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 came out. The ’tzin descended from his perch to meet them. 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, but while the king lived, under the gods, he was master, 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.
I will now ask the reader to make a note of the passage of a fortnight. By so doing he will find himself close upon the 24th of June,—another memorable day in the drama of the conquest.
’Tzin Guatamo, as is already known, had many times proven himself a warrior after the manner of his country, and, in consequence, had long been the idol of the army; now he gave token of a ruling faculty which brought the whole people to his feet; so that in Tenochtitlan, for the first time in her history, were seen a sceptre unknown to the law and a royalty not the king’s.
He ruled in the valley everywhere, except in the palace of Axaya’; and around that he built works, and set guards, and so contrived that nothing passed in or out without his permission. His policy was to wait patiently, and in the mean time organize the nation for war; and the nation obeyed him, seeing that in obedience there was life; such, moreover, was the will of Huitzil’.
As may be thought, the Christians thus pent up fared illy; in fact, they would have suffered before the fortnight was gone but for the king, who stinted himself and his household in order to divide with his keepers the supplies sent in for his use.
In the estimation of the people of the empire, it was great glory to have shut so many teules in a palace, and held them there; but the success did not deceive the ’tzin: in his view, that achievement was not the victory, but only the beginning of the war; every hour he had news of Malinche, the real antagonist, who had the mind, the will, and the hand of a warrior, and was coming with another army, more numerous, if not braver, than the first one. In pure, strong love there is an element akin to the power of prophecy,—something that gives the spirit eyes to see what is to happen. Such an inspiration quickened the ’tzin, and told him Anahuac was not saved, though she should be: if not, the conquerors should take an empty prize; he would leave them nothing,—so he swore,—neither gods, gold, slaves, city, nor people. He set about the great idea by inviting the New World—I speak as a Spaniard—to take part in the struggle. And he was answered. To the beloved city, turned into a rendezvous for the purpose, flocked the fighting vassals of the great caciques, the men of the cities, and their dependencies, the calpulli, or tribes of the loyal provinces, and, mixed with them, wild-eyed bands from the Unknown, the wildernesses,—in all, a multitude such as had never been seen in the valley. At the altars he had but one prayer, “Time, time, O gods of my fathers! Give me time!” He knew the difference between a man and a soldier, and that, likewise, between a multitude and an army. As he used the word, time meant organization and discipline. He not only prayed, he worked; and into his work, as into his prayers, he poured all his soul.
The organization was simple: first, a company of three or four hundred men; next an army of thirty or forty companies,—a system which allowed the preservation of the identity of tribes and cities. The companies of Cholula, for example, were separate from those of Tezcuco; while the Acolmanes marched and fought side by side with the Coatopecs, but under their own chiefs and flags. The system also gave him a number of armies, and he divided them,—one to raise supplies, another to bring the supplies to the depots, a third to prepare material of war; the fourth was the active or fighting division; and each was subject to take the place of the other. To the labor of so many hands, systematized and industriously exerted, though for a fortnight, almost everything is possible. One strong will, absolutely operative over thousands, is nearer omnipotency than anything else human.
The climate of the valley, milder and more equable than that of Naples, permits the bivouac in all seasons. The sierra west of the capital, and bending around it like a half-drawn bow, is marked on its interior, or city side by verdant and watered vales; these were seized; and the bordering cliffs, which theretofore had shaded the toiling husbandman, or been themselves the scenes of the hunter’s daring, now hid the hosts of New World’s men, in the bivouac, biding the day of battle.
War, good reader, never touches anything and leaves it as it was. And the daughter of the lake, fair Tenochtitlan, was no exception to the law. The young master, having reduced the question of strategy to the formula,—a street or a plain, chose the street, and thereby dedicated the city to all of ruin or horror the destroyer could bring. Not long, therefore, until its presence could have been detected by the idlest glance: the streets were given up to the warriors; the palaces were deserted by families; houses conveniently situated for the use were turned into forts; the shrubbery garnishing roofs that dominated the main streets concealed heaps of stones made ready for the hand; the bridges were taken up, or put in condition to be raised; the canoes on the lakes were multiplied, and converted to the public service; the great markets were suspended; even the sacred temple were changed into vast arsenals. When the ’tzin, going hither and thither, never idle, observed the change, he would sigh, but say to himself, “’Tis well. If we win, we can restore; if we lose,—if we lose,—then, to the strangers, waste, to the waters, welcome!”
