“Oh,” she laughed, to my great relief, “but this mescal is something quite different. The Mexican drink mescal is made from the maguey-plant and is a frightfully horrid thing that sends the peon out of his senses and makes him violent. Mescal as I mean it is a little shrub, a god, a cult, a religion.”
“Yes,” assented Kennedy; “discovered by those same Kiowa Indians, was it not?”
“Perhaps,” she admitted, raising her beautiful shoulders in polite deprecation. “The mescal religion, we found, has spread very largely in New Mexico and Arizona among the Indians, and with the removal of the Kiowas to the Indian reservation it has been adopted by other tribes even, I have heard, as far north as the Canadian border.”
“Is that so?” asked Kennedy. “I understood that the United States government had forbidden the importation of the mescal plant and its sale to the Indians under severe penalties.”
“It has, sir,” interposed Alvardo, who had joined us, “but still the mescal cult grows secretly. For my part, I think it might be more wise for your authorities to look to the whiskey and beer that unscrupulous persons are selling. Senor Jameson,” he added, turning to me, “will you join us in a little cup of this artificial paradise, as one of your English writers—Havelock Ellis, I think—has appropriately called it?”
I glanced dubiously at Kennedy as Senora Mendez took one of the little buttons out of the silver tray. Carefully paring the fuzzy tuft of hairs off the top of it—it looked to me very much like the tip of a cactus plant, which, indeed, it was—she rolled it into a little pellet and placed it in her mouth, chewing it slowly like a piece of chicle.
“Watch me; do just as I do,” whispered Kennedy to me at a moment when no one was looking.
The servant advanced towards us with the tray.
“The mescal plant,” explained Alvardo, pointing at the little discs, “grows precisely like these little buttons which you see here. It is a species of cactus which rises only half an inch or so from the ground. The stem is surrounded by a clump of blunt leaves which give it its button shape, and on the top you will see still the tuft of filaments, like a cactus. It grows in the rocky soil in many places in the state of Jalisco, though only recently has it become known to science. The Indians, when they go out to gather it, simply lop off these little ends as they peep above the earth, dry them, keep what they wish for their own use, and sell the rest for what is to them a fabulous sum. Some people chew the buttons, while a few have lately tried making an infusion or tea out of them. Perhaps to a beginner I had better recommend the infusion.”
I had scarcely swallowed the bitter, almost nauseous decoction than I began to feel my heart action slowing up and my pulse beating fuller and stronger. The pupils of my eyes expanded as with a dose of belladonna; at least, I could see that Kennedy’s did, and so mine must have done the same.
I seemed to feel an elated sense of superiority—really I almost began to feel that it was I, not Kennedy, who counted most in this investigation. I have since learned that this is the common experience of mescal-users, this sense of elation; but the feeling of physical energy and intellectual power soon wore off, and I found myself glad to recline in my easy chair, as the rest did, in silent indolence.
Still, the display that followed for an enchanted hour or so was such as I find it hopeless to describe in language which shall convey to others the beauty and splendour of what I saw.
I picked up a book lying on the table before me. A pale blue-violet shadow floated across the page before me, leaving an after-image of pure colour that was indescribable. I laid down the book and closed my eyes. A confused riot of images and colours like a kaleidoscope crowded before me, at first indistinct, but, as I gazed with closed yes, more and more definite. Golden and red and green jewels seemed to riot before me. I bathed my hands in inconceivable riches of beauty such as no art-glass worker has ever produced. All discomfort ceased. I had no desire to sleep—in fact, was hyper-sensitive. But it was a real effort to open my eyes; to tear myself away from the fascinating visions of shapes and colours.
At last I did open my eyes to gaze at the gasjets of the chandelier as they flickered. They seemed to send out waves, expanding and contracting, waves of colour. The shadows of the room were highly coloured and constantly changing as the light changed.
Senora Barrios began lightly to play on the piano the transposed Kiowa song, emphasising the notes that represented the drum-beats. Strange as it may seem, the music translated itself into pure colour—and the rhythmic beating of the time seemed to aid the process. I thought of the untutored Indians as they sat in groups about the flickering camp-fire while others beat the tom-toms and droned the curious melody. What were the visions of the red man, I wondered, as he chewed his mescal button and the medicine man prayed to Hikori, the cactus god, to grant a “beautiful intoxication?”
Under the gas-lights of the chandelier hung a cluster of electric light bulbs which added to the flood of golden effulgence that bathed the room and all things in it. I gazed next intently at the electric lights. They became the sun itself in their steadiness, until I had to turn away my head and close my eyes. Even then the image persisted—I saw the golden sands of Newport, only they were blazing with glory as if they were veritable diamond dust: I saw the waves, of incomparable blue, rolling up on the shore. A vague perfume was wafted on the air. I was in an orgy of vision. Yet there was no stage of maudlin emotion. It was at least elevating.
Kennedy’s experiences as he related them to me afterwards were similar, though sufficiently varied to be interesting. His visions took the forms of animals—a Cheshire cat, like that in “Alice in Wonderland,” with merely a grin that faded away, changing into a lynx which in turn disappeared, followed by an unknown creature with short nose and pointed ears, then tortoises and guinea-pigs, a perfectly unrelated succession of beasts. When the playing began a beautiful panorama unfolded before him—the regular notes in the music enhancing the beauty, and changes in the scenes, which he described as a most wonderful kinetoscopic display.
In fact, only De Quincey or Bayard Taylor or Poe could have done justice to the thrilling effects of the drug, and not even they unless an amanuensis had been seated by them to take down what they dictated, for I defy anyone to remember anything but a fraction of the rapid march of changes under its influence. Indeed, in observing its action I almost forgot for the time being the purpose of our visit, so fascinated was I. The music ceased, but not the visions.
Senora Mendez advanced toward us. The spangles on her net dress seemed to give her a fairy-like appearance; she seemed to float over the carpet like a glowing, fleecy, white cloud over a rainbow-tinted sky.
Kennedy, however, had not for an instant forgotten what we were there for, and his attention recalled mine. I was surprised to see that when I made the effort I could talk and think quite as rationally as ever, though the wildest pranks were going on in my mind and vision. Kennedy did not beat about in putting his question, evidently counting on the surprise to extract the truth.
“What time did Senor Guerrero leave last night?”
The question came so suddenly that she had no time to think of a reply that would conceal anything she might otherwise have wished to conceal.
“About ten o’clock,” she answered, then instantly was on her guard, for Torreon had caught her eye.
“And you have no idea where he went?” asked Kennedy.
“None, unless he went home,” she replied guardedly.
I did not at the time notice the significance of her prompt response to Torreon’s warning. I did not notice, as did Kennedy, the smile that spread over Torreon’s features. The music had started again, and I was oblivious to all but the riot of colour.
Again the servant entered. She seemed clothed in a halo of light and colour, every fold of her dress radiating the most delicate tones. Yet there was nothing voluptuous or sensual about it. I was raised above earthly things. Men and women were no longer men and women—they were brilliant creatures of whom I was