The Fair God; or, The Last of the 'Tzins: A Tale of the Conquest of Mexico. Lew Wallace
many such. Let us go.”
Farther on they came to a platform on which a band of mountebanks was performing. Hualpa would have stayed to witness their tableaux, but Xoli was impatient.
“You see yon barber’s shop,” he said; “next to it is the portico we seek. Come on!”
At last they arrived there, and mixed with the crowd curious like themselves.
“Ah, boy, you are too late! The list is full.”
The Chalcan spoke regretfully.
Hualpa looked for himself. On a clear white wall, that fairly glistened with the flood of light pouring upon it, he counted eight shields, or gages of battle. Over the four to the left were picture-written, “Othmies,” “Tlascalans.” They belonged to the challengers, and were battered and stained, proving that their gathering had been in no field of peace. The four to the right were of the Aztecs, and all bore devices except one. A sentinel stood silently beneath them.
“Welcome, Chalcan!” said a citizen, saluting the broker. “You are in good time to tell us the owners of the shields here.”
“Of the Aztecs?”
“Yes.”
“Well,” said Xoli, slowly and gravely. “The shields I do not know are few and of little note. At one time or another I have seen them all pass my portico going to battle.”
A bystander, listening, whispered to his friends—
“The braggart! He says nothing of the times the owners passed his door to get a pinch of his snuff.”
“Or to get drunk on his abominable pulque,” said another.
“Or to get a loan, leaving their palaces in pawn,” said a third party.
But Xoli went on impressively—
“Those two to the left belong to a surly Otompan and a girl-faced Cholulan. They had a quarrel in the king’s garden, and this is the upshot. That other—surely, O citizens, you know the shield of Iztlil’, the Tezcucan!”
“Yes; but its neighbor?”
“The plain shield! Its owner has a name to win. I can find you enough such here in the market to equip an army. Say, soldier, whose gage is that?”
The sentinel shook his head. “A page came not long ago, and asked me to hang it up by the side of the Tezcucan’s. He said not whom he served.”
“Well, maybe you know the challengers.”
“Two of the shields belong to a father and son of the tribe of Othmies. In the last battle the son alone slew eight Cempoallan warriors for us. Tlascalans, whose names I do not know, own the others.”
“Do you think they will escape?” asked a citizen.
The sentinel smiled grimly, and said, “Not if it be true that yon plain shield belongs to Guatamo, the ’tzin.”
Directly a patrol, rudely thrusting the citizens aside, came to relieve the guard. In the confusion, the Chalcan whispered to his friend, “Let us go back. There is no chance for you in the arena to-morrow; and this new fellow is sullen; his tongue would not wag though I promised him drink from the king’s vase.”
Soon after they reached the Chalcan’s portico and disappeared in the building, the cry of the night-watchers arose from the temples, and the market was closed. The great crowd vanished; in stall and portico the lights were extinguished; but at once another scene equally tumultuous usurped the tianguez. Thousands of half-naked tamanes rushed into the deserted place, and all night long it resounded, like a Babel, with clamor of tongues, and notes of mighty preparation.
CHAPTER IX.
THE QUESTIONER OF THE MORNING.
When Montezuma departed from the old Cû for his palace, it was not to sleep or rest. The revelation that so disturbed him, that held him wordless on the street, and made him shrink from his people, wild with the promise of pomp and combat, would not be shut out by gates and guards; it clung to his memory, and with him stood by the fountain, walked in the garden, and laid down on his couch. Royalty had no medicine for the trouble; he was restless as a fevered slave, and at times muttered prayers, pronouncing no name but Quetzal’s. When the morning approached, he called Maxtla, and bade him get ready his canoe: from Chapultepec, the palace and tomb of his fathers, he would see the sun rise.
From one of the westerly canals they put out. The lake was still rocking the night on its bosom, and no light other than of the stars shone in the east. The gurgling sound of waters parted by the rushing vessel, and the regular dip of the paddles, were all that disturbed the brooding of majesty abroad thus early on Tezcuco.
The canoe struck the white pebbles that strewed the landing at the princely property just as dawn was dappling the sky. On the highest point of the hill there was a tower from which the kings were accustomed to observe the stars. Thither Montezuma went. Maxtla, who alone dared follow, spread a mat for him on the tiles; kneeling upon it, and folding his hands worshipfully upon his breast, he looked to the east.
And the king was learned; indeed, one more so was not in all his realm. In his student days, and in his priesthood, before he was taken from sweeping the temple to be arch-ruler, he had gained astrological craft, and yet practised it from habit. The heavens, with their blazonry, were to him as pictured parchments. He loved the stars for their sublime mystery, and had faith in them as oracles. He consulted them always; his armies marched at their bidding; and they and the gods controlled every movement of his civil polity. But as he had never before been moved by so great a trouble, and as the knowledge he now sought directly concerned his throne and nations, he came to consult and question the Morning, that intelligence higher and purer than the stars. If Quetzal’ was angered, and would that day land for vengeance, he naturally supposed the Sun, his dwelling-place, would give some warning. So he came seeking the mood of the god from the Sun.
And while he knelt, gradually the gray dawn melted into purple and gold. The stars went softly out. Long rays, like radiant spears, shot up and athwart the sky. As the indications multiplied, his hopes arose. Farther back he threw the hood from his brow; the sun seemed coming clear and cloudless above the mountains, kindling his heart no less than the air and earth.
A wide territory, wrapped in the dim light, extended beneath his feet. There slept Tenochtitlan, with her shining temples and blazing towers, her streets and resistless nationality; there were the four lakes, with their blue waters, their shores set with cities, villages and gardens; beyond them lay eastern Anahuac, the princeliest jewel of the Empire. What with its harvests, its orchards, and its homesteads, its forests of oak, sycamore, and cedar, its population busy, happy, and faithful, contented as tillers of the soil, and brave as lions in time of need, it was all of Aden he had ever known or dreamed.
In the southeast, above a long range of mountains, rose the volcanic peaks poetized by the Aztecs into “The White Woman”[25] and “The Smoking Hill.”[26] Mythology had covered them with sanctifying faith, as, in a different age and more classic clime, it clothed the serene mountain of Thessaly.
But the king saw little of all this beauty; he observed nothing but the sun, which was rising a few degrees north of “The Smoking Hill.” In all the heavens round there was not a fleck; and already his heart throbbed with delight, when suddenly a cloud of smoke rushed upward from the mountain, and commenced gathering darkly about its white summit. Quick to behold it, he scarcely hushed a cry of fear, and instinctively waved his hand, as if, by a kingly gesture, to stay the eruption. Slowly the vapor crept over the roseate sky, and, breathless and motionless, the seeker of the god’s mood and questioner of the Morning watched its progress. Across the pathway of the sun it stretched, so that when the disk wheeled fairly above the mountain-range, it looked like a ball of blood.
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