And up and down, from city to bivouac and back again, passed the minstrels, singing of war, and the pabas, proclaiming the oracles and divine promises; and the services in the temples were unintermitted; those in the teocallis were especially grand; the smoke from its turrets overhung the city, and at night the fire of Huitzil’, a new star reddening in the sky, was seen from the remotest hamlet in the valley. The ’tzin had faith in moral effects, and he studied them, and was successful. The army soon came to have, like himself, but one prayer,—“Set us before the strangers; let us fight!”
And the time they prayed for was come.
The night of the 23d of June was pleasant as night can be in that region of pleasant nights. The sky was clear and starry. The breeze abroad brought coolness to outliers on the housetops, without threshing the lake to the disturbance of its voyageurs.
Up in the northeastern part of the little sea lay a chinampa at anchor. Over its landing, at the very edge of the water, burned a flambeau of resinous pine. Two canoes, richly decorated, swung at the mooring. The path from the landing to the pavilion was carpeted, and lighted by lamps pendent in the adjoining shrubbery. In the canoes the slaves lay at rest, talking idly, and in low voices crooning Indian songs. Close by the landing, on a bench, over which swayed the leaves of an immense banana-tree, rested a couple of warriors, silent, and nodding, as it were, to the nodding leaves. From the rising to the setting of the day’s sun, many a weary league, from the city to the vales of the Sierra in which bivouacked the hope of Anahuac, had they travelled,—Hualpa and Io’. One familiar with the streets in these later days, at sight of them would have said, “Beware! the ’tzin is hereaway.” The three were almost as one,—so had their friendship grown. The pavilion, a circular canopy, spread like a Bedouin’s tent, was brightly lighted; and there, in fact, was the ’tzin, with Tula and Yeteve, the priestess.
Once before, I believe, I described this pavilion; and now I know the imagination of the reader will give the floating garden richer colors than lie within compass of my pen; will surround it with light, and with air delicious with the freshness of the lake and the exhalations of the flowers; will hover about the guardian palm and willow trees, the latter with boughs lithe and swinging, and leaves long and fine as a woman’s locks; will linger about the retreat, I say, and, in thought of its fitness for meeting of lovers, admit the poetry and respect the passion of the noble Aztec.
Within, the furniture was as formerly; there were yet the carven stools, the table with its bowl-like top, now a mass of flowers, a couch draped with brilliant plumage, the floor covered with matting of woven grasses, the hammock, and the bird-cage,—all as when we first saw them. Nenetzin was absent, and alas! might never come again.
And if we enter now, we shall find the ’tzin standing a little apart from Tula, who is in the hammock, with Yeteve by her side. On a stool at his feet is a waiter of ebony, with spoons of tortoise-shell, and some xicaras, or cups, used for chocolate.
Their faces are grave and earnest.
“And Malinche?” asked Tula, as if pursuing a question.
“The gods have given me time; I am ready for him,” he replied.
“Yesterday, about noon, he set out from Tezcuco, by way of the shore of the lake; to-night he lodges in Iztapalapan; to-morrow, marching by the old causeway, he will re-enter the city.”
“Poor, poor country!” she said, after a long silence.
The words touched him, and he replied, in a low voice, “You have a good heart, O Tula,—a good heart and true. Your words were what I repeat every hour in the day. You were seeing what I see all the time—”
“The battle!” she said, shuddering.
“Yes. I wish it could be avoided; its conditions are such that against the advantage of arms I can only oppose the advantage of numbers; so that the dearest of all things will be the cheapest. I must take no account of lives. I have seen the streets run with blood already, and now,—Enough! we must do what the gods decree. Yet the slaughter shall not be, as heretofore, on one side alone.”
She looked at him inquiringly.
“You know the custom of our people to take prisoners rather than kill in battle. As against the Tlascalans and tribes, that was well enough; but new conditions require new laws, and my order now is, Save nothing but the arms and armor of the strangers. Life for life as against Malinche! And I could conquer him, but—”
He stopped, and their glances met,—his full of fire, hers sad and thoughtful.
“Ah, Tula! your woman’s soul prompts you already of whom I would speak,—the king.”
“Spare me,” she said, covering her face with her hands. “I am his child; I love him yet.”
