The fair god, or, The last of the 'Tzins a tale of the conquest of Mexico |
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 | The fair god, or, The last of the 'Tzins |  |
6. BOOK SIX.
1. CHAPTER I.
THE LORD HUALPA FLEES HIS FORTUNE.
THE 'tzin Guatamo sat at breakfast alone in his palace
near Iztapalapan. The fare was simple, — a pheasant,
bread of maize, oranges and bananas, and water from the
spring; and the repast would have been soon despatched but
for the announcement, by a slave in waiting, of the lord
Hualpa. At mention of the name the 'tzin's countenance
assumed a glad expression.
“The lord Hualpa! The gods be praised! Bid him
come.”
Directly the visitor appeared at the door, and paused
there, his eyes fixed upon the floor, his body bent, like one
half risen from a salutation. The 'tzin went to him, and
taking his hand said, —
“Welcome, comrade. Come and account for yourself.
I know not yet how to punish you; but for the present,
sit there, and eat. If you come from Tenochtitlan this
morning, you must bring with you the appetite which is one
of the blessings of the lake. Sit, and I will order your
breakfast.”
“No, good 'tzin, not for me, I pray you. I am from the
lake, but do not bring any blessing.”
The 'tzin resumed his seat, looking searchingly and curiously
at his guest, and pained by his manner and appearance.
His face was careworn; his frame bent and emaciated;
uncertain tone; in short, his aspect was that of one come
up from a battle in which shame and grief had striven with
youth of body and soul, and, fierce as the struggle had been,
the end was not yet. He was the counterpart of his former
self.
“You have been sick,” said the 'tzin, afterwhile.
“Very sick, in spirit,” replied Hualpa, without raising his
eyes.
The 'tzin went on. “After your desertion, I caused inquiry
to be made for you everywhere, — at the Chalcan's,
and at your palace. No one could give me any tidings. I
sent a messenger to Tihuanco, and your father was no better
informed. Your truancy has been grievous to your friends,
no less than to yourself. I have a right to call you to
account.”
“So you have; only let us to the garden. The air outside
is sweet, and there is a relief in freedom from walls.”
From habit, I suppose, they proceeded to the arena set
apart for military exercise. No one was there. The 'tzin
seated himself on a bench, making room for Hualpa, who
still declined the courtesy, saying, —
“I will give an account of myself to you, brave 'tzin, not
only because I should, but because I stand in need of your
counsel. Look for nothing strange; mine is a simple story
of shame and failure. You know its origin already. You
remember the last night I spent with you here. I do, at
least. That day the king made me happier than I shall ever
be again. When I met you at the landing, the kiss of my
betrothed was sweet upon my lips, and I had but one sorrow
in the world, — that you were an exile, and could not
take part, as you so wished and deserved, in the battle which
my hand was to precipitate next noon. I left you, and by
dawn was at my post in the temple. The hours were long.
warriors chosen for the assault were in their quarters.
The lord Cuitlahua was in the tower of Huitzil', with the
teotuctli and his pabas, at prayer. We awaited only the
king's word. Finally, Io' appeared. I saw him coming. I
raised the stick, my blood was warm, another instant and
the signal would have been given —” Hualpa's voice trembled,
and he stopped.
“Go on,” said the 'tzin. “What restrained you?”
“I remembered the words of the king, — `Io' will come
to you at noon with my commands,' — those were the
words. I waited. `Strike!' said Io'. `The command, —
quick!' I cried. `As you love life, strike!' he shouted.
Something unusual had taken place; I hesitated. `Does
the king so command?' I asked. `Time never was as
precious! Give me the stick!' he replied. But the duty
was mine. `With your own hand give the signal,' — such
was the order. I resisted, and he gave over the effort,
and, throwing himself at my feet, prayed me to strike. I
refused the prayer, also. Suddenly he sprang up, and
ran out to the verge of the temple overlooking the street.
Lest he should cast himself off, I followed. He turned to
me, as I approached, and cried, with upraised hands, `Too
late, too late! We are undone. Look where they carry
him off!' `Whom?' I asked. `The king — my father
— a prisoner!' Below, past the coatapantli, the royal palanquin
was being borne, guarded by the strangers. The blood
stood still in my heart. I turned to the prince; he was
gone. A sense of calamity seized me. I ran to the tower,
and called the lord Cuitlahua, who was in time to see the
procession. I shall never forget the awful look he gave me,
or his words.” Hualpa again paused.
“What were they?” asked the 'tzin.
“`My lord Hualpa,' he said, `had you given the signal
and saved him. It is now too late; he is lost.
May the gods forgive you! A ruined country cannot.'”
“Said he so?” exclaimed the 'tzin, indignantly. “By all
the gods, he was wrong!”
At these words, Hualpa for the first time dared look into
the 'tzin's face, surprised, glad, yet doubtful.
“How?” he asked. “Did you say I was right?”
“Yes.”
Tears glistened in the Tihuancan's eyes, and he seized and
kissed his friend's hand with transport.
“I begin to understand you,” the 'tzin said, still more
kindly. “You thought it your fault that the king was a
prisoner; you fled for shame.”
“Yes, — for shame.”
“My poor friend!”
“But consider,” said Hualpa, — “consider how rapidly I
had risen, and to what height. Admitting my self-accusations,
when before did man fall so far and so low? What
wonder that I fled?
“Well, you have my judgment. Seat yourself, and hear
me further.”
Hualpa took the seat this time; after which the 'tzin continued.
“The seizure was made in the palace. The king
yielded to threats of death. He could not resist. While
the strangers were bearing him past the teocallis, and you
were looking at them, their weapons were at his throat.
Had you yielded to Io's prayer, and given the signal, and
had Cuitlahua obeyed, and with his bands attempted a
rescue, your benefactor would have been slain. Do not
think me dealing in conjectures. I went to him in the
street, and prayed to be allowed to save him; he forbade me.
Therefore, hold not yourself in scorn; be happy; you saved
his life a second time.”
Again Hualpa gave way to his gratitude.
“Nor is that all,” the 'tzin continued. “In my opinion,
the last rescue was nobler than the first. As to the lord
Cuitlahua, be at rest. He was not himself when he chid
you so cruelly; he now thinks as I do; he exonerates
you; his messengers have frequently come, asking if you
had returned. So, no more of shame. Give me now what
else you did.”
The sudden recall to the past appeared to throw Hualpa
back; his head sunk upon his breast again, and for a time
he was silent; at length he replied, “As I see now, good
'tzin, I have been very foolish. Before I go on, assure me
that you will listen with charity.”
“With charity and love.”
“I have hardly the composure to tell what more I
did; yet the story will come to you in some form. Judge
me mercifully, and let the subject be never again recalled.”
“You have spoken.”
“Very well. I have told you the words of the lord Cuitlahua;
they burnt me, like fire. Thinking myself forever
disgraced, I descended from the azoteas to the street, and
there saw the people's confusion, and heard their cries and
curses. I could not endure myself. I fled the city, like a
guilty wretch. Instinctively, I hurried to Tihuanco. There
I avoided every habitation, even my father's. News of evil
travels fast. The old merchant, I knew, must needs hear of
the king's seizure and what I regarded as my crime. So
I cared not to meet his eyes. I passed the days in the
jungles hunting, but the charm of the old occupation was
gone; somehow my arrows flew amiss, and my limbs refused
a long pursuit. How I subsisted, I scarcely know. At last,
however, my ideas began to take form, and I was able to interrogate
myself. Through the king's bounty, I was a lord,
Nenetzin was bound to me in solemn betrothal. What would
she think of me? What right had I, so responsible for his
great misfortune, to retain his gifts? I could release her
from the odious engagement. At his feet I could lay down
the title and property; and then, if you refused me as a soldier
or slave, I could hide myself somewhere; for the grief-struck
and unhappy, like me, earth has its caverns and ocean
its islands. And so once more I hurried to Tenochtitlan.
Yesterday I crossed the lake. From the Chalcan I heard
the story which alone was needed to make my humiliation
complete, — how Nenetzin, false to me, betrayed the great
purpose of her father, betook herself to the stranger's house,
adopted his religion, and became his wife or — spare me the
word, good 'tzin. After that, I lost no time, but went to
the palace, made way through the pale-faced guards at the
gate and doors, each of whom seemed placed there to attest
the good king's condition and my infamy. Suitors
and lords of all degrees crowded the audience-chamber when
I entered, and upon every face was the same look of sorrow
and dejection which I had noticed upon the faces of the
people whom I passed in the street. All who turned eyes
upon me appeared to become accusers, and say, `Traitor, behold
thy victim!' Imagine the pressure upon my spirit. I
made haste to get away, — unseemly haste. What my salutation
was I hardly know. I only remember that, in some
form of speech, I publicly resigned all his honorable gifts. I
remember, also, that when I took what I thought was my last
look at him, — friend, patron, king, father, — may the gods,
who have forbidden the relation, forgive the allusion! —
I could not see him for tears. My heart is in my throat
now; then it nearly choked me. And so ends my account.
And once more, true friend, I come to you, Hualpa, the
Tihuancan, without title, palace, or privilege; without distinction,
The 'tzin was too deeply touched, too full of sympathy, to
reply immediately. He arose, and paced the arena awhile.
Resuming his seat again, he asked simply, “And what said
the king?”
“To what?”
“Your resignation.”
“He refused to take back his gifts. They could not revert,
he said, except for crime.”
“And he was right. You should have known him better.
A king cannot revoke a gift in any form.”
After a spell of silence, the 'tzin spoke again.
“One matter remains. You are not guilty, as you supposed;
your friends have not lost their faith in you; such
being the case, it were strange if your feelings are as when
you came here; and as purposes too often follow feelings, I
ask about the future. What do you intend? What wish?”
“I see you understand me well, good 'tzin. My folly has
been so great that I feel myself unworthy to be my own master.
I ought not to claim a purpose, much less a wish. I
came to your door seeking to be taken back into service;
that was all the purpose I had. I rely upon your exceeding
kindness.”
Hualpa moved as if to kneel; but the 'tzin caught him,
and said, “Keep your seat.” And rising, he continued, severely,
“Lord Hualpa, — for such you still are, — all men,
even the best, are criminals; but as for the most part their
crimes are against themselves, we take no notice of them.
In that sense you are guilty, and in such degree that you
deserve forfeiture of all the king refused to take back. Put
pass we that, — pass the folly, the misconduct. I will not
take you into service; you have your old place of friend and
comrade, more fitting your rank.”
Hualpa's face brightened, and he answered, —
“Command me, O 'tzin! With you I can be brave warrior,
good citizen, true friend; without you, I am nothing.
Whatever the world thinks of me, this I know, — I
can reinstate myself in its good opinion before I can in
my own. Show me the way back to self-respect; restore
me that, and I will be your slave, soldier, comrade, — what
you will.”
“It is well,” said Guatamozin, smiling at his earnestness.
“It is well. I can show you the way. Listen. The war,
about which we have so often talked, thanks to the gods! is
finally at hand. The public opinion has done its work. The
whole nation would throw itself upon the strangers to-morrow,
but for the king, who has become their shield; and he
must be rescued; otherwise, we must educate the people to
see in him an enemy to be removed. We cannot spare the
time for that, and consequently have tried rescue in many
ways, so far in vain. To-morrow we try again. The plot
is arranged and cannot fail, except by the king's own default.
Reserving explanation, I congratulate you. You are in
time; the good fortune clings to you. To-morrow I will set
your feet in the way you seek.”
Hualpa gazed at him doubtingly. “To-morrow!” he said.
“Will you trust me so soon, and in a matter so high?”
“Yes.”
“Will my part take me from you?”
“No.”
“Then I thank you for the opportunity. On the teocallis,
that dreadful morning, I lost my assurance; whether it will
ever return is doubtful; but with you, at your side, I dare
walk in any way.”
“I understand you,” the 'tzin replied. “Go now, and get
ready. Unless the king fail us, we will have combat requiring
all our strength. To the bath first, then to breakfast,
you to midnight. Go.”
2. CHAPTER II.
WHOM THE GODS DESTROY THEY FIRST MAKE MAD.
THE morning after Hualpa's return Xoli, the Chalcan,
as was his wont, passed through his many rooms, making
what may be called a domestic reconnoissance.
“What!” he cried, perplexed. “How is this? The
house is empty! Where are all the lords?”
The slaves to whom he spoke shook their heads.
“Have there been none for breakfast?”
Again they shook their heads.
“Nor for pulque?”
“Not one this morning,” they replied.
“Not even for a draught of pulque! Wonderful!” cried
the broker, bewildered and amazed. Then he hurried to
his steward, soliloquizing as he went, “Not one for breakfast;
not even a draught of pulque! Holy gods, to what is
the generation coming?”
The perplexity of the good man was not without cause.
The day the king removed to the palace of Axaya', the royal
hospitality went with him, and had thenceforth been administered
there; but though no less princely and profuse than
before, under the new régime it was overshadowed by the
presence of the strangers, and for that reason became distasteful
to the titled personages accustomed to its enjoyment.
Consequently, owners of palaces in the city betook themselves
to their own boards; others, especially non-residents,
quartered with the Chalcan; as a further result, his house
those of the palace; such, at least, was the disloyal whisper,
and I am sorry to say Xoli did not repudiate the impeachment
as became a lover of the king. And such eating,
drinking, playing, such conspiring and plotting, such political
discussion, such transactions in brokerage went on daily
and nightly under his roof as were never before known.
Now all this was broken off. The silence was not more
frightful than unprofitable.
“Steward, steward!” said Xoli to that functionary, distinguished
by the surpassing whiteness of his apron. “What
has befallen? Where are the patrons this morning?”
“Good master, the most your slave knows is, that last
night a paba from the great temple passed through the chambers,
after which, very shortly, every guest departed.”
“A paba, a paba!” And Xoli was more than ever perplexed.
“Heard you what he said?”
“Not a word.”
“About what time did he come?”
“After midnight.”
“And that is all you know?”
The steward bowed, and Xoli passed distractedly to the
front door, only to find the portico as deserted as the chambers.
Sight of the people beginning to collect in the square,
however, brought him some relief, and he hailed the first passing
acquaintance.
“A pleasant morning to you, neighbor.”
“The same to you.”
“Have you any news?”
“None, except I hear of a crowd of pabas in the city,
come, as rumor says, from Tezcuco, Cholula, Iztapalapan,
and other lake towns.”
“When did they come?”
“In the night.”
“Oho! There 's something afoot.” And Xoli wiped the
perspiration from his forehead.
“So there is,” the neighbor replied. “The king goes to
the temple to worship to-day.”
A light broke in upon the Chalcan. “True, true; I had
forgotten.”
“Such is the talk,” the citizen continued. “Will you be
there? Everybody is going.”
“Certainly,” answered Xoli, dryly. “If I do not go,
everybody will not be there. Look for me. The gods keep
you!”
And with that, he re-entered his house, satisfied, but not
altogether quieted; wandering restlessly from chamber to
chamber, he asked himself continually, “Why so many
pabas? And why do they come in the night? And what
can have taken the lords away so silently, and at such a
time, — without breakfast, — without even a draught of
pulque?”
Invariably these interrogatories were followed by appeals
to the great ebony jar of snuff; after sneezing, he would
answer himself, “Pabas for worship, lords and soldiers
for fighting; but pabas and soldiers together! Something is
afoot. I will stay at home, and patronize myself. And yet
— and yet — they might have told me something about
it!”
About ten o'clock — to count the time as Christians do —
the king issued from the old palace, going in state to the
teocallis, attended by a procession of courtiers, warriors, and
pabas. He was borne in an open palanquin, shaded by the
detached canopy, the whole presenting a spectacle of imperial
splendor.
The movement was slow and stately, through masses of
people on the pavements, under the gaze of other thousands
nor the pomp, nor the king himself, though fully exposed to
view, amused or deceived the people; for at the right and
left of the carriage walked Lugo, Alvarado, Avila, and
Leon; next, Olmedo, distinguishable from the native clergy
by his shaven crown, and the cross he carried aloft on the
shaft of a lance; after him, concluding the procession, one
hundred and fifty Spaniards, ready for battle. Priesthood,
— king, — the strangers! Clearer, closer, more inevitable,
in the eyes of the people, arose the curse of Quetzal'.
When the monarch alighted at the foot of the first stairway
of the temple, the multitude far and near knelt, and so
remained until the pabas, delegated for the purpose, took
him in their arms to carry him to the azoteas. Four times
in the passage of the terraces the cortege came in view from
the side toward the palace, climbing, as it were, to the Sun;
— dimmer the holy symbols, fainter the solemn music; and
each time the people knelt. The unfortunate going to worship
was still the great king!
A detachment of Christians, under De Morla, preceded
the procession as an advance-guard. Greatly were they surprised
at what they found on the azoteas. Behind Tlalac, at
the head of the last stairway, were a score or more of
naked boys, swinging smoking censers; yet farther toward
the tower or sanctuary of Huitzil' was an assemblage of dancing
priestesses, veiled, rather than dressed, in gauzy robes
and scarfs; from the steps to the door of the sanctuary a
passage-way had been left; elsewhere the sacred area was
occupied by pabas, drawn up in ranks close and scrupulously
ordered. Like their pontiff, each of them wore a
gown of black; but while his head was bare, theirs were
covered by hoods. Thus arranged, — silent, motionless, more
like phantoms than men, — they both shocked and disquieted
the Spaniards. Indeed, so sensible were the latter
the face of an array so dismal and solid, that many of them
fell to counting their beads and muttering Aves.
A savage dissonance greeted the king when he was set
down on the azoteas, and simultaneously the pabas burst
into a hymn, and from the urn over the tower a denser
column of smoke arose, slow mounting, but erelong visible
throughout the valley. Half bending, he received the blessing
of Tlalac; then the censer-bearers swept around him;
then, too, jangling silver bells and beating calabashes, the
priestesses began to dance; in the midst of the salutation,
the arch-priest, moving backward, conducted him slowly
toward the entrance of the sanctuary. At his side strode
the four cavaliers. The escort of Christians remained outside;
yet the pabas knew the meaning of their presence,
and their hymn deepened into a wail; the great king had
gone before his god — a prisoner!
