Читать книгу The City of the Sacred Well - T. A. Willard - Страница 6

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“ONE particularly lovely Sunday morning, some time after taking up my abode at Chi-chen Itza,” says Don Eduardo, “I was awakened, as on other occasions, by the softly melodious chiming of the bells in my little church on the hill. As I lay in my hammock, idly listening to the pleasant sound, I could distinguish the different tones of the several bells and it was a pleasant thought to me to know that I had equipped the little church with bells having a superior quality of tone. The sound of them was indeed delightful because while church bells in Yucatan are as plentiful as millionaires in Pittsburgh, they are usually cracked and raucous.

“It was still early when I stood before my manor and turned my gaze eastward toward the little stone church perched cozily on a near-by gently sloping hillside. Both my manor and the little church had for many years been in ruins, unused. Extensive repairs had just been completed on both, to make them habitable. Here and there one of my Indians, or a whole family, dressed in their Sunday best, were already churchward bound, and the chimes continued softly to remind the laggard of his duty. The red rim of the sun was just peeping over the horizon behind the church, while the birds in every tree and thicket were voicing their welcome to this glorious new day. A lazy, blissful breeze laden with the mingled scents of a thousand tropic blossoms ruffled the tree-tops. Before me stretched a vista of wildly beautiful country-side with no sign of the handiwork of man other than the little church. No towering peaks, no gushing streams, no bottomless cañons greeted my eye; merely a terrain that is just saved from being flat. Yet it is all divinely lovely—a study in green and blue with here and there a spot of flaming color. The cloudless sky was of so clear and vivid a blue that I was tempted to stand on tiptoe and take down a handful. Foliage of some sort covered every inch of ground and was of every imaginable shade of green, from the shadowed purple-green where the rising sun had not penetrated, to the pale green of some of the tree-tops, turned golden in the first slanting rays. A gorgeous parrot flashed from tree to tree and disappeared and by his flight brought my eye to rest on a riot of flame-flower high up in a distant tree.

“The sudden silence of the bells warned me that if I too intended to go to church there was no time to lose. My little stone church is not without fame, for in its then-abandoned sacristy that remarkable traveler and historian John L. Stephens made his abode when he visited my City of the Sacred Well. It was here that he wrote his notes on ‘The Ruined City of Chi-chen Itza.’ Though it has been repaired, it looks almost as he left it one cloudy Sunday morning nearly eighty years ago. Its cut-stone walls and bell-tower are the same, but its old roof, bowed with age, has been replaced with a fine new thatch of palm.

“San Isidro is the patron saint of the plantation—for no well-organized plantation is without its patron saint, whose image is venerated by all the natives there employed. The image of San Isidro in this little church on the hill at Chi-chen Itza is of unknown antiquity and is believed to be possessed of miraculous powers which are constantly manifested. Veneration for the image, together with the attraction of the three-belled chimes swinging in their places in the tiny tower, makes the little church a sacred spot not only to the people of my hacienda but likewise to the inhabitants of the near-by village of Pisté and the region for many miles around. Has not the sacred image and the big stone baptismal font been used by the archbishop himself? Was not Mat-Ek healed, who was blinded for many months by the vapor from the ikeban plant, blown into his eyes by the wind while he was gathering his crops? Was he not given back his sight in less than a week after he had prayed for aid and kissed the feet of San Isidro? And did not Mat-Ek, in token of his gratitude, have made an eye of pure silver and give it to the sainted image—an eye which now hangs over the altar for all to see? What more can you ask?

“The church was filled to overflowing in token of a great and special day, for it is only occasionally that the regularly ordained priest comes all the way from Valladolid, and confessions, christenings, and marriage bans await his coming.

“As the congregation slowly drifts into place, the gentle rustling of the unstarched huipiles and pics of the women and the louder rustling of the stiffly starched trousers and jackets of the men sound remarkably like the lapping of summer wavelets upon a sandy beach. The soft laughter of the children outside the building, mingled with the restrained voices of admonishing Indian elders, all combine to create an atmosphere in perfect accord with the surroundings and the low-toned service. Within the chapel many candles of wild beeswax give forth soft lights and heavy odors which, mingling with the fragrant smoke of incense, fall with pleasant, soporific effect upon the congregation.

“The chimes ring their tuneful, familiar message—a message come down the centuries since the Child of Bethlehem was born in a manger; a message brought across the seas to this little stone church, by some unknown, long-departed padre. The solemn peals roll out and up to those gray old temples of another faith, wherein the sacred music of the ancient Mayas, the sound of tunkul, or priestly drum, and dzacatan, once beat in pulsing chorus. These sound symbols of the Sacred Cross are wafted to the altars, still standing, of the Sacred Serpent, whose creed once reigned supreme over this land.

