9. CHAPTER IX.
THE QUESTIONER OF THE MORNING.
WHEN Montezuma departed from the old Cû for his
palace, it was not to sleep or rest. The revelation
that so disturbed him, that held him wordless on the street,
and made him shrink from his people, wild with the promise
of pomp and combat, would not be shut out by gates and
guards; it clung to his memory, and with him stood by the
fountain, walked in the garden, and laid down on his couch.
Royalty had no medicine for the trouble; he was restless as
a fevered slave, and at times muttered prayers, pronouncing
no name but Quetzal's. When the morning approached, he
called Maxtla, and bade him get ready his canoe: from
Chapultepec, the palace and tomb of his fathers, he would see
the sun rise.
From one of the westerly canals they put out. The lake
was still rocking the night on its bosom, and no light other
than of the stars shone in the east. The gurgling sound of
waters parted by the rushing vessel, and the regular dip of
the paddles, were all that disturbed the brooding of majesty
abroad thus early on Tezcuco.
The canoe struck the white pebbles that strewed the landing
at the princely property just as dawn was dappling the
sky. On the highest point of the hill there was a tower
from which the kings were accustomed to observe the stars.
Thither Montezuma went. Maxtla, who alone dared follow,
spread a mat for him on the tiles; kneeling upon it, and
folding his hands worshipfully upon his breast, he looked
to the east.
And the king was learned; indeed, one more so was
not in all his realm. In his student days, and in his priesthood,
before he was taken from sweeping the temple to be
arch-ruler, he had gained astrological craft, and yet practised
it from habit. The heavens, with their blazonry, were to
him as pictured parchments. He loved the stars for their
sublime mystery, and had faith in them as oracles. He consulted
them always; his armies marched at their bidding;
and they and the gods controlled every movement of his
civil polity. But as he had never before been moved by so
great a trouble, and as the knowledge he now sought directly
concerned his throne and nations, he came to consult and
question the Morning, that intelligence higher and purer
than the stars. If Quetzal' was angered, and would that
day land for vengeance, he naturally supposed the Sun, his
dwelling-place, would give some warning. So he came seeking
the mood of the god from the Sun.
And while he knelt, gradually the gray dawn melted into
purple and gold. The stars went softly out. Long rays,
like radiant spears, shot up and athwart the sky. As the in
dications multiplied, his hopes arose. Farther back he threw
the hood from his brow; the sun seemed coming clear and
cloudless above the mountains, kindling his heart no less
than the air and earth.
A wide territory, wrapped in the dim light, extended beneath
his feet. There slept Tenochtitlan, with her shining
temples and blazing towers, her streets and resistless nationality;
there were the four lakes, with their blue waters, their
shores set with cities, villages and gardens; beyond them
lay eastern Anahuac, the princeliest jewel of the Empire.
What with its harvests, its orchards, and its homesteads, its
forests of oak, sycamore, and cedar, its population busy,
happy, and faithful, contented as tillers of the soil, and brave
as lions in time of need, it was all of Aden he had ever
known or dreamed.
In the southeast, above a long range of mountains, rose
the volcanic peaks poetized by the Aztecs into “The White
Woman”[24] and “The Smoking Hill.”[25] Mythology had
covered them with sanctifying faith, as, in a different age
and more classic clime, it clothed the serene mountain of
Thessaly.
But the king saw little of all this beauty; he observed
nothing but the sun, which was rising a few degrees north
of “The Smoking Hill.” In all the heavens round there
was not a fleck; and already his heart throbbed with delight,
when suddenly a cloud of smoke rushed upward from
the mountain, and commenced gathering darkly about its
white summit. Quick to behold it, he scarcely hushed a cry
of fear, and instinctively waved his hand, as if, by a kingly
gesture, to stay the eruption. Slowly the vapor crept over
the roseate sky, and, breathless and motionless, the seeker
of the god's mood and questioner of the Morning watched
its progress. Across the pathway of the sun it stretched, so
that when the disk wheeled fairly above the mountain-range,
it looked like a ball of blood.
The king was a reader of picture-writing, and skilful in
deducing the meaning of men from cipher and hieroglyph.
Straightway he interpreted the phenomenon as a direful portent;
and because he came looking for omens, the idea that
this was a message sent him expressly from the gods was
but a right royal vanity. He drew the hood over his face
again, and drooped his head disconsolately upon his breast.
His mind filled with a host of gloomy thoughts. The revelation
of Mualox was prophecy here confirmed, — Quetzal'
was coming! Throne, power, people, — all the glories
of his country and Empire, — he saw snatched from
his nerveless grasp, and floating away, like the dust of the
valley.
After a while he arose to depart. One more look he gave
the sun before descending from the roof, and shuddered at
the sight of city, lake, valley, the cloud itself, and the sky
above it, all colored with an ominous crimson.
“Behold!” he said, tremulously, to Maxtla, “to-day we
will sacrifice to Quetzal': how long until Quetzal' sacrifices
to himself?”
The chief cast down his eyes; for he knew how dangerous
it was to look on royalty humbled by fear. Then Montezuma
shaded his face again, and left the proud old hill, with
a sigh for its palaces and the beauty of its great cypress-groves.
