TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

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AMERICAN TABLEAUX,
No. 1.

SKETCHES
OF
ABORIGINAL LIFE.

By V. V. VIDE.

NEW-YORK:
PUBLISHED BY BUCKLAND & SUMNER,
79 JOHN-STREET.
1846.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1846, by
BUCKLAND & SUMNER,
in the Clerk’s office of the District Court of the United States, for
the Southern District of New York.

Stereotyped by Vincent L. Dill,
128 Fulton st. Sun Building, N. Y.
C. A. Alvord, Printer, Cor. of John and Dutch sts.

PREFACE.

The American Tableaux lay no claim to the respect and confidence, which is justly shown to authentic history; nor do they anticipate the ready favor usually accorded to high wrought romance. They are neither the one nor the other. The general outline is designed to be historical, and true to the characters of individuals, and the customs of nations and tribes; and the drapery in which it is arrayed is intended rather to illustrate the truth, and place it in bolder relief, than to weaken its force by irrelevant inventions. It is proposed rather to shade and color the naked sketches of history, and restore them to their natural setting and accompaniments, than to alter or distort them. The characters of history are usually stiff, cold, and statue-like, and their drapery, if they have any, is of the same marble rigidity with themselves. The Tableaux would transfer them to canvass in their natural colors, strongly relieved by a back-ground of familiar scenery and every day associations, and shaded or lightened, as the case may be, by the sorrows or joys of social life, and the cares or honors of public station. It may be presumptuous to hope that all this has been accomplished. It is safer to say, it has been attempted.

CONTENTS.

THE AZTEC PRINCESS,
OR
DESTINY FORESHADOWED.

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THE AZTEC PRINCESS.

CHAPTER I.

BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE OF TECUICHPO.

“Wo! wo! wo! to the imperial House of Tenochtitlan! Never saw I the heavens in so inauspicious an aspect. Dark portentous influences appear on every side. May the horoscope of the infant daughter of Montezuma never be fulfilled.”

These were the awful words of the priestly astrologer of Tenochtitlan, uttered with solemn and oracular emphasis from the lofty Teocalli, where he had been long and studiously watching the heavens, and calculating the relative positions and combinations of the stars. A deep unutterable gloom seemed to pervade his soul. Several times he traversed the broad terrace, in a terrible agitation; his splendid pontifical robes flowing loosely in the breeze, and his tall majestic figure relieved against the clear sky, like some colossal moving statue,—and then, in tones of deeper grief than before, finding no error in his calculations, reiterated his oracular curse—“Wo! wo! wo! to the imperial House of Tenochtitlan!” Casting down his instruments to the earth, and tearing his hair in the violence of his emotions, he prostrated himself on the altar, and poured forth a loud and earnest prayer to all his gods.

“Is there no favoring omen in any quarter, venerable father?” inquired the agitated messenger from the palace, when the prayer was ended—“is there no one of those bright spheres above us, that will deign to smile on the destiny of the young princess?”

“It is full of mysterious, portentous contradictions,” replied the astrologer. “Good and evil influences contend for the mastery. The evil prevail, but the good are not wholly extinguished. The life of the princess will be a life of sorrow, but there will be a peculiar brightness in its end. Yet the aspect of every sign in the heavens is wo, and only wo, to the imperial House of Montezuma.”

Faith in the revelations of astrology was a deeply rooted superstition with the Aztecs. It pervaded the whole structure of society, affecting the most intelligent and well-informed, as well as the humblest and most ignorant individual. In this case, the prophetic wailings of the priestly oracle rolled, like a long funereal knell, through the magnificent halls of the imperial palace, and fell upon the ear of the monarch, as if it had been a voice from the unseen world. Montezuma was reclining on a splendidly embroidered couch, in his private apartment, anxiously awaiting the response of the celestial oracle. He was magnificently arrayed in his royal robes of green, richly ornamented with variegated feather-work, and elaborately inwrought with gold and silver. His sandals were of pure gold, with ties and anklets of gold and silver thread, curiously interwoven with a variegated cotton cord. On his head was a rich fillet of gold, with a beautiful plume bending gracefully over one side, casting a melancholy shade over his handsome but naturally pensive features. A few of the royal princes sat, in respectful silence, at the farther end of the chamber, waiting, with an anxiety almost equal to that of the monarch, the return of the royal messenger.

The apartments of the emperor were richly hung with tapestry of ornamental feather-work, rivalling, in the brilliancy of its dyes, and the beautiful harmony of its arrangement, the celebrated Gobelin tapestry. The floor was a tesselated pavement of porphyry and other beautiful stones. Numerous torches, supported in massive silver stands, delicately carved with fanciful figures of various kinds, blazed through the apartment, lighting up, with an almost noonday brilliancy, the gorgeous folds of the plumed hangings, and filling the whole palace with the sweet breath of the odoriferous gums of which they were composed.

The emperor leaned pensively on his hand, seemingly oppressed with some superstitious melancholy forebodings. Perhaps the shadow of that mysterious prophecy, which betokened the extinction of the Aztec dynasty, and the consequent ruin of his house, was passing athwart the troubled sky of his mind, veiling the always doubtful future in mists of tenfold dimness. Whatever it was that disturbed his royal serenity, his reverie was soon broken by the sound of an approaching footstep. For a moment, nothing was heard but the measured tread of the trembling messenger, pacing with unwilling step the long corridor, that led to the royal presence. With his head bowed upon his breast, his eyes fixed upon the pavement, his person veiled in the coarse nequen,[A] and his feet bare, he stood before the monarch, dumb as a statue.

“What response bring you,” eagerly enquired the emperor, “from the burning oracles of heaven? How reads the destiny of my new-born infant?”

“The response be to the enemies of the great Montezuma,” replied the messenger, without lifting his eyes from the floor, “and the destiny it foreshadows to the children of them that hate him.”

“Speak,” exclaimed the monarch, “What message do you bring from the priest of the stars?”

“Alas! my royal master, my message is full of wo—my heart faints, and my tongue refuses its office to give it utterance. The old prophet bade me say, that the celestial influences are all unpropitious; that the destiny of the infant princess is a life of sorrow, with a gleam of more than earthly brightness in its evening horizon. And then, prostrating himself upon the great altar, he groaned out one long, deep, heart-rending wail for the imperial House of Tenochtitlan, and the golden realm of Anahuac.”

A deeper shade came over the brow of Montezuma, and heaving a sigh from the very depths of a soul that had long been agitated by melancholy forebodings of coming evil, he raised his eyes to heaven, and said, “the will of the gods be done.” Then, waving his hand to his attendants, they bowed their heads, and retired in silence from the apartment.

“It has come at last,” inwardly groaned the monarch, as soon as he found himself alone—“it has come at last—that fearful prophecy, that has so long hung, like the shadow of a great cloud, over my devoted house, is now to be fulfilled. The fates have willed it, and there is no escape from their dread decrees. I must make ready for the sacrifice.”

Nerved by the stern influence of this dark fatalism, Montezuma brushed a tear from his eye, and putting a royal restraint upon the turbulent sorrows and fears of his paternal heart, hastened to the apartments of the queen, to break to her, with all the gentleness and caution which her delicate and precarious circumstances required, the mournful issue of their inquiries at the court of heaven, into the future destiny and prospects of their new-born babe.

A deep gloom hung over the palace and the city. Every heart, even the most humble and unobserved, sympathized in the disappointment, and shared the distress, of their sovereign. And the day, which should have been consecrated to loyal congratulations, and general festivities, became, as by common consent, a sort of national fast, a season of universal lamentation.

The little stranger was welcomed into life with that peculiar chastened tenderness, which is the natural offspring of love and pity—love, such as infant innocence wins spontaneously from every heart—pity, such as melancholy forebodings of coming years of sorrow to one beloved, cannot fail to awaken. She was regarded as the most beautiful and the most interesting of all her race. Every look and motion seemed to have its peculiar significance in indicating the victim of a remarkable destiny. And it is not to be wondered at, that a superstition so sad, and an affection so tender and solicitous, discovered an almost miraculous precocity in the first developments of the intellectual and moral qualities of its subject. She was the attractive centre of all the admiration and love of the royal household. Imagination fancied a peculiar sadness in her eye, and her merry laugh was supposed to mingle an element of sadness in its tones. Her mild and winning manners, and her affectionate disposition made her the idol of all whom she loved; and each one strove to do her service, as if hoping to avert, in some measure, the coming doom of their darling; while she clung to the fond and devoted hearts around her, as the ivy clings to the oak, which receives its embraces, and is necessary to its support.

When the young princess, who received the name of Tecuichpo, had arrived at the age of one year, she was given in charge to a young and beautiful slave, whom the Emperor had recently obtained from Azcapozalco. Karee was gifted with rare powers of minstrelsy. Her voice had the sweetness, power and compass of a mocking bird, and all day long she warbled her ever-changing lays, as if her natural breathing were music, and song the natural flow of her thoughts. She soon became passionately devoted to the little pet, and exerted all her uncommon gifts to amuse and instruct her. She taught her all the native songs of Azcapozalco and Mexitli, instructed her in dancing, embroidery and feather-work, and initiated her into the science of picture-writing and the fanciful language of flowers. Karee and her royal charge were never apart. Gentle and timid as the dove, Tecuichpo clung to her new nurse, as to the bosom of a mother. Even in her early infancy, she would so sweetly respond, like an echo, to the gentle lullaby, and mingle her little notes so symphoniously with those of Karee, that it excited the wonder and admiration of all. Karee was passionately fond of flowers. It was indeed an element in the national taste of this remarkable people. But Karee was unusually gifted in her preceptions of natural beauty, and seemed to have a soul most delicately attuned to the spirit and language of flowers, the painted hieroglyphics of nature. She loved to exercise her exuberant fancy in decorating her little mistress, and often contrived so to arrange them upon the various parts of her person and dress, as to make her at different times, the emblematic representation of every bright and beautiful spirit, that was supposed to people their celestial paradise, or to hover, on wings of love and gentle care, about the path of those whom the gods delighted to favor.