The interior of the sanctuary was in ordinary condition;
the floor and the walls black with the blood of victims;
the air foul and sickening, despite the smoking censers
and perfuming pans. The previous visit had prepared
the cavaliers for these horrors; nevertheless, a cry broke
from them upon their entrance. In a chafing-dish before
the altar four human hearts were slowly burning to coals!
“Jesu Christo!” exclaimed Alvarado. “Did not the
pagans promise there should be no sacrifice? Shrieve me
never, if I toss not the contents of you dish into the god's
face!”
“Stay!” cried Olmedo, seizing his arm. “Stir not!
The business is mine. As thou lovest God, — the true God,
— get thee to thy place!”
The father spoke firmly, and the captain, grinding his
teeth with rage, submitted.
The pedestal of the idol was of stone, square in form, and
fronting the doorway, — door there was not, — assisted devotees
up to a platform, upon which stood a table curiously
carved, and resting, as it were, under the eyes of the god.
The chamber, bare of furniture, was crowded with pabas,
kneeling and hooded and ranked, like their brethren outside.
The cavaliers took post by the entrance, with Olmedo between
them and the altar. Two priests, standing on the
lower step, seemed waiting to assist in the ceremonial,
although, at the time, apparently absorbed in prayer.
Tlalac led the monarch by the hand up the steps.
“O king,” he said, “the ears of the god are open. He
will hear you. And as to these companions in devotion,”
he pointed to the assistants as he spoke, “avoid them not:
they are here to pray for you; if need be, to die for you. If
they speak, be not surprised, but heed them well; what
they say will concern you, and all you best love.”
Thereupon the arch-infidel let go the royal hand, and
descended the steps, moving backward; upon the floor he
continued his movement. Suddenly he stopped, turned, and
was face to face with Olmedo; all the passions of his savage
nature blazed in his countenance; in reply, the Christian
priest calmly held up the cross, and smiled, and was content.
Meantime the monarch kissed the altar, and, folding his
hands upon his breast, was beginning to be abstracted in
prayer, when he heard himself addressed.
“Look not this way, O king, nor stir; but listen.”
The words, audible throughout the chamber, proceeded
from the nearest devotee, — a tall man, well muffled in gown
and hood. The monarch controlled himself, and listened,
while the speaker continued in a slow, monotonous manner,
designed to leave the cavaliers, whom he knew to be observing
him, in doubt whether he was praying or intoning some
part of the service of the occasion, —
“It is in the streets and in the palaces, and has gone
forth into the provinces, that Montezuma is the willing guest
of the strangers, and that from great love of them and their
society, he will not come away, although his Empire is dissolving,
and the religion of his fathers menaced by a new
one; but know, O king, that the chiefs and caciques refuse
to credit the evil spoken of you, and, believing you a prisoner,
are resolved to restore you to freedom. Know further, O
king, that this is the time chosen for the rescue. The way
back to the throne is clear; you have only to go hence. What
says the king? The nation awaits his answer.”
“The throne is inseparable from me, — is where I am,
under my feet always,” answered the monarch, coldly.
“And there may it remain forever!” said the devotee,
with fervor. “I only meant to pray you to come from
amongst the strangers, and set it once more where it belongs,
— amongst the loving hearts that gave it to you. Misunderstand
me not, O king. Short time have we for words. The
enemy is present. I offer you rescue and liberty.”
“To offer me liberty is to deny that I am free. Who is he
that proposes to give me what is mine alone to give? I am
with Huitzil'. Who comes thus between me and the god?”
From the pabas in the chamber there was a loud murmur;
but as the king and devotee retained their composure, and,
like praying men, looked steadily at the face of Huitzil', the
cavaliers remained unsuspicious observers of what was to
them merely a sinful ceremony.
“I am the humblest, though not the least loving, of all
your subjects,” the devotee answered.
“The name?” said the king. “You ask me to go hence:
whither and with whom?”
“Know me without speaking my name, O king. I am
your brother's son.”
Montezuma was visibly affected. Afterwhile he said, —
“Speak further. Consider what you have said true, —
that I am a prisoner, that the strangers present are my
guards, — what are the means of rescue? Speak, that I
may judge of them. Conspiracy is abroad, and I do not
choose to be blindly led from what is called my prison to
a tomb.”
To the reasonable demand the 'tzin calmly replied, “That
you were coming to worship to-day, and the conditions upon
which you had permission to come, I learned from the
teotuctli. I saw the opportunity, and proposed to attempt
your rescue. In Tlalac the gods have a faithful servant, and
you, O king, a true lover. When you were received upon
the azoteas, you did not fail to notice the pabas. Never
before in any one temple have there been so many assembled.
They are the instruments of the rescue.”
“The instruments!” exclaimed the king, unable to repress
his scorn.
The 'tzin interposed hastily. “Beware! Though what
we say is not understood by the strangers, their faculties are
sharp, and very little may awaken their suspicion and alarm;
and if our offer be rejected, better for you, O king, that
they go hence ignorant of their danger and our design.
Yes, if your conjecture were true, if we did indeed propose
to face the teules with barehanded pabas, your scorn would
be justified; but know that the concourse on the azoteas
is, in fact, of chiefs and caciques, whose gowns do but conceal
their preparation for battle.”
A pang contracted the monarch's face, and his hands closed
harder upon his breast; possibly he shuddered at the necessity
so thrust upon him of deciding between Malinche
whom he feared, and the people whom he so loved.
“Yes,” continued the 'tzin, “here are the chosen of the
realm, — the noblest and the best, — each with his life in
his hand, an offering to you. What need of further words?
object of the concourse of priests; you understand they are
formed in ranks, that, upon a signal, they may throw themselves
as one man upon the strangers. Here in the sanctuary
are fifty more with maquahuitls; behind them a door has
been constructed to pass you quickly to the azoteas; they
will help me keep the door, and stay pursuit, while you descend
to the street. And now, O king, said I not rightly?
What have you to do more than go hence? Dread not for
us. In the presence of Huitzil', and in defence of his altar,
we will fight. If we fall in such glorious combat, he will
waft our souls straightway to the Sun.”
“My son,” the king answered, after a pause, “if I were a
prisoner, I would say you and the lords have done well;
but, being free and pursuing my own policy, I reject the
rescue. Go your ways in peace; leave me to my prayers. In
a few days the strangers will depart; then, if not sooner, I
will come back as you wish, and bring the old time with me,
and make all the land happy.”
The monarch ceased. He imagined the question answered
and passed; but a murmur, almost a groan, recalled him from
the effort to abstract himself. And then the teotuctli, exercising
his privilege, went to him, and, laying a hand upon his
arm, and pointing up to the god, said, —
“Hearken, O king! The strangers have already asked
you to allow them to set up an altar here in the house of
Huitzil', that they may worship their god after their manner.
The request was sacrilege; listening to it, a sin; to grant it
would make you accursed forever. Save yourself and the god,
by going hence as the lords have besought. Be wise in
time.”
“I have decided,” said the poor king, in a trembling voice,
— “I have decided.”
Tlalac looked to the 'tzin despairingly. The appeal to the
what else remained? And the 'tzin for the first time looked
to the king, saying sorrowfully, —
“Anahuac is the common mother, as Huitzil' is the father.
The foot of the stranger is heavy on her breast, and she cries
aloud, `Where is Montezuma? Where is the Lord of the
Earth? Where is the Child of the Sun?'”
And silence hung heavy in the sanctuary, and the waiting
was painful. Again the 'tzin's voice, —
“A bride sits in the house waiting. Love puts its songs
in her mouth, and kindles her smiles with the dazzle of stars.
But the bridegroom lingers, and the evening and the morning
bring him not. Ah, what is she, though ever so beautiful
and sweet-singing, when he comes not, and may never
come? O king, you are the lingering lord, and Anahuac
the waiting bride; as you love her, come.”
The fated king covered his face with his hands, as if, by
shutting out the light, to find relief from pangs too acute for
endurance. Minutes passed, — minutes of torture to him,
and of breathless expectancy to all present, except the cavaliers,
who, unconscious of peril, watched the scene with indifference,
or rather the scornful curiosity natural to men
professing a purer and diviner faith. At last his hand dropped,
and he said with dignity, —
“Let this end now, — so I command. My explanation
must be accepted. I cannot understand why, if you love me
as you say, you should receive my word with so little credit;
and if you can devote yourselves so entirely to me, why
can you not believe me capable of equal devotion to myself?
Hear me once more. I do not love the strangers. I
hope yet to see them sacrificed to Huitzil'. They promise in
a few days to leave the country, and I stay with them to
hasten their departure, and, in the mean time, shield you, the
nation, the temples, and the gods, from their power, which
here or elsewhere, without my order. I am yet the king. Let
me have peace. Peace be with you! I have spoken.”
The 'tzin looked once to heaven, as if uttering a last appeal,
or calling it to witness a vow, then he fell upon his
knees; he, too, had despaired. And as if the feeling
were contagious, the teotuctli knelt, and in the sanctuary
there was stillness consistent with worship, save when some
overburdened breast relieved itself by a sigh, a murmur, or
a groan.
And history tells how Montezuma remained a little while
at the altar, and went peacefully back to his residence with
the strangers.
3. CHAPTER III.
THE PUBLIC OPINION MAKES WAY.
IN the tianguez, one market-day, there was an immense
crowd, yet trade was dull; indeed, comparatively nothing
in that way was being done, although the display of commodities
was rich and tempting.
“Holy gods, what is to become of us?” cried a Cholulan
merchant.
“You! You are rich. Dulness of the market cannot
hurt you. But I, — I am going to ruin.”
The second speaker was a slave-dealer. Only the day before,
he had, at great cost, driven into the city a large train
of his “stock” from the wilderness beyond the Great River.
“Tell me, my friend,” said a third party, addressing the
slave-dealer, though in hearing of the whole company,
“heard you ever of a slave owning a slave?”
“Not I.”
“Heard you ever of a man going into the market to buy
a slave, when he was looking to become one himself?”
“Never.”
“You have it then, — the reason nobody has been to your
exhibition.”
The bystanders appeared to assent to the proposition, which
all understood but the dealer in men, who begged an explanation.
“Yes, yes. You have just come home. I had forgotten.
A bad time to be abroad. But listen, friend.” The
speaker quietly took his pipe from his mouth, and knocked
the ashes out of the bowl. “We belong to Malinche; you
know who he is.”
“I am not so certain,” the dealer replied, gravely. “The
most I can say is, I have heard of him.”
“O, he is a god —”
“With all a man's wants and appetites,” interposed one.
“Yes, I was about to say that. For instance, day before
yesterday he sent down the king's order for three thousand
escaupiles. What need —”
“They were for his Tlascalans.”
“O, possibly. For whom were the cargoes of cotton cloth
delivered yesterday?”
“His women,” answered the other, quickly.
“And the two thousand sandals?”
“For his soldiers?”
“And the gold of which the market was cleaned last
week? And the gold now being hunted in Tustepec and
Chinantla? And the tribute being levied so harshly in all
the provinces, — for whom are they?”
“For Malinche himself.”
“Yes, the god Malinche. Slave of a slave! My friend,”
said the chief speaker to the slave-dealer, “there is no such
relation known to the law, and for that reason we cannot
wilderness have its own again.”
“But the goods of which you spoke; certainly they were
paid for,” said the dealer, turning pale.
“No. There is nothing left of the royal revenue. Even
the treasure which the last king amassed, and walled up in
the old palace, has been given to Malinche. The empire is
like a man in one respect, at least, — when beggared, it cannot
pay.”
“And the king?”
“He is Malinche's, too.”
“Yes,” added the bystander; “for nowadays we never
see his signet, except in the hands of one of the strangers.”
The dealer in men drew a long breath, something as near
a sigh as could come from one of his habits, and said, “I remember
Mualox and his prophecy; and, hearing these things,
I know not what to think.”
“We have yet one hope,” said the chief spokesman, as if
desirous of concluding the conversation.
“And that?”
“Is the 'tzin Guatamo.”
“What luck, Pepite?”
“Bad, very bad.”
The questioner was the wife of the man questioned, who
had just returned from the market. Throwing aside his empty
baskets, he sat down in the shade of a bridge spanning one
of the canals, and, locking his hands across his bare knees,
looked gloomily in the water. His canoe, with others, was
close at hand.
The wife, without seeming to notice his dejection, busied
herself setting out their dinner, which was humble as themselves,
being of boiled maize, tuna figs, and tecuitlatl, or
cheese of the lake. When the man began to eat, he began
“Bad luck, very bad,” he repeated. “I took my baskets
to the old stand. The flowers were fresh and sweet, gathered,
you know, only last night. The market was full of people,
many of whom I knew to be rich enough to buy at two
prices; they came, and looked, and said, `They are very
nice, Pepite, very nice,' but did not offer to buy. By and
by the sun went up, and stood overhead, and still no purchaser,
not even an offer. It was very discouraging, I tell
you; and it would have been much more so, if I had not
pretty soon noticed that the market-people around me, fruiterers
and florists, were doing no better than I. Then I
walked about to see my friends; and in the porticos and
booths as elsewhere in the square, — no trade; plenty
of people, but no trade. The jewellers had covered their
fronts with flowers, — I never saw richer, — you should have
been there! — and crowds stood about breathing the sweet
perfume; but as to purchasing, they did nothing of the sort.
In fact, may the mitlou[1] of our little house fly away to-night,
if, in the whole day, I saw an instance of trade, or so
much as a cocoa-bean pass from one hand to another!”
“It has been so many days now, only not quite so bad,
Pepite,” the wife said, struggling to talk cheerfully. “What
did they say was the cause? Did any one speak of that?”
“O yes, everybody. Nothing else was talked. `What
is the use of working? Why buy or sell? We have no
longer a king or country. We are all slaves now. We
belong to Malinche. Afterwhile, because we are poor,
he will take us off to some of his farms, like that one he
has down in Oajaca, and set us to working, and keep the
fruits, while he gives us the pains. No, we do not want
down.' That is the way the talk went all day.”
For the first time the woman threw off her pretence
of cheerfulness, and was still, absorbed in listening and
thinking.
“Belong to Malinche! We? And our little ones at
home? Not while the gods live!” she said, confidently.
“Why not? You forget. Malinche is himself a god.”
A doubt shook the strong faith of the wife; and soon,
gloomy and hopeless as Pepite, she sat down by him, and
partook of the humble fare.
“The nation is dying. Let us elect another king,” said
an old cacique to a crowd of nobles, of whom he was the
centre, in the pulque chamber of the Chalcan. Bold words,
which, half a year before, would have been punished on the
spot; now, they were heard in silence, if not with approbation.
“A king has no right to survive his glory,” the
veteran continued; “and how may one describe his shame
and guilt, when, from fear of death, he suffers an enemy to
use him, and turn his power against his people!”
He stopped, and for a time the hush was threatening;
then there was clapping of hands, and voices cried out, —
“Good, good!”
“May the gods forgive me, and witness that the speech
was from love of country, not hatred of Montezuma,” said
the cacique, deferentially.
“Whom would you have in his place? Name him,”
shouted an auditor.
“Montezuma, — if he will come back to us.”
“He will not; he has already refused. Another, — give
us another!”
“Be it so!” said the veteran, with decision. “My life
Cacama and the good lord Cuitlahua yawns for me also. I
will speak.” Quaffing a bowl of pulque, he added, “Of all
Anahuac, O my brothers, who, with the fewest years, is
wisest of head and bravest of heart, and therefore fittest to
be king in time like this?”
The question was of the kind that addresses itself peculiarly
to individual preferences, — the kind which has afflicted
the world with its saddest and greatest wars; yet,
strange to say, the company, as with one voice, and instantly,
answered, —
“The 'tzin, the 'tzin. Guatamo, the 'tzin!”
In the evening time three pabas clomb the stairs by which
the top of the turret of Huitzil' on the teocallis was reached
from the azoteas. Arrived at the top, they found there the
night-watcher, who recognized the teotuctli, and knelt to
him.
“Arise, and get you down now,” the arch-priest said;
“we would be alone awhile.”
On a pedestal of stone, or rather of many stones, rested
the brazier, or urn, that held the sacred fire. In it crackled
the consuming fagots, while over it, with unsteady brilliancy,
leaped the flames which, for so many leagues away,
were as a beacon in the valley. The three stopped in the
shadow of the urn, and might have studied the city, or
those subjects greater and more fascinating, — mysteries
now, to-night, forever, — Space, and its children, the Stars;
but it was not to indulge a common passion or uncertain
speculations that Tlalac had brought from their temples
and altars his companions, the high-priests of Cholula and
Tezcuco. And there for a long time they remained, the
grave and holy servants of the gods of the New World,
talking earnestly, on what subject and with what conclusion
we may gather.
“He is of us no longer,” said Tlalac, impressively. “He
has abandoned his people; to a stranger he has surrendered
himself, his throne and power; he spends his days learning,
from a new priesthood, a new creed, and the things that pertain
to a god of whom everything is unknown to us, except
that he is the enemy of our gods. I bore his desertion
patiently, as we always bear with those we love. By permission,
as you heard, he came one day to worship Huitzil';
the permission was on condition that there should be no
sacrifices. Worship without sacrifice, my brethren! Can
such thing be? When he came, he was offered rescue; the
preparations were detailed to him; he knew they could not
fail; the nobles begged him to accept the offer; I warned
him against refusal; yet, of choice, he went back to Malinche.
Then patience almost forsook me. Next, as you
also know, came the unpardonable sin. In the chamber below
— the chamber sanctified by the presence of the mighty
Huitzil' — I will give you to see, if you wish, a profanation
the like of which came never to the most wicked dream of
the most wicked Aztec, — an altar to the new and unknown
God. And to-morrow, if you have the curiosity, I will give
you to see the further sight, — a service, mixed of singing
and prayer, by priests of the strange God, at the same time,
and side by side with the worship of our gods, — all with
the assent — nay, by order — of Montezuma. Witness these
crimes once, and your patience will go quickly, whereas
mine went slowly; but it is gone, and in its stead lives
only the purpose to do what the gods command.”
