Gladiator (30 page)

That much he perceived calmly. His tragedy lay in the lie he had told to his father: great deeds were always imminent and none of them could be accomplished because they involved humanity, humanity protecting its diseases, its pettiness, its miserable convictions and conventions, with the essence of itself—life. Life not misty and fecund for the future, but life clawing at the dollar in the hour, the security of platitudes, the relief of visible facts, the hope in rationalization, the needs of skin, belly, and womb.

Beyond that, he could see destiny by interpreting his limited career. Through a sort of ontogenetic recapitulation he had survived his savage childhood, his barbaric youth, and the Greeces, Romes, Egypts, and Babylons of his early manhood, emerging into a present that was endowed with as much aspiration and engaged with the same futility as was his contemporary microcosm. No life span could observe anything but material progress, for so mean and inalterable is the gauge of man that his races topple before his soul expands, and the eventualities of his growth in space and time must remain a problem for thousands and tens of thousands of years.

Searching still further, he appreciated that no single man could force a change upon his unwilling fellows. At most he might inculcate an idea in a few and live to see its gradual
spreading.
Even then he could have no assurance of its contortions to the desire for wealth and power or of the consequences of those contortions.

Finally, to build, one must first destroy, and he questioned his right to select unaided the objects for destruction. He looked at the Capitol in Washington and pondered the effect of issuing an ultimatum and thereafter bringing down the great dome like Samson. He thought of the churches and their bewildering, stupefying effect on masses who were mulcted by their own fellows, equally bewildered, equally stupefied. Suppose through a thousand nights he ravaged the churches, wrecking every structure in the land, laying waste property, making the loud, unattended volume of worship an impossibility, taking away the purple-robed gods of his forbears? Suppose he sank the navy, annihilated the army, set up a despotism? No matter how efficiently and well he ruled, the millions would hate him, plot against him, attempt his life; and every essential agent would be a hypocritical sycophant seeking selfish ends.

He reached the last of his conclusions sitting beside a river whither he had walked to think. An immense loathing for the world rose up in him. At its apex a locomotive whistled in the distance, thundered inarticulately, and rounded a bend. It came very near the place where Hugo reclined, black, smoking, and noisy, drivers churning along the rails, a train of passenger cars behind. Hugo could see the dots that were people's heads. People! Human beings! How he hated them! The train was very near. Suddenly all his muscles were unsprung. He threw himself to his feet and rushed toward the train, with a passionate desire to get his fingers around the sliding piston, to up-end the locomotive and to throw the ordered machinery into a blackened, blazing, bloody tangle of ruin.

His lips uttered a wild cry; he jumped across the river and ran two prodigious steps. Then he stopped. The train went on unharmed. Hugo shuddered.

If
the world did not want him, he would leave the world. Perhaps he was a menace to it. Perhaps he should kill himself. But his burning, sickened heart refused once more to give up. Frenzy departed, then numbness. In its place came a fresh hope, new determination. Hugo Danner would do his utmost until the end. Meanwhile, he would remove himself some distance from the civilization that had tortured him. He would go away and find a new dream.

The sound of the locomotive was dead in the distance. He crossed the river on a bridge and went back to his house. He felt strong again and glad—glad because he had won an obscure victory, glad because the farce of his quest in political government had ended with no tragic dénouement.

They were electrocuting Davidoff and Pletzky that day. The news scarcely interested Hugo. The part he had very nearly played in the affair seemed like the folly of a dimly remembered acquaintance. The relief of resigning that impossible purpose overwhelmed him. He dismissed his servants, closed his house, and boarded a train. When the locomotive pounded through the station, he suffered a momentary pang. He sat in a seat with people all around him. He was tranquil and almost content.

Chapter
XXIII

H
UGO
had no friends. One single individual whom he loved, whom he could have taken fully into his confidence, might, in a measure, have resolved his whole life. Yet so intense was the pressure that had conditioned him that he invariably retreated before the rare opportunities for such confidences. He had known many persons well: his father and mother, Anna Blake, Lefty Foresman, Charlotte, Iris, Tom Shayne, Roseanne, even Skorvsky—but none of them had known him. His friendlessness was responsible for a melancholy yearning to remain with his kind. Having already determined to go away, he sought for a kind of compromise.

