J. Gladwyn Jebb — His character — Mr. and Mrs. H. R. H. visit him in Mexico — Death of their only son while absent — New York on way to Mexico — Reports — Their loyalty to each other — Mexico City — Don Anselmo — Golden Head of Montezuma — Treasure hunt — Zumpango — Journey to silver mine — Chiapas — Vera Cruz — Frontera — Millions of mosquitoes — A mule load of silver — Attempt of robbers to steal it — Silver mine — Tarantulas — Mishap on journey back — Return to England.
During the year 1889 I made the acquaintance of my late friend J. Gladwyn Jebb, one of the most delightful persons whom I have ever known. Some irony of fate brought it about that Jebb should devote his life to the pursuit of mining and commercial ventures — a career for which he was utterly unsuited. The result may be imagined: he worked very hard in many evil climates, broke down his health, dissipated his large private means in supporting unremunerative enterprises, and died saddened and impoverished.
I have described his character in my introduction to “The Life and Adventures of J. G. Jebb,” by his widow, from which I quote a short passage.
In the city of Mexico, where business men are — business men, he was respected universally, and by the Indians he was adored. “He is a good man, Jebb,” said an honourable old Jewish trader of that city to me — “a man among a thousand, whom I would trust anywhere. See, I will prove it to you, amigo: he has lived in this town doing business for years, yet, with all his opportunities, he leaves it poorer than he came here. Did you ever hear the like of that, amigo?”
Would that there existed more of such noble failures — the ignoble are sufficiently abundant — for then the world might be cleaner than it is. It matters little now: his day is done, and he has journeyed to that wonderful Hereafter of which during life he had so clear a vision, and that was so often the subject of his delightful and suggestive talk. But his record remains, the record of a brave and generous man who, as I firmly believe, never did, never even contemplated, a mean or doubtful act. To those who knew him and have lost sight of him there remain also a bright and chivalrous example and the memory of a most perfect gentleman.
Unfortunately for myself, a connection in the City had introduced me to certain Mexican enterprises in which he was concerned that in due course absorbed no small sum out of my hard earnings. Also he introduced me to Jebb, which good deed I set against the matter of the unlucky investments.
Jebb urged me to come to Mexico and write a novel about Montezuma, both of which things I did in due course; also as a bait he told me a wonderful and, as I believe, perfectly true tale of hidden treasure which we were to proceed to dig up together. Of this treasure I will write hereafter.
Jebb and Mrs. Jebb returned to Mexico during the year 1890, where my wife and I made arrangements to visit them at the commencement of 1891.
And now I come to a very sad and terrible event that pierced me with a sudden thrust which has left my heart bleeding to this day. Yes, still it bleeds, nor will the issue of its blood be stayed till, as he passes by, I touch the healing robes of Death. I refer to the death of my only son.
This child — he was just under ten when he died — possessed a nature of singular sweetness, so sweet that its very existence should have and indeed did warn me of what fate held in store for us. So far as my experience goes, children who bring with them to the earth this twilight glow of the bright day in which perchance they dwelt elsewhere, who wear upon their brows this visible halo of an unnatural charm and goodness, rarely remain to bless it long. That which sent them forth soon calls them back again. And yet, could we but understand, their short lives may not lack fruit. Through their influence on others they may still work on the world they left.
My son Rider — he was by his own wish called Jock, to avoid confusion between us — was such a child as this. I can never remember his doing what he should not, save once when he teased his little sisters by refusing to allow them to come out of a place where he had prisoned them, and for his pains had the only scolding I ever gave him. Yet he was no milksop or “mother’s darling.” He bore pain well, would ride any horse on which he could climb, and even while he was still in frocks I have known him attack with his little fists someone who made pretence to strike me. He was an imaginative child. One example will suffice. We left London on our holiday: it was the year in which I wrote “Allan Quatermain.” When we drove from the station to the farm the full moon shone in the summer sky. “Look, dad,” he said, pointing to it, “there is God’s lamp!”
The boy was beloved by everyone who knew him, and in turn loved all about him, but especially his mother and myself. How much I, to whom all my children are so dear, loved, or rather love, him I cannot tell. He was my darling; for him I would gladly have laid down my life.