“Let us obey the gods!” said the reverend high-priest of
Cholula.
“Let us obey the gods!” echoed his holy brother of
Tezcuco.
“Hear me, then,” said Tlalac, with increased fervor. “I
will give their command. `Raise up a new king, and save
say. And I am ready.”
“But the law,” said the Tezcucan.
“By the law,” answered Tlalac, “there can be kings only
in the order of election.”
“And so?”
“Montezuma — must — DIE!”
Tlalac said these terrible words slowly, but firmly.
“And who will be the instrument?” they asked.
“Let us trust the gods,” he answered. “For love of
them men go down to death every day; and of the many
lovers, doubt not some one will be found to do their bidding.”
And so it was agreed.
And so, slowly but surely, the Public Opinion made its
way, permeating all classes, — laborers, merchants, warriors,
and priests.
4. CHAPTER IV.
THE 'TZIN'S FAREWELL TO QUETZAL'.
IF I were writing history, it would delight me to linger
over the details of Cortes' management after the arrest
of Montezuma; for in them were blent, fairly as ever before
seen, the grand diversities of war, politics, and governmental
administration. Anticipating interference from the headquarters
in Cuba, he exercised all his industry and craft to
recommend himself directly to his Majesty, the Emperor
Charles. The interference at last came in the form of a
grand expedition under Panfilo de Narvaez; but in the interval,
— a period of little more than five months, — he had
by numerous acts of sovereignty, — such, for instance,
as the coast of the gulf surveyed; colonies established;
plantations opened and worked with profit; tribute levied;
high officials arrested, disseized, and executed; the collection
and division of a treasure greater than ever before seen by
Christians in the New World; communication with the capital
secured by armed brigantines on the lakes; the cross set
up and maintained in the teocallis; and last, and, by custom
of the civilized world, most absolute, Montezuma brought to
acknowledge vassalage and swear allegiance to the Emperor;
and withal, so perfect was the administration of affairs, that
a Spaniard, though alone, was as safe in the defiles between
Vera Cruz and Tenochtitlan as he would have been in the
caminos reales of old Spain, as free in the great tianguez as
on the quay of Cadiz.
Narvaez's expedition landed in May, six months after
Cortes entered Tenochtitlan; and to that time I now beg to
advance my reader.
Cortes himself is down in Cempoalla; having defeated
Narvaez, he is lingering to gather the fruits of his extraordinary
victory. In the capital Alvarado is commanding,
supported by the Tlascalans, and about one hundred and
fifty Christians. Under his administration, affairs have
gone rapidly from bad to worse; and in selecting him for
a trust so delicate and important, Cortes has made his first
serious mistake.
At an early hour in the evening Mualox came out of the
sanctuary of his Cû, bearing an armful of the flowers which
had been used in the decoration of the altar. The good
man's hair and beard were whiter than when last I noticed
him; he was also feebler, and more stooped; so the time
is not far distant when Quetzal' will lose his last and
of the tower, his name was called, and, stopping, he was
overtaken by two men.
“Guatamozin!” he exclaimed, in surprise.
“Be not alarmed, father, but put down your burden, and
rest awhile. My friend here, the lord Hualpa, has brought
me news, which calls me away. Rest, therefore, and give
me time for thanks and explanation.”
“What folly is this?” asked Mualox, hastily, and without
noticing Hualpa's salutation. “Go back to the cell.
The hunters are abroad and vigilant as ever. I will cast
these faded offerings into the fire, and come to you.”
The 'tzin was in the guise of a paba. To quiet the
good man's alarm, he drew closer the hood that covered
his head, remarking, “The hunters will not come. Give
Hualpa the offerings; he will carry them for you.”
Hualpa took them, and left; then Mualox said, “I am
ready to hear. Speak.”
“Good father,” the 'tzin began, “not long since, in the
sanctuary there, you told me — I well remember the words —
that the existence of my country depended upon my action;
by which I understood you to prefigure for me an honorable,
if not fortunate, destiny. I believe you had faith in what
you said; for on many occasions since you have exerted
yourself in my behalf. That I am not now a prisoner in the
old palace with Cacama and the lord Cuitlahua is due to you;
indeed, if it be true, as I was told, that the king gave me
to Malinche to be dealt with as he chose, I owe you my life.
These are the greatest debts a man can be bound for; I acknowledge
them, and, if the destiny should be fortunate as
we hope, will pay them richly; but now all I can give you
is my thanks, and what I know you will better regard, — my
solemn promise to protect this sacred property of the holy
Quetzal'. Take the thanks and the promise, and let me have
your blessing. I wish now to go.”
“Whither?” asked Mualox.
“To the people. They have called me; the lord Hualpa
brings me their message.”
“No, you will not go,” said the paba, reproachfully.
“Your resolution is only an impulse; impatience is not a
purpose; and — and here are peace, and safety, and a holy
presence.”
“But honor, father, —”
“That will come by waiting.”
“Alas!” said the 'tzin, bitterly, “I have waited too long
already. I have most dismal news. When Malinche
marched to Cempoalla, he left in command here the red-haired
chief whom we call Tonatiah. This, you know, is
the day of the incensing of Huitzil' —”
“I know, my son, — an awful day! The day of cruel
sacrifice, itself a defiance of Quetzal'.”
“What!” said Guatamozin, in angry surprise. “Are you
not an Aztec?”
“Yes, an Aztec, and a lover of his god, the true god,
whose return he knows to be near, and,” — to gather energy
of expression, he paused, then raised his hands as if flinging
the words to a listener overhead, — “and whom he would
welcome, though the land be swimming in the blood of unbelievers.”
The violence and incoherency astonished the 'tzin, and as
he looked at the paba fixedly, he was sensible for the first
time of a fear that the good man's mind was affected. And
he considered his age and habits, his days and years spent in
a great, cavernous house, without amusement, without companionship,
without varied occupation; for the thinker, it
must be remembered, knew nothing of Tecetl or the world
she made so delightful. Moreover, was not mania the effect
of long brooding over wrongs, actual or imaginary? Or, to
put the thought in another form, how natural that the solitary
midst antique and templed splendor, should make
the cause of Quetzal' his, until, at last, as the one idea of
his being, it mastered him so absolutely that a division of
his love was no longer possible. If the misgiving had come
alone, the pain that wrung the 'tzin would have resolved
itself in pity for the victim, so old, so faithful, so passionate;
but a dreadful consequence at once presented itself. By a
strange fatality, the mystic had been taken into the royal
councils, where, from force of faith, he had gained faith.
Now, — and this was the dread, — what if he had cast the
glamour of his mind over the king's, and superinduced a
policy which had for object and end the peaceable transfer
of the nation to the strangers?
This thought thrilled the 'tzin indefinably, and in a moment
his pity changed to deep distrust. To master himself,
he walked away; coming back, he said quietly, “The day
you pray for has come; rejoice, if you can.”
“I do not understand you,” said Mualox.
“I will explain. This is the day of the incensing of Huitzil',
which, you know, has been celebrated for ages as a festival
religious and national. This morning, as customary,
lords and priests, personages the noblest and most venerated,
assembled in the court-yard of the temples. To bring the
great wrong out in clearer view, I ought to say, father, that
permission to celebrate had been asked of Tonatiah, and given,
— to such a depth have we fallen! And, as if to plunge
us into a yet lower deep, he forbade the king's attendance,
and said to the teotuctli, `There shall be no sacrifice.'”
“No victims, no blood!” cried Mualox, clasping his hands.
“Blessed be Quetzal'!”
The 'tzin bore the interruption, though with an effort.
“In the midst of the service,” he continued, “when the
yard was most crowded, and the revelry gayest, and the good
feasting, suddenly Tonatiah and his people rushed upon
them, and began to kill, and stayed not their hands until, of
all the revellers, not one was left alive; leaders in battle,
ministers at the altar, old and young, — all were slain![2]
O such a piteous sight! The court is a pool of blood.
Who will restore the flower this day torn from the nation?
O holy gods, what have we done to merit such calamity?”
Mualox listened, his hands still clasped.
“Not one left alive! Not one, did you say?”
“Not one.”
The paba arose from his stooping, and upon the 'tzin
flashed the old magnetic flame.
“What have you done, ask you? Sinned against the
true and only god —”
“I?” said the 'tzin, for the moment shrinking.
“The nation, — the nation, blind to its crimes, no less
blind to the beginning of its punishment! What you call
calamity, I call vengeance. Starting in the house of Huitzil',
— the god for whom my god was forsaken, — it will next
go to the city; and if the lords so perish, how may the
people escape? Let them tremble! He is come, he is come!
I knew him afar, I know him here. I heard his step in the
valley, I see his hand in the court. Rejoice, O 'tzin! He
has drunk the blood of the sacrificers. To-morrow his house
must be made ready to receive him. Go not away! Stay,
and help me! I am old. Of the treasure below I might
make use to buy help; but such preparation, like an offering
at the altar, is most acceptable when induced by love.
Love for love. So said Quetzal' in the beginning; so he
says now.”
“Let me be sure I understand you, father. What do you
offer me?” asked the 'tzin, quietly.
“Escape from the wrath,” replied Mualox.
“And what is required of me?”
“To stay here, and, with me, serve his altar.”
“Is the king also to be saved?”
“Surely; he is already a servant of the god's.”
Under his gown the 'tzin's heart beat quicker, for the question
and answer were close upon the fear newly come to him,
as I have said; yet, to leave the point unguarded in the
paba's mind, he asked, —
“And the people: if I become what you ask, will they
be saved?”
“No. They have forgotten Quetzal' utterly.”
“When the king became your fellow-servant, father, made
he no terms for his dependants, for the nation, for his
family?”
“None.”
Guatamozin dropped the hood upon his shoulders, and
looked at Mualox sternly and steadily; and between them
ensued one of those struggles of spirit against spirit in which
glances are as glittering swords, and the will holds the place
of skill.
“Father,” he said, at length, “I have been accustomed to
love and obey you. I thought you good and wise, and conversant
with things divine, and that one so faithful to his
god must be as faithful to his country; for to me, love of
one is love of the other. But now I know you better. You
tell me that Quetzal' has come, and for vengeance; and that,
in the fire of his wrath, the nation will be destroyed; yet
you exult, and endeavor to speed the day by prayer. And
now, too, I understand the destiny you had in store for me.
By hiding in this gown, and becoming a priest at your altar,
I was to escape the universal death. What the king did, I
With my own eyes I look into the future. I spurn the destiny,
and for myself will carve out a better one by saving or
perishing with my race. No more waiting on others! no
more weakness! I will go hence and strike —”
“Whom?” asked Mualox, impulsively. “The king and
the god?”
“He is not my god,” said the 'tzin, interrupting him in
turn. “The enemy of my race is my enemy, whether he be
king or god. As for Montezuma,” — at the name his voice
and manner changed, — “I will go humbly, and, from the
dust into which he flung them, pick up his royal duties.
Alas! no other can. Cuitlahua is a prisoner; so is Cacama;
and in the court-yard yonder, cold in death, lie the lords who
might with them contest the crown and its tribulations. I
alone am left. And as to Quetzal', — I accept the doom of
my country, — into the heart of his divinity I cast my spear!
So, farewell, father. As a faithful servant, you cannot bless
whom your god has cursed. With you, however, be all the
peace and safety that abide here. Farewell.”
“Go not, go not!” cried Mualox, as the 'tzin, calling to
Hualpa, turned his back upon him. “We have been as
father and son. I am old. See how sorrow shakes these
hands, stretched toward you in love.”
Seeing the appeal was vain, the paba stepped forward and
caught the 'tzin's arm, and said, “I pray you stay, — stay.
The destiny follows Quetzal', and is close at hand, and brings
in its arms the throne.”
Neither the tempter nor the temptation moved the 'tzin;
he called Hualpa again; then the holy man let go his arm,
and said, sadly, “Go thy way, — one scoffer more! Or, if
you stay, hear of what the god will accuse you, so that,
when your calamity comes, as come it will, you may not
accuse him.”
“I will hear.”
“Know, then, O 'tzin, that Quetzal', the day he landed
from Tlapallan, took you in his care; a little later, he caused
you to be sent into exile —”
“Your god did that!” exclaimed the 'tzin. “And why?”
“Out of the city there was safety,” replied Mualox,
sententiously; in a moment, he continued, “Such, I say,
was the beginning. Attend to what has followed. After
Montezuma went to dwell with the strangers, the king
of Tezcuco revolted, and drew after him the lords of
Iztapalapan, Tlacopan, and others; to-day they are prisoners,
while you are free. Next, aided by Tlalac, you planned the
rescue of the king by force in the teocallis; for that offence
the officers hunted you, and have not given over their quest;
but the cells of Quetzal' are deep and dark; I called you in,
and yet you are safe. To-day Quetzal' appeared amongst the
celebrants, and to-night there is mourning throughout the
valley, and the city groans under the bloody sorrow; still
you are safe. A few days ago, in the old palace of Axaya',
the king assembled his lords, and there he and they became
the avowed subjects of a new king, Malinche's master; since
that the people, in their ignorance, have rung the heavens
with their curses. You alone escaped that bond; so that, if
Montezuma were to join his fathers, asleep in Chapultepec,
whom would soldier, priest, and citizen call to the throne?
Of the nobles living, how many are free to be king? And
of all the empire, how many are there of whom I might
say, `He forgot not Quetzal”? One only. And now, O
son, ask you of what you will be accused, if you abandon this
house and its god? or what will be forfeit, if now you turn
your back upon them? Is there a measure for the iniquity
of ingratitude? If you go hence for any purpose of war,
remember Quetzal' neither forgets nor forgives; better that
you had never been born.”
By this time, Hualpa had joined the party. Resting his
hand upon the young man's shoulder, the 'tzin fixed on
Mualox a look severe and steady as his own, and replied, —
“Father, a man knows not himself; still less knows he other
men; if so, how should I know a being so great as you
claim your god to be? Heretofore, I have been contented
to see Quetzal' as you have painted him, — a fair-faced,
gentle, loving deity, to whom human sacrifice was especially
abhorrent; but what shall I say of him whom you
have now given me to study? If he neither forgets nor
forgives, wherein is he better than the gods of Mictlan?
Hating, as you have said, the sacrifice of one man, he
now proposes, you say, not as a process of ages, but at
once, by a blow or a breath, to slay a nation numbering
millions. When was Huitzil' so awfully worshipped?
He will spare the king, you further say, because he has
become his servant; and I can find grace by a like submission.
Father,” — and as he spoke the 'tzin's manner became
inexpressibly noble, — “father, who of choice would
live to be the last of his race? The destiny brings me a
crown: tell me, when your god has glutted himself, where
shall I find subjects? Comes he in person or by representative?
Am I to be his crowned slave or Malinche's? Once
for all, let Quetzal' enlarge his doom; it is sweeter than
what you call his love. I will go fight; and, if the gods of
my fathers — in this hour become dearer and holier than
ever — so decree, will die with my people. Again, father,
farewell.”
Again the withered hands arose tremulously, and a look
of exceeding anguish came to the paba's help.
“If not for love of me, or of self, or of Quetzal', then
for love of woman, stay.”
Guatamozin turned quickly. “What of her?”
“O 'tzin, the destiny you put aside is hers no less than
yours.”
The 'tzin raised higher his princely head, and answered,
smiling joyously, —
“Then, father, by whatever charm, or incantation, or
virtue of prayer you possess, hasten the destiny, — hasten
it, I conjure you. A tomb would be a palace with her, a
palace would be a tomb without her.”
And with the smile still upon his face, and the resolution
yet in his heart, he again, and for the last time, turned his
back upon Mualox.
5. CHAPTER V.
THE CELLS OF QUETZAL' AGAIN.
“A victim! A victim!”
“Hi, hi!”
“Catch him!”
“Stone him!”
“Kill him!”
So cried a mob, at the time in furious motion up the
beautiful street. Numbering hundreds already, it increased
momentarily, and howled as only such a monster can.
Scarce eighty yards in front ran its game, — Orteguilla, the
page.
The boy was in desperate strait. His bonnet, secured by
a braid, danced behind him; his short cloak, of purple velvet,
a little faded, fluttered as if struggling to burst the
throat-loop; his hands were clenched; his face pale with
fear and labor. He ran with all his might, often looking
back; and as his course was up the street, the old palace of
Axaya' must have been the goal he sought, — a long, long
way off for one unused to such exertion and so fiercely
pressed. At every backward glance, he cried, in agony of
help me!” The enemy was gaining upon him.
The lad, as I think I have before remarked, had been detailed
by Cortes to attend Montezuma, with whom, as he
was handsome and witty, and had soon acquired the Aztecan
tongue and uncommon skill at totoloque, he had become an
accepted favorite; so that, while useful to the monarch as a
servant, he was no less useful to the Christian as a detective.
In the course of his service, he had been frequently intrusted
with his royal master's signet, the very highest mark
of confidence. Every day he executed errands in the tianguez,
and sometimes in even remoter quarters of the city.
As a consequence he had come to be quite well known, and
to this day nothing harmful or menacing had befallen him,
although, as was not hard to discern, the people would
have been better satisfied had Maxtla been charged with
such duties.
On this occasion, — the day after the interview between
the 'tzin and Mualox, — while executing some trifling commission
in the market, he became conscious of a change in
the demeanor of those whom he met; of courtesies, there
were none; he was not once saluted; even the jewellers with
whom he dealt viewed him coldly, and asked not a word
about the king; yet, unaware of danger, he went to the
portico of the Chalcan, and sat awhile, enjoying the shade
and the fountain, and listening to the noisy commerce
without.
Presently, he heard a din of conchs and attabals, the
martial music of the Aztecs. Somewhat startled, and
half hidden by the curtains, he looked out, and beheld,
coming from the direction of the king's palace, a
procession bearing ensigns and banners of all shapes, designs,
and colors.