It was the daily custom for Karee to carry the young princess into the apartment of the Emperor, as soon as he rose from his siesta, to receive the affectionate caresses which her royal father was so fond of lavishing upon her. At such times, Tecuichpo would often take with her some rich chaplets of flowers which Karee had woven for her, and amuse herself and her father, by arranging them in a coronet on his brow, or twining them, in every fantastic form, about his person, to make, as she said, a flower-god of him, who was a sun to all the flowers of her earthly paradise.

One day, when the young princess was sleeping in her little arbor, the ever watchful nurse observed a viper among the flowers, which she had strown about her pillow, just ready to dart its venomous fang into the bosom of her darling. Quick as lightning she seized the reptile in her hand, and, before he had time to turn upon her, flung him upon the floor, and crushed him under her sandalled heel. Passionately embracing her dear charge, she hastened with her to the apartments of the queen, and related the story of her narrow escape, with so much of the eloquence of gratitude for being the favored instrument of her deliverance from so cruel a death, that it deeply affected the heart of the queen. She embraced her child and Karee, as if both were, for the moment, equally dear to her; and then, in return for the faithful service, rendered at the hazard of her own life, she promised to bestow upon the slave whatever she chose to ask. “Give me, O give me freedom, and a chinampa, and I ask no more,” was the eager reply of Karee to this unexpected offer of the queen. The request was immediately granted; and the first sorrow that ever clouded the heart of the lovely Tecuichpo, was that of parting with her faithful and loving Karee.

A chinampa was a floating island in the lake of Tezcuco, upon whose very bosom the imperial city was built. They were very numerous, and some of them were large, and extremely beautiful. They were formed by the alluvial deposit in the waters of the lake, and by occasional masses of earth detached from the shores, held together by the fibrous roots, with which they were penetrated, and which in that luxurious clime, put out their feelers in every direction, and gathered to their embrace whatever of nutriment and support the richly impregnated waters afforded. In the process of a few years accumulation, the floating mass increased in length, breadth and thickness, till it became an island, capable of sustaining not only shrubs and trees, but sometimes a human habitation. Some of these were from two to three hundred feet square, and could be moved about at pleasure, like a raft, from city to city, along the borders of the lake. The natives, who were skilful gardeners, and passionately devoted to the cultivation of flowers, improved upon this beautiful hint of nature, to enlarge their means of supplying the capital with fruits, vegetables and flowers. Constructing small rafts of reeds, anchoring them out in the lake, and then covering them with the sediment drawn up from the bottom, they soon found them covered with a thrifty vegetation, and a vigorous soil, from which they were able to produce a large supply of the various luxuries of their highly favored clime.

It was to one of these fairy gardens that the beautiful Karee retired, rich in the priceless jewel of freedom, and feeling that a chinampa all her own, and flowers to train and commune with, was the summit of human desire. Karee was no common character. Gifted by nature with unusual talents, she had, though in adverse circumstances, cultivated them by all the means in her power. Remarkably quick of perception, and shrewd and accurate of observation, with a memory that retained every thing that was committed to it, in its exact outlines and proportions, she was enabled to gather materials for improvement from every scene through which she passed. Her imagination was exceedingly powerful and active, sometimes wild and terrific, but kept in balance by a sound judgment and a discriminating taste. Her love of flowers was a passion, a part of her nature. For her they had a language, if not a soul. And there was not one of all the endless varieties of that luxuriant clime, that had not a definite and emphatic place in the vocabulary of her fancy. The history of her life she could have written in her floral dialect, and to her, though its lines might have faded rapidly, its pages would have been always legible and eloquent. Her attachments were strong and enduring, and there was that element of heroism in her soul, that she would unhesitatingly have sacrificed life for the object of her love.

It is not to be wondered at, that, with such qualities of mind and heart, Karee was deeply impressed with the solemn and imposing superstitions of the Aztec religion. The rites and ceremonies by which they were illustrated and sustained, were well calculated to stir to its very depths, a soul like hers, and give the fullest exercise to her wild imagination. That pompous ritual, those terrible orgies, repeated before her eyes almost daily from her infancy, had become blended with the thoughts and associations of her mind, and intimately related to every scene that interested her heart, or engaged her fancy. Yet her soul was not enslaved to that dark and dismal superstition. Though accustomed to an awful veneration of the priesthood, she did not regard them as a superior race of beings, or listen to their words, as if they had been audible voices from heaven. Her spirit shrunk from many of the darker revelations of the established mythology, and openly revolted from some of its inhuman exactions. Its chains hung loosely upon her; and she seemed fully prepared for the freedom of a purer and loftier faith. Her extreme beauty, her bewitching gaiety, and her varied talents, attracted many admirers, and some noble and worthy suitors. But Karee had another destiny to fulfil. She felt herself to be the guardian angel of the ill-fated Tecuichpo, and her love for the princess left no room for any other passion in her heart. She therefore refused all solicitations, and remained the solitary mistress of her floating island.

Karee’s departure from the palace, did not in any degree lessen her interest in the welfare of the young princess. She was assiduous in her attention to every thing that could promote her happiness; and seemed to value the flowers she cultivated on her chinampa chiefly as they afforded her the means of daily correspondence with Tecuichpo. She managed her island like a canoe, and moved about from one part of the beautiful lake to another, visiting by turns the cities that glittered on its margin, and sometimes traversing the valleys in search of new flowers, or exploring the ravines and caverns of the mountains for whatever of rare and precious she might chance to find. The chivalry of the Aztecs rendered such adventures perfectly safe, their women being always regarded with the greatest tenderness and respect, and treated with a delicacy seldom surpassed in the most civilized countries of Christendom.

This chivalric sentiment was, not improbably heightened, in the case of Karee, in part by her extreme beauty, and in part by the power of her genius and the brilliancy of her wit. She commanded respect by the force of her intellect, and the purity of her heart; while the uncommon depth and splendor of her imagination, when excited by any favorite theme, and the seemingly inexhaustible fruitfulness of her mental resources, invested her, in the view of the multitude, with something of the dignity, and much of the superstitious charm of a prophetess.

[A] A mantle of coarse cotton fabric, which all who approached the emperor were compelled to put on, in token of humility and reverence.

CHAPTER II.

YOUTH OF THE PRINCESS—HER EARLY LOVE REVEALED—PROPHETIC ANNOUNCEMENT AND SUDDEN ARRIVAL OF THE SPANIARDS.

The childhood of the fair princess passed away without any event of importance, except the occasional recurrence of those dark prophecies which overshadowed her entrance into life. Her father, who had exercised the office of priest before he came to the throne, was thoroughly imbued with the superstitious reverence for astrology, which formed a part of the religion of the Aztecs. To all the predictions of this mystic science he yielded implicit belief, regarding whatever it foreshadowed as the fixed decrees of fate. He was, therefore, fully prepared, and always on the look-out, for new revelations to confirm and establish his faith. These were sometimes found in the trivial occurrences of every-day life, and sometimes in the sinister aspect of the heavenly bodies, at peculiar epochs in the life of his daughter. With this superstitious foreboding of evil, the pensive character of the princess harmonized so well, as to afford, to the mind of the too credulous monarch, another unquestionable indication of her destiny. It seemed to be written on her brow, that her life was a doomed one; and each returning year was counted as the last, and entered upon with gloomy forebodings of some terrible catastrophe.

As her life advanced, her charms, both of person and character matured and increased; and, at the age of fourteen, there was not a maiden in all the golden cities of Anahuac, who could compare with Tecuichpo. Her exceeding loveliness was the theme of many a song, and the fame of her beauty and her accomplishments was published in all the neighboring nations. While yet a child, her hand was eagerly sought by Cacamo, of the royal house of Tezcuco; but, with the true chivalry of an unselfish devotion, his suit was withdrawn, on discovering that her young affections were already engaged to another. The discovery was made in a manner too singular and striking to be suffered to pass unnoticed.

In the course of her wanderings in the forest, Karee had taken captive a beautiful parrot, of the most gorgeous plumage, and the most astonishing capacity. This chatterer, after due training and discipline, she had presented to her favorite princess, among a thousand other tokens of her unchangeable affection. Tecuichpo loved the beautiful mimic, to whom she gave the name of Karee-o-thán—the voice of Karee,—and often amused herself with teaching her to repeat the words which she loved best to hear. Without being aware of the publicity she was thus giving to her most treasured thoughts, she entrusted to the talkative bird the secret of her love, by associating with the most endearing epithets, the name of her favored cavalier. While strolling about the magnificent gardens attached to the palace of Montezuma, Cacamo was wont to breathe out, in impassioned song, his love for Tecuichpo, repeating her name, with every expression of passionate regard, which the language afforded. Karee-o-thán was often flying about in the gardens, and soliloquizing in the arbors, the favorite resorts of her beautiful mistress, and often attracted the notice of Cacamo.