It is strange, but when I went to Mexico I knew, almost without doubt, that in this world he and I would never see each other more. Only I thought it was I who was doomed to die. Otherwise it is plain that I should never have started on that journey. With this surety in my heart — it was with me for weeks before we sailed — the parting was bitter indeed. The boy was to stay with friends, the Gosses. I bade him good-bye and tore myself away. I returned after some hours. A chance, I forget what, had prevented the servant, a tall dark woman whose name is lost to me, from starting with him to Delamere Crescent till later than was expected. He was still in my study — about to go. Once more I went through that agony of a separation which I knew to be the last. With a cheerful face I kissed him — I remember how he flung his arms about my neck — in a cheerful voice I blessed him and bade him farewell, promising to write. Then he went through the door and it was finished. I think I wept.
I said nothing of this secret foreknowledge of mine, nor did I attempt to turn from the road that I had chosen because I was aware of what awaited me thereon. Only I made every possible preparation for my death — even to sealing up all important papers in a despatch-box and depositing them in Messrs. Gosling’s Bank, where I knew they would be at once available.
But alas! my spirit saw imperfectly. Or perhaps knowing only that Death stood between us, I jumped to the conclusion that it was on me of an older generation that his hand would fall, on me who was about to undertake a journey which I guessed to be dangerous, including as it did a visit to the ruins of Palenque, whither at the time few travellers ventured. It never occurred to me that he was waiting for my son.
About six weeks later — for I may as well tell the story out and be done with it — that hand fell. My presentiments had returned to me with terrible strength and persistence. One Sunday morning in the Jebbs’ house in Mexico City, as we were preparing to go to church, they were fulfilled. Mrs. Jebb called us to their bedroom. She had a paper in her hand. “Something is wrong with one of your children,” she said brokenly. “Which?” I asked, aware that this meant death, no less, and waited. “Jock,” was the reply, and the dreadful telegram, our first intimation of his illness, was read. It said that he had “passed away peacefully” some few hours before. There were no details or explanations.
Then in truth I descended into hell. Of the suffering of the poor mother I will not speak. They belong to her alone.
I can see the room now. Jebb weeping by the unmade bed, the used basins — all, all. And in the midst of it myself — with a broken heart! Were I a living man when these words are read — why, it would be wrong that I should rend the veil, I who never speak of this matter, who never even let that dear name pass my lips. But they will not be read till I, too, am gone and have learned whatever there is to know. Perhaps also the tale has its lessons. At any rate it is a page in my history that cannot be omitted, though it be torn from the living heart and, some may think, too sad to dwell on.
This morning, not an hour since, I stood by my son’s grave and read what I had carved upon his cross: “I shall go to him.” Now that I am growing old these words are full of comfort and meaning to me. Soon, after all these long years of separation, I shall go to him and put my faith to proof. If it be true, as I believe, then surely my spirit will find his spirit, though it must search from world to world. If, with all earth’s suffering millions, I am deluded, then let the same everlasting darkness be our bed and canopy.
On my return from Mexico I wrote a romance called “Montezuma’s Daughter.” In this tale the teller loses his children, and I put into his mouth what myself I felt. Here are the words: I cannot better them after all these years, and they are as true to me now as they were then.
Ah! we think much of the sorrows of our youth, and should a sweetheart give us the go-by, we fill the world with moans and swear that it holds no comfort for us. But when we bend our heads before the shrouded shape of some lost child, then it is that for the first time we learn how terrible grief can be. Time, they tell us, will bring consolation; but it is false; for such sorrow time has no salves. I say it who am old — as they are so shall they be. There is no hope but faith, there is no comfort save in the truth that love which might have withered on the earth grows fastest in the tomb, to flower gloriously in heaven; that no love indeed can be perfect till God sanctifies and completes it with His seal of death.
I wrote just now that, for reasons I hope to set out later in this book, I believed my faith, which amongst other things promises reunion of the death-divided, to be a true faith. Indeed, if it be otherwise, what a hell is this in which we live. Thrusting from the memory all other trials and sorrows, not for any finite earthly life that could be promised me would I endure again from year to year the agony I have suffered on the one count of this bereavement, which is after all, so common and everyday a thing. If ever, in some dread hour, faith in all its forms should be proved a dream and mockery, surely in the same hour will sound the death-knell of all that is best in the educated world. Brutes which guess of nothing better can live happy till the butcher finds them: men who believe can endure till God consoles or calls them. But will the much-developed man whose heart-strings, like those of the Aeolian harp, must thrill and sob in every wind of pain — will he continue to endure if once he is assured that beneath the precipice from which he will presently be hurled there is — Nothing? Knowing all they must be called upon to suffer at the best, will he breed children, perhaps to see them thrown from the stark cliff before his eyes and there to cease to be for ever? (The case of France, where I believe faith grows very weak, seems to give answer to this question. Yesterday I read that in that country during 1911 the deaths exceeded the births by over thirty thousand. My conviction is that, unless faith returns to her in some form, as a nation France is doomed. She will fall as Rome fell, and from the same cause.)