At the first sound of the music, the people, of whom, as
occupations, and ran to meet the spectacle, which, without
halting, came swiftly down to the Chalcan's; so that
there passed within a few feet of the adventurous page
a procession rarely beautiful, — a procession of warriors marching
in deep files, each one helmeted, and with a shield at his
back, and a banner in his hand, — an army with banners.
At the head, apart from the others, strode a chief whom
all eyes followed. Even Orteguilla was impressed with his
appearance. He wore a tunic of very brilliant feather-work,
the skirt of which fell almost to his knees; from the skirt
to the ankles his lower limbs were bare; around the ankles,
over the thongs of the sandals, were rings of furbished silver;
on his left arm he carried a shield of shining metal, probably
brass, its rim fringed with locks of flowing hair, and in the
centre the device of an owl, snow-white, and wrought of the
plumage of the bird; over his temples, fixed firmly in the
golden head-band, there were wings of a parrot, green as
emerald, and half spread. He exceeded his followers in
stature, which appeared the greater by reason of the long
Chinantlan spear in his right hand, used as a staff. To the
whole was added an air severely grand; for, as he marched, he
looked neither to the right nor left, — apparently too absorbed
to notice the people, many of whom even knelt upon his
approach. From the cries that saluted the chief, together
with the descriptions he had often heard of him, Orteguilla
recognized Guatamozin.
The procession wellnigh passed, and the young Spaniard
was studying the devices on the ensigns, when a hand
was laid upon his shoulder; turning quickly to the intruder,
he saw the prince Io', whom he was in the habit of meeting
daily in the audience-chamber of the king. The prince
met his smile and pleasantry with a sombre face, and said,
coldly, —
“You have been kind to the king, my father; he loves
you; on your hand I see his signet; therefore I will serve
you. Arise, and begone; stay not a moment. You were
never nearer death than now.”
Orteguilla, scarce comprehending, would have questioned
him, but the prince spoke on.
“The chiefs who inhabit here are in the procession. Had
they found you, Huitzil' would have had a victim before sunset.
Stay not; begone!”
While speaking, Io' moved to the curtained doorway from
which he had just come. “Beware of the people in the
square; trust not to the signet. My father is still the king;
but the lords and pabas have given his power to another, —
him whom you saw pass just now before the banners. In
all Anahuac Guatamozin's word is the law, and that word
is — War.” And with that he passed into the house.
The page was a soldier, not so much in strength as experience,
and brave from habit; now, however, his heart stood
still, and a deadly coldness came over him; his life was in
peril. What was to be done?
The procession passed by, with the multitude in a fever of
enthusiasm; then the lad ventured to leave the portico, and
start for his quarters, to gain which he had first to traverse the
side of the square he was on; that done, he would be in the
beautiful street, going directly to the desired place. He strove
to carry his ordinary air of confidence; but the quick step,
pale face, and furtive glance would have been tell-tales to the
shopkeepers and slaves whom he passed, if they had been the
least observant. As it was, he had almost reached the street,
and was felicitating himself, when he heard a yell behind
him. He looked back, and beheld a party of warriors
coming at full speed. Their cries and gestures left no room
to doubt that he was their object. He started at once for life.
The noise drew everybody to the doors, and forthwith
the leading pursuers were about seventy yards behind him,
followed by a stream of supporters extending to the tianguez
and beyond. So we have the scene with which the chapter
opens.
The page's situation was indeed desperate. He had not
yet reached the king's palace, on the other side of which, as
he knew, lay a stretch of street frightful to think of in such
a strait. The mob was coming rapidly. To add to his
horror, in front appeared a body of men armed and marching
toward him; at the sight, they halted; then they formed a
line of interception. His steps flagged; fainter, but more
agonizing, arose his prayer to Christ and the Mother. Into
the recesses on either hand, and into the doors and windows,
and up to the roofs, and down into the canals, he cast despairing
glances; but chance there was not; capture was certain,
and then the —SACRIFICE!
That moment he reached a temple of the ancient construction,
— properly speaking, a Cû, — low, broad, massive, in
architecture not unlike the Egyptian, and with steps along
the whole front. He took no thought of its appearance,
nor of what it might contain; he saw no place of refuge
within; his terror had become a blind, unreasoning madness.
To escape the sacrifice was his sole impulse; and I am not
sure but that he would have regarded death in any form other
than at the hands of the pabas as an escape. So he turned,
and darted up the steps; before his foremost pursuer was at
the bottom, he was at the top.
With a glance he swept the azoteas. Through the wide,
doorless entrance of a turret, he saw an altar of stainless
white marble, decorated profusely with flowers; imagining
there might be pabas present, and possibly devotees, he ran
around the holy place, and came to a flight of steps, down
which he passed to a court-yard bounded on every side by a
darkness, offered him a hiding-place.
In calmer mood, I doubt if the young Spaniard could have
been induced alone to try the interior of the Cû. He would
at least have studied the building with reference to the cardinal
points of direction; now, however, driven by the terrible
fear, without thought or question, without precaution
of any kind, taking no more note of distance than course,
into the doorway, into the unknown, headlong he plunged.
The darkness swallowed him instantly; yet he did not abate
his speed, for behind him he heard — at least he fancied so
— the swift feet of pursuers. Either the dear Mother of his
prayers, or some ministering angel, had him in keeping during
the blind flight; but at last he struck obliquely against
a wall; in the effort to recover himself, he reeled against
another; then he measured his length upon the floor, and
remained exhausted and fainting.
6. CHAPTER VI.
LOST IN THE OLD CÛ.
THE page at last awoke from his stupor. With difficulty
he recalled his wandering senses. He sat up, and was
confronted everywhere by a darkness like that in sealed
tombs. Could he be blind? He rubbed his eyes, and
strained their vision; he saw nothing. Baffled in the appeal
to that sense, he resorted to another; he felt of his
head, arms, limbs, and was reassured: he not only lived,
but, save a few bruises, was sound of body. Then he extended
the examination; he felt of the floor, and, stretching
his arms right and left, discovered a wall, which, like the
touch, sent its chill along his sluggish veins; the close air
made breathing hard; the silence, absolutely lifeless, — and
in that respect so unlike what we call silence in the outer
world, which, after all, is but the time chosen by small
things, the entities of the dust and grass and winds, for
their hymnal service, heard full-toned in heaven, if not by
us, — the dead, stagnant, unresonant silence, such as haunts
the depths of old mines and lingers in the sunken crypts of
abandoned castles, awed and overwhelmed his soul.
Where was he? How came he there? With head drooping,
and hands and arms resting limp upon the floor, weak
in body and spirit, he sat a long time motionless, struggling
to recall the past, which came slowly, enabling him to see
the race again with all its incidents: the enemy in rear, the
enemy in front; the temple stairs, with their offer of escape;
the azoteas, the court, the dash into the doorway under the
colonnade, — all came back slowly, I say, bringing a dread
that he was lost, and that, in a frantic effort to avoid death
in one form, he had run open-eyed to embrace it in another
even more horrible.
The dread gave him strength. He arose to his feet, and
stood awhile, straining his memory to recall the direction of
the door which had admitted him to the passage. Could he
find that door, he would wait a fitting time to slip from the
temple; for which he would trust the Mother and watch.
But now, what was done must needs be done quickly; for,
though but an ill-timed fancy, he thought he felt a sensation
of hunger, indicating that he had been a long time
lying there; how long, of course, he knew not.
Memory served him illy, or rather not at all; so that
nothing would do now but to feel his way out. O for a
light, if only a spark from a gunner's match, or the moony
gleam of a Cuban glow-worm!
As every faculty was now alert, he was conscious of the
importance of the start; if that were in the wrong direction,
every inch would be from the door, and, possibly, toward
his grave. First, then, was he in a hall or a chamber? He
hoped the former, for then there would be but two directions
from which to choose; and if he took the wrong one, no
matter; he had only to keep on until the fact was made clear
by the trial, and then retrace his steps. “Thanks, O Holy
Mother! In the darkness thou art with thy children no less
than in the day!” And with the pious words, he crossed
himself, forehead and breast, and set about the work.
To find if he were in a passage, — that was the first point.
He laid his hand upon the wall again, and started in the
course most likely, as he believed, to take him to the daylight,
never before so beautiful to his mind.
The first step suggested a danger. There might be traps
in the floor. He had heard the question often at the campfire,
What is done with the bodies of the victims offered up
in the heathen worship? Some said they were eaten; others,
that there were vast receptacles for them in the ungodly
temples, — miles and miles of catacombs, filled with myriads
of bones of priests and victims. If he should step off into a
pit devoted to such a use! His hair bristled at the thought.
Carefully, slowly, therefore, his hands pressed against the
rough wall, his steps short, one foot advanced to feel the
way for the other, so he went, and such was the necessity.
Scarcely three steps on he found another dilemma. The
wall suddenly fell away under his hand; he had come to
the angle of a corner. He stopped to consider. Should he
follow the wall in its new course? It occurred to him that
the angle was made by a crossing of passages, that he was
then in the square of their intersection; so the chances of
finding the right outlet were three to one against him. He
was more than ever confused. Hope went into low ebb.
palace? If hostilities had broken out, as intimated by the
prince Io', would his friends be permitted to look for him in
the city? The king was his friend, but, alas! his power had
been given to another. No, there was no help for him; he
must stay there as in his tomb, and die of hunger and thirst,
— die slowly, hour by hour, minute by minute. Already
the fever of famine was in his blood, — next to the fact is
the fancy. If his organism had begun to consume itself,
how long could he last? Never were moments so precious
to him. Each one carried off a fraction of the strength
upon which his escape depended; each one must, therefore,
be employed. No more loitering; action, action! In the
darkness he looked to heaven, and prayed tearfully to the
Mother.
The better to understand his situation, and what he did,
it may be well enough to say here, that the steps by which
he descended into the court-yard faced the west; and as,
from the court, he took shelter in a door to his right, the
passage must have run due north. When, upon recovery
from the fainting-spell, he started to regain the door, he was
still in the passage, but unhappily followed its continuation
northward; every step, in that course, consequently, was
so much into instead of out of the labyrinth. And now,
to make the situation worse, he weakly clung to the wall,
and at the corner turned to the right; after which his painful,
toilsome progress was to the east, where the chances
were sure to be complicated.
If the reader has ever tried to pass through a strange
hall totally darkened, he can imagine the young Spaniard
in motion. Each respiration, each movement, was doubly
loud; the slide and shuffle of the feet, changing position,
filled the rock-bound space with echoes, which, by a cooler
head than his, might have been made tell the width and
were times when the sounds seemed startlingly like the
noise of another person close by; then he would stop, lay
hand on his dagger, the only weapon he had, and listen nervously,
undetermined what to do.
In the course of the tedious movement, he came to narrow
apertures at intervals in the wall, which he surmised to be
doors of apartments. Before some of them he paused, thinking
they might be occupied; but nothing came from them,
or was heard within, but the hollow reverberations usual
to empty chambers. The crackle of cement underfoot and
the crevices in the wall filled with dust assured him that
a long time had passed since a saving hand had been there;
yet the evidences that the old pile had once been populous
made its present desertion all the more impressive.
Afterwhile he began to wish for the appearance of somebody,
though an enemy. Yet father on, when the awful
silence and darkness fully kindled his imagination, and gave
him for companionship the spirits of the pagans who had
once — how far back, who could say? — made the cells
animate with their prayers and orgies, the yearning for the
company of anything living and susceptible of association
became almost insupportable.
Several times, as he advanced, he came to cross passages.
Of the distance made, he could form no idea. Once he
descended a flight of steps, and at the bottom judged himself
a story below the level of the court and street; reflecting,
however, that he could not have clomb them on the
way in without some knowledge of them, he again paused
for consideration. The end of the passage was not reached:
he could not say the door he sought was not there; he simply
believed not; still he resolved to go back to the starting-point
and begin anew.
He set out bravely, and proceeded with less caution than
count the doors and intersecting passages along the way;
consequently he could not identify the starting-point when
he reached it. Merciful God! he was now indeed LOST!
For a time he struggled against the conviction; but when
the condition was actually realized, a paroxysm seized him.
He raised his hands wildly, and shouted, Ola! Ola! The
cry smote the walls near by until they rang again, and, flying
down the passage, died lingeringly in the many chambers,
leaving him so shaken by the discordance that he cowered
nearly to the floor, as if, instead of human help, he had conjured
a demon, and looked for its instant appearance. Summoning
all his resolution, he again shouted the challenge,
but with the same result; no reply except the mocking
echoes, no help. He was in a tomb, buried alive! And at
that moment, resulting doubtless from the fever of mind
and body, he was conscious of the first decided sensation
of thirst, accompanied by the thought of running water,
cool, sweet, and limpid; as if to add to his torture, he
saw then, not only that he was immured alive, but how
and of what he was to die. Then also he saw why his
enemies gave up the pursuit at the passage-door. Lost in
the depths of the Cû, out of reach of help, groping here
and there through the darkness, in hours condensing years
of suffering, dead, finally, of hunger and thirst, — was he
not as much a victim as if formally butchered by the teotuctli?
And if, in the eyes of the heathen god, suffering
made the sacrifice appreciable, when was there one more
perfect?
“No, no,” he cried, “I am a Christian, in care of
the Christian's God. I am too young, too strong. I can
walk; if need be, run; and there are hours and days before
me. I will find the door. Courage, courage! And
thou, dear, blessed Mother! if ever thou dost permit a
the Señor Hernan may apportion to me thou shalt have.
Hear my vow, O sweet Mother, and help me!”
How many heroisms, attributed to duty, or courage, or
some high passion, are in fact due to the utter hopelessness,
the blindness past seeing, the fainting of the soul called
despair! In that last motive what mighty energy! How it
now nerved Orteguilla! Down the passage he went, and with
alacrity. Not that he had a plan, or with the mind's eye
even saw the way, — not at all. He went because in motion
there was soothing to his very despair; in motion he
could make himself believe there was still a hope; in motion
he could expect each moment to hail the welcome door
and the glory of the light.
7. CHAPTER VII.
HOW THE HOLY MOTHER HELPS HER CHILDREN.
I DOUBT not my reader is gentle, good, and tender-hearted,
easily moved by tales of suffering, and nothing
delighting in them; and that, with such benignant qualities
of heart and such commendable virtues of taste, he will excuse
me if I turn from following the young Spaniard, who
has now come to be temporarily a hero of my story, and
leave to the imagination the details of the long round of
misery he endured in his wanderings through the interior of
the old Cû.
Pathologists will admit they are never at fault or loss
in the diagnosis of cases of hunger and thirst. Whether
considered as disease or accident, their marks are unmistakable,
and their symptoms before dissolution, like their
as consumption of the body by its own organs; precisely
as if, to preserve life, one devoured his own flesh and
drank his own blood. Not without reason, therefore, the
suicide, what time he thinks of his crime, always, when
possible, chooses some mode easier and more expeditious.
The gradations to the end are, an intense desire for food
and drink; a fever, accompanied by exquisite pain;
then delirium; finally, death. It is in the second and
third stages that the peculiarities show most strangely;
then the mind cheats the body with visions of Tantalus.
If the sufferer be thirst-stricken, he is permitted to see
fountains and sparkling streams, and water in draughts and
rivers; if he be starving, the same mocking fancy spreads
Apician feasts before his eyes, and stimulates the intolerable
misery by the sight and scent of all things delicious and
appetizing. I have had personal experience of the anguish
and delusions of which I speak. I know what they are. I
pray the dear Mother, who has us all in holy care, to keep
them far from my gentle friends.
A day and night in the temple, — another day and night,
— morning of the third day, and we discover the page sitting
upon the last of a flight of steps. No water, no food
in all that time. He slept once; how long, he did not know.
A stone floor does not conduce to rest even where there is
sleep. All that time, too, the wearisome search for the door;
groping along the wall, feeling the way ell by ell; always
at fault and lost utterly. His condition can be understood
almost without the aid of description. He sits on the step
in a kind of stupor; his cries for help have become a dull,
unmeaning moan; before him pass the fantasies of food and
water; and could the light — the precious, beautiful light, so
long sought, so earnestly prayed and struggled for — fall upon
in the market, sported his velvet cloak and feathered bonnet,
and half disdainfully flashed the royal signet in the faces of
the wondering merchants, — the picture of a despairing
creature whom much misery was rapidly bringing down to
death.
And of his thoughts, or, rather, the vagaries that had taken
the place of thoughts, — ah, how well they can be divined!
Awhile given to the far-off native land, and the loved ones
there, — land and loved ones never again to be seen; then
to the New World, full of all things strange; but mostly to
his situation, lost so hopelessly, suffering so dreadfully.
There were yet ideas of escape, reawakenings of the energy
of despair, but less frequent every hour; indeed, he was becoming
submissive to the fate. He prayed, also; but his
prayers had more relation to the life to come than to this
one. To die without Christian rite, to leave his bones in
such unhallowed place! O, for one shrieving word from
Father Bartolomé!
In the midst of his wretchedness, and of the sighs and
sobs and tears which were its actual expression, suddenly
the ceiling overhead and all the rugged sides of the passage
above the line of the upper step of the stairway at the foot
of which he was sitting were illumined by a faint red glow
of light. He started to his feet. Could it be? Was it not
a delusion? Were not his eyes deceiving him? In the
darkness he had seen banquets, and the chambers thereof,
and had heard the gurgle of pouring wine and water. Was
not this a similar trick of the imagination? or had the
Blessed Mother at last heard his supplications?
He looked steadily; the glow deepened. O wondrous
charm of life! To be, after dying so nearly, brought back
with such strength, so quickly, and by such a trifle!