“So I know,” he replied; “and I would not have you do else. The love is proof of fitness to be loved. Nature cannot be silenced. He is not as near to me as to you; yet I feel the impulse that moves you, though in a less degree. In memory, he is a part of my youth. For that matter, who does not love him? He has charmed the strangers; even the guards at his chamber-door have been known to weep at sight of his sorrow. And the heroes who so lately died before his prison-gates, did not they love him? And those who will die to-morrow and the next day, what else may be said of them? In arms here, see the children of the valley. What seek they? In their eyes, he is Anahuac. And yet—”
He paused again; her hands had fallen; her cheeks glistened with tears.
“If I may not speak plainly now, I may not ever. Strengthen yourself to hear me, and hear me pitifully. To begin, you know that I have been using the king’s power without his permission,—that, I say, you know, and have forgiven, because the usurpation was not of choice but necessity, and to save the empire; but you will hear now, for the first time probably, that I could have been king in fact.”
Her gaze became intent, and she listened breathlessly.
“Three times,” he continued, “three times have the caciques, for themselves and the army, offered me the crown. The last time, they were accompanied by the electors,[48] and deputations from all the great cities.”
“And you refused,” she said, confidently.
“Yes. I will not deny the offer was tempting,—that for the truth. I thought of it often; and at such times came revenge, and told me I had been wronged, and ambition, whispering of glory, and, with ready subtlety, making acceptance appear a duty. But, Tula, you prevailed; your love was dearer to me than the crown. For your sake, I refused the overture. You never said so,—there was no need of the saying,—yet I knew you could never be queen while your father lived.”
Not often has a woman heard such a story of love, or been given such proofs of devotion; her face mantled, and she dropped her gaze, saying,—
“Better to be so loved than to be queen. If not here, O ’tzin, look for reward in the Sun. Surely, the gods take note of such things!”
“Your approval is my full reward,” he replied. “But hear me further. What I have said was easy to say; that which I go to now is hard, and requires all my will; for the utterance may forfeit not merely the blessing just given me, but your love,—more precious, as I have shown, than the crown. You were in the palace the day the king appeared and bade the people home. The strangers were in my hand at the time. O, a glad time,—so long had we toiled, so many had died! Then he came, and snatched away our triumph. I have not forgotten, I never can forget the disappointment. In all the labor of the preparation since, I have seen the scene, sometimes as a threat, sometimes as a warning, always a recurring dream whose dreaming leaves me less resolved in the course I am running. Continually I find myself saying to myself, ‘The work is all in vain; what has been will be again; while he lives, you cannot win.’ O Tula, such influence was bad enough of itself. Hear now how the gods came in to direct me. Last night I was at the altar of Huitzil’, praying, when the teotuctli appeared, and said, ‘’Tzin Guatamo, pray you for your country?’ ‘For country and king,’ I answered. He laid his hand upon my shoulder, ‘If you seek the will of the god with intent to do what he imposes, hear then: The king is the shield of the strangers; they are safe while he lives; and if he lives, Anahuac dies. Let him who leads choose between them. So the god says. Consider!’ He was gone before I could answer. Since that I have been like one moving in a cloud, seeing nothing clearly, and the duty least of all. When I should be strongest, I am weakest. My spirit faints under the load. If the king lives, the empire dies: if it is to die, why the battle, and its sacrifices? This night have I in which to choose; to-morrow, Malinche and action! Help me, O Tula, help me to do right! Love of country, of king, and of me,—you have them all. Speak.”
And she answered him,—
“I may not doubt that you love me; you have told me so many times, but never as to-night. I thank you, O ’tzin! Your duties are heavy. I do not wonder that you bend under them. I might say they are yours by gift of the gods, and not to be divided with another, not even with me; but I will give you love for love, and, as I hope to share your fortunes, I will share your trials. I am a woman, without judgment by which to answer you; from my heart I will answer.”
“From your heart be it, O Tula.”
“Has the king heard the things of which you have spoken?”
“I cannot say.”
“Does he know you were offered the crown?”
“No; the offer was treason.”
“Ah, poor king, proud father! The love of the people, that of which you were proudest, is lost. What wretchedness awaits you!”
She bowed her head, and there was a silence broken only by her sobs. The grief spent itself; then she said, earnestly,—
“I know him. He, too, is a lover of Anahuac. More than once he has exposed himself to death for her. Such loves age not, nor do they die, except with the hearts they animate. There was a time—but now—No matter, I will try. ‘Let him who leads choose’: was not that the decree, good ’tzin?”
“Yes,” he replied.
“Must the choice be made to-night?”
“I may delay until to-morrow.”
“To-morrow; what time?”