In short, I hold that God and a belief in a future life where there is no more pain and tears are wiped from off all faces are necessities to civilised and thoughtful man, and that without them, slowly perhaps, but surely, he will cease to be. He will commit suicide when Fortune frowns, as did the Roman who had outgrown his gods; he will refuse to propagate his kind, as do the French. Why should he breed them to be the bread of Death?
Such are the conclusions at which I have arrived after many years of reflection which began at the time of my great grief. They may be right or they may be wrong; that the future history of the white races will reveal. At least I believe in them. Nor do I believe alone. But yesterday I was speaking on these matters to a bishop of the English Church, a very able and enlightened man. I found that my views were his views, and my conclusions his conclusions. Also he thought, as I do, that many of our present troubles, industrial and other, arise from the loss of faith among men. The feast of Life, such as it is, is spread before their eyes. They would help themselves to the meagre and bitter fare they see, and who can wonder? “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
To return to the sorrow which gave rise to these reflections. I staggered from the room; I wrote a cable directing that the burial should take place by the chancel door of Ditchingham Church, where now he lies. Afterwards I took up a Bible and opened it at hazard. The words that my eyes fell on were “Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not.” The strange chance seemed to cheer me a little. That afternoon I went for a walk in the great avenue. Never shall I forget that walk among the gay and fashionable Mexicans. I did not know till then what a man can endure and live.
Now I have come to understand that this woe has two sides. If he had lived who knows what might have chanced to him? And the holy love which was between us, might it not have faded after the fashion of this world? As things are it remains an unchangeable, perfect, and eternal thing. Further, notwithstanding all, I am glad that he lived with us for those few years. His sufferings were short; his little life was happy while it endured; he went, I believe, quite sinless from the world; and, lastly, I believe that the soul which has been, is and will be.22
21 My son died suddenly of a perforating ulcer after an attack of measles. Perhaps surgery could have saved him today. — H. R. H.
As for myself, I was crushed; my nerves broke down entirely, and the rest of the Mexican visit, with its rough journeyings, is to me a kind of nightmare. Not for many years did I shake off the effects of the shock; indeed I have never done so altogether. It has left me with a heritage of apprehensions, not for myself personally — I am content to take what comes — but for others. My health gave out. I left London, which I could no longer bear, and hid myself away here in the country. The other day I found a letter of this period, sent to me as an enclosure on some matter, in which the writer speaks of me as being “quite unapproachable since the death of his only son.” So, indeed, I think I was. Moreover, at this time the influenza attacked me again and again, and left me very weak.
We did not come home at once — what was the good of returning to the desolated home? Our boy had died in a strange house and been brought to Ditchingham for burial. What was the good of returning home? So there, far away, in due course letters reached us with these dreadful details and heart-piercing messages of farewell.
And now I have done with this terrible episode and will get me to my tale again. The wound has been seared by time — few, perhaps none, would guess that it existed; but it will never heal. I think I may say that from then till now no day has passed, and often no hour, when the thought of my lost boy has not been present with me. I can only bow the head and murmur, “God’s will be done!”
I remember reading in one of R. L. Stevenson’s published letters, written after he had helped to nurse a sick child, that nothing would induce him to become a father, for fear, I gathered, lest one day he might be called upon to nurse his own sick child. I can well understand the effect of the experience on a highly sensitive nature, and, as a matter of fact, he died childless. Yet, as I read, I wondered what he would have felt had such a lightning shaft as fell upon my head from heaven smitten and shattered him.
Perhaps, being frail, he would have died. But I was tougher, and lived on. More: I went among murderers and escaped; I wandered into the fever lands, and never took it; the brute I rode fell in a flooded river, and I did not drown; I was in peril on the sea, and came safe to shore. It was decreed that I should live on.
On our arrival in New York on our way to Mexico, on January 10, 1891, I was seized upon by numbers of reporters. Now the single reporter may be dealt with, preferably by making him talk about himself, which is a subject far more interesting to him than you are; or he may be persuaded to tell you about the last person or subject upon which he has had to report. Thus, on a subsequent occasion, a reporter came on board the ship to see me before she reached her berth. Early as it was in the morning, he had already been about his paper’s business, attending the electrocution of two men in a prison! The sight had impressed even his hardy nerves sufficiently to make him talk a great deal about it, describing all its details. Therefore I was called upon to furnish him with but little information about myself, though probably this was not a fact that weighed on him when it came to the writing of the interview.