“The beloved priest begins the age-old intoned creed and as the service lengthens through the chants, singing, and sermon, there comes a penetrating, strangely sweet odor. Stronger and stronger it grows, filling the church and floating out into the morning air. The worshipers nod their heads. ‘The xmehen macales have blossomed; God is good to us,’ they murmur. Six graceful, big-leafed plants like large calla-lilies had been placed upon the altar, among other flowering plants. And as I look, the six white buds of these lilies, each slenderly sheathed in green, open slowly to the light, revealing blooms of creamy white. They open in unison, as if at the bidding of an unheard voice. To me it is startling, uncanny. And here is the story about them that met my eager questions at the close of the service:

“Francisco Tata de las Fuentas, caballero of Castile, blue-eyed and yellow-haired, was fair of skin as a Saxon. In his youth he was as hot of blood and of head as a Gascon and traveled the pace with the best and worst of Castile and all the adjoining provinces. His offerings to Venus, to Bacchus, and to the little gods of chance were so fervid and frequent that they soon caused his real castle in Castile to become as those common ones of the air. And his broad lands on the banks of the Guadiana passed to more careful guardians. When nothing remained to him but his horse, Selim, he betook himself with Hernan Cortes to New Spain. Here, under Cortes, he learned discretion bought by hard experience, so that he acquired some wealth. With Francisco de Montejo, trusted friend and lieutenant of Cortes, he came to Yucatan, received a royal grant of land with many natives, and took to himself a wife, the lovely and virtuous daughter of a native chief or batab.

“Time passed and he was gathered to his fathers, leaving an only child, a son named for him. The second Francisco Fuentes inherited the father’s fair skin and bold blue eyes, as well as the gorgeous gold-and-silver trappings of the once fiery Selim, not to mention half a dozen big plantations, houses and lands in Valladolid and Mérida, and scores of minor holdings in several other towns and villages.

“This Francisco Fuentes, or Pancho as his friends called him, had two sons and a daughter. The sons were stalwart, upstanding fellows, recalling in their stature and temper their Spanish ancestry, but showing in their brown skins the admixture of native blood of mother and grandmother.

“Maria, the one beloved daughter, had the plump figure and the sweet temper of her mother, but her proud little head was covered with a wealth of yellow hair and her eyes were of clearest blue, the dauntless eyes of the first Francisco. And now Maria, the idol of her father and worshiped by her brothers, darling of the whole village, was slowly dying; wasting away with a strange fever that could not be abated. By day her body was cool and her brain clear, but with the setting sun came the fever that defied all skill of physicians and nurses. At midnight her frail, fair form was shaken with ague and burned with a fever almost to sear the hands of those who ministered to her as she tossed in delirium. Wasted to a shadow, Maria seemed beckoned by the Grim Reaper.

“The sun again touched the western horizon. The sorrowing family, father and brothers, were at her bedside. Friends and neighbors gathered to watch over the last hours of the helpless little sufferer, for there seemed no hope. A knock sounded at the door, hesitant, timid, as of supplication.

“‘It is but one of the beggars who constantly impose on Maria,’ said a sharp-tongued watcher, peering through the window into the dusk.

“Maria, restlessly turning in her hammock in an inner room, heard the knocking and the words of the watcher.

“‘I think,’ whispered she, ‘it is old X-Euan, come for some milk I promised her for her orphan grandchild. Fill with milk the clean flask which is on the shelf behind the door and give it to her.’

“Old X-Euan took the flask of milk, but from her lips did not come the whining thanks of the mendicant. Instead, from beneath the tattered folds of her shawl, she brought forth a vase of strange antique make, in which was growing a broad-leafed plant with a single swelling bud at its center. Handing the plant to the watcher, the old Maya woman said:

“‘Take this to Maria; place it close by her with the blessing of one to whom she has done as her kind heart, guided by God, has told her to do.’ In her voice was a note of command which brought obedience from those who heard. Old X-Euan departed, but some—those who were nearest and so should have seen clearest—insisted that a faint glow like a halo enveloped her head.

“The hour of twilight had passed. The dreaded time of the quickened pulse and panting delirium had come. Maria lay tossing in her hammock. Close by her the virgin petals of the flower began slowly to unfold. A fragrance, at first almost imperceptible, was wafted through the room. As the blossom opened to full bloom and its perfume permeated the sick-room, the restless turnings, the feverish mutterings grew less and less and at last ceased altogether. A dewy moisture appeared on Maria’s pallid forehead and she sank into deep, refreshing slumber.

“Amid the rejoicing there was a note of awed wonder, for in the very center of the flower the beautiful calyx seemed to have taken the fever heat that was Maria’s, and as her fever abated the heat in the heart of the flower increased, until at midnight it was almost incandescent.

“A week passed. Each night, so the watchers told, the flower took to itself the heat of the fever, while Maria, feverless, slept soundly. And on the morning of the eighth day she was convalescent. But the beautiful blossom was but a withered, brown, shapeless nothing.

“‘La flor de la calentura has performed its task,’ exclaimed the joyful natives, but Maria, lovely once more with returning strength, said, ‘Alas! La flor de la calentura, the flower that saved my life, is dead.’

“And thus it was told by Maria to her grandchildren and retold by them to their grandchildren and is now known by every one in the region. Surely it must be true! Why shouldn’t it be? At any rate, it is accepted as literally by my Indians as the less pleasing story of Jonah and the whale.”