Page:Weird Tales Volume 6 Number 4 (1925-10).djvu/42

At New Orleans I chartered a single screw steamer named the Laughing Sally. I bought the brush hooks, tents, whatever I would need; but I had no captain or crew. I found my captain one night lying drunk on my doorstep. He was quite young, about twenty-five, with light brown hair and blue eyes. I liked his looks from the first, which is why I took the trouble to sober him up. He was obviously of a good middle-class family and said he had had two years at a state university before he had been expelled. His papers were in order and I hired him. He would have no chance to drink on my expedition. His name was Dan Chipman. He got together a crew and we returned to Campeche.

Monty had collected fifteen Indians and we started down the coast, waiting for him to say when to stop. The steamer was not fast. Dan and I became very good friends. I had made few new friends in the recent years, I had had so little time and been away so long, and now for the first time I began to realise what I had missed. Dan was not an overstrong character; but he was intelligent, cheerful, and very good company. We became more and more attached. Gradually I told him the purpose of our expedition. It fired his imagination and he became even more enthusiastic than I. Finally I consented to allow him to accompany me into the interior.

The third day Monty became excited. We were coasting along British Honduras and had reached the mouth of the Belize river when he came to me. His guttural voice was two pitches higher than usual.

"Here," he said.

We put in at Belize, docked the Laughing Sally, discharged the crew, hired river canoes, and started up the river.

It was rather hard going up the Belize. Whenever we landed and encountered natives I instructed Monty to ask about the city; but either he did not ask or they refused to tell, for we never had word of it. We must have gone sixty miles up the river when Monty suddenly led us off through the forest. That was harder going than the river, for we had to hack our way through the thick growth. We were heading due south.

The sixth day we reached it. All day we had climbed upward until finally we mounted above the woods and came out on an arid stony hillside. I do not yet understand how Monty found his way; though, as I said, he was probably of Mayan descent. He led us along the hillside for some miles to the west until he reached a narrow cleft. Unhesitatingly he turned in. Dan and I were so excited we fairly tiptoed as we followed him. The passage was deep, the sides smooth. It widened, and we stood on the top of a little path running down into the valley. The path was made of slabs of stone cemented together.

In the center of the valley lay the city I sought. Even now its size, its grandeur, its age overwhelm me. A stream flowed down one side of the valley; below us was a grassy plain; on the other side of the city we could barely discern a forest. A low wall surrounded the city. Most of the houses and temples were still standing. It looked as if it was still occupied, and at the same time as if it had never been occupied. This was partly because it was not overgrown; there were no bushes or trees in the entire city. In the center was an open place, a square, and in this square rose a pyramid. So far as I could see, it rather resembled the ones at Uxal and Chi-Chien in Yucatan; but somehow it was different.

I don't know how long I had been looking at this wonder that I, Stephen Grayton, had discovered, when Dan touched me. "Look at Monty," he whispered.