One evening, as the prince was more than usually eloquent in pouring into the ear of Zephyr the tale of his love, the mimic bird, perched upon a flowering orange tree, that filled the garden with its delicious perfume, repeated the name of his mistress, as often as her lover uttered it, occasionally connecting with it the name of Guatimozin, and then adding some endearing epithet, expressive of the most ardent admiration. The prince was first amused, and then vexed, at the frequent repetition of the name of his rival. In vain did he endeavor to induce the mischievous bird to substitute his own name for that of Guatimozin. As often as he uttered the name of the princess, the echo in the orange tree gave back “noble Guatimozin,” or “sweet Guatimozin,” or some other similar response, which left no doubt on the mind of Cacamo, that the heart of his mistress was pre-occupied, and that the nephew of Montezuma was the favored object of her love. The next day, he bade adieu to Tenochtitlan, placed himself at the head of the army of Tezcuco, and plunged into a war then raging with a distant tribe on the west, hoping to bury his disappointment in the exciting scenes of conquest.

Guatimozin was of the royal blood, and, as his after history will show, of a right royal and heroic spirit. From his childhood, he had exhibited an unusual maturity of judgment, coupled with an energy, activity, and fearlessness of spirit, which gave early assurance of a heroism worthy of the supreme command, and an intellectual superiority that might claim succession to the throne. His training was in the court and the camp, and he seemed equally at home and in his element, amid the refined gaieties of the palace, the grave deliberations of the royal council, and the mad revelry of the battle-field. His figure was of the most perfect manly proportions, tall, commanding, graceful—his countenance was marked with that peculiar blending of benignity and majesty, which made it unspeakably beautiful and winning to those whom he loved, and terrible to those on whom he frowned. He was mild, humane, generous, confiding; yet sternly and heroically just. His country was his idol. The one great passion of his soul, to which all other thoughts and affections were subordinate and tributary, was patriotism. On that altar, if he had possessed a thousand lives, he would freely have laid them all. Such was the noble prince who had won the heart of Tecuichpo.

Meanwhile, to the anxious eye of her imperial father, the clouds of fate seemed to hang deep and dark over the realm of Anahuac. Long before the prophetic wail, which welcomed the lovely Tecuichpo to a life of sorrow, Montezuma had imbibed from the dark legends of ancient prophecies, and the faint outgivings of his own priestly oracles, a deep and ineradicable impression that some terrible calamity was impending over the realm, and that he was to be the last of its native monarchs. It was dimly foreshadowed, in these prophetic revelations, that the descendants of a noble and powerful race of men, who had many ages before occupied that beautiful region, and filled it with the works of their genius, but who had been driven out by the cruelty and perfidy of the Toltecs, would return, invested with supernatural power from heaven, to re-possess their ancient inheritance.[B] To this leading and long established faith, every dark and doubtful omen contributed its appropriate share of confirmation. To this, every significant event was deemed to have a more or less intimate relation. So that, at this particular epoch, not only the superstitious monarch, and his priestly astrologers, but the whole nation of Azteca were prepared, as were the ancient Jews at the advent of the Messiah, for great events, though utterly unable to imagine what might be the nature of the expected change.

These gloomy forebodings of coming evil so thoroughly possessed the mind of Montezuma, that the commanding dignity and pride of the monarch gave way before the absorbing anxiety of the man and the father, and, in a manner, unfitted him for the duties of the lofty place he had so nobly filled. He yielded, as will be seen in the sequel, not without grief, but without resistance, to the fixed decrees of fate, and awaited the issue, as a victim for the heaven-appointed sacrifice.

It was about fifteen years after the prophetic announcement of the doom of the young princess of the empire, that Montezuma was reclining in his summer saloon, where he had been gloomily brooding over his darkening prospects, till his soul was filled with sadness. His beautiful daughter was with him, striving to cheer his heart with the always welcome music of her songs, and the affectionate expression of a love as pure and deep as ever warmed the heart of a devoted child. She had gone that day into the royal presence to ask a boon for her early and faithful friend, Karee. This lovely and gifted creature, now in the full maturity of all her wonderful powers of mind, and personal attractions, had often been admitted, as a special favorite, into the royal presence, to exhibit her remarkable powers of minstrelsy, and her almost supernatural gifts as an improvisatrice of the wild melodies of Anahuac. Some of her chants were of rare pathos and sublimity, and sometimes she was so carried away with the impassioned vehemence of her inspiration, that she seemed an inspired messenger from the skies, uttering in their language the oracles of the gods. On this occasion, she had requested permission to sing a new chant in the palace, that she might seize the opportunity to breathe a prophetic warning in the ear of the emperor. She had thrice dreamed that the dark cloud which had so long hung over that devoted land, had burst in an overwhelming storm, upon the capital, and buried Montezuma and all his house in indiscriminate ruin. She had seen the demon of destruction, in the guize of a snow white angel, clad in burnished silver, borne on a fiery animal, of great power, and fleet as the wind, having under him a small band of warriors, guarded and mounted like himself, armed with thunderbolts which they hurled at will against all who opposed their progress. She had seen the monarch of Tenochtitlan, with his hosts of armed Mexicans, and the tributary armies of Tezcuco, Islacapan, Chalco, and all the cities of that glorious valley, tremble and cower before this small band of invaders, and yield himself without a blow to their hands. She had seen the thousands and tens of thousands of her beloved land fall before this handful of strangers, and melt away, like the mists of the morning before the rising sun. And she had heard a voice from the dark cloud as it broke, saying, sternly, as the forked lightning leaped into the heart of the imperial palace, “The gods help only those who help themselves.”

Filled and agitated with the stirring influence of this prophetic vision, Karee, who had always regarded herself as the guardian genius of Tecuichpo, now imagined the sphere of her duty greatly enlarged, and deemed herself specially commissioned to save the empire from impending destruction. Weaving her vision, and the warning it uttered, into one of her most impassioned chants, and arraying herself as the priestess of nature, she followed Tecuichpo, with a firm step into the royal presence, and, with the boldness and eloquence of a prophetess, warned him of the coming danger, and urged him to arouse from his apathy, unbecoming the monarch of a proud and powerful nation, cast off the slavery of his superstitious fears, and prepare to meet, with the power of a man, and the wisdom of a king, whatever evil might come upon him. Rising with the kindling inspiration of her theme, she ventured gently to reproach the awe-struck monarch with his unmanly fears, and to remind him that on his single will, and the firmness of his soul, hung not only his own destiny but that of wife and children; and more than that, of a whole nation, whose myriads of households looked up to him, as the common father of them all, the heaven-appointed guardian of their lives, liberty and happiness. At length, alarmed at her own energy and boldness, so unwonted even to the proudest noble of the realm, in that royal presence, she bent her knee, and baring her bosom, she lowered her voice almost to a whisper, and said imploringly—

The vision of the beautiful pythoness had deeply and powerfully affected the soul of Montezuma; and her closing appeal moved him even to tears. Though accustomed to the most obsequious deference from all his subjects, even from the proudest of his nobles, he had listened to every word of Karee with the profoundest attention and interest, as if it had been from the acknowledged oracle of heaven. When she ceased, there was a breathless silence in the hall. The monarch drew his lovely daughter to his bosom in a passionate embrace. Karee remained prostrate, with her face to the ground, her heart throbbing almost audibly with the violence of her emotions. Suddenly, a deep long blast from a distant trumpet announced the arrival of a courier at the capital. It was a signal for all the attendants to retire. Tecuichpo tenderly kissing her father, took Karee by the hand, raised her up and led her out, and the monarch was left alone.

In a few moments, the courier arrived and entering, barefoot and veiled, into the royal presence, bowed to the very ground, handed a scroll to the king, and departed. When Montezuma had unrolled the scroll, he seemed for a moment, as if struck with instant paralysis. Fear, astonishment, dismay, seized upon his soul. The vision of Karee was already fulfilled. The pictured tablet was the very counterpart of her oracular chant—the literal interpretation of her prophetic vision. It announced the arrival within the realms of Montezuma, of a band of pale faced strangers, clad in burnished armor, each having at his command a beautiful animal of great power, hitherto unknown in that country, that bore him with the speed of the wind wherever he would go, and seemed, while he was mounted, to be a part of himself. It described their weapons, representing them as having the lightning and thunder at their disposal, which they caused to issue sometimes from dark heavy engines, which they dragged along the ground, and sometimes from smaller ones which they carried in their hands. It delineated, faithfully and skilfully their “water houses,” or ships, in which they traversed the great waters, from a far distant country. The peculiar costume and bearing of their commander, and of his chiefs, were also happily represented in the rich coloring for which the Aztecs were distinguished. Nothing was omitted in their entire array, which could serve to convey to the eye of the emperor a correct and complete impression of the appearance, numbers and power of the strangers. It was all before him, at a glance, a living speaking picture, and told the story of the invasion as graphically and eloquently, as if he had been himself a witness of their debarkation, and of their feats of horsemanship. It was all before him, a terrible living reality. The gods whom he worshipped had sent these strangers to fulfil their own irresistible purposes—if, indeed, these were not the gods themselves, in human form.

The mind of Montezuma was overwhelmed. Like Belshazzar, when the divine hand appeared writing his doom on the wall, his soul fainted in him, his knees smote together, and he sat, in blank astonishment, gazing on the picture before him, as if the very tablet possessed a supernatural power of destruction.