While he looked, his doubts gave way to certainty. Light
his hands, and the tears of despair became tears of joy; all
the hopes of his being, which, in the dreary hours just
passed, had gone out as stars go behind a spreading cloud,
rose up whirring, like a flock of startled birds, and, filling
all his heart, once more endued him with strength of mind
and body. He passed his hands across his eyes: still the
light remained. Surer than a fantasy, good as a miracle,
there it was, growing brighter, and approaching, and that,
too, by the very passage in which he was standing; whether
borne by man or spirit, friend or foe, it would speedily reach
the head of the steps, and then —
Out of the very certainty of aid at hand, a reaction of
feeling came. A singular caution seized him. What if
those bearing the light were enemies? Through the glow
dimly lighting the part of the passage below the stairway,
he looked eagerly for a place of concealment. Actually,
though starving, the prospect of relief filled him with all
the instincts of life renewed. A door caught his eye. He
ran to the cell, and hid, but in position to see whomsoever
might pass. He had no purpose: he would wait and see,
— that was all.
The light approached slowly, — in his suspense, how
slowly! Gradually the glow in the passage became a fair
illumination. There were no sounds of feet, no forerunning
echoes; the coming was noiseless as that of spirits.
Out of the door, nevertheless, he thrust his head, in time to
see the figure of a man on the upper step, bareheaded, barefooted,
half wrapped in a cotton cloak, and carrying a broad
wooden tray or waiter, covered with what seemed table-ware;
the whole brought boldly into view by the glare of a lamp
fastened, like a miner's, to his forehead.
The man was alone; with that observation, Orteguilla
drew back, and waited, his hand upon his dagger. He
escape; what should he do? If he exposed himself suddenly,
might not the stranger drop his burden, and run, and
in the race extinguish the lamp? If he attacked, might
he not have to kill? Yet the chance must not be lost.
Life depended upon it, and it was, therefore, precious as life.
The man descended the steps carefully, and drew near the
cell door. Orteguilla held his breath. The stepping of
bare feet became distinct. A gleam of light, almost blinding,
flashed through the doorway, and, narrow at first but
rapidly widening, began to wheel across the floor. At length
the cell filled with brightness; the stranger was passing the
door, not a yard away.
The young Spaniard beheld an old man, half naked, and
bearing a tray. That he was a servant was clear; that
there was no danger to be apprehended from him was equally
clear: he was too old. These were the observations
of a glance. From the unshorn, unshaven head and face,
the eyes of the lad dropped to the tray; at the same instant,
the smell of meat, fresh from the coals, saluted him, mixed
with the aroma of chocolate, still smoking, and sweeter to
the starving fugitive than incense to a devotee. Another
note: the servant was carrying a meal to somebody, his
master or mistress. Still another note: the temple was inhabited,
and the inhabitants were near by. The impulse to
rush out and snatch the tray, and eat and drink, was almost
irresistible. The urgency there is in a parched throat, and
in a stomach three days empty, cannot be imagined. Yet
he restrained himself.
The lamp, the food, the human being — the three things
most desirable — had come, and were going, and the page
still undetermined what to do. Instinct and hunger and
thirst, and a dread of the darkness, and of the death so lately
imminent, moved him to follow, and he obeyed. He had
stepped into the passage, and, moving a few paces behind,
put himself in the guidance of the servant, sustained by a
hope that daylight and liberty were but a short way off.
For a hundred steps or more the man went his way, when
he came to a great flat rock or flag cumbering the passage;
there he stopped, and set down the tray; and taking the
lamp from the fastening on his head, he knelt by the side
of a trap, or doorway, in the floor. Orteguilla stopped at
the same time, drawing, as a precaution, close to the left
wall. Immediately he heard the tinkling of a bell, which
he took to be a signal to some one in a chamber below.
His eyes fixed hungrily upon the savory viands. He saw
the slave fasten a rope to the tray, and begin to lower it
through the trap; he heard the noise of the contact with
the floor beneath: still he was unresolved. The man
arose, lamp in hand, and without more ado, as if a familiar
task were finished, started in return. And now the two
must come within reach of each other; now the page must
discover himself or be discovered. Should he remain?
Was not retreat merely going back into the terrible labyrinth?
He debated; and while he debated, chance came
along and took control. The servant, relieved of his load,
walked swiftly, trying, while in motion, to replace the lamp
over his forehead; failing in that, he stopped; and as fortune
ordered, stopped within two steps of the fugitive. A
moment, — and the old man's eyes, dull as they were, became
transfixed; then the lamp fell from his hand and
rolled upon the floor, and with a scream, he darted forward
in a flight which the object of his fear could not hope to
outstrip. The lamp went out, and darkness dropped from
the ceiling, and leaped from the walls, reclaiming everything.
Orteguilla stood overwhelmed by the misfortune. All the
former horrors returned to plague him. He upbraided himself
not seize, or, at least, speak to him? The chance had been
sent, he could now see, by the Holy Mother; would she
send another? If not, and he died there, who would be to
blame but himself? He wrung his hands, and gave way to
bitter tears.
Eventually the unintermitting craving of hunger aroused
him by a lively suggestion. The smell of the meat and
chocolate haunted him. What had become of them? Then
he remembered the ringing of the bell, and their disappearance
through the trap. There they were; and more, —
somebody was there enjoying them! Why not have his
share? Ay, though he fought for it! Should an infidel
feed while a Christian starved? The thought lent him new
strength. Such could not be God's will. Then, as often
happens, indignation begat a certain shrewdness to discern
points, and put them together. The temple was not vacant,
as he at first feared. Indeed, its tenants were thereabouts.
Neither was he alone; on the floor below, he had neighbors.
“Ave Maria!” he cried, and crossed himself.
His neighbors, he thought, — advancing to another conclusion,
— his neighbors, whoever they were, had communication
with the world; otherwise, they would perish, as he
was perishing. Moreover, the old servant was the medium
of the communication, and would certainly come again.
Courage, courage!
A sense of comfort, derived from the bare idea of neighborship
with something human, for the time at least, lulled
him into forgetfulness of misery.
Upon his hands and knees, he went to the great stone,
and to the edge of the trap.
“Salvado! Soy salvado! I am saved!” And with
tears of joy he rapturously repeated the sweet salutation of
the angels to the Virgin. The space below was lighted!
The light, as he discovered upon a second look, came
through curtains stretched across a passage similar to the one
he was in, and was faint, but enough to disclose two objects,
the sight of which touched him with a fierce delight, — the
tray on the floor, its contents untouched, and a rope ladder
by which to descend.
He lost no time now. Placing his dagger between his
teeth, he swung off, though with some trouble, and landed
safely. At his feet, then, lay a repast to satisfy the daintiest
appetite, — fish, white bread, chocolate, in silver cups and
beaten into honeyed foam, and fruits from vine and tree.
He clasped his hands and looked to Heaven, and, as became
a pious Spaniard, restrained the maladies that afflicted him,
while he said the old Paternoster, — dear, hallowed utterance
taught him in childhood by the mother who, but for this
godsend, would have lost him forever. Then he stooped to
help himself, and while his hand was upon the bread the
curtain parted, and he saw, amidst a flood of light pouring
in over her head and shoulders, a girl, very young and very
beautiful.
8. CHAPTER VIII.
THE PABA'S ANGEL.
IF I were writing a tale less true, or were at all accomplished
in the charming art of the story-teller, which has
come to be regarded as but little inferior to that of the poet,
possibly I could have disguised the incidents of the preceding
chapters so as to have checked anticipation. But many
pages back the reader no doubt discovered that the Cû in
which the page took shelter was that of Quetzal'; and now,
while to believe I could, by any arrangement or conceit consistent
that he is a dull witling who failed, at the parting of the
curtain as above given, to recognize the child of the paba, —
Tecetl, to whom, beyond peradventure, the memory of all who
follow me to this point has often returned, in tender
sympathy for the victim of an insanity so strange or — as
the critic must decide — a philosophy so cruel.
Now, however, she glides again into the current of my
story, one of those wingless waifs which we have all at one
time or another seen, and which, if not from heaven, as
their purity and beauty suggest, are, at least, ready to be
wafted there.
I stop to say that, during the months past, as before,
her life had gone sweetly, pleasantly, without ruffle or
labor or care or sickness, or division, even, into hours and
days and nights, — a flowing onward, like time, — an existence
so serenely perfect as not to be a subject of consciousness.
Her occupation was a round of gentle ministrations to
the paba. Her experience was still limited to the chamber,
its contents and expositions. If the philosophy of the venerable
mystic — that ignorance of humanity is happiness — was
correct, then was she happy as mortal can be, for as yet she
had not seen a human being other than himself. Her pleasure
was still to chatter and chirrup with the friendly birds; or
to gather flowers and fashion them into wreaths and garlands
to be offered at the altar of the god to whom she herself had
been so relentlessly devoted; or to lie at rest upon the couch,
and listen to the tinkling voices of the fountain, or join in
their melody. And as I do not know why, in speaking of
her life, I should be silent as to that part which is lost in
slumber, particularly when the allusion will help me illustrate
her matchless innocency of nature, I will say, further,
that sleep came to her as to children, irregularly and
in the midst of play, and waking was followed by no interval
the soul for a duty. In fact, she was still a child; though not
to be thought dealing with anything seraphic, I will add, that
in the months past she had in height become quite womanly,
while the tone of her voice had gained an equality, and her
figure a fulness, indicative of quick maturity.
Nor had the “World” undergone any change. The universal
exposition on the walls and ceiling remained the
same surpassing marvel of art. At stated periods, workmen
had come, and, through the shaft constructed for the
purpose, like those in deep mines, lifted to the azoteas such
plants and shrubs as showed signs of suffering for the indispensable
sun; but as, on such occasions, others were let down,
and rolled to the vacant places, there was never an abatement
of the garden freshness that prevailed in the chamber. The
noise of the work disturbed the birds, but never Tecetl,
whose spirit during the time was under the mesmeric Will
of the paba.
There was a particular, however, in which the god who
was supposed to have the house in keeping had not been so
gracious. A few days before the page appeared at the door,
— exactness requires me to say the day of the paba's last
interview with Guatamozin, — Mualox came down from the
sanctuary in an unusual state of mind and body. He was
silent and exhausted; his knees tottered, as, with never a
smile or pleasant word, or kiss in reply to the salutation he
received, he went to the couch to lie down. He seemed like
one asleep; yet he did not sleep, but lay with his eyes
fixed vacantly on the ceiling, his hand idly stroking his
beard.
In vain Tecetl plied all her little arts; she sang to him,
caressed him, brought her vases and choicest flowers and
sweetest singing-birds, and asked a thousand questions about
the fair, good Quetzal', — a topic theretofore of never-failing
interest to the holy man.
She had never known sickness, — so kindly had the god
dealt by her. Her acquaintance with infirmity of any
kind was limited to the fatigue of play, and the weariness
of tending flowers and birds. Her saddest experience had
been to see the latter sicken and die. All her further
knowledge of death was when it came and touched a plant,
withering leaf and bud. To die was the end of such things;
but they — the paba and herself — were not as such: they
were above death; Quetzal' was immortal, and, happy souls!
they were to serve him for ever and ever. Possessed of such
faith, she was not alarmed by the good man's condition; on
the contrary, taking his silence as a wish to be let alone, she
turned and sought her amusements.
And as to his ailment. If there be such a thing as a broken
heart, his was broken. He had lived, as noticed before,
for a single purpose, hope of which had kept him alive, survivor
of a mighty brotherhood. That hope the 'tzin in the
last interview took away with him; and an old man without
a hope is already dead.
Measuring time in the chamber by its upper-world divisions,
noon and night came, and still the paba lay in the dismal
coma. Twice the slave had appeared at the door with the
customary meals. Tecetl heard and answered his signals.
Meantime, — last and heaviest of misfortunes, — the fire
of the temple went out. When the sacred flame was first
kindled is not known; relighted at the end of the last
great cycle of fifty-two years, however, it had burned ever
since, served by the paba. Year after year his steps, ascending
and descending, had grown feebler; now they utterly
failed. “Where is the fire on the old Cû?” asked the night-watchers
of each other. “Dead,” was the answer. “Then
is Mualox dead.”
And still another day like the other; and at its close the
faded hands of the sufferer dropped upon his breast. Many
call him father, and offer him food and drink, and go away
unnoticed. “He is with Quetzal',” she would say to herself
and the birds. “How the dear god loves him!”
Yet another, the fourth day; still the sleep, now become
a likeness of death. And Tecetl, — she missed his voice,
and the love-look of his great eyes, and his fondnesses of
touch and smile; she missed his presence, also. True, he
was there, but not with her; he was with Quetzal'. Strange
that they should forget her so long! She hovered around
the couch, a little jealous of the god, and disquieted, though
she knew not by what. She was very, very lonesome.
And in that time what suspense would one familiar with
perils have suffered in her situation! If the paba dies,
what will become of her? We know somewhat of the difficulties
of the passages in the Cû. Can she find the way
out alone? The slave will, doubtless, continue to bring food
to the door, so that she may not starve; and at the fountain
she will get drink. Suppose, therefore, the supplies come
for years, and she live so long; how will the solitude affect
her? We know its results upon prisoners accustomed to
society; but that is not her case: she never knew society,
its sweets or sorrows. With her the human life of the great
outside world is not a thing of conjecture, or of dreams,
hopes, and fears, as the future life with a Christian;
she does not even know there is such a state of being.
Changes will take place in the chamber; the birds and
plants, all of life there besides herself, will die; the body
of the good man, through sickening stages of decay, will return
to the dust, leaving a ghastly skeleton on the couch.
Consequently, hers will come to be a solitude without relief,
without amusement or occupation or society, and with but
few memories, and nothing to rest a hope upon. Can a
mind support itself, any more than a body? In other words,
charity to kill? Ah, never mortal more dependent or more
terribly threatened! Yet she saw neither the cloud nor
its shadow, but followed her pastimes as usual, and sang her
little songs, and slept when tired, — a simple-hearted child.
I am not an abstractionist; and the reader, whom I charitably
take to be what I am in that respect, has reason to be
thankful; for the thought of this girl, so strangely educated,
— if the word may be so applied, — this pretty plaything
of a fortune so eccentric, opens the gates of many a misty
field of metaphysics. But I pass them by, and, following
the lead of my story, proceed to say that, in the evening of
the fourth day of the paba's sickness, the bell, as usual, announced
the last meal at the door of the chamber. Tecetl
went to the couch, and, putting her arms around the sleeper's
neck, tried to wake him; but he lay still, his eyes closed,
his lips apart, — in appearance, he was dying.
“Father, father, why do you stay away so long?” she
said. “Come back, — speak to me, — say one word, — call
me once more!”
The dull ear heard not; the hand used to caressing
was still.
Tenderly she smoothed the white beard upon his breast.
“Is Quetzal' angry with me? I love him. Tell him how
lonely I am, and that the birds are not enough to keep me
happy when you stay so long; tell him how dear you are
to me. Ask him to let you come back now.”
Yet no answer.
“O Quetzal', fair, beautiful god! hear me,” she continued.
“Your finger is on his lips, or he would speak.
Your veil is over his eyes, or he would see me. I am his
child, and love him so much; and he is hungry, and here
are bread and meat. Let him come for a little while, and I
will love you more than ever.”
And so she prayed and promised, but in vain. Quetzal'
was obdurate. With tears fast flowing, she arose, and stood
by the couch, and gazed upon the face now sadly changed
by the long abstinence. And as she looked, there came upon
her own face a new expression, that which the very young
always have when at the side of the dying, — half dread,
half curiosity, — wonder at the manifestation, awe of the
power that invokes it, — the look we can imagine on the
countenance of a simple soul in the presence of Death interpreting
himself.
At last she turned away, and went to the door. Twice
she hesitated, and looked back. Wherefore? Was she pondering
the mystery of the deep sleep, or expecting the
sleeper to awake, or listening to the whisper of a premonition
fainter in her ears than the voice of the faintest
breeze? She went on, nevertheless; she reached the door,
and drew the curtain; and there, in the full light, was
Orteguilla.
That we may judge the impression, let us recall what kind
of youth the page was. I never saw him myself, but those
who knew him well have told me he was a handsome fellow;
tall, graceful, and in manner and feature essentially
Spanish. He wore at the time the bonnet and jaunty
feather, and the purple mantle, of which I have spoken, and
under that a close black jerkin, with hose to correspond; half-boots,
usual to the period, and a crimson sash about the
waist, its fringed ends hanging down the left side, completed
his attire. Altogether, a goodly young man; not as gay,
probably, as some then loitering amongst the alamedas of
Seville; for rough service long continued had tarnished his
finery and abused his complexion, to say nothing of the imprints
of present suffering; yet he was enough so to excite
admiration in eyes older than Tecetl's, and more familiar
with the race.
The two gazed at each other, wonder-struck.
“Holy Mother!” exclaimed Orteguilla, the bread in his
hand. “Into what world have I been brought? Is this a
spirit thou hast sent me?”
In his eyes, she was an angel; in hers, he was more. She
went to him, and knelt, and said, “Quetzal', dear Quetzal',
— beautiful god! You are come to bring my father back to
me. He is asleep by the fountain.”
In her eyes, the page was a god.
The paba's descriptions of Quetzal' had given her the ideal
of a youth like Orteguilla. Of late, moreover, he had been
constantly expected from Tlapallan, his isle of the blest;
indeed, he had come, — so the father said. And the house
was his. Whither would he go, if not there? So, from
tradition oft repeated, from descriptions colored by passionate
love, she knew the god; and as to the man, — between the
image and his maker there is a likeness; so saith a book
holier than the teoamoxtli.
The page, as we have seen, was witty and shrewd, and
acquainted well with the world; his first impression went
quickly; her voice assured him that he was not come to any
spirit land. The pangs of hunger, for the moment forgotten,
returned, and I am sorry to say that he at once yielded to
their urgency, and began to eat as heroes in romances never
do. When the edge of his appetite was dulled, and he could
think of something else, an impulse of courtesy moved him,
and he said, —
“I crave thy pardon, fair mistress. I have been so much
an animal as to forget that this food is thine, and required
to subsist thee, and, perhaps, some other inhabiting here.