Another man, who caught me in a railway train, grew so interested in talking of his own affairs that he never noticed that the train had started till it was running at quite twenty miles an hour. Then with a yell he rushed down the carriage and leapt out into the night. I have always wondered whether he was killed or only broke his leg.
There is nothing that an American reporter will not do to attain his ends. For instance, I have known them to break into my room at midnight when I was in bed.
Once, when I was in America as a Commissioner, the reporter of a great paper did his best to make me express opinions on some important matter connected with the internal policy of the United States. Naturally I declined, but this did not prevent my alleged views upon the question from appearing everywhere. Then followed leading articles in some of the best papers gravely lecturing me and pointing out how improper it was that one who had been received with so much courtesy, and who occupied a diplomatic position, should publicly intervene in the domestic affairs of the country to which he had been sent by his Government. A famous comic journal, also, published a cartoon of me in a pulpit engaged in lecturing the American people.
Needless to say, I was extremely annoyed, but of redress I could obtain none. Contradiction where the country is so vast and newspapers are so many is hopeless. However, when I was leaving New York another representative of the same great paper came to interview me on the steamer, and to him I expressed my feelings. He listened; then replied, with a somewhat sickly smile, “Very annoying, Mr. Haggard, but I guess it would be scarcely loyal of me to give our man away, would it?”
Nothing could exceed the kindness with which we were received in the United States — even the reporters were kind till it came to cold print. Really I think that Americans are the most hospitable people in the world. I will go further and say that nobody is so nice or sympathetic or broad-minded or desirous of all good as a really first-class American, man or woman. I remember that on the occasion of this visit we were quite glad to escape from New York, where literally we were being killed with kindness. To feast with some hospitable host at every meal, from breakfast till a midnight supper, after a week or so becomes more than the human frame can bear.
From New York we went to the beautiful city of New Orleans, where also we were widely entertained. One dinner-party I shall never forget. Upon each napkin lay a little poem anent something I had written. For instance, here is one which evidently refers to “The World’s Desire”:
Upon thy breast the “bleeding Star” of love,
?Etherealised, and freed from serpent taint,
Is all afire, O burnished dove!
?For whom men fail and faint!
Moreover in the middle of dinner someone — I think it was our hostess — rose and read a poem at me. Though very kindly meant, it was really most embarrassing, especially as I had no poem ready with which to reply.
In New Orleans, amongst other places of much interest, I was shown a park in which duels used to be fought in the early days, and a graveyard where, because of the water in the soil, the dead are buried in niches in the surrounding walls.
Leaving that most hospitable city, we travelled on to El Paso, then quite a small town on the Mexican border. I remember that on the train I fell into conversation with a gentleman who, much to my astonishment, informed me that in the future we should telegraph through the air without the use of any connecting wires, and furnished me with the details of how this would be done. At the time I confess it occurred to me that he was amusing himself by gammoning a stranger who was known to write romances. Now, however, I see that at the commencement of the year 1891 there was at any rate one person who was very well acquainted with the system of wireless telegraphy which is now identified with the name of Mr. Marconi, then a lad of sixteen years of age.
There were at this time two railway lines running from the States to Mexico City, and I recollect that we hesitated long by which of them we should travel. Our choice was fortunate, since the train which left on the same day by the other line met with many adventures. Amongst other things it was twice thrown off the rails by intelligent Mexicans actuated either by spite or the hope of plunder, and some of its occupants were killed. Mexico, even in those days, was a wonderful city of almost Parisian appearance; but I confess that what interested me more than its tramways and fine modern buildings were such relics of old Mexico as could be seen in the museum and elsewhere, and the mighty volcano of Popocatepetl, which the Aztecs feared and worshipped, towering to the skies. The cathedral also, built by the early Spanish conquerors, is a remarkable church, though, owing to the rarity of the air at that height above sea-level, I should not recommend any visitor who has doubts as to the condition of his heart to follow our example and climb to the top of its tower.
I think I mentioned that the original cause of my visit to Mexico was the tale of a certain treasure which appealed to all my romantic instincts. This was the story so far as I can recollect it.