Paralyzed with the influence of his long indulged fears so singularly and strikingly realized, the monarch sat alone, neither seeking comfort, nor asking counsel of any one, till the hour of the evening repast. The summons aroused him from his reverie; but he regarded it not. He remained alone, in his own private apartments, during the whole night, fasting and sleepless, traversing the marble halls in an agony of agitation.

With the first light of the morning, the shrill notes of the trumpet, reverberating along the shadowy slopes of the cordilleras, announced the approach of another courier from the camp of the strangers. It rung in the ears of the dejected monarch, like an alarum. He awoke at once from his stupor, and began to consider what was to be done. The warning of Karee rushed upon his recollection. Her bold and timely appeal struck him to the heart. He resolved to be once more the monarch, and the father of his people. Uttering an earnest prayer to all his gods, he awaited the arrival of the courier.

Swift of foot as the mountain deer, the steps of the messenger were soon heard, measuring with solemn pace, the long corridor of the royal mansion, as one who felt that he was approaching the presence of majesty, and bearing a message pregnant with the most important issues to the common weal. Bowing low, with that profound reverence, which was rigorously exacted of all who approached the presence of Montezuma, he touched the ground with his right hand, and then, his eyes bent to the earth, delivered his pictured scroll, and retired. It was a courteous and complimentary message from the strangers he so much dreaded, requesting that they might be permitted to pay their respects to his imperial majesty, in his own capital. The quick-sighted monarch perceived at once that prudence and policy required that this interview should be prevented.

A council of the wisest and most experienced of the Aztec nobles was immediately called. The opinions of the royal advisers were variously expressed, but all, with one accord, agreed that the request of the strangers could not be granted. Some counselled a bold and warlike message, commanding the intruders to depart instantly, on pain of the royal displeasure. Some recommended their forcible expulsion by the army of the empire. The more aged and experienced, who had learned how much easier it is to avoid, than to escape, a danger, proposed a more courteous and peaceable reply to the message of the strangers. They deemed it unworthy of a great and powerful monarch, to be angry, when the people of another nation visited his territories, or requested permission to see his capital. To manifest, or feel any thing like fear, in such a case, would be a reproach alike upon his courage and his patriotism. So long, therefore, as the strangers conducted themselves peaceably, and with becoming deference to the will of the emperor, and the laws of the realm, they should be treated civilly, and hospitably entertained.

To this wise and prudent counsel, the monarch was already fully prepared to yield. It was strongly seconded by his superstitious reverence for the heaven-sent strangers, and his mortal dread of their superhuman power. He, therefore, selected the noblest and wisest of his chiefs as ambassadors, to bear his message, which was kindly and courteously expressed; at the same time conveying a firm but respectful refusal to admit the foreigners to an interview in the capital, or to extend to them the protection of the court, after a reasonable time had elapsed for their re-embarkation. This message was accompanied with a munificent royal present, consisting of the richest and most beautiful suits of apparel for the chief and all his men, with gorgeous capes and robes of feather-work, glittering with jewels—precious stones richly set in gold, and many magnificent ornaments of pure gold.

At the head of this embassy were princes of high estate, and most noble bearing, commanding in person, and of great distinction, both at the court and in the camp. When they arrived near the encampment of the strangers, which was the spot where the city of Vera Cruz now stands, they sent a courier forward, to announce their approach, and prepare for their reception.

The meeting of the parties was one of no little pomp and ceremony, for the courtly manners and chivalric bearing of the European cavaliers were scarcely superior, in impressiveness and effect, to the barbaric splendor, and graceful consciousness of power, which characterized the flower of the Aztec nobility. The chief, advancing towards the invaders, bowed low to earth, touching the ground with his right hand, then raising it to his head, and presenting it to his guest, announced himself as the envoy and servant of the great Montezuma, sole monarch and master of all the realms of Anahuac; and demanded the name of the stranger, the country from which he came, and the motives which induced him to trespass upon the sacred territories of his royal master, and to presume to ask an interview with the emperor, in his capital. The Castilian chieftain, with a courteous and knightly bearing replied, that his name was Hernando Cortez—that he was one of the humblest of the servants of the great Charles, the mighty monarch of Spain, and sovereign ruler of the Indies, and that he had come, with his little band of followers, to pay his court to the great Montezuma, and to bear to him the fraternal salutation of his master, which he could only deliver in person.

The reply of the Mexican was dignified, courteous, and pointed, and left no hope to the Spaniard, that he would then be able to effect his purpose, of visiting in person the golden city. “If,” said the prince, “your monarch had come himself to our shores, he might well demand a personal meeting with our lord, the emperor, but when he sends his servant to represent him, he surely cannot presume to do more than communicate with the servants of the great Montezuma. If it were possible that another sun should visit yonder sky, he might look upon our sun, in his march, and move and shine in his presence. But the moon and the stars cannot shine when he is abroad. They can look upon each other only when he withdraws his light.”

The royal message having been delivered, the presents which accompanied it were brought forward, and spread out upon mats, in front of the general’s tent. The Spaniards were struck, with surprise and admiration at the fineness of the texture of the cloths, the richness of their dyes, the gorgeous coloring and tasteful arrangement of the feather-work, the masterly workmanship and exquisite finish of the jewelry, and, above all, the immense value, and magnificent size of the golden toys which were presented them. They conceived, at once, the most exalted ideas of the riches of the country, and the munificence and splendor of the monarch that ruled over it. Their avarice and cupidity were strongly excited, and more than one of the inferior officers, as well as their general, formed the immediate resolution, that, in despite of the imperial interdict, they would endeavor, either by diplomacy or by force, to win their way to the capital, which they supposed must of necessity be the grand depository of all the treasures in the empire. Their intentions were kept secret, even from each other, and, under cover of a specious submission to the expressed will of the monarch, Cortez requested permission to delay his departure, till his men should be recruited, and his stores replenished for his long voyage.

Meanwhile, taking advantage of this unauthorized reprieve, the artful and indefatigable Castilian contrived to draw off from their unwilling and burdensome allegiance to Montezuma, the Totonacs, a considerable tribe, residing in that part of the country where he had effected his landing; and so to impress them with a sense of his own power and the lenity of his government, as to bind them to him in a solemn treaty of alliance. He also sent an embassy to the Tlascalans, a nation that had long maintained its independence against the ambitious encroachments of Mexico, and held Montezuma their natural and only foe. They were a brave and warlike people, and nearly as far advanced in the arts of civilization as their enemies. Their government was a kind of republic. Cortez, with magniloquent pretensions of invincible power, and inexhaustible resources, proposed to assist the Tlascalans in reducing the power of Mexico, and putting an end to the oppressions and exactions of Montezuma. For this purpose, he asked leave to pass through their country, on his march to the great capital.

Distrusting the intentions of the strangers, and fearing that, instead of a disinterested friend and ally, they should find in them only a new enemy, whom, once admitted, they could never expel from their dominions, and whose yoke might be even harder to bear than that which the Aztec monarch had in vain attempted to fasten upon them—the proposed alliance of the Spaniards was rejected, with such bold and ample demonstrations of hostility, as left no room for doubt, that any attempt to force a passage through their territories, would be fiercely and ably contested.

Never daunted by obstacles, though somewhat perplexed, the brave Cortez rushed forward, encountered the almost countless hosts of the Tlascalan army, and, after several severe and deadly contests, in which the skill and prowess of his handful of men, with their terrible horses and yet more terrible fire-arms, were nearly overpowered by the immense numbers, astonishing bravery, and comparative skill of the enemy, he succeeded in terrifying them into submission, and winning them to a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, against the tyrant Montezuma, the common enemy of all the nations of Anahuac. By these singular and unparalleled successes, the little band of Castilian adventurers found themselves fortified, in the heart of the country, in close alliance with two powerful tribes, who swelled their army to ten times its original number, besides supplying them liberally with all the provisions that were needed for themselves and horses.

Never was adventure so rashly undertaken, or so boldly pushed, as this singular expedition of the Spanish cavaliers. And never, probably, were there associated, in one little band, so many of the master spirits of chivalry, the true material of a conquering army. The compeers of Cortez, who submitted to his authority, and acted in perfect harmony with him, as if they were but subordinate parts of himself, were each competent to command a host, and lead it on to certain victory. The impetuous, daring Alvarado, the cool, courageous, trusty Sandoval, the high-spirited, chivalrous Olid, the rash, head-long, cruel Velasquez de Leon, and others, worthy to be the comrades of these, and of Cortez—when have the ranks of the war-god assigned so many master spirits to one enterprize? And the brave, the gifted, the indomitable Xicotencatl, the mountain chief of Tlascala, whom the Spaniards, with so much difficulty, first subdued and then won to their cause, as an ally—what a noble personification of the soul and spirit of heroism, realizing in personal bravery, martial skill and prowess, and in all the commanding qualities of person and of character, which go to constitute the victorious warrior, the best pictures of the type-heroes of epic poetry and history.

In all their previous discoveries in the New World, the progress of the Spaniards to victory was easy, and almost unresisted. The invaders of Mexico, however, found themselves suddenly introduced to a new people, and new scenes—to nations of warriors, to races intelligent, civilized, and competent to self-government and self-defence. And all the skill, courage, and energy of their ablest commanders, and their bravest men, would have availed them nothing in their herculean enterprize, if they had not craftily and skilfully worked upon the jealousies and differences existing between the various tribes and nations of Anahuac, and fomented the long smothered discontents, and unwritten complaints of an over-taxed and sternly-governed people, into open and clamorous resistance to the despotic sway of Montezuma. It is curious and melancholy to observe, how eagerly they shook off the golden yoke of their hereditary monarch, for the iron one of a new master, and exchanged their long-established servitude to their legitimate king and their pagan gods, for a more galling, hopeless, and wasting slavery to the cruel and rapacious invader, under the life-promising Sign of the Cross, the desecrated banner of the Prince of Peace.