I admit, moreover, that ordinarily the invitation should
proceed from the owner of the feast; but claim thy own,
and partake with me; else it may befall that in my great
hunger thy share will be wanting. Fall to, I pray thee.”
Still kneeling, she stared at him, and, folding her hands
upon her breast, replied, “Quetzal' knows that I am his servant.
Let him speak so that I may understand.”
“Por cierto! — it is true! What knoweth she of my
mother tongue?”
And thereupon, in the Aztecan, he asked her to help herself.
“No,” said she. “The house and all belong to you. I
am glad you have come.”
“Mine? Whom do you take me for?”
“The good god of my father, to whom I say all my
prayers, — Quetzal'!”
“Quetzal', Quetzal'!” he repeated, looking steadily in her
face; then, as if assured that he understood her, he took one
of the goblets of chocolate, and tried to drink, but failed;
the liquid had been beaten into foam.
“In the world I come from, good girl,” he said, replacing
the cup, “people find need of water, which, just now, would
be sweeter to my tongue than all the honey in the valley.
Canst thou give me a drink?”
She arose, and answered eagerly, “Yes, at the fountain.
Let us go. By this time my father is awake.”
“So, so!” he said to himself. “Her father, indeed! I
have eaten his supper or dinner, according to the time of
day outside, and he may not be as civil as his daughter. I
will first know something about him.” And he asked,
“Your father is old, is he not?”
“His beard and hair are very white. They have always
been so.”
Again he looked at her doubtingly. “Always, said you?”
“Always.”
“Is he a priest?”
She smiled, and asked, “Does not Quetzal' know his own
servant?”
“Has he company?”
“The birds may be with him.”
He quit eating, and, much puzzled by the answer, reflected.
“Birds, birds! Am I so near daylight and freedom? Grant
it, O Blessed Mother!” And he crossed himself devoutly.
Then Tecetl said, earnestly, “Now that you have eaten,
good Quetzal', come and let us go to my father.”
Orteguilla made up his mind speedily: he could not do
worse than go back the way he came; and the light here
was so beautiful, and the darkness there so terrible: and
here was company. Just then, also, as a further inducement,
he heard the whistle of a bird, and fancied he distinguished
the smell of flowers.
“A garden,” he said, in his soul, — “a garden, and birds,
and liberty!” The welcome thought thrilled him inexpressibly.
“Yes, I will go”; and, aloud, “I am ready.”
Thereupon she took his hand, and put the curtains aside,
and led him into the paba's World, never but once before
seen by a stranger.
This time forethought had not gone in advance to prepare
for the visitor. The master's eye was dim, and his careful
hand still, in the sleep by the fountain. The neglect that
darkened the fire on the turret was gloaming the lamps in
the chamber; one by one they had gone out, as all would
have gone but for Tecetl, to whom the darkness and the
shadows were hated enemies. Nevertheless, the light, falling
suddenly upon eyes so long filled with blackness as
his had been, was blinding bright, insomuch that he clapped
his hand over his face. Yet she led him on eagerly,
saying, —
“Here, here, good Quetzal'. Here by the fountain he
lies.”
All her concern was for the paba.
And through the many pillars of stone, and along a walk
half blinded by the light, but with the scent of flowers and
living vegetation in his nostrils, and the carol of birds in his
ears, and full of wonder unspeakable, he was taken, without
pause, to the fountain. At sight of the sparkling jet, his
fever of thirst raged more intensely than ever.
“Here he is. Speak to him, — call him back to me! As
you love him, call him back, O Quetzal'?”
He scarcely heard her.
“Water, water! Blessed Mother, I see it again! A cup,
— quick, — a cup!”
He seized one on the table, and drank, and drank again,
crying between each breath, “To the Mother the praise!”
Not until he was fully satisfied did he give ear to the girl's
entreaty.
Looking to the couch, whither she had gone, he saw the
figure of the paba stretched out like a corpse. He approached,
and, searching the face, and laying his hand upon the breast
over the heart, asked, in a low voice, “How long has your
father been asleep?”
“A long time,” she replied.
“Jesu Christo! He is dead, and she does not know it!”
he thought, amazed at her simplicity.
Again he regarded her closely, and for the first time was
struck by her beauty of face and form, by the brightness of
her eyes, by the hair, wavy on the head and curling over
the shoulders, by the simple, childish dress, and sweet voice;
above all, by the innocence and ineffable purity of her look
and manner, all then discernible in the full glare of the
lamps. And with what feeling he made discovery of her
loveliness may be judged passably well by the softened tone
in which he said, “Poor girl! your father will never, never
wake.”
Her eyes opened wide.
“Never, never wake! Why?”
“He is dead.”
She looked at him wistfully, and he, seeing that she did
not understand, added, “He is in heaven; or, as he himself
would have said, in the Sun.”
“Yes, but you will let him come back.”
He took note of the trustful, beseeching look with which
she accompanied the words, and shook his head, and, returning
to the fountain, took a seat upon a bench, reflecting.
“What kind of girl is this? Not know death when he
showeth so plainly! Where hath she been living? And I
am possessed of St. Peter's keys. I open Heaven's gate to
let the heathen out! By the bones of the saints! let him get
there first! The Devil hath him!”
He picked up a withered flower lying by the bowl of the
fountain, and went back to Tecetl.
“You remember how beautiful this was when taken from
the vine?”
“Yes.”
“What ails it now?”
“It is dead.”
“Well, did you ever know one of these, after dying, to
come back to life?”
“No.”
“No more can thy father regain his life. He, too, is
dead. From what you see, he will go to dust; therefore,
leave him now, and let us sit by the fountain, and talk of
escape; for surely you know the way out of this.”
From the flower, she looked to the dead, and, comprehending
the illustration, sat by the body, and cried. And so it
happened that knowledge of death was her first lesson in life.
And he respected her grief, and went and took a bench by
the basin, and thought.
“Quetzal', Quetzal',— who is he? A god, no doubt; yes,
his name. And I am Quetzal'! And this is his house —
that is, my house! A scurvy trick, by St. James! Lost in
my own house, — a god lost in his own temple!”
And as he could then well afford, being full-fed, he
laughed at the absurd idea; and in such mood, fell into a
revery, and grew drowsy, and finally composed himself on
the bench, and sunk to sleep.
9. CHAPTER IX.
LIFE IN THE PABA'S WORLD.
WHEN the page awoke, after a long, refreshing sleep,
he saw the fountain first, and Tecetl next. She
was sitting a little way off, upon a mat stretched on the
floor. A number of birds were about her, whistling and
coquetting with each other. One or two of very beautiful
plumage balanced themselves on the edge of the basin, and
bathed their wings in the crystal water. Through half-shut
eyes, he studied her. She was quiet, — thinking of what?
Of what do children think in their waking dreams? Yet he
might have known, from her pensive look and frequent
sighs, that the fountain was singing to deaf ears, and the
birds playing their tricks before sightless eyes. She was
most probably thinking of what he had so lately taught
her, and nursed the great mystery as something past finding
out; many a wiser head has done the same thing.
Now, Orteguilla was very sensible of her loveliness; he
was no less sensible, also, that she was a mystery out of the
common way of life; and had he been in a place of safety,
in the palace of Axaya', he would have stayed a long time,
his situation presently rose to mind; the yellow glow of
the lamps suggested the day outside; the birds, liberty;
the fountain and shrubbery, the world he had lost; and
the girl, life, — his life, and all its innumerable strong attachments.
And so, in his mind, he ran over his adventures
in the house. He surveyed all of the chamber that
was visible from the bench. The light, the fountain, the
vegetation, the decorated walls, — everything in view dependent
upon the care of man. Where so much was to be
done constantly, was there not something to be done at
once, — something to save life? There were the lamps:
how were they supplied? They might go out. And, Jesu
Christo! the corpse of the paba! He sat up, as if touched
by a spear: there it was, in all the repulsiveness of death.
The movement attracted the girl's attention; she arose,
and waited for him to speak.
“Good morning, — if morning it be,” he said.
She made no reply.
“Come here,” he continued. “I have some questions to
ask.”
She drew a few steps nearer. A bird with breast of
purple and wings of snow flew around her for a while,
then settled upon her hand, and was drawn close to her
bosom. He remembered, from Father Bartolomé's reading,
how the love of God once before took a bird's form; and
forthwith his piety and superstition hedged her about with
sanctity. What with the white wings upon her breast, and
the whiter innocency within, she was safe as if bound by
walls of brass.
“Have no fear, I pray you,” he said, misinterpreting her
respectful sentiment. “You and I are two people in a difficult
strait, and, if I mistake not, much dependent upon
each other. A God, of whom you never heard, but whom
me in his stead. The road thither, I confess, has been toilsome
and dreadful Ah me, I shudder at the thought!
He emphasized his feelings by a true Spanish shrug of the
shoulders.
“This is a strange place,” he next said. “How long have
you been here?”
“I cannot say.”
“Can you remember coming, and who brought you?”
“No.”
“You must have been a baby.” He looked at her with
pity. “Have you never been elsewhere”
“No, never.”
“Ah, by the Mother that keeps me! Always here! And
the sky, and sun, and stars, and all God's glory of nature,
seen in the valleys, mountains, and rivers, and seas, — have
they been denied you, poor girl?
“I have seen them all,” she answered.
“Where?”
“On the ceiling and walls.”
He looked up at the former, and noticed its excellence of
representation.
“Very good, — beautiful!” he said, in the way of criticism.
“Who did the work?”
“Quetzal'.”
“And who is Quetzal'?”
“Who should know better than the god himself?”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
Again he shrugged his shoulders.
“My name, then, is Quetzal'. Now, what is yours?”
“Tecetl.”
“Well, then, Tecetl, let me undeceive you. In the first
place, I am not Quetzal', or any god. I am a man, as your
I am page to the great king Montezuma. And before long,
if I live, and get out of this place, as I most devoutly pray,
I will be a soldier. In the next place you are a girl, and
soon will be a woman. You have been cheated of life. By
God's help, I will take you out of this. Do you understand
me?”
“No; unless men and gods are the same.”
“Heaven forbid!” He crossed himself fervently. “Do
you not know what men are?”
“All my knowledge of things is from the pictures on the
walls, and what else you see here.”
“Jesu Christo!” he cried, in open astonishment. “And
did the good man never tell you of the world outside, — of
its creation, and its millions upon millions of people?”
“No.”
“Of the world in which you may find the originals
of all that is painted on the walls, more beautiful than
colors can make them?”
He received the same reply, but, still incredulous, went on.
“Who takes care of these plants?”
“My father.”
“A servant brings your food to the door — may he do
so again! Have you not seen him?”
“No.”
“Where does the oil that feeds the lamps come from?”
“From Quetzal'.”
Just then a lamp went out. He arose hastily, and saw
that the contents of the cup were entirely consumed.
“Tecetl, is there plenty of oil? Where do you keep it?
Tell me.”
“In a jar, there by the door. While you were asleep, I
refilled the cups, and now the jar is empty.”
He turned pale. Who better than he knew the value of
peopled by hunger and thirst? If exhausted, where could
they get more? Without further question, he went through
the chamber, and collected the lamps, and put them all out
except one. Then he brought the jar from the door, and
poured the oil back, losing not a drop.
Tecetl remonstrated, and cried when she saw the darkness
invade the chamber, blotting out the walls, and driving the
birds to their perches, or to the fountain yet faintly illuminated.
But he was firm.
“Fie, fie!” he said. “You should laugh, not cry. Did I
not tell you about the world above this, so great, and so full
of people, like ourselves? And did I not promise to take
you there? I am come in your father's stead. Everything
must contribute to our escape. We must think of nothing
else. Do you understand? This chamber is but one of
many, in a house big as a mountain, and full of passages in
which, if we get lost, we might wander days and days, and
then not get out, unless we had a light to show us the way.
So we must save the oil. When this supply gives out, as it
soon will if we are not careful, the darkness that so frightens
you will come and swallow us, and we shall die, as did
your father there.”
The last suggestion sufficed; she dried her tears, and drew
closer to him, as if to say, “I confide in you; save me.”
Nature teaches fear of death; so that separation from the
breathless thing upon the couch was not like parting from
Mualox. Whether she touched his hand or looked in his
face now, “Go hence, go hence!” was what she seemed to
hear. The stony repulsion that substituted his living love
reconciled her to the idea of leaving home, for such the
chamber had been to her.
Here I may as well confess the page began to do a great
deal of talking, — a consequence, probably, of having a good
that was necessary to prepare his disciple for life in the new
world. In the midst of a lecture, the tinkle of a bell
brought him to a hasty pause.
“Now, O Blessed Mother, now I am happy! Thou hast
not forsaken me! I shall see the sun again, and brave old
Spain. Live my heart!” he cried, as the last tinkle trembled,
and died in the silence.
Seeing that she regarded him with surprise, he said, in
her tongue, “I was thanking the Mother, Tecetl. She will
save us both. Go now, and bring the breakfast, — I say
breakfast, not knowing better, — and while we eat I will
tell you why I am so glad. When you have heard me, you
will be glad as I am.”
She went at once, and, coming back, found him bathing
his face and head in the water of the basin, — a healthful
act, but not one to strengthen the idea of his godship.
She placed the tray upon the table, and helped him to
napkin and comb; then they took places opposite each
other, with the lamp between them; whereupon she had
other proof of his kind of being; for it is difficult to think
of a deity at table, eating. The Greeks felt the incongruity,
and dined their gods on nectar and ambrosia, leaving us to
imagine them partaken in some other than the ordinary,
vulgar way. Verily, Tecetl was becoming accustomed to the
stranger!
And while they ate, he explained his plans, and talked of
the upper world, and described its wonders and people,
until, her curiosity aroused, she plied him with questions;
and as point after point was given, we may suppose nature
asserted itself, and taught her, by what power there is in
handsome youth, with its bright eyes, smooth face, and
tongue more winsome than wise, that life in the said world
was a desirable exchange for the monotonous drifting to
that she was not slow to observe the difference between
Mualox and the page; which was that between age and
youth, or, more philosophically, that between a creature to
be revered and a creature to be admired.
10. CHAPTER X.
THE ANGEL BECOMES A BEADSWOMAN.
THE stars at the foot of the last chapter I called in as
an easy bridge by which to cross an interval of two
days, — a trick never to be resorted to except when there is
nothing of interest to record, as was the case here.
Orteguilla occupied the interval very industriously, if not
pleasantly. He had in hand two tasks, — one to instruct
Tecetl about the world to which he had vowed to lead her;
the other to fix upon a plan of escape. The first he found
easy, the latter difficult; yet he had decided, and his preparations
for the attempt, sufficient, he thought, though simple,
lay upon the floor by the fountain. A lamp shed a dim light
over the scene.
“So, so, Tecetl: are we ready now?” he asked.
“You are the master,” she replied.
“Very good, I will be assured.”
He went through a thorough inspection.
“Here are the paint and brush; here the oil and lamp;
here the bread and meat, and the calabash of water. So far,
good, very good. And here is the mat, — very comfortable,
Tecetl, if you have to make your bed upon a stone in the
floor. Now, are we ready?”
“Yes, if you say so.”
“Good again! The Mother is with us. Courage! You
shall see the sun and sky, or I am not a Spaniard. Listen,
now, and I will explain.”
They took seats upon the bench, this time together; for
the strangeness was wellnigh gone, and they had come to
have an interest in a common purpose.
“You must know, then, that I have two reliances: first,
the man who brings the tray to the door; next, the Blessed
Mother.”
“I will begin with the first,” he said, after a pause. “The
man is a slave, and, therefore, easy to impose upon. If he
is like his class, from habit, he asks no questions of his
superiors. Your father — I speak from what you have told
me — was thoughtful and dreamy, and spoke but little to
anybody, and seldom, if ever, to his servants. You are not
well versed in human nature; one day, no doubt, you will
be; then you will be able to decide whether I am right in
believing that the traits of master and slave, which I have
mentioned, are likely to help us. I carried your father's
body over to the corner yonder, — you were asleep at the
time, — and laid it upon the floor, as we Christians serve our
dead. I made two crosses, and put one upon his lips, the
other on his breast; he will sleep all the better for them.
As you would have done, had you been present, I also covered
him with flowers. One other thing I did.”
He took a lamp, and was gone a moment.
“Here are your father's gown and hood,” he said, coming
back. “I doubt whether they would sell readily in
the market. He will never need them again. I took them
to help save your life, — a purpose for which he would
certainly have given them, had he been alive. I will put
them on.”
He laid his bonnet on the bench; then took off his boots,
loose in body and sleeves, and hanging nearly to the feet.
Tying the cord about his waist, and drawing the hood over
his head, he walked away a few steps, saying, —
“Look at me, Tecetl. Your father was very old. Did he
stoop much? as much as this?”
He struck the good man's habitual posture, and, in a moment
after, his slow, careful gait. At the sight, she could
not repress her tears.
“What, crying again!” he said. “I shall be ashamed of
you soon. If we fail, then you may cry, and — I do not
know but that I will join you. People who weep much
cannot hear as they ought, and I want you to hear every
word. To go on, then: In this guise I mean to wait for
the old slave. When he lets the tray down, I will be
there to climb the ladder. He will see the hood and gown,
and think me his old master. He will not speak, nor will I.
He will let me get to his side, and then —”
After reflection, he continued, —
“Ah, Tecetl! you know not what troubles women sometimes
are. Here am I now. How easy for me, in this
guise, to follow the slave out of the temple! The most I
would have to do would be to hold my tongue. But you, —
I cannot go and leave you; the Señor Hernan would not
forgive me, and I could not forgive myself. Nevertheless,
you are a trouble. For instance, when the slave sees you
with me, will he not be afraid, and run? or, to prevent
that, shall I not have to make him a prisoner? That
involves a struggle. I may have to fight him, to wound
him. I may get hurt myself, and then — alas! what would
become of us?”
Again, he stopped, but at length proceeded, —
“So much for that. Now for my other reliance, — the
Blessed Lady. If the slave escapes me, you see, Tecetl, I must
sometimes good, sometimes bad. I mean we shall then have
to hunt the way out ourselves; and, having already tried
that, I know what will happen. Hence these preparations.