He did not want to be in New York, or Washington, or any other city; the landscape of America was haunted for him. He would leave it, but he would not open himself to the cruel longing for his own language, the sight of familiar customs and manners. From his hotel in New York he made excursions to various steamship agencies and travel bureaus. He had seen many lands, and his
Wanderlust
demanded novelty. For days he was undecided.

It was a chance group of photographs in a Sunday newspaper that excited his first real interest. One of the pictures was of a man—erect, white-haired, tanned, clear-eyed—Professor Daniel Hardin—a procession of letters—head of the new expedition to Yucatan. The other pictures were of ruined temples, unpiled stone causeways, jungle. He thought instantly that he would like to attach himself to the party.

Many factors combined to make the withdrawal offered by an expedition ideal. The more Hugo thought about it, the more excited he became. The very nascency of a fresh objective was accompanied by and crowded with new hints for himself and
his
problems. The expedition would take him away from his tribulations, and it would not entirely cut him off from his kind: Professor Hardin had both the face and the fame of a distinguished man.

A thought that had been in the archives of his mind for many months came sharply into relief: of all human beings alive, the scientists were the only ones who retained imagination, ideals, and a sincere interest in the larger world. It was to them he should give his allegiance, not to the statesmen, not to industry or commerce or war. Hugo felt that in one quick glimpse he had made a long step forward.

Another concept, far more fantastic and in a way even more intriguing, dawned in his mind as he read accounts of the Maya ruins which were to be excavated. The world was cluttered with these great lumps of incredible architecture. Walls had been builded by primitive man, temples, hanging gardens, obelisks, pyramids, palaces, bridges, terraces, roads—all of them gigantic and all of them defying the penetration of archæology to find the manner of their creation. Was it not possible—Hugo's heart skipped a beat when it occurred to him—that in their strange combination of ignorance and brilliance the ancients had stumbled upon the secret of human strength—his secret! Had not those antique and migratory peoples carried with them the formula which could be poured into the veins of slaves, making them stronger than engines? And was it not conceivable that, as their civilizations crumbled, the secret was lost, together with so many other formulæ of knowledge?

He could imagine plumed and painted priests with prayer and sacrifice cutting open the veins of prehistoric mothers and pouring in the magic potion. When the babies grew, they could raise up the pyramids, walls, and temples; they could do it rapidly and easily. A great enigma was thus resolved. He set out immediately to locate Professor Hardin and with difficulty arranged an interview with him.

Preparations for the expedition were being carried on in an ordinary New York business office. A secretary announced
Hugo
and he was conducted before the professor. Daniel Hardin was no dusty pedagogue. His knowledge was profound and academic, his books were authoritative, but in himself he belonged to the type of man certain to succeed, whatever his choice of occupation. Much of his life had been spent in field work—arduous toil in bizarre lands where life depended sometimes on tact and sometimes on military strategy. He appraised Hugo shrewdly before he spoke.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Danner?”

Hugo came directly to the point. “I should like to join your Yucatan expedition.”

Professor Hardin smiled. “I'm sorry. We're full up.”

“I'd be glad to go in any capacity—”

“Have you special qualifications? Knowledge of the language? Of archæology?”

“No.”

The professor picked up a tray of letters. “These letters—more than three hundred—are all from young men—and women—who would like to join my expedition.”

“I think I should be useful,” Hugo said, and then he played his trump, “and I should be willing to contribute, for the favour of being included, a sum of fifty thousand dollars.”

Professor Hardin whistled. Then his eyes narrowed. “What's your object, young man? Treasure?”

“No. A life—let us say—with ample means at my disposal and no definite purpose.”

“Boredom, then.” He smiled. “A lot of these other young men are independently wealthy, and bored. I must say, I feel sorry for your generation. But—no—I can't accept. We are already adequately financed.”