“Malinche will pass the causeway in the cool of the morning; by noon he will have joined his people in the old palace; the decision must then be made.”
“Can you set me down at the gate before he passes in?”
The ’tzin started. “Of the old palace?” he asked.
“I wish to see the king.”
“For what?”
“To tell him the things you have told me to-night.”
“All?”
“Yes.”
His face clouded with dissatisfaction.
“Yes,” she continued, calmly; “that, as becomes a king, he may choose which shall live,—himself or Anahuac.”
So she answered the ’tzin’s appeal, and the answer was from her heart; and, seeing of what heroism she dreamed, his dark eyes glowed with admiration. Yet his reply was full of hopelessness.
“I give you honor, Tula,—I give you honor for the thought; but forgive me if I think you beguiled by your love. There was a time when he was capable of what you have imagined. Alas! he is changed; he will never choose,—never!”
She looked at him reproachfully, and said, with a sad smile, “Such changes are not always of years. Who is he that to-night, only to-night, driven by a faltering of the will, which in the king, my father, is called weakness, brought himself prayerfully to a woman’s feet, and begged her to divide with him a burden imposed upon his conscience by a decree of the gods? Who is he, indeed? Study yourself, O ’tzin, and commiserate him, and bethink you, if he choose not, it will be yours to choose for him. His duty will then become yours, to be done without remorse, and—”
She hesitated, and held out her hand, as if to say, “And I can love you still.”
He caught the meaning of the action, and went to her, and kissed her forehead tenderly, and said,—
“I see now that the heart can be wiser than the head. Have your way. I will set you down at the gate, and of war there shall be neither sign nor sound until you return.”
“Until I return! May be I cannot. Malinche may hold me prisoner.”
From love to war,—the step was short.
“True,” he said. “The armies will await my signal of attack, and they must not wait upon uncertainties.”
He arose and paced the floor, and when he paused he said, firmly,—
“I will set you down at the gate in the early morning, that you may see your father before Malinche sees him. And when you speak to him, ask not if I may make the war: on that I am resolved; but tell him what no other can,—that I look forward to the time when Malinche, like the Tonatiah, will bring him from his chamber, and show him to the people, to distract them again. And when you have told him that, speak of what the gods have laid upon me, and then say that I say, ‘Comes he so, whether of choice or by force, the dread duty shall be done. The gods helping me, I will strike for Anahuac.’ And if he ask what I would have him do, answer, A king’s duty to his people,—die that they may live!”
Tula heard him to the end, and buried her face in her hands, and there was a long silence.
“Poor king! poor father!” she said at last. “For me to ask him to die! A heavy, heavy burden, O ’tzin!”
“The gods help you!” he replied.
“If Malinche hold me prisoner, how will the answer avail you?”
“Have you not there two scarfs,—the one green, the other white?”
“Yes.”
“Take them with you, and from the roof, if your father resolve not, show the green one. Alas, then, for me! If, in its stead, you wave the white one, I shall know that he comes, if so he does, by force, and that”—his voice trembled—”it is his will Anahuac should live.”
She listened wistfully, and replied, “I understand; Anahuac saved means Montezuma lost. But doubt him not, doubt him not; he will remember his glory’s day, and die as he has lived.”
An hour later, and the canoe of the ’tzin passed into one of the canals of the city. The parting on the chinampa may be imagined. Love will have its way even in war.
As predicted by the ’tzin, the Spaniards set out early next morning—the morning of the 24th of June—by the causeway from Iztapalapan, already notable in this story.
At their head rode the Señor Hernan, silent, thoughtful, and not well pleased; pondering, doubtless, the misconduct of the adelantado in the old palace to which he was marching, and the rueful condition it might impose upon the expedition.
The cavaliers next in the order of march, which was that of battle, rode and talked as men are wont when drawing nigh the end of a long and toilsome task. This the leader at length interrupted,—
“Señores, come near. Yonder ye may see the gate of Xoloc,” he continued, when they were up. “If the heathen captains think to obstruct our entry, they would do well, now that our ships lie sunken in the lake, to give us battle there. Ride we forward to explore what preparations, if any, they have made.”
So they rode, at quickened pace, arms rattling, spurs jingling, and found the gate deserted.