In Mexico Mr. Jebb knew a certain Cuban named Don Anselmo. This man, who was a geologist, was prying about on the farther shore of Lake Tezcuco, when a Mexican emerged from some bushes and remarked that he saw that Anselmo knew the secret which he thought belonged to himself alone. Anselmo, being no fool, pumped him, and out came the story. It appears than an aged cacique confided to the Mexican the plans and inventory of that portion of the treasure of the Aztecs which was recaptured from the Spaniards in the disaster of the Noche triste. This inventory set out a list of eighteen large jars of gold, either in the form of ornaments or dust, several jars full of precious stones, much arms and armour, also of gold, and lastly a great golden head more than life-size, being a portrait of the Emperor Montezuma. The plan showed where and how all this wealth had been disposed of in a pit sixty feet deep, at the bottom of which was a great rock covered with Aztec writing. The mouth of this pit was on the land where Anselmo was pursuing his geological researches, and marked by two ancient trees planted near to it by the Aztecs when they buried the treasure.
The only stipulation made by the old cacique when he revealed the secret, which came straight down to him from his forefather who had helped Guatemoc to bury the treasure, was that it should never be given up to Government or to any Spaniard.
Needless to say, the Mexican and Don Anselmo entered into a partnership. Anselmo tried to raise funds to buy the property. Failing in this, he got the leave of the proprietor to prospect for sulphur, and, with some others, began to dig at the spot indicated on the plan. All went well. The Mexican kept away native loungers by announcing that devils dwelt in the hole. The pit was cleared out, and at the depth of sixty feet was found the great stone, on which was cut an owl, the crest or totem mark of Guatemoc. Unfortunately, just at this time the excavators were advised that the property had been sold to a new owner, who was coming to inspect it. All night long they worked furiously at the stone, which at last they destroyed with dynamite. A tunnel was revealed beyond, running at right angles into the side of the hill, till some steps were reached that mounted upwards. On one of these steps lay the copper head of a spear. At the top of them, however, was a very solid wall of some hard material which had been fused by heat.
The excavators retreated, baffled by the lack of time and this impenetrable wall. They filled in the shaft, hurling down it the boles of the two trees that Guatemoc had planted, and ran before the new owner arrived, announcing that they had found no sulphur.
Ultimately Anselmo approached Mr. Jebb, who was known to have influence with the member, or ex-member, of the Government who had acquired the property. From him Jebb obtained permission to dig for antiquities on his estate. I remember the arrival of the formal letter of leave, but not what stipulations were made as to the disposal of any articles that might be found. Full of hope that it would fall to our lot to discover the golden head of Montezuma and the jars of treasure and of jewels, with the help of Senor Anselmo we were making our preparations once more to clear that shaft when the terrible news of which I have spoken arrived. After its receipt I had no heart to enter upon the adventure.
A year or so later Jebb returned to Mexico to find, I think, that the Mexican concerned was dead and that Anselmo had vanished, none knew where. It was suggested that he had been murdered by Indians who knew that he held the secret of their ancient wealth. But whether this was so or not I cannot say.
The site of the shaft is, I suppose, now lost, although of course some of the peons that assisted in the clearing of the pit may remember its whereabouts, if they still live. I understand, however, that only Anselmo and the Mexican actually destroyed the covering stone engraved with an owl and explored the passage and flight of steps beyond. The peons probably thought that they were really digging for sulphur without the permission of the proprietor of the land.
The story as it stands is, I admit, like most such stories, rather vague, but for my part I believe, as did the late Mr. Jebb, that Montezuma’s treasure or a large part of it remains buried in this place. That it is buried somewhere is not to be doubted, for the Spaniards never recovered what was lost in the rout of the Noche triste. Indeed, my impression is, although I cannot verify this without rereading all the old chroniclers, that they put many Indians to the torture, including Guatemoc himself, as I have described in “Montezuma’s Daughter,” in order to force them to reveal its hiding-place. However this may be, I doubt whether the golden head of Montezuma and the jewels which he wore will ever again see the light of day. The Aztecs buried them deeply, having time at their disposal; no plough or surface excavation will reveal them, and the place of their sepulture is lost. And this must anyhow be pleasing to the shade of the heroic Guatemoc.
By a little stretch of the imagination one might almost fancy that this hoard still lies under the protection of the evil Aztec gods, of one of which I will now tell the story.
Shortly before I went to Mexico, in the course of some drainage works which were then being begun at a distance from the city — I think the place was called Zumpango, but of this I am not sure — a peculiarly hideous idol was discovered. It was grey in colour, but, if I remember rightly, more or less blotched with pink, and its head was sunk almost between the shoulders, while I can only describe the face a............