Hugo smiled in response. “Then—perhaps—I could organize my own party and camp near you.”

“That would hamper me.”

“Then—a hundred thousand dollars.”

“Good Lord. You are determined.”

“
I have decided. I am familiar with the jungle. I am an athlete. I speak a little Spanish—enough to boss a labour gang. I propose to assist you in that way, as well as financially. I will make any contract with you that you desire—and attach no strings whatever to my money.”

Professor Hardin pondered for a long time. His eyes twinkled when he replied. “You won't believe it, but I don't give a damn for your money. Not that it wouldn't assist us. But—the fact is—I could use a man like you. Anybody could. I'll take you—and you can keep your money.”

“There will be a check in the mail to-morrow,” Hugo answered.

The professor stood. “We're hoping to get away in three weeks. You'll leave your address with my secretary and I'll send a list of the things you'll want for your kit.” He held out his hand and Hugo shook it. When he had gone, the professor looked over the roof-tops and swore gleefully to himself.

Hugo discovered, after the ship sailed, that everyone called Professor Hardin “Dan” and they used Hugo's first name from the second day out. Dan Hardin was too busy to be very friendly with any of the members of his party during the voyage, but they themselves fraternized continually. There were deck games and card games; there were long and erudite arguments about the people whom they were going to study. What was the Mayan time cycle and did it correspond to the Egyptian Sothic cycle or the Greek Metonic cycle. Where did the Mayans get their jade? Did they come from Asia over Bering Strait or were they a colony of Atlantis? When they knew so much about engineering, why did they not use the keystone arch and the wheel? Why was their civilization decadent, finished when the
conquistadores
discovered it? How old were they—four thousand years or twelve thousand years? There were innumerable other debates to which Hugo listened like a man new-born.

The cold Atlantic winds were transformed overnight to the balm of the Gulf stream. Presently they passed the West
Indies,
which lay on the water like marine jewels. Ages turned back through the days of buccaneering to the more remote times. In the port of Xantl a rickety wharf, a single white man, a zinc bar, and a storehouse filled with chicle blocks marked off the realm of the twentieth century. The ship anchored. During the next year it would make two voyages back to the homeland for supplies. But the explorers would not emerge from the jungle in that time.

An antiquated, wood-burning locomotive, which rocked along over treacherous rails, carried them inland. The scientists became silent and pensive. In another car the Maya Indians who were to do the manual labour chattered incessantly in their explosive tongue. At the last sun-baked stop they disembarked, slept through an insect-droning night, and entered the jungle. For three weeks they hacked and hewed their way forward; the vegetation closed behind them, cutting off the universe as completely as the submerging waves of the sea. It was hot, difficult work, to which Hugo lent himself with an energy that astounded even Hardin, who had judged him valuable.

One day, when the high mountains loomed into view, Hugo caught his first glimpse of Uctotol, the Sacred City. A creeper on the hillside fell before his machete, then another—a hole in the green wall—and there it stood, shining white, huge, desolate, still as the grave. His arm hung in mid-air. Over him passed the mystic feeling of familiarity, that fugitive sense of recognition which springs so readily into a belief in immortality. It seemed to him during that staggering instant that he knew every contour of those great structures, that he had run in the streets, lived, loved, died there—that he could almost remember the names and faces of its inhabitants, dead for thousands of years—that he could nearly recall the language and the music—that destiny itself had arranged a homecoming. The vision died. He gave a great shout. The others rushed to his side and found him trembling and pointing.

Tons of verdure were cut down and pushed aside. A hacienda was constructed and a camp for the labourers. Then the
shovels
and picks were broken from their boxes; the scientists arranged their paraphernalia, and the work began, interrupted frequently by the exultant shouts that marked a new finding. No one regretted Hugo. He made his men work magically; his example was a challenge. He could do more than any of them, and his hair and eyes, black as their own, his granite face, stern and indefatigable, gave him a natural dominion over them.