With the paint, I will mark the corners we pass, that I may
know them again; the lamp will enable me to see the marks
and keep the direction; if we get hungry, here are bread and
meat, saved, as you know, from our meals; if we get thirsty,
the calabash will be at hand. That is what I call trusting
to ourselves; yet the Blessed Mother enabled me to anticipate
all these wants, and provide for them, as we have
done; therefore I call her my reliance. Now you have my
plans. I said you were my trouble; you cannot work, or
think, or fight; yet there is something you can do. Tecetl,
you can be my pretty beadswoman. I see you do not know
what that is. I will explain. Take these beads.”
While speaking, he took a string of them from his
neck.
“Take these beads, and begin now to say, `O Blessed
Mother, beautiful Mother, save us for Christ's sake.' Repeat!
Good!” he said, his eyes sparkling. “I think the prayer
never sounded as sweetly before; nor was there ever cavalier
with such a beadswoman. Again.”
And again she said the prayer.
“Now,” he said, “take the string in your own hand, —
thus; drop one bead, — thus; and keep on praying, and
for every prayer drop one bead. Only think, Tecetl, how I
shall be comforted, as I go along the gloomy passages, to know
that right behind me comes one, so lately a heathen but now
a Christian, at every step calling on the Mother. Who
knows but we shall be out and in the beautiful day before
the beads are twice counted? If so, then shall we know
that she cared for us; and when we reach the palace we will
go to the chapel, with good Father Bartolomé, and say the
vow, and do you the same.”
“So I vow,” she said, with a pretty submission.
Then, by ropes fixed for the purpose, he raised the calabash,
and mat, and bundle of provisions, and swung them
lightly over his shoulders. Under his arm he took an earthen
vase filled with oil.
“Let us to the door now. The slave should be there.
Before we start, look around: you are leaving this place
forever.”
The thought went to her heart.
“O my birds! What will become of them?”
“Leave them to God,” he replied, laconically.
There were tears and sobs, in the midst of which he
started off, lamp in hand. She gave a look to the fountain,
within the circle of whose voice nearly all her years had
been passed. In her absence, it would play and sing, would
go on as of old; but in her absence who would be there to
see and hear? In the silence and darkness it would live,
but nevermore for her.
And she looked to the corner of the chamber where Orteguilla
had carried the body of the paba. Her tears attested
her undiminished affection for him. The recollection of his
love outlived the influence of his Will. His World was
being abandoned, having first become a tomb, capacious and
magnificent, — his tomb. But Quetzal' had not come.
Broken are thy dreams, O Mualox, wasted thy wealth of
devotion! Yet, at this parting, thou hast tears, — first
and last gift of Love, the sweetest of human principles,
and the strongest, — stronger than the Will; for if the latter
cannot make God of a man, the former can take him
to God.
And while she looked, came again the bird of the breast
of purple and wings of snow, which she placed in her bosom;
Mother, beautiful Mother, save us for Christ's sake!”
Outside the curtain door he deposited his load, and carefully
explained to Tecetl the use of the ladder. Then he
placed a stool for her.
“Sit now; you can do nothing more. Everything depends
on the slave: if he behaves well, we shall have no
need of these preparations, and they may be left here. But
whether he behave well or ill, remember this, Tecetl, — cease
not to pray; forget not the beads.”
And so saying, he tossed a stout cord up through the
trap; then, leaving the lamp below, he clomb to the floor
above. His anxiety may be imagined. Fortunately, the
waiting was not long. Through the gallery distantly he saw
a light, which — praise to the Mother! — came his way. He
descended the ladder.
“He comes, and is alone. Be of cheer, Tecetl; be of
cheer, and pray. O if the Mother but stay with us
now!”
Faster fell the beads.
When the sound of footsteps overhead announced the arrival
of the slave, Orteguilla put his dagger between his
teeth, drew the hood over his head, and began to ascend.
He dared not look up; he trusted in the prayers of the little
beadswoman, and clomb on.
His head reached the level of the floor, and with the trap
gaping wide around, he knew himself under the man's eyes.
Another moment, and his hand was upon the floor; slowly
he raised himself clear of the rope; he stood up, then turned
to the slave, and saw him to be old, and feeble, and almost
naked; the lamp was on his forehead, the tray at his feet;
his face was downcast, his posture humble. The Spaniard's
blood leaped exultantly; nevertheless, carefully and deliberately,
as became his assumed character, he moved to one side
accepted the movement, and without a word took the lamp
from his head, crossed the great stone, fixed the ropes, and
stooped to lower the tray.
Orteguilla had anticipated everything, even this action,
which gave him his supreme advantage; so he picked up
the cord lying near, and stepped to the old man's side.
When the tray was landed below, the latter raised himself
upon his knees; in an instant the cord was around
his body; before he understood the assault, escape was impossible.
Orteguilla, his head yet covered by the hood, said calmly,
“Be quiet, and you are safe.”
The man looked up, and replied, “I am the paba's servant
now, even as I was when a youth. I have done no wrong,
and am not afraid.”
“I want you to live. Only move not.”
Then the page called, “Tecetl! Tecetl!”
“Here,” she answered.
“Try, now, to come up. Be careful lest you fall. If
you need help, tell me.”
“What shall I do with the bread and meat, and —”
“Leave them. The Mother has been with us. Come
up.”
The climbing was really a sailor's feat, and difficult for
her; finally, she raised her head through the trap. At the
sight, the slave shrank back, as if to run. Orteguilla spoke
to him.
“Be not afraid of the child. I have raised her to help
me take care of the temple. We are going to the chapel
now.”
The man turned to him curiously; possibly he detected
a strange accent under the hood. When, on her part, Tecetl
saw him, she stopped, full of wonder as of fear. Old and
the new world directly to her. So a child stops, and regards
the first person met at the door of a strange house, — attracted,
curious, afraid.
“Come on,” said Orteguilla.
She raised her hand overhead, and held up the bird with
the white wings.
“Take it,” she said.
Used as he was to wonderful things in connection with
his old master, the servant held back. A girl and a bird
from the cells, — a mystery, indeed!
“Take it,” said Orteguilla.
He did so; whereupon the page assisted her to the floor.
“We are almost there, — almost,” he said, cheerfully.
“Have you kept count of the prayers? Let me see the
beads.”
She held out the rosary.
“Ten beads more, — ten prayers yet. The Mother is with
us. Courage!”
Then of the slave he asked, —
“How is the day without?”
“There is not a cloud in the sky.”
“Is it morning or evening?”
“About midday.”
“Is the city quiet?”
“I cannot say.”
“Very well. Give the girl her bird, and lead to the court-yard.”
And they started, the slave ahead, held in check by the
cord in the Spaniard's hand. The light was faint and unsteady.
Once they ascended a flight of steps, and twice
changed direction. When the page saw the many cells on
either side, and the number of intersecting passages, all equal
in height and width, and bounded by the same walls of
with a shuddering recollection of his wanderings through
the great house, he could not sufficiently thank the Providence
that was now befriending him.
They clomb yet another stairway, and again changed direction;
after that, a little farther walk, and Orteguilla
caught sight of a doorway penetrated by a pure white light,
which he recognized as day. Words cannot express his
emotion; his spirit could hardly be controlled; he would
have shouted, sung, danced, — anything to relieve himself
of this oppression of happiness. But he thought, if he were
out of the temple, he would not yet be out of danger; that
he had to make way, by the great street from which he
had been driven, to the quarters of his friends, before he
could promise himself rest and safety; the disguise was the
secret of his present good-fortune, and must help him further.
So he restrained himself, saying to Tecetl, —
“For the time, cease your prayers, little one. The world
I promised to bring you to is close by. I see the daylight.”
There was indeed a door into the patio, or court-yard, of
the temple. Under the lintel the page lingered a moment,
— the court was clear. Then he gave the cord into the servant's
hand, with the usual parting salutation, and stepped
once more into the air, fresh with the moisture of the lake and
the fragrance of the valley. He looked to the sky, blue as
ever; and through its serenity, up sped his grateful Ave Maria.
In the exulting sense of rescue, he forgot all else, and was well
across the court to the steps leading to the azoteas, when he
thought of Tecetl. He looked back, and did not see her;
he ran to the door; she was there. The bird had fallen to
the floor, and was fluttering blindly about; her hands were
pressed hard over her face.
“What ails you?” he asked, petulantly. “This is not a
time to halt and cry. Come on.”
“I cannot —”
“Cannot! Give me your hand.”
He led her through the door, under the colonnade, out into
the court.
“Look up, Tecetl, look up! See the sky, drink the air.
You are free!”
She uncovered her eyes; they filled as with fiery arrows.
She screamed, staggered as if struck, and cried, “Where
are you? I am lost, I am blind!”
“O Madre de Dios!” said Orteguilla, comprehending the
calamity, and all its inconveniences to her and himself.
“Help me, most miserable of wretches, — help me to a little
wisdom!”
To save her from falling, he had put his arm around her;
and as they stood thus, — she the picture of suffering, and he
overwhelmed by perplexity, — help from any quarter would
have been welcome; had the slave been near, he might have
abandoned her; but aid there was not. So he led her tenderly
to the steps, and seated her.
“How stupid,” he said in Spanish, — “how stupid not to
think of this! If, the moment I was born, they had carried
me out to take a look at the sun, shining as he is here, I
would have been blinder than any beggar on the Prado,
blinder than the Bernardo of whom I have heard Don
Pedro tell. My nurse was a sensible woman.”
Debating what to do, he looked at Tecetl; and for the
first time since she had come out of the door, he noticed
her dress, — simply a cotton chemise, a skirt of the same
reaching below the knees, a blue sash around the waist,
— very simple, but very clean. He noticed, also, the exceeding
delicacy of her person, the transparency of her complexion,
the profusion of her hair, which was brown in the sun.
Finally, he observed the rosary.
“She is not clad according to the laws which govern highborn
the Mother! she is a Christian. Enough. By God's love, I,
who taught her to pray, will save her, though I die. Help
me, all the saints!”
He adjusted the hood once more, and, stooping, said, in
his kindliest tone, “Pshaw, Tecetl, you are not blind. The
light of the sun is so much stronger than that of your lamps
that your eyes could not bear it. Cheer up, cheer up! And
now put your arm around my neck. I will carry you to
the top of these steps. We cannot stay here.”
She stretched out her arms.
“Hark!” he cried. “What is that?”
He stood up and listened. The air above the temple
seemed full of confused sounds; now resembling the distant
roar of the sea, now the hum of insects, now the yells of
men.
“Jesu! I know that sound. There, — there!”
He listened again. Through the soaring, muffled din,
came another report, as of thunder below the horizon.
“It is the artillery! By the mother that bore me, the
guns of Mesa!”
The words of Io', spoken in Xoli's portico, came back to
him.
“Battle! As I live, they are fighting on the street!”
And he, too, sat down, listening, thinking. How was he
to get to his countrymen?
The sounds overhead continued, at intervals intensified
by the bellowing guns. Battle has a fascination which
draws men as birds are said to be drawn by serpents. They
listen; then wish to see; lingering upon the edge, they catch
its spirit, and finally thrill with fierce delight to find themselves
within the heat and fury of its deadly circle. The
page knew the feeling then. To see the fight was an overmastering
desire.
“Tecetl, poor child, you are better now?”
“I dare not open my eyes.”
“Well, I will see for you. Put your arms around my
neck.”
And with that, he carried her up the steps. All the time,
he gave ear to the battle.
“Listen, Tecetl; hear that noise! A battle is going on
out in the street, and seems to be coming this way. I
will lead you into the chapel here, — a holy place, so your
father would have said. In the shade, perhaps, you can
find relief.”
“How pleasant the air is!” she said, as they entered.
“Yes, and there is Quetzal',” — he pointed to the idol, —
“and here the step before the altar upon which, I venture,
your father spent half his life in worship. Sit, and rest
until I return.”
“Do not leave me,” she said.
“A little while only. I must see the fight. Some good
may come of it, — who knows? Be patient; I will not
leave you.”
He went to the door. The sounds were much louder and
nearer. All the air above the city apparently was filled
with them. Amongst the medley, he distinguished the
yells of men and peals of horns. Shots were frequent, and
now and then came the heavy, pounding report of cannon.
He had been at Tabasco, at Tzimpantzinco, and in the three
pitched battles in Tlascala, and was familiar with what he
heard.
“How they fight!” he said to himself. “Don Pedro is
a good sword and brave gentlemen, but — ah! if the Señor
Hernan were there, I should feel better: he is a good
sword, brave gentleman, and wise general, also. Heaven
fights for him. Ill betide Narvaez! Why could he not
have put off his coming until the city was reduced? Jesu!
quit, the infidels fly, on their heels ride the cavaliers.
Victory!”
And so, intent upon the conflict, insensibly he approached
the front of the temple, before described as one great
stairway. On the topmost step he paused. A man looking
at him from the street below would have said, “It
is only a paba”; and considering, further, that he was a
paba serving the forsaken shrine, he would have passed by
without a second look.
What he looked down upon was a broad street, crowded
with men, — not citizens, but warriors, and warriors in such
splendor of costume that he was fairly dazzled. Their
movement suggested a retreat, whereat pride dashed his eyes
with the spray of tears; he dared not shout.
More and more eagerly he listened to the coming tumult.
At last, finding the attraction irresistible, he descended the
steps.
The enemy were not in rout. They moved rapidly,
but in ranks extending the width of the street, and perfectly
ordered. The right of their column swept by the
Spaniard almost within arm's reach. He heard the breathing
of the men, saw their arms, — their shields of quilted
cotton, embossed with brass; their armor, likewise of
quilted cotton, but fire-red with the blood of the cochineal;
he saw their musicians, drummers, and conch-blowers, the
latter making a roar ragged and harsh, and so loud that
a groan or death-shriek could not be heard; he saw, too,
their chiefs, with helms richly plumed or grotesquely
adorned with heads of wild animals, with escaupiles of
plumage, gorgeous as hues of sunset, with lances and maquahuitls,
and shields of bison-hide or burnished silver,
mottoed and deviced, like those of Christians; amongst
them, also, he saw pabas, bareheaded, without arms, frocked
epics, or shouting names of heroic gods, or blessing the
brave and cursing the craven, — the Sun for the one, Mictlan
for the other. The seeing all these things, it must be
remembered, was very different from their enumeration;
but a glance was required.
The actual struggle, as he knew, was at the rear of the
passing column. In fancy he could see horsemen plunging
through the ranks, playing sword, lance, and battle-axe. And
nearer they came. He could tell by the signs, as well as the
sounds; by the files beginning to crowd each other; by the
chiefs laboring to keep their men from falling into confused
masses. At length the bolt of a cross-bow, striking a man,
fell almost at his feet. Only the hand of a Spaniard could
have launched the missile.
“They come, — they are almost here!” he thought, and
then, “O Madre de Dios! If they drive the infidels past
this temple, I am saved. And they will. Don Pedro's
blood is up, and in pursuit he thinks of nothing but to slay,
slay. They will come; they are coming! There — Jesu
Christo! That was a Christian shout!”
The cross-bow bolts now came in numbers. The warriors
protected themselves by holding their shields over the
shoulder behind; yet some dropped, and were trampled
under foot. Orteguilla was himself in danger, but his suspense
was so great that he thought only of escape; each
bolt was a welcome messenger, with tidings from friends.
The column, meantime, seemed to become more disordered;
finally, its formation disappeared utterly; chiefs and warriors
were inextricably mixed together; the conch-blowers
blew hideously, but could not altogether drown the yells of
the fighting men.
Directly the page saw a rush, a parting in the crowd as
of waters before a ship; scores of dark faces, each a picture
and over the heads and upraised shields, half obscured by a
shower of stones and arrows, he saw a figure which might
well have been taken for the fiend of slaughter, — a horse and
rider, in whose action there were a correspondence and unity
that made them for the time one fighting animal. A frontleted
head, tossed up for a forward plunge, was what he saw
of the horse; a steel-clad form, swinging a battle-axe with
the regularity of a machine, now to the right, now to the
left of the horse's neck, was all he saw of the rider. He
fell upon his knees, muttering what he dared not shout,
“Don Pedro, brave gentleman! I am saved! I am saved!”
Instantly he sprang to his feet. “O my God! Tecetl, — I
had almost forgotten her!”
He climbed the steps again fast as the gown would
permit.
“My poor girl, come; the Mother offers us rescue. Can
you not see a little?”
She smiled faintly, and replied, “I cannot say. I have
tried to look at Quetzal' here. He was said to be very beautiful;
my father always so described him; but this thing is
ugly. I fear I cannot see.”
“It is a devil's image, Tecetl, a devil's image, — Satan
himself,” said the page, vehemently. “Let him not lose us a
moment; for each one is of more worth to us than the gold
on his shield there. If you cannot see, give me your hand.
Come!”
He led her to the steps. The infidels below seemed to have
held their ground awhile, fighting desperately. Eight or ten
horsemen were driving them, though slowly; if one was
struck down, another took his place. The street was dusty as
with the sweeping of a whirlwind. Under the yellow cloud
lay the dead and wounded. The air was alive with missiles,
of which some flew above the temple, others dashed against
vortex; but there was no other chance. What moment Don
Pedro might tire of killing no one could tell; whenever he
did, the recall would be sounded.
“What do I hear? What dreadful sounds!” said Tecetl,
shrinking from the tumult.
“Battle,” he answered; “and what that is I have not
time to tell; we must go down and see.”
He waited until the fighting was well past the front of
the old Cû, leaving a space behind the cavaliers clear of all
save those who might never fight again; then he threw back
the hood, loosed the cord from his waist, and flung the disguise
from him.
“Now, my pretty beadswoman, now is the time! Begin
the prayer again: `O Mother, beautiful Mother, save us for
Christ's sake!' Keep the count with one hand; put the
other about my neck. Life or death, — now we go!”
