pay, and thought only of the hard work — when, after a more than usually toilsome march, all against the collar, we reached an open, park-like country, which, judging from the extensive view it commanded, must be a high table-land ; but as I had, unfortunately, brought no barometer, I could not tell how high. Below us was a vast savanna, or valley, bounded by lofty white-crested mountains. Whether the whiteness denoted snow, or merely limestone or other light-colored rocks, it was impossible, at that distance, to determine. I fancied, too, that I could make out a city, or the ruins of one. My men — who saw better with the naked eye than I did with my glass — declared that they could distinguish white walls and pyramids, which shone like gold. On the other hand, it did not answer to the description of the cura's Chiche ! There was no sign of water. The place we saw, or thought we saw, could not, therefore, be on an island. But the Chiche might be mistaken, or — another supposition — there might be a second hidden city, hitherto unheard of, unknown even to tradition. Be that as it might, the idea that I was on the point of making a great find delighted and excited me beyond measure. Greatly to my surprise, however, my men seemed much discouraged — alarmed, even ; and when I inquired the reason, said that we must now be in the very heart of the Choles country, at the best a dangerous enough position. If we were really within sight of the Phantom City, the danger was greater still — nobody had ever succeeded in reaching it — and it was as much

A STRANGE STORY.

as our lives were worth to go another step farther. They wanted to go back, in fact. This put me in a rage. I reproached the men for their faithlessness, reminded them of their engagements, and said that nothing should turn me from my purpose — that I should go on at all hazards.

“As for the Lacandones, and other savage tribes, I had begun to doubt their existence. We had not, so far, seen a single human being, or sign of any, except a wretched Tree Indian, two or three days before, who disappeared the moment he set eyes on us.

“ My men — silenced, if not convinced — lighted a fire, and set about preparing our evening meal. After it was eaten, and we had smoked the pipe of peace, we lay down and disposed ourselves for sleep. I chose a place a little distance from the fire, near the trunk of a gigantic tree ; for my men, besides being loud snorers, were too high-smelling to make them desirable bedfellows.

“ I cannot tell how long I slept, but when I awoke the embers of the fire were still faintly glowing, and the tree-tops were bathed in the soft light of a radiant moon. I raised myself on my elbow, and looked round. Was I dreaming? I rubbed my eyes, and looked again.

‘ ‘ It was no illusion : my men were gone, taking everything with them, and I was left alone in that wilderness, to get back as I might, for going forward was now out of the question. My heart sank within me, for how could I get back alone ? and I was about to spring to my feet and try to find out which way the wretches had gone, when I became conscious of shadowy forms moving among the trees on the opposite side of the glade. My first thought was that these w~ere my own people, but a second look showed me that I was mistaken. My men numbered only a dozen, but yonder were two or three score, big fellows wearing plumed head-dresses, cloaks of skin, and armed with spears and bows.

“ I am not ashamed to confess, Senor Doctor, being a man of peace, that the sight utterly overcame me. I remembered all I had heard of the horrible tortures these Indians of the wilds inflict on their prisoners. I was petrified with fear. For two or three minutes I hardly dared to breathe, and could not move a limb. The horrors of that moment, words cannot tell. And then my senses gradually returned, and I dragged myself away — crawled on my belly like a snake — in the hope that I might in that way escape unobserved. But I had not gone far when a yell that seemed to freeze my blood in my veins told me that I was seen. Bounding to my feet, I ran as I had never run before — ran for dear life, the fiends in full