“Viva compañeros!” cried Cortes, riding through the shadow of the battlements. “Give the scabbards their swords again. There will be no battle; the way to the palace is open.” And, waiting till the column was at their heels, he turned to the trumpeters, and shouted, cheerily, ”Ola, ye lazy knaves! Since the march began, ye have not been heard from. Out now, and blow! Blow as if ye were each a Roland, with Roland’s horn. Blow merrily a triumphal march, that our brethren in the leaguer ahead may know deliverance at hand.”
The feeling of the chief spread rapidly; first, to the cavaliers; then to the ranks, where soon there were shouting and singing; and simultaneous with the trumpetry, over the still waters sped the minstrelsy of the Tlascalans. Ere long they had the answer of the garrison; every gun in the palace thundered welcome.
Cortes settled in his saddle smiling: he was easy in mind; the junction with Alvarado was assured; the city and the king were his, and he could now hold them; nevertheless, back of his smile there was much thought. True, his enemies in Spain would halloo spitefully over the doughty deed he had just done down in Cempoalla. No matter. The Court and the Council had pockets, and he could fill them with gold,—gold by the caravel, if necessary; and for the pacification of his most Catholic master, the Emperor, had he not the New World? And over the schedule of guerdons sure to follow such a gift to such a master he lingered complacently, as well he might. Patronage, and titles, and high employments, and lordly estates danced before his eyes, as danced the sun’s glozing upon the crinkling water.
One thought, however,—only one,—brought him trouble. The soldiers of Narvaez were new men, ill-disciplined, footsore, grumbling, discontented, disappointed. He remembered the roseate pictures by which they had been won from their leader before the battle was joined. ‘The Empire was already in possession; there would be no fighting; the march would be a promenade through grand landscapes, and by towns and cities, whose inhabitants would meet them in processions, loaded with fruits and flowers, tributes of love and fear,’—so he had told them through his spokesmen, Olmedo, the priest, and Duero, the secretary. Nor failed he now to recall the chief inducements in the argument,—the charms of the heathen capital, and the easy life there waiting,—a life whose sole vexation would be apportionment of the lands conquered and the gold gathered. And the wonderful city,—here it was, placid as ever; and neither the valley, nor the lake, nor the summering climate, nor the abundance of which he had spoken, failed his description; nothing was wanting but the people, THE PEOPLE! Where were they? He looked at the prize ahead; gyres of smoke, slowly rising and purpling as they rose, were all the proofs of life within its walls. He swept the little sea with angry eyes; in the distance a canoe, stationary, and with a solitary occupant, and he a spy! And this was the grand reception promised the retainers of Narvaez! He struck his mailed thigh with his mailed hand fiercely, and, turning in his saddle, looked back. The column was moving forward compactly, the new men distinguishable by the freshness of their apparel and equipments. “Bien!” he said, with a grim smile and cunning solace, “Bien! they will fight for life, if not for majesty and me.”
Close by the wall Father Bartolomé overtook him, and, after giving rein to his mule, and readjusting his hood, said gravely, “If the tinkle of my servant’s bell disturb not thy musing, Señor,—I have been through the files, and bring thee wot of the new men.”
“Welcome, father,” said Cortes, laughing. “I am not an evil spirit to fly the exorcisement of thy bell, not I; and so I bid thee welcome. But as for whereof thou comest to tell, no more, I pray. I know of what the varlets speak. And as I am a Christian, I blame them not. We promised them much, and—this is all: fair sky, fair land, strange city,—and all without people! Rueful enough, I grant; but, as matter more serious, what say the veterans? Came they within thy soundings?”
“Thou mayest trust them, Señor. Their tongues go with their swords. They return to the day of our first entry here, and with excusable enlargement tell what they saw then in contrast with the present.”
“And whom blame they for the failure now?”
“The captain Alvarado.”
Cortes’ brows dropped, and he became thoughtful again, and in such temper rode into the city.
Within the walls, everywhere the visitors looked, were signs of life, but nowhere a living thing; neither on the street, nor in the houses, nor on the housetops,—not even a bird in the sky. A stillness possessed the place, peculiar in that it seemed to assert a presence, and palpably lurk in the shade, lie on the doorsteps, issue from the windows, and pervade the air; giving notice so that not a man, new or veteran, but was conscious that, in some way, he was menaced with danger. There is nothing so appalling as the unaccountable absence of life in places habitually populous; nothing so desolate as a deserted city.
“Por Dios!” said Olmedo, toying with the beads at his side, “I had rather the former reception than the present. Pleasanter the sullen multitude than the silence without the multitude.”
Cortes made him no answer, but rode on abstractedly, until stopped by his advance-guard.