[ [B] One version of this singular prophetic legend represented the expected invaders, as the descendants of the ancient god Quetzalcoatl, who, ages agone, had voluntarily abdicated the throne of Anahuac, and departed to a far country in the East, with a promise to his afflicted people, that his children would ultimately return, and claim their ancient country and crown.

CHAPTER III.

SUPERSTITIOUS FEAR AND VACILLATING POLICY OF MONTEZUMA.

While these events were transpiring in the ever moving camp of the victorious invaders, the imperial court of Tenochtitlan was agitated and distracted by the divided counsels and wavering policy of the superstitious, fear-stricken monarch, and his various advisers. At one time, deeply offended by their audacious disregard of his positive prohibitions, and roused to a sense of his duty as a king, by the prophetic warning of Karee, which never ceased to ring in his ears, Montezuma was almost persuaded to give in to the war-party, and send out an army that should overwhelm the strangers at a blow. But, before this noble purpose had time to mature itself into action, all his superstitious fears would revive, and, without coming to any decision either to move or stand still, he would pause in timid inaction, till some new success had made the invaders more formidable than before, and invested their mission with something more of that preternatural sacredness, which alone had power to unman the monarch, and disarm his craving ambition. At each advance of the conquering Castilians, he realized the growing necessity of prompt and efficient measures of defence, while at the same time he felt a greater reluctance to contend with fate. The result was, that he only dallied with the foe, by continually sending new embassies, each, with larger and richer presents than the preceding, having no effect but to add fuel to their already burning thirst for gold, and strengthen their determination to accomplish their original purpose.

These royal embassies were less and less firm and peremptory in their terms, until they assumed the tone of expostulation, and assigning various and often conflicting reasons why the Spaniards should not pursue their route any farther towards the imperial city. At length, when the courier announced the arrival of the mysterious band at Tlascala, and the consummation of the alliance between them and his old and bitter enemies, together with the defection of many cities and districts, he felt it impossible to remain any longer undecided. His throne trembled under him. He must act, or it would fall, and involve him and his house in inevitable ruin. Instead, however, of a bold and masterly activity in the defence of his capital and crown, he changed his policy altogether, and sending a new embassy with more splendid gifts than ever, invited the strangers to his court, and promised them all the hospitalities of his empire. He designated the route they should pursue, and gave orders for their reception in all the towns and cities through which they should pass.

Montezuma was politic and wise in some things; and the purpose he had now in view, if it had not been frustrated, would have been deemed a master-stroke of policy, worthy of the ablest disciples of the Macchiavellian school. Perceiving the necessity of breaking up this combination of new and old enemies, he had recourse to stratagem to effect it, intending that the strangers, whom he dared not to oppose with direct violence, should fall into the snare they had laid for themselves, in thrusting themselves forward, in despite of his repeated remonstrances, into the heart of his empire. He feared to raise his own hand to destroy them, because they were, in his view, commissioned of heaven to overturn his throne; but he deemed it perfectly consistent with this reverence for the decrees of fate, to lay a snare into which they should fall, and so destroy themselves. He little understood the watchfulness and circumspection of the man he had to deal with, or the tremendous advantage which their armor of proof and their engines of destruction gave the Europeans over the almost naked Mexicans, with their primitive weapons of offence. It was his plan to separate the foreigners from their new Indian allies, and invite them to come alone to the capital, as was first proposed. And he designed to assign them accommodations in one of the ancient palaces, in the heart of the city, where, surrounded by high walls, on every side, they should be shut up from all intercourse with the people, and left to perish of famine.

When this purpose was formed, the monarch kept it a profound secret in his own breast. The ambassadors whom he sent to the Castilian camp, were of the highest ranks of the nobility, and were accompanied by a long train of slaves, bearing the rich presents, by which the wily monarch hoped at the same time to display his own royal munificence, and to propitiate the favor of the dreaded strangers. Every new display of this kind only served more effectually to defeat his own hopes; for the avarice of the Spaniards, whose lust of gold was absolutely insatiable, was so far from being satisfied with this profusion of royal gifts, that it was only the more inflamed with every new accession to their treasures. The only effect, therefore, of these repeated embassies was to confirm the Spaniards in their convictions of the conscious weakness of the Mexicans, and make them the more resolute in pushing forward to complete the subjugation of the whole country, and possess themselves of all its seemingly inexhaustible treasures of gold.

Montezuma had now another difficulty to contend with, in his endeavor to rid himself of the intruders. The Tlascalans represented him to Cortez as false and deceitful as he was ambitious and rapacious, and used every argument in their power to dissuade him from committing himself to his hands. But the bold adventurer, always confident in his own resources, seemed never to think of danger when an object was to be accomplished, or to regard any thing as impossible which he desired to attain. As soon as the door was thrown open to his amicable approach to the capital, he set himself to prepare for the march. The expostulations and suspicions of the Tlascalans made him, perhaps, more careful in his preparations against a surprise, and more rigorous in the discipline of his little corps, than he might otherwise have been. Wherever he was, his camp was as cautiously posted, as fully and rigidly guarded as if, on the eve of battle, he was hourly expecting an assault. This watchfulness was maintained throughout the whole adventurous campaign, as well when in the midst of friends and allies, as when surrounded by hostile legions.

After the royal ambassadors had departed with their pacific message, the mind of Montezuma was harassed and agitated with many doubts of the propriety of the course he had adopted. His nobles, and the tributary princes of the neighboring cities of Tezcuco, Tlacopan, and Iztapalapan, were divided in their opinions. Some complained, though not loudly, of the weak and vacillating policy of the king. Some, even of the common people, feared the consequences, anticipating the most disastrous results, in accordance with their superstitious veneration for the oracles of their faith. The third day after the departure of the envoys, the king was pacing up and down one of the beautifully shaded walks of the royal gardens, listening with a disturbed mind to the powerful expostulations of his brother, Cuitlahua, who, from the beginning, had vehemently opposed every concession to the invaders, and urgently solicited permission to lead the army against them, and drive them from the land. Suddenly, a voice as of a distant choir of chanters arrested his ear. The melody was solemn, sweet and soothing. It seemed to come sometimes from the upper regions of the air, in tones of silvery clearness and power, sometimes from beneath, in suppressed and muffled harmony, as when the swell organ soliloquises with all its valves closed,—sometimes it retreated, as if dying into an echo along the distant avenues of royal palms and aged cypresses, or the citron and orange groves that skirted the farther end of the garden, and then, suddenly, and with great power, it burst in the full tide of impassioned song, from every tree and bower in that vast paradise of terrestrial sweets. Enchanted by the more than Circean melody, the brothers paused in their animated discourse, and stood, for a few moments, in silent wonder and fixed attention. Presently the chanting ceased, and one solitary voice broke forth in plaintive but emphatic recitative as from the midst of the sparkling jet that played its ceaseless tune in the grand porphyritic basin near which they stood. The words, which were simple and oracular, struck deep into the heart of Montezuma, and found a ready response in that of his royal brother.

The pauses in this significant chant were followed by choral symphonies, expressing, as eloquently as inarticulate sounds could do, the most earnest remonstrance, the most moving expostulation. When this was concluded, the same sweet voice broke forth again, in tones of solemn tenderness and majestic power, in a prophetic warning to Montezuma.

The effect of this mysterious warning upon the mind of Montezuma was exceedingly powerful, and seemed, for a time, to change his purpose and fix his resolution. With an energy and decision to which he had long been a stranger, he turned to his brother, and said, “Cuitlahua, you are right. This realm is mine. The gods have made me the father of this people. I must and will defend them. The strangers shall be driven back, or die. They shall never profane the temples and altars of Tenochtitlan, by entering within its gates, or looking upon its walls. Go, marshall your host, and prepare to meet them, before they advance a step further.”

Exulting in this sudden demonstration of his ancient martial spirit in his royal brother, and fired with a double zeal in the cause he had so much at heart, by the thrilling influence upon his soul of the mysterious oracle, whose message had been uttered in his hearing, Cuitlahua scarcely waited for the ordinary courtesy of bidding farewell to the king, but flew with the speed of the wind, to execute the grateful trust committed to him. Despatching his messengers in every direction, only a few hours elapsed before his army was drawn up in the great square of the city; and, ere the sun had gone down, they had passed the gates, traversed the grand causeway that linked the amphibious city with the main land, and pitched their camp in a favorable position, several leagues on the way to Cholula.

The ardent imagination of the prince of Iztapalapan kindled at the prospect now opened before. The clouds, so long hanging over his beloved country, were dissipated as by magic, and the clear light of heaven streamed in upon his path, promising a quick and easy conquest, a glorious triumph, and a permanent peace. He had been in many battles, but had never been defeated. He believed the Mexican army invincible any where, but especially on their own soil, and fighting for their altars and their hearths. Terrible as the invading strangers had been hitherto, he had no fear of the coming encounter. He confidently expected to annihilate them at a blow. Happily his soldiers were all animated with the same spirit, and they took to their rest that night, eager for the morning to come, that should light them on their way to a certain and glorious victory.