He carried her down the steps. Over a number of
wounded wretches who had dragged themselves, half dead,
out of the blood and trample, he crossed the pavement. A
horseman caught sight of him, and rode to his side, and
lifted the battle-axe.
“Hold, Señor! I am Orteguilla. Viva España!”
The axe dropped harmless; up went the visor.
“In time, boy, — in time! An instant more, and thy soul
had been in Paradise,” cried Alvarado, laughing heartily.
“What hast thou there? Something from the temple?
But stay not to answer. To the rear, fast as thy legs
can carry thee! Faster! Put the baggage down. We
are tired of the slaughter; but for thy sake, we will push
the dogs a little farther. Begone! Or stay! Arrows are
thicker here than curses in hell, and thou hast no armor.
Take my shield, which I have not used to-day. Now be
off!”
Orteguilla set the girl upon her feet, took the shield,
and proceeded to buckle it upon his arm, while Alvarado
rode into the fight again. A moment more, and he would
have protected her with the good steel wall. Before he
could complete the preparation, he heard a cry, quick, shrill,
and sharp, that seemed to pierce his ear like a knife, — the
cry by which one in battle announces himself death-struck,
— the cry once heard, never forgotten. He raised the shield,
— too late; she reeled and fell, dragging him half down.
“What ails thee now?” he cried, in Spanish, forgetting
himself. “What ails thee? Hast thou looked at the sun
again?”
He lifted her head upon his knee.
“Mother of Christ, she is slain!” he cried, in horror.
An arrow descending had gone through her neck to the
heart. The blood gushed from her mouth. He took her
in his arms, and carried her to the steps of the temple. As
he laid her down, she tried to speak, but failed; then she
opened her eyes wide: the light poured into them as into
the windows of an empty house; the soul was gone; she
was dead.
In so short a space habitant of three worlds, — when was
there the like?
From the peace of the old chamber to the din of battle,
from the din of battle to the calm of paradise, — brief
time, short way!
From the sinless life to the sinful she had come; from
the sinful life sinless she had gone; and in the going what
fulness of the mercy of God!
I cannot say the Spaniard loved her; most likely his feeling
was the simple affection we all have for things gentle and
helpless, — a bird, a lamb, a child; now, however, he knelt
over her with tears; and as he did so, he saw the rosary,
and that all the beads but one were wet with her blood. He
upon the stone, and thought the unstained bead was for a
prayer uncounted, — a prayer begun on earth and finished
in heaven.
11. CHAPTER XI.
THE PUBLIC OPINION PROCLAIMS ITSELF. — BATTLE.
“HOW now, thou here yet? In God's name, what
madness hast thou? Up, idiot! up, and fly, or in
mercy I will slay thee here!”
As he spoke, Alvarado touched Orteguilla with the handle
of his axe. The latter sprang up, alarmed.
“Mira, Señor! She is just dead. I could not leave her
dying. I had a vow.”
The cavalier looked at the dead girl; his heart softened.
“I give thee honor, lad, I give thee honor. Hadst thou
left her living, shame would have been to thee forever. But
waste not time in maudlin. Hell's spawn is loose.” With
raised visor, he stood in his stirrups. “See, far as eye can
reach, the street is full! And hark to their yells! Here,
mount behind me; we must go at speed.”
The infidels, faced about, were coming back. The page
gave them one glance, then caught the hand reached out
to him, and placing his foot on the captain's swung
himself behind. At a word, up the street, over the bridges,
by the palaces and temples, the horsemen galloped. The
detachment, at the head of which they had sallied from
the palace, — gunners, arquebusiers, and cross-bowmen, —
had been started in return some time before; upon overtaking
them, Alvarado rode to a broad-shouldered fellow,
—
“Ho, Mesa! the hounds we followed so merrily were only
feigning; they have turned upon us. Do thou take the rear,
with thy guns. We will to the front, and cut a path to the
gate. Follow closely.”
“Doubt not, captain. I know the trick. I caught it in
Italy.”
“Cierto! What thou knowest not about a gun is not
worth the knowing,” Alvarado said; then to the page, “Dismount,
lad, and take place with these. What we have ahead
may require free man and free horse. Picaro! If anybody
is killed, thou hast permission to use his arms. What say
ye, compañeros mios?” he cried, facing the detachment.
“What say ye? Here I bring one whom we thought roasted
and eaten by the cannibals in the temples. Either he hath
escaped by miracle, or they are not judges of bones good
to mess upon. He is without arms. Will ye take care of
him? I leave him my shield. Will ye take care of that
also?”
And Najerra, the hunchback, replied, “The shield we
will take, Señor; but —”
“But what?”
“Señor, may a Christian lawfully take what the infidels
have refused?”
And they looked at Orteguilla, and laughed roundly, —
the bold, confident adventurers; in the midst of the jollity,
however, down the street came a sound deeper than that of
the guns, — a sound of abysmal depth, like thunder, but
without its continuity, — a divided, throbbing sound, such
as has been heard in the throat of a volcano. Alvarado
threw up his visor.
“What now?” asked Serrano, first to speak.
“One, two, three, — I have it!” the captain replied.
the saints, the drum in the great temple! Forward, comrades!
Our friends are in peril! If they are lost, so are
we. Forward, in Christ's name!”
Afterwards they became familiar with the sound; but
now, heard the first time in battle, every man of them was
affected. They moved off rapidly, and there was no jesting,
— none of the grim wit with which old soldiers sometimes
cover the nervousness preceding the primary plunge into a
doubtful fight.
“Close the files. Be ready!” shouted Serrano.
And ready they were, — matches lighted, steel-cords full
drawn. Every drum-beat welded them a firmer unit.
The roar of the combat in progress around the palace had
been all the time audible to the returning party; now they
beheld the teocallis covered with infidels, and the street
blockaded with them, while a cloud of smoke, slowly rising
and slowly fading, bespoke the toils and braveries of the
defence enacting under its dun shade. Suddenly, Alvarado
stood in his stirrups, —
“Ola! what have we here?”
A body of Aztecs, in excellent order, armed with spears of
unusual length, and with a front that swept the street from
wall to wall, was marching swiftly to meet him.
“There is wood enough in those spears to build a ship,”
said a horseman.
A few steps on another spoke, —
“If I may be allowed, Señor, I suggest that Mesa be called
up to play upon them awhile.”
But Alvarado's spirit rose.
“No; there is an enemy fast coming behind us; turn thy
ear in that direction, and thou mayest hear them already. We
cannot wait. Battle-axe and horse first; if they fail, then
the guns. Look to girth and buckle!”
Rode they then without halt or speech until the space between
them and the coming line was not more than forty
yards.
“Are ye ready?” asked Alvarado, closing his visor.
“Ready, Señor.”
“Axes, then! Follow me. Forward! Christo y Santiago!”
At the last word, the riders loosed reins, and standing in
their stirrups bent forward over the saddle-bow, as well to
guard the horse as to discover points of attack; each poised
his shield to protect his breast and left side, — the axe and
right arm would take care of the right side; each took up
the cry, Christo y Santiago; then, like pillars of iron on
steeds of iron, they charged. From the infidels one answering
yell, and down they sank, each upon his knee; and
thereupon, the spears, planted on the ground, presented a
front so bristling that leader less reckless than Alvarado
would have stopped in mid-career. Forward, foremost in the
charge, he drove, right upon the brazen points, a score or
more of which rattled against his mail or that of his steed,
and glanced harmlessly, or were dashed aside by the axe
whirled from right to left with wonderful strength and skill.
Something similar happened to each of his followers. A
moment of confusion, — man and beast in furious action,
clang of blows, splintering of wood, and battle-cries, — then
two results: the Christians were repulsed, and that before
the second infidel rank had been reached; and while they
were in amongst the long spears, fencing and striking, clear
above the medley of the mêlée they heard a shout, Al-a-lala!
Al-a-lala! Alvarado looked that way; looked
through the yellow shafts and brazen points. Brief time
had he; yet he beheld and recognized the opposing leader.
Behind the kneeling ranks he stood, without trappings,
without a shield even; a maquahuitl, edged with flint,
him appeared an irregular mass of probably half a thousand
men, unarmed and almost naked. Even as the good
captain looked, the horde sprang forward, and by pressing
between the files of spearmen, or leaping panther-like
over their shoulders, gained the front. There they rushed
upon the horsemen, entangled amidst the spears, — to capture,
not slay them; for, by the Aztec code of honor, the
measure of a warrior's greatness was the number of prisoners
he brought out of battle, a present to the gods, not the number
of foemen he slew. The rush was like that of wolves
upon a herd of deer. First to encounter a Christian was the
chief. The exchange of blows was incredibly quick. The
horse reared, plunged blindly, then rolled upon the ground;
the flinty maquahuitl, surer than the axe, had broken its
leg. A cry, sharpened by mortal terror, — a Spanish cry
for help, in the Mother's name. Christians and infidels
looked that way, and from the latter burst a jubilant
yell, —
“The 'tzin! The 'tzin!”
The successful leader stooped, and wrenched the shield
from the fallen man; then he swung the maquahuitl twice,
and brought it down on the mailed head of the horse: the
weapon broke in pieces; the steed lay still forever.
Now, Alvarado was not the man to let the cry of a comrade
go unheeded.
“Turn, gentlemen! One of us is down; hear ye not the
name of Christ and the Mother? To the rescue! Charge!
Christo y Santiago!”
Forward the brave men spurred; the spears closed around
them as before, while the unarmed foe, encouraged by the
'tzin's achievement, redoubled their efforts to drag them from
their saddles. In disregard of blows, given fast as skilled
hands could rise and fall, some flung themselves upon the
after the axe had spattered their brains or the hoofs crushed
their bones; some caught the bridle-reins, and hung to them
full weight; others struggled with the riders directly, hauling
at them, leaping behind them, catching sword-arm and
shield; and so did the peril finally grow that the Christians
were forced to give up the rescue, the better to take care of
themselves.
“God's curses upon the dogs!” shouted Alvarado, in fury
at sight of the Spaniard dragged away. “Back, some
of ye, who can, to Serrano! Bid him advance. Quick,
or we, too, are lost!”
No need; Serrano was coming. To the very spears he
advanced, and opened with cross-bow and arquebus; yet the
infidels remained firm. Then the dullest of the Christians
discerned the 'tzin's strategy, and knew well, if the line in
front of them were not broken before the companies coming
up the street closed upon their rear, they were indeed lost.
So at the word, Mesa came, his guns charged to the muzzles.
To avoid his own people, he sent one piece to the right of
the centre of combat, and the other to the left, and trained
both to obtain the deepest lines of cross-fire. The effect
was indescribable; yet the lanes cloven through the kneeling
ranks were instantly refilled.
The 'tzin became anxious.
“Look, Hualpa!” he said. “The companies should be up
by this time. Can you see them?”
“The smoke is too great; I cannot see.”
Some of his people attacking the horsemen began to
retreat behind the spearmen. He caught up the axe of
the Spaniard, and ran where the smoke was most blinding.
In a moment he was at the front; clear, inspiring, joyous
even, rose his cry. He rushed upon a bowman, caught him
in his arms, and bore him off with all his armor on. A
cry, —
“The 'tzin! The 'tzin!”
“Another victim for the gods!” he answered. “Hold
fast, O my countrymen! Behind the strangers come the
companies. Do what I say, and Anahuac shall live.”
At his word, they arose; at his word again, they advanced,
with levelled spears. Faster the missiles smote them; the
horsemen raged; each Spaniard felt, unless that line were
broken his doom was come. Alvarado fought, never thinking
of defence. The bowmen and arquebusiers recoiled. Twice
Mesa drew back his guns. Finally, Don Pedro outdid himself,
and broke the fence of spears; his troop followed him;
right and left they plunged, killing at every step. At places,
the onset of the infidels slackened, halted; then the ranks
began to break into small groups; at last, they dropped their
arms, and fairly fled, bearing the 'tzin away in the mighty
press for life. At their backs rode the vengeful horsemen, and
behind the horsemen, over the dead and shrieking wretches,
moved Serrano and Mesa.
And to the very gates of the palace the fight continued.
A ship in its passage displaces a body of water; behind,
however, follows an equal reflux: so with the Christians,
except that the masses who closed in upon their rear outnumbered
those they put to rout in front. Their rapid
movement had the appearance of flight; on the other hand,
that of the infidels had the appearance of pursuit. The
sortie was not again repeated.
Seven days the assault went on, — a week of fighting, intermitted
only at night, under cover of which the Aztecs
carried off their dead and wounded, — the former to the lake,
the latter to the hospitals. Among the Christians some there
were who had seen grand wars; some had even served under
they seen such courage, devotion, and endurance, such indifference
to wounds and death, as here. At times, the
struggle was hand to hand; then, standing upon their point
of honor, the infidels perished by scores in vain attempts to
take alive whom they might easily have slain; and this it
was, — this fatal point of honor, — more than superiority in
any respect, that made great battles so bloodless to the Spaniards.
Still, nearly all of the latter were wounded, a few
disabled, and seven killed outright. Upon the Tlascalans
the losses chiefly fell; hundreds of them were killed; hundreds
more lay wounded in the chambers of the palace.
The evening of the seventh day, the 'tzin, standing on the
western verge of the teocallis, from which he had constantly
directed the assault, saw coming the results which could
alone console him for the awful sacrifice of his countrymen.
The yells of the Tlascalans were not as defiant as formerly;
the men of iron, the Christians, were seen to sink wearily
down at their posts, and sleep, despite the tumult of the
battle; the guns were more slowly and carefully served; and
whereas, before Cortes departure there had been three meals
a day, now there were but two: the supply of provisions
was failing. The ancient house, where constructed of wood,
showed signs of demolition; fuel was becoming scant.
Where the garrison obtained its supply of water was a marvel.
He had not then heard of what Father Bartolomé afterwards
celebrated as a miracle of Christ, — the accidental finding
of a spring in the middle of the garden.
Then the assault was discontinued, and a blockade established.
Another week, during which nothing entered the
gates of the palace to sustain man or beast. Then there was
but one meal a day, and the sentinels on the walls began to
show the effect.
One day the main gate opened, and a woman and a man
At the foot of the steps they knelt to him, — the princess
Tula and the prince Io'.
“See, O 'tzin,” said the princess, “see the king's signet.
We bring you a message from him. He has not wherewith
to supply his table. Yesterday he was hungry. He bids
you re-open the market, and send of the tributes of the provinces
without stint, — all that is his kingly right.”
“And if I fail?” asked Guatamozin.
“He said not what, for no one has ever failed his order.”
And the 'tzin looked at Io'.
“What shall I do, O son of the king?”
In all the fighting, Io' had stayed in the palace with his
father. Through the long days he had heard the voices of
the battle calling to him. Many times he walked to the
merlons of the azoteas, and saw the 'tzin on the temple,
or listened to his familiar cry in the street. And where,
— so ran his thought the while, — where is Hualpa? Happy
fellow! What glory he must have won, — true warrior-glory
to flourish in song forever! A heroic jealousy
would creep upon him, and he would go back miserable to
his chamber.
“One day more, O 'tzin, and all there is in the palace—
king and stranger alike — is yours,” Io' made answer.
“More I need not say.”
“Then you go not back?”
“No,” said Tula.
“No,” said Io'. “I came out to fight. Anahuac is our
mother. Let us save her, O 'tzin!”
And the 'tzin looked to the sun; his eyes withstood its
piercing splendors awhile, then he said, calmly, —
“Go with the princess Tula where she chooses, Io';
then come back. The gods shall have one day more, though
it be my last. Farewell.”
They arose and went away. He returned to the azoteas.
Next day there was not one meal in the palace. Starvation
had come. And now the final battle, or surrender!
Morning passed; noon came; later, the sun began to go
down the sky. In the streets stood the thousands, — on all
the housetops, on the temple, they stood, — waiting and
looking, now at the leaguered house, now at the 'tzin seated
at the verge of the teocallis, also waiting.
Suddenly a procession appeared on the central turret of
the palace, and in its midst, Montezuma.
“The king! the king!” burst from every throat; then
upon the multitude fell a silence, which could not have been
deeper if the earth had opened and swallowed the city.
The four heralds waved their silver wands; the white carpet
was spread, and the canopy brought and set close by the
eastern battlement of the turret; then the king came and
stood in the shade before the people. At sight of him
and his familiar royalty the old love came back to them,
and they fell upon their knees. He spoke, asserting his
privileges; he bade them home, and the army to its quarters.
He promised that in a short time the strangers, whose guest
he was, would leave the country; they were already preparing
to depart, he said. How wicked the revolt would then
be! How guilty the chiefs who had taken arms against his
order! He spoke as one not doubtful of his position, but
as king and priest, and was successful. Stunned, confused,
uncertain as to duty, nigh broken-hearted, the fighting
people and disciplined companies arose, and, like a conquered
mob, turned to go away.
Down from his perch rushed the 'tzin. He put himself
in the midst of the retiring warriors. He appealed to them
in vain. The chiefs gathered around him, and knelt, and
kissed his hands, and bathed his feet with their tears; they
acknowledged his heroism, — they would die with him;
and to disobey him was sacrilege.
Then the 'tzin saw, as if it were a god's decree, that Anahuac
and Montezuma could not both live. One or the
other must die! And never so wise as in his patience, he
submitted, and told them, —
“I will send food to the palace, and cease the war now,
and until we have the voice of Huitzil' to determine what
we shall do. Go, collect the companies, and put them in their
quarters. This night we will to Tlalac; together, from his
sacred lips, we will hear our fate, and our country's. Go
now. At midnight come to the teocallis.”
At midnight the sanctuary of Huitzil' was crowded; so
was all the azoteas. Till the breaking of dawn the sacrifices
continued. At last, the teotuctli, with a loud cry, ran and
laid a heart in the fire before the idol; then turning to the
spectators, he said, in a loud voice, —
“Let the war go on! So saith the mighty Huitzil'! Woe
to him who refuses to hear!”
And the heart that attested the will was the heart of a
Spaniard.
| The fair god, or, The last of the 'Tzins | |