“At rest!” he said, angrily. “Had ye the signal? I heard it not.”
“Nor did we, Señor,” replied the officer in charge. “But, craving thy pardon, approach, and see what the infidels have done here.”
Cortes drew near, and found himself on the brink of the first canal. He swore a great oath; the bridge was dismantled. On the hither side, however, lay the timbers, frame and floor. The tamanes detailed from the guns replaced them.
“Bartolomé, good father,” said Cortes, confidentially, when the march was resumed, “thou hast a commendable habit of holding what thou hearest, and therefore I shame not to confess that I, too, prefer the first reception. The absence of the heathen and the condition of yon bridge are parts of one plan, and signs certain of battle now ready to be delivered.”
“If it be God’s will, amen!” replied the priest, calmly. “We are stronger than when we went out.”
“So is the enemy, for he hath organized his people. The hordes that stared at us so stupidly when we first came—be the curse of the saints upon them!—are now fighting men.”
Olmedo searched his face, and said, coldly, “To doubt is to dread the result.”
“Nay, by my conscience! I neither doubt nor dread. Yet I hold it not unseemly to confess that I had rather meet the brunt on the firm land, with room for what the occasion offers. I like not yon canal, with its broken bridge, too wide for horse, too deep for weighted man; it putteth us to disadvantage, and hath a hateful reminder of the brigantines, which, as thou mayest remember, we left at anchor, mistresses of the lake; in our absence they have been lost,—a most measureless folly, father! But let it pass, let it pass! The Mother—blessed be her name!—hath not forsaken us. Montezuma is ours, and—”
“He is victory,” said Olmedo, zealously.
“He is the New World!” answered Cortes.
And so it chanced that the poor king was centre of thought for both the ’tzin and his enemy,—the dread of one and the hope of the other.
A long interval behind the rear-guard—indeed, the very last of the army, and quite two hours behind—came four Indian slaves, bringing a man stretched upon a litter.
And the litter was open, and the sun beat cruelly on the man’s face; but plaint he made not, nor motion, except that his head rolled now right, now left, responsive to the cadenced steps of his hearers.
Was he sick or wounded?
Nathless, into the city they carried him.
And in front of the new palace of the king, they stopped, less wearied than overcome by curiosity. And as they stared at the great house, imagining vaguely the splendor within, a groan startled them. They looked at their charge; he was dead! Then they looked at each other, and fled.
And in less than twice seven days they too died, and died horribly; and in dying recognized their disease as that of the stranger they had abandoned before the palace,—the small-pox, or, in the language which hath a matchless trick of melting everything, even the most ghastly, into music, la viruela of the Spaniard.
The sick man on the litter was a negro,—first of his race on the new continent!
And most singular, in dying, he gave his masters another servant stronger than himself, and deadlier to the infidels than swords of steel,—a servant that found way everywhere in the crowded city, and rested not. And everywhere its breath, like its touch, was mortal; insomuch that a score and ten died of it where one fell in battle.
Of the myriads who thus perished, one was a KING.
Scarce five weeks before, Cortes sallied from the palace with seventy soldiers, ragged, yet curiously bedight with gold and silver; now he returned full-handed, at his back thirteen hundred infantry, a hundred horse, additional guns and Tlascalans. Surely, he could hold what he had gained.
The garrison stood in the court-yard to receive him. Trumpet replied to trumpet, and the reverberation of drums shook the ancient house. When all were assigned to quarters, the ranks were broken, and the veterans—those who had remained, and those who had followed their chief—rushed clamorously into each other’s arms. Comradeship, with its strange love, born of toil and danger, and nursed by red-handed battle, asserted itself. The men of Narvaez looked on indifferently, or clomb the palace, and from the roof surveyed the vicinage, especially the great temple, apparently as forsaken as the city.
And in the court-yard Cortes met Alvarado, saluting him coldly. The latter excused his conduct as best he could; but the palliations were unsatisfactory. The general turned from him with bitter denunciations; and as he did so, a procession approached: four nobles, carrying silver wands; then a train in doubled files; then Montezuma, in the royal regalia, splendid from head to foot. The shade of the canopy borne above him wrapped his person in purpled softness, but did not hide that other shadow discernible in the slow, uncertain step, the bent form, the wistful eyes,—the shadow of the coming Fate. Such of his family as shared his captivity brought up the cortege.