No sooner had the army departed, than a change came over the spirit of the ill-fated Montezuma. The demons of doubt and fear returned to perplex and harass his soul, and to incline him again to that vacillating policy, those half way measures, by which his doom was to be sealed. In an agony of distrust and suspense, he recounted to himself the history of the past, reviewing all those dark and fearful prophecies, those oft-repeated and mysteriously significant omens, which, for so many years, had foreshadowed the events of the present day, and revealed the inevitable doom of the empire, sealed with the signet of heaven. The impressions produced by the recent warnings of Karee faded and disappeared before the deep and indelible traces of those ancient oracles, on which he had been accustomed from his youth sacredly to rely. He was once more adrift in a tempest of contending impulses, at one moment abandoning all in a paroxism of despair, at another, vainly flattering himself with the hope of deliverance in some ill-formed stratagem, but never nerving himself to a tone of resolute defiance, or venturing to rest a hope on the issue of an open encounter.

The result of all this agitation was, another abandonment of his noble purpose of defence, and a new resort to stratagem. But the plan of operations, and the scene of execution, were changed. Cholula was selected as the theatre of destruction. The Spaniards had already been invited to take that city in their route, and orders had been given, and preparations made, for their hospitable reception. It was now resolved to make their acceptance of that invitation the signal and seal of their destruction. They were to be drawn into the city, alone, under the pretence that the presence of their Tlascalan allies, who were the ancient and bitter enemies of the Cholulans, would be likely to create disturbance in the city, and lead to collision if not to bloodshed. The Cholulans were instructed to provide them with a place of encampment, in the heart of their city, where they could easily be surrounded, and cut to pieces. The streets of the city were then to be broken up by deep pits in some places, and barricades in others, to impede the movements of the horses, more dreaded than even the thunder and lightning of their riders. This being completed under cover of the night, the city was to be filled with soldiers ready to do the work of execution, while the brave Cuitlahua, with the flower of the army of Tenochtitlan, was to encamp at a convenient distance without the walls, to render prompt assistance, in case it should be needed.

This plan being fully arranged in the mind of the Emperor, messengers were despatched with the light of the morning, to arrest the movements of Cuitlahua, and convey the necessary orders to the governor of Cholula. The warlike chieftain was deeply chagrined, and bitterly disappointed, in finding his orders so suddenly countermanded. He saw only certain ruin in the ever-wavering policy of the king, and was unable to conceive of any hope, except in striking a bold and decisive blow. He was willing to stake all upon a single cast, and drive back the insolent invader, or perish in the attempt. But Montezuma was the absolute monarch. His word was law; and, though not irreversible like that of the Medo-Persian, it was never to be questioned by any of his subjects. The hero must therefore rest on his arms, and await the issue of a doubtful stratagem.

Meanwhile, the eager and self sufficient Castilians had pushed forward to Cholula, and entered its gates, under a royal escort, that came out to meet them, and amid the constrained shouts and half hearted congratulations of a countless multitude of natives, who with mingled fear, hatred and curiosity, gazed on the conquerors as a superior race of beings, and made way for them on every side, to take possession of their city. They were received with the greatest deference and consideration by the chiefs of the little republic, and the ambassadors of Montezuma, who had halted on their way, to prepare a more honorable reception for their guests, and further to ingratiate them with their master, by doing away, as far they could, the unfavorable impressions of him and his people, which might have made on their minds, by their intercourse with their old and implacable enemies of the republic of Tlascala.

Such was the mutual jealousy and hatred of these neighboring nations, that, while the Cholulans could, in no wise agree to admit the Tlascalans to accompany Cortez into their city, they, on their part, were extremely reluctant to allow him to go in alone, assuring him in the strongest terms, that they were the most treacherous and deceitful of men, and their promises and professions utterly unworthy of confidence. Scorning danger, however, and determined at all hazards, to embrace every opening that seemed to facilitate his approach to the Mexican capital, he marched fearlessly in, and took up his quarters in the great square, or market place. Here, ample accommodations were provided for him and his band. Every courtesy was extended to them by the citizens and their rulers. Their table was amply supplied with all the necessaries and luxuries of the place. They were regarded with a kind of superstitious awe by the multitude, as a race of beings belonging to another world, of ethereal mould, and supernatural powers; and their camp was visited by those of all ranks, and all ages, eager to catch a view of the terrible strangers.

A few days after their arrival, a new embassy from the imperial palace was announced. They held no communication with Cortez, but had a long consultation with the previous envoys still remaining there, and with the authorities of the city. From this time, there was a striking change in the aspect of the Cholulans towards their guests. They were soon made to perceive and feel that, though invited, they were not welcome guests. The daily supplies for their table were greatly diminished. They received but few and formal visits from the chiefs, and but cold attention from any of the nobles. Cortez was quick to perceive the change, but unable to divine its meaning. It caused him many an anxious hour, especially when he remembered the serious and urgent representations of his Tlascalan allies of the deceitful and treacherous character of the Cholulans. His apprehensions were by no means diminished, when he learned from the morning report of the night guards, that through the entire night, which had hitherto been a season of perfect silence and repose in the city, sounds were heard on every side, as of people earnestly engaged in some works of fortification, sometimes digging in the earth, sometimes laying up stones in heaps, and in various other ways, “vexing the dull ear of night with uncouth noise.” It was found, on examination, that the streets in many places were barricaded, and holes, in others, were lightly covered with branches of trees. Unable to explain these matters, and not wishing to give offence to his entertainers by enquiring too curiously into what might be no more than the ordinary preparation for a national festival, he sent one of his chief officers to report to the Tlascalan commander, without the gates of the city, and enquire what might be the meaning of these singular movements. Having learned in reply, that a hostile attack was undoubtedly contemplated, and that a large force of Mexicans, under command of the brave Cuitlahua, brother of Montezuma, was encamped at no great distance, ready to co-operate with the Cholulans at a moment’s warning, and that a great number of victims had been offered in sacrifice, to propitiate the favor of their gods, the haughty Spaniard found his position any thing but agreeable. He was a stranger to fear, but he was certainly most sadly perplexed. And, when, in addition to the information already received, he learned from Marina, his female interpreter, that she had been warned by a friend in the city to abandon the Spaniards, that she might not be involved in their ruin, he was, for a time, quite at a loss what to do. To retreat, would be to manifest fear, and a distrust of his own resources, which might be fatal to his future influence with the natives. To remain where he was—inactive, would be to stand still in the yawning crater of a volcano, when the overcharged cauldron below had already begun to belch forth sulphureous flames and smoke.

The character of the conqueror was one precisely adapted to such exigencies as this. Through the whole course of his wonderful career, he seems to have rushed into difficulty, for the mere pleasure of fighting his way out. In order to extricate himself, he never lost a moment in parleying or diplomacy. His measures were bold, decided, and direct, indicating a self-reliance, and a confidence in his men and means, which is the surest guaranty of success. In this case, having satisfied himself of the actual existence of a conspiracy, he sent for the chief rulers, upbraided them with their want of hospitality, informed them that he should leave the place at break of day the next morning, and demanded a large number of men, to assist in removing his baggage. Promising to comply with this demand, which favored the execution of their own designs, the chiefs departed, and Cortez and his band, sleeping on their arms, prepared for the coming conflict.

Punctually, at the peep of dawn, the princes of Cholula marched into the court, accompanied by a much larger number of men than Cortez had required. With a calm bold air, the haughty Castilian confronted them, charging them with treachery, and detailing all the circumstances of the concerted massacre. He upbraided them with their duplicity and baseness, and gave them to understand that they should pay dear for their false-hearted and cruel designs against those, who, confiding in their hospitality and promises of friendship, had come to their city, and slept quietly within their gates.

Thunderstruck at this unexpected turn of affairs, and fearing more than ever the strange beings, who could read their very thoughts, and fathom the designs which were yet scarcely matured in their own bosoms, the disconcerted magnates tremblingly pleaded guilty to the charge, and attempted to excuse themselves, by urging their allegiance to Montezuma, and the duty and necessity of obeying his commands, however repugnant to their own feelings.

It was not the policy of Cortez to admit this plea, in extenuation of their treachery. He preferred to cast the whole burden upon them alone, and leave the way open for an easy disclaimer on the part of the emperor, hoping thereby the more readily to gain a peaceable entry into the capital. Without waiting, therefore, for any further explanations, or instituting any inquiry into the comparative guilt of the parties, he gave the signal to his soldiers, who, with a general discharge of their artillery and fire arms, rushed upon the unprepared multitude, mowing them down like grass, and trampling them under the hoofs of their horses. A general massacre ensued. Not one of the chiefs escaped, and only so many of their panic-struck followers, as could feign themselves dead, or bury themselves, till the tempest was past, under the heaps of their slain comrades.

Thus taken by surprise, and driven, before they were ready, into an unequal conflict with enemies who had, by some miracle, as they supposed, anticipated their movements, and struck the first blow, the Cholulans rushed in from all parts of their city, hoping to retrieve, by their numbers and prowess, the disadvantage of the lost onset. Cortez had prepared for this. He had ordered his artillery to be stationed at the main entrances to the square, where they poured in a raking fire upon the assailants, rushing in from all the avenues. The surprise being so sudden, and the leaders having been shot down at the first charge, confusion and consternation prevailed among the discomfited Cholulans, who alternately fled, like affrighted sheep, from the scene of slaughter, and then rushed back, like exasperated wolves, to the work of death.

In anticipation of this conflict, the Spanish general had concerted a signal with his Tlascalan allies, without the gates, who now came rushing in, like hungry tigers, revelling in the opportunity to inflict a terrible vengeance upon their ancient enemies. Falling upon their rear, as they crowded in from the remoter quarters of the city towards the field of carnage, they drove them in upon the weapons of the Spaniards, from which there was now no escape. Turning upon this new enemy, they fought with desperate bravery, to win a retreat. But they were cut down on this side and that, till the streets were scarcely passable for the heaps of the dead and dying that cumbered them. Those who took refuge in their houses and temples, found no safety in such retreats, for they were instantly fired by the Tlascalans, and their defenders perished miserably in the flames.

There was one scene in the midst of this desolating conflict, that was truly sublime,—one of those strange combinations of moral and physical grandeur, which sometimes occur in the dark annals of human warfare, investing with a kind of hallowed interest, which the lapse of ages serves only to soften, but never destroys, those spectacles of savage but heroic cruelty, where every death is elevated into a martyrdom, and the very ground saturated with human blood becomes a consecrated field, clothed with laurels of never-fading green. It was the last act in that bloody drama, enacted on the lofty summit of the great Teocalli, the principal temple of Cholula, and the centre of attraction to all the votaries of the Aztec religion, throughout the wide realms of Anahuac. Driven from street to street, and from quarter to quarter, and falling back, as a forlorn hope, upon the sanctuary, and the support and encouragement of the hoary men, who presided over the mysteries of their faith, they made a bold and desperate stand, in defence of all that was dear and holy in their homes and their altars. Step by step, they contested this hallowed ground, till they reached the upper terrace, where the great temple stood. This was an area of four hundred feet square, at an elevation of two hundred feet from the level of the surrounding streets. On this elevated platform, the furious combatants fought hand to hand; the priest, in his sacred garments, mingling in the savage conflict with the humblest of his followers—the steel-clad Castilian, the Tlascalan and the Cholulan, of every rank and grade, each eager only to slay his man, grappled in the mortal conflict, till one or the other fell in the death struggle, or tumbled over the side of the mound, to be dashed in pieces below. As the half-armed, half-naked natives melted away before the heavy and destructive weapons of the invulnerable Spaniards, they were repeatedly offered quarter, but scorned to accept it. One only submitted, when, pierced with countless wounds, he could stand no longer. All the rest, to a man, fought desperately till he fell, and many, even then, in the agonies of the last struggle, seized their antagonists by the legs, and rolled with them over the parapet, to the certain death of both.

At length the conflict ceased for want of a victim, and the conquering Castilian, with a few of his Tlascalan allies, stood alone, in undisputed possession of this lofty vantage ground. The disheartened Cholulans, without leaders, without counsellors, seeing their sacred temple in the hands of their enemies, felt that all was lost. Not another blow was struck, but every where they bowed in submission to the irresistible conqueror.

The thunder of the artillery, and the smoke of the burning buildings, rising in a heavy column to the skies, announced to the Mexican army the conflict that was raging within the city. But, having orders not to engage in the fray, unless notified by the Cholulan chiefs that his assistance was necessary, the brave Cuitlahua was compelled to wait the summons. Burning to vindicate the honor of the Mexican arms, the hero chafed under this cruel restraint, like a tiger chained in full view of his prey. He little doubted that the Castilians would fall by the hands of the Cholulans, encompassed as they were on every side, with no room for escape, or for the action of their horses. But he longed to have a share in the victory. Drawing up his forces in the order of march, he stood, the whole day, in readiness to move at a moment’s warning; and in this attitude, he was still standing, when the tidings of the terrible disaster in the city reached him.

His veteran legions were with difficulty restrained from rushing to the rescue. The army was almost in a state of mutiny, from their eagerness to avenge their slaughtered brethren in Cholula; and all the military authority, and unbounded influence of Cuitlahua were required to keep them in a state of due subordination.

The influence and authority of Cortez, on the other hand, were scarcely sufficient to restrain his victorious allies from ravaging the city, and putting men, women, and children to an indiscriminate slaughter. So bitter and pervading was the old national animosity, that life was scarcely worth possessing to a Tlascalan, if he must share its daily blessings side by side with the Aztec. He hated the whole nation with a perfect implacable hatred. He execrated the very name, and never uttered it without a curse. Of this universal malediction, the Cholulan was honored with more than his appropriate share. The other subjects and tributaries of Montezuma they feared as well as hated. The Cholulans they affected also to despise, though their contempt was not so thorough as to mitigate in the least their fierce and uncontrollable hatred.

[ [C] As Americus Vespucius, in his letter to Lorenzo Di Pier-Francesco De Medici, reports having met with the lion in South America, I have taken the liberty to introduce him as a native in our forests, notwithstanding the prevalent opinion of naturalists to the contrary.

CHAPTER IV.

AGITATIONS IN THE CAPITAL—THE ROYAL HOUSEHOLD—THE SPANIARDS STEADILY ADVANCING.

This position of affairs suited the timid and vacillating policy of Montezuma. Finding that Cuitlahua, and his forces, had taken no part in the affair, and had not even visited the city, he immediately sent an embassy to the Spanish camp, disclaiming all participation in the treacherous counsels and doings of the Cholulans, and severely blaming them for their unheard of outrage upon the rites of hospitality. Whether the sharp-sighted Castilian placed any confidence in these professions, or not, it suited his designs to appear to do so. With the utmost seeming cordiality, he assured the royal messengers that it gave him the most heartfelt satisfaction to know that the treatment he had received at Cholula was not instigated or countenanced by their august master, that it was unworthy of a great and wise monarch, and that he should proceed on his route to the capital, with the same confidence as before, and visit the emperor as if nothing had happened to hinder his progress.

Withdrawing the forces under Cuitlahua, and giving orders every where for the hospitable reception and entertainment of the Castilians, whom he had no longer the heart to oppose either by stratagem or by force, Montezuma retired within his palace, and for several days shut himself up from all intercourse with his chiefs. He was now fully convinced that his destiny was sealed, and with it that of his family and crown. He was in the hands of an unappeasable fate. He gave himself up to fasting, prayer and sacrifice. He consulted all his oracles anew. But they gave no response. He then sought counsel of his chiefs, and the sages of his court. Here again he was distracted by the divided opinions of his friends. While many of the princes, overawed by the invincible courage and invariable success of the Castilians, advised a frank and courteous reception, there was still a powerful war-party, with the brave Cuitlahua at their head, who were eager to measure lances with the strangers, and show them that, in order to reach the capital, they had other foes to contend with and overcome, than half savage Tlascalans, or trading Cholulans.

Montezuma found no difficulty in following the counsel of the majority, though the mystic warning of Karee had not wholly faded from his mind. A new embassy was immediately despatched, consisting of a numerous suite of powerful nobles, and a long train of servants bearing rich presents of gold, and other valuables, and charged with a message couched in terms of humble and earnest supplication, proposing, if the Spaniards would now return, not only to send them home laden with gold to their utmost wish, but to pay an annual tribute of gold to their master, the king of Spain. Finding that this bribe only fired the grasping conqueror with a more fixed determination to secure the whole prize for which he had so long, and against such fearful odds, contended, the messengers yielded the point, and threw wide open to the dreaded foe every avenue to the heart of the empire, assuring him, in the name of the Emperor, that he should be received as a brother, and entertained with the consideration due to the powerful representative of a mighty monarch.

The march of the Spaniards was now a continued triumph. No longer compelled to fight their way on, they had time to enjoy the rich and varied scenery, to scale the mountain, explore the caverns and ravines of the sierras, and the craters of the volcanoes, and show to the admiring natives, by their agility and love of adventure, that fighting and conquest had neither tamed their spirits, nor exhausted their physical powers. As they advanced, they were continually surprised and delighted with the growing evidences of civilization and high prosperity which met them on every side. In the cultivation of the land, in the style of architecture, and in all that constitutes the refinement, or contributes to the comfort of life, the regions they were now traversing very far exceeded the best of those through which they had passed. They were continually gaining more exalted ideas of the power, wealth and glory of the great Montezuma, and more enlarged views of the magnificence of their own adventure, and the importance of their position and movements. The ambition of Cortez reached to the viceroyalty of this splendid empire; and, though accompanied by a mere handful of men, their past achievements inspired him with confidence, that he could carry every thing before him.

Though entertained with lordly munificence in every place through which he passed, and visited and complimented by envoys from all the states embraced in the Mexican domain, the sagacious Spaniard relaxed none of his vigilance, nor diminished aught of the strict discipline of his little corps. With an eye ever awake to his own safety, and feeling that the artful contriver of one stratagem could easily invent another, he advanced from post to post, in martial array, always ready for the exigency that might arise. His course, however, was unmolested. The resources and hopes of the great king seemed to have been exhausted. In passive despair, he was waiting for the hour of his doom.

The terror of the events we have described fell not alone upon the unfortunate Montezuma; nor did they affect him only as monarch of the realm. As a parent, fondly devoted to his children, whose destiny was wrapped up in his, as the father of his people, to whom he had been a kind of demi-god, the vicegerent of heaven, entitled to their unqualified reverence, obedience and love, he felt with tenfold intensity the bitterness of his humiliation. In all his sufferings and distresses his wives and children shared, showing, by every token in their power, their profound respect and affection, and their tender sympathy in all his cares.