At the sight, Cortes waited; his blood was hot, and his head filled with the fumes of victory; from a great height, as it were, he looked upon the retinue, and its sorrowful master; and his eyes wandered fitfully from the Christians, worn by watching and hunger, to the sumptuousness of the infidels; so that when the monarch drew nigh him, the temper of his heart was as the temper of his corselet.
“I salute you, O Malinche, and welcome your return,” said Montezuma, according to the interpretation of Marina.
The Spaniard heard him without a sign of recognition.
“The good Lady of your trust has had you in care; she has given you the victory. I congratulate you, Malinche.”
Still the Spaniard was obstinate.
The king hesitated, dropped his eyes under the cold stare, and was frozen into silence. Then Cortes turned upon his heel, and, without a word, sought his chamber.
The insult was plain, and the witnesses, Christian and infidel, were shocked; and while they stood surprised, Tula rushed up, and threw her arms around the victim’s neck, and laid her head upon his breast. The retinue closed around them, as if to hide the shame; and thus the unhappy monarch went back to his quarters,—back to his captivity, to his remorse, and the keener pangs of pride savagely lacerated.
For a time he was like one dazed; but, half waking, he wrung his hands, and said, feebly, “It cannot be, it cannot be! Maxtla, take the councillors and go to Malinche, and say that I wish to see him. Tell him the business is urgent, and will not wait. Bring me his answer, omitting nothing.”
The young chief and the four nobles departed, and the king relapsed into his dazement, muttering, “It cannot be, it cannot be!”
The commissioners delivered the message. Olid, Leon, and others who were present begged Cortes to be considerate.
“No,” he replied; “the dog of a king would have betrayed us to Narvaez; before his eyes we are allowed to hunger. Why are the markets closed? I have nothing to do with him.”
And to the commissioners he said, “Tell your master to open the markets, or we will for him. Begone!”
And they went back and reported, omitting nothing, not even the insulting epithet. The king heard them silently; as they proceeded, he gathered strength; when they ceased, he was calm and resolved.
“Return to Malinche,” he said, “and tell him what I wished to say: that my people are ready to attack him, and that the only means I know to divert them from their purpose is to release the lord Cuitlahua, my brother, and send him to them to enforce my orders. There is now no other of authority upon whom I can depend to keep the peace, and open the markets; he is the last hope. Go.”
The messengers departed; and when they were gone the monarch said, “Leave the chamber now, all but Tula.”
At the last outgoing footstep she went near, and knelt before him; knowing, with the divination which is only of woman, that she was now to have reply to the ’tzin’s message, delivered by her in the early morning. Her tearful look he answered with a smile, saying tenderly, “I do not know whether I gave you welcome. If I did not, I will amend the fault. Come near.”
She arose, and, putting an arm over his shoulder, knelt closer by his side; he kissed her forehead, and pressed her close to his breast. Nothing could exceed the gentleness of the caress, unless it was the accompanying look. She replied with tears, and such breaking sobs as are only permitted to passion and childhood.
“Now, if never before,” he continued, “you are my best beloved, because your faith in me fell not away with that of all the world besides; especially, O good heart! especially because you have to-day shown me an escape from my intolerable misery and misfortunes,—for which may the gods who have abandoned me bless you!”
He stroked the dark locks under his hand lovingly.
“Tears? Let there be none for me. I am happy. I have been unresolved, drifting with uncertain currents, doubtful, yet hopeful, seeing nothing, and imagining everything; waiting, sometimes on men, sometimes on the gods,—and that so long,—ah, so long! But now the weakness is past. Rejoice with me, O Tula! In this hour I have recovered dominion over myself; with every faculty restored, the very king whom erst you knew, I will make answer to the ’tzin. Listen well. I give you my last decree, after which I shall regard myself as lost to the world. If I live, I shall never rule again. Somewhere in the temples I shall find a cell like that from which they took me to be king. The sweetness of the solitude I remember yet. There I will wait for death; and my waiting shall be so seemly that his coming shall be as the coming of a restful sleep. Hear then, and these words give the ’tzin: Not as king to subject, nor as priest to penitent, but as father to son, I send him my blessing. Of pardon I say nothing. All he has done for Anahuac, and all he hopes to do for her, I approve. Say to him, also, that in the last hour Malinche will come for me to go with him to the people, and that I will go. Then, I say, let the ’tzin remember what the gods have laid upon him, and with his own hand do the duty, that it may be certainly done. A man’s last prayer belongs to the gods, his last look to those who love him. In dying there is no horror like lingering long amidst enemies.”
His voice trembled, and he paused. She raised her eyes to his face, which was placid, but rapt, as if his spirit had been caught by a sudden vision.
“To the world,” he said, in a little while, “I have bid farewell. I see its vanities go from me one by one; last in the train, and most glittering, most loved, Power,—and in its hands is my heart. A shadow creeps upon me, darkening all without, but brightening all within; and in the brightness, lo, my People and their Future!”
He stopped again, then resumed:—
“The long, long cycles—two,—four,—eight—pass away, and I see the tribes newly risen, like the trodden grass, and in their midst a Priesthood and a Cross. An age of battles more, and, lo! the Cross but not the priests; in their stead Freedom and God.”
And with the last word, as if to indicate the Christian God, the report of a gun without broke the spell of the seer; the two started, and looked at each other, listening for what might follow; but there was nothing more, and he went on quietly talking to her.
“I know the children of the Aztec, crushed now, will live, and more,—after ages of wrong suffered by them, they will rise up, and take their place—a place of splendor—amongst the deathless nations of the earth. What I saw was revelation. Cherish the words, O Tula; repeat them often; make them an utterance of the people, a sacred tradition; let them go down with the generations, one of which will, at last, rightly interpret the meaning of the words Freedom and God, now dark to my understanding; and then, not till then, will be the new birth and new career. And so shall my name become of the land a part, suggested by all things,—by the sun mildly tempering its winds; by the rivers singing in its valleys; by the stars seen from its mountain-tops; by its cities, and their palaces and halls; and so shall its red races of whatever blood learn to call me father, and in their glory, as well as misery, pray for and bless me.”
In the progress of this speech his voice grew stronger, and insensibly his manner ennobled; at the conclusion, his appearance was majestic. Tula regarded him with awe, and accepted his utterances, not as the song habitual to the Aztec warrior at the approach of death, nor as the rhapsody of pride soothing itself; she accepted them as prophecy, and as a holy trust,—a promise to be passed down through time, to a generation of her race, the first to understand truly the simple words,—Freedom and God. And they were silent a long time.
At length there was a warning at the door; the little bells filled the room with music strangely inharmonious. The king looked that way, frowning. The intruder entered without nequen; as he drew near the monarch’s seat, his steps became slower, and his head drooped upon his breast.
“Cuitlahua! my brother!” said Montezuma, surprised.
“Brother and king!” answered the cacique, as he knelt and placed both palms upon the floor.
“You bring me a message. Arise and speak.”
“No,” said Cuitlahua, rising. “I have come to receive your signet and orders. I am free. The guard is at the door to pass me through the gate. Malinche would have me go and send the people home, and open the markets; he said such were your orders. But from him I take nothing except liberty. But you, O king, what will you,—peace or war?”
Tula looked anxiously at the monarch; would the old vacillation return? He replied firmly and gravely,—
“I have given my last order as king. Tula will go with you from the palace, and deliver it to you.”
He arose while speaking, and gave the cacique a ring; then for a moment he regarded the two with suffused eyes, and said, “I divide my love between you and my people. For their sake, I say, go hence quickly, lest Malinche change his mind. You, O my brother, and you, my child, take my blessing and that of the gods! Farewell.”
He embraced them both. To Tula he clung long and passionately. More than his ambassadress to the ’tzin, she bore his prophecy to the generations of the future. His last kiss was dewy with her tears. With their faces to him, they moved to the door; as they passed out, each gave a last look, and caught his image then,—the image of a man breaking because he happened to be in God’s way.
As the guard passed the old lord and the princess out of the gate opposite the teocallis, the latter looked up to the azoteas of the sacred pile, and saw the ’tzin standing near the verge; taking off the white scarf that covered her head, and fell from her shoulders, after passing once around her neck, she gave him the signal. He waved his hand in reply, and disappeared.
The lord Cuitlahua, just released from imprisonment and ignorant of the situation, scarcely knowing whither to turn yet impatient to set his revenge in motion, accepted the suggestion of Tula, and accompanied her to the temple. The ascent was laborious, especially to him; at the top, however, they were received by Io’ and Hualpa, and with every show of respect conducted to the ’tzin. He saluted them gravely, yet affectionately. Cuitlahua told him the circumstances of his release from imprisonment.
“So,” said the ’tzin, “Malinche expects you to open the market, and forbid the war; but the king,—what of him?”
“To Tula he gave his will; hear her.”