In these lovely demonstrations of filial affection, none were more assiduous or warm-hearted, and none more successful in reaching the heart of the broken spirited monarch, or winning from him an occasional smile of hope, than Tecuichpo. Just ripening into womanhood, with every gift of person, mind and heart that could satisfy the pride of the monarch, and requite to the full the yearning love of the father, the fair princess lavished on him all her powers of persuasion and condolence. It was all in vain. It even aggravated his sorrows; for it was on her account, and that of others dearer to him than his own life, that he suffered most deeply. The mysterious shadows that had brooded so darkly over the infancy of his lovely daughter, had never ceased to shed a chilling gloom over his mind. Her clouded destiny was linked with his, not merely as a child, but as one specifically marked out, by infallible signs from heaven, for a signal doom. His superstitious faith invested her and her fate with a peculiar sacredness. She was as one whom the gods had devoted to an awful sacrifice, from which neither imperial power nor paternal love could rescue her. It therefore pierced his soul with a deeper pang to gaze upon her loveliness, and witness her amiable efforts to soothe and sustain him in the midst of calamities that were more terrible and overwhelming to her, than even to himself. If, by offering himself as a sacrifice to his offended gods, he could have propitiated their favor for his family and his people, and handed down to his posterity an undiminished empire and an untarnished crown, he would have gone with as much pride and pleasure, to the altar, as to a triumphal festival that should celebrate his victory, and clothe his brow with unfading laurel. But in this sacrifice there was no substitution. He was himself the most distinguished victim, destined to the highest and hottest place on the great altar of his country, where a hecatomb would scarce suffice to appease the anger of the offended gods.

Gathering his royal household around him, he explained to them the peculiarity of his position, avowing his entire confidence in the ancient prophecy, which declared that the realm of Anahuac belonged to a race of white men, who had gone away, for a season towards the rising sun, and who, after the lapse of ages, were to return in power, and claim their inheritance. It was the predestined arrangement of the gods, and could not be resisted. He had, from the beginning felt that resistance was wholly vain, and had only attempted it, in deference to the urgent advice and solicitations of his best and most experienced counsellors. For himself, he was ready, at any time, to stand at his post, and die, if necessary, in defence of his crown and his people. But he could not contend with the gods. Empires and crowns, and the lives and happiness of nations, were at their disposal, and kings and subjects alike must submit to their righteous requirements. It was but the dictate of common piety to say “the will of the gods be done.” Hard and trying as it was, he felt it incumbent on him to relinquish his crown and his honors, at their bidding, as cheerfully as he should lay down his life, when his destined hour should arrive. He counselled them to bow submissively to their inevitable fate, in the hope that, though humbled, broken and scattered in this world, they might meet and dwell together in peace in the paradise of the gods.

His wives and children wept around him. They besought him to hope yet for the best—to turn away his thoughts from the dark visions on which he had dwelt too long and too intensely. Their mysterious forebodings of evil might yet be averted, through the favor of the gods, to whom a childlike, cheerful confidence in their benignity and paternal regard, was more acceptable, than that blind abandonment, sometimes mistaken for submission, which views them as stern, arbitrary, and implacable tyrants, rather than as parents of the human family, watching over it for the good of mankind, and ordering all events for the welfare of their true children.

This was a cheerful faith, and, seasonably adopted, might have saved the life and throne of Montezuma, and preserved, for many years, the integrity of his empire. But his heart was not prepared to receive it. Steeped in the dismal superstitions of the Aztec faith, and yielding himself unreservedly to the guidance and dictation of its constituted oracles, he had never, for a moment, allowed himself to falter in his conviction, that the Aztec dynasty was to terminate with him, and that he and his family were doomed to a terrible destruction, in the overthrow of the sacred institutions of his beloved land.

The scene was too thrilling for the tender heart of Tecuichpo, and she swooned away in the arms of her father, who had drawn her towards him in an affectionate embrace. The attendants were called, and, as soon as the unhappy princess was restored to consciousness, the king directed the royal barges to be prepared, and went out, with all his household, to enjoy the invigorating air of the lake, and seek relief from the dark thoughts that oppressed and overwhelmed them, in contemplating, from various points in view, the rich and varied scenery of that glorious valley.

It was a brave spectacle to behold, when the imperial majesty of Tenochtitlan condescended to accompany his little fleet on such an excursion. The gaily appointed canoes, with their gorgeous canopies of embroidered cotton, and feather-work; the splendid robes and plumes of the king and his attendants; the rich and fanciful attire of the women; the light, graceful, arrowy motions of the painted skiffs, as they danced along the waves; together with the wonderful beauty of the lake, and its swimming gardens of flowers, presented a toute ensemble more like the fairy pictures of some enchanted sphere, than any thing we can now realize as belonging to this plain, prosaic, matter-of-fact world of ours. On this occasion, it seemed more gay and fairy-like than ever, in contrast, perhaps, with the deep gloom that had settled on the land, pervading every heart, with its sombre shadows.

The light pirogues of the natives, flying hither and thither over the glassy waters, on errands of business or of pleasure, arrayed in flowers, or freighted with fruits and vegetables for the grand market of Tenochtitlan, made way, on every side, for the advance of the royal cortege, which, threading the shining avenues between the gaily-colored chinampas, that spotted the surface of that beautiful lake, like so many islands of flowers on the bosom of the ocean, danced over the waters to the sound of music, and the merry voices of glad hearts, rejoicing in the sunny smiles that now played on the countenance of the king, as if the clouds that had so long overshadowed it, were never to return. Tecuichpo, restored to more than her wonted gaiety, was full of life and animation. Never had she seemed, in the eyes of her doting father, and of the admiring courtiers, half so lovely as at this moment. She was the centre attraction for all eyes. Her resplendent beauty, her fairy-like gracefulness of motion, and the artless simplicity of her manners, won the admiring notice of all. Her gaiety was infectious. Her merry laugh reached, with a sort of electric influence, every heart in that bright company, and compelled even her father to abandon, for the time, his sad and solemn reflections, and give himself up to the spirit of the hour and the scene.

Guatimozin was there, and exerted all his eloquence to keep up the spirit of the hour, in the earnest hope that Montezuma would put on all the monarch again, and assert the majesty of his insulted crown, and the rights of his house and his people, in despite of omen or legend, and in the face of every foe.

Tecuichpo became more and more animated, till she seemed quite lifted above herself and the world about her. Suddenly rising in the midst, and pointing, with great energy of expression, to the royal eagle of Mexico, then sweeping down from his mountain eyrie, to prey upon the ocelot of the distant valley, she exclaimed—

When she ceased, an echo from a richly cultivated chinampa, which they were then passing, seemed to take up and prolong the strain.

The last words of this solemn chant died away on the ear, just as the royal barge rounded the little artificial promontory, which the ingenious Karee had constructed, for the double purpose of an arbor and look-out, at one of the angles of her chinampa. Leaning over the brow, and supporting herself by the overhanging branch of a luxuriant myrtle, she dropped a wreath of evergreen upon the head of Tecuichpo, and said—

At this moment, signals were heard among the distant hills, which, answered and repeated from countless stations along the wild sierras, and reverberated by a thousand echoes as they came, burst upon the quiet valley, like the confused shouts of a mighty host rushing to battle. It fell like a death-knell upon the ear of Montezuma. It announced the arrival, within the mountain wall which encompassed his golden valley, of the dreaded strangers. It heralded their near approach to his capital, and the exposure of all he held dear to their irresistible power—their terrible rapacity. His heart sunk within him. But he had gone too far to retract. It was the act of the gods, not his. Banishing from his mind the impressions of the scenes just passed, he waved his hand to the rowers, and instantly every prow was turned, and the gaily caparisoned, but melancholy, terror-stricken pageant moved rapidly back to the city.

Tenochtitlan was now alive with the bustle of preparation. It was the preparation, not for war, which would far better have suited the multitude both of the chiefs and the people, but for the hospitable reception and entertainment of the strangers. The great imperial palace, which had been the royal residence of the father of Montezuma, was fitted up for their accommodation. With its numberless apartments, its spacious courts, and magnificent gardens, it was sufficient for an army much larger than that of the Castilians, swelled as it was by the company of their Tlascalan allies. Every room was newly hung with beautifully colored tapestry, and furnished with all the conveniences and luxuries of Mexican life. The appointments and provisions were all on a most liberal scale, for the Emperor was as generous and munificent as the golden mountains from which he drew his inexhaustible treasures.

Intending that nothing should be wanting to the graciousness of his submission to this act of constrained courtesy, Montezuma proposed to his brother Cuitlahua, to choose a royal retinue from the flower of the Aztec nobility, and go out to meet the strangers; and bid them welcome, in his name, to his realm and his capital. From this the soul of the proud undaunted soldier revolted, and he entreated so earnestly to be excused from executing a commission, so much at variance with his feelings and his convictions, that the monarch relented, and assigned the mission to Cacama, the young prince of Tezcuco.

Nothing could exceed the gorgeous splendor of this embassy. Borne in a beautiful palanquin, canopied and curtained with the rarest of Mexican feather-work, richly powdered with jewels, and glittering with gold, Cacama, preceded and followed by a long train of noble veterans and youths, all apparelled in the gayest costume of their country, presented himself before the advancing host. His approach, and the errand on which he came, having been announced by a herald, Cortez halted his band, and drew up his forces in the best possible array, to give him a fitting reception.

The meeting took place at Ajotzinco, on, or rather within, the borders of the lake Chalco, the first of the bright chain of inland lakes which the Spaniards had seen, and the place where they first saw that species of amphibious architecture, which prevailed so extensively among the Mexicans. When the royal embassy arrived in front of the waiting army, Cacama alighted from his palanquin, while his obsequious officers swept the ground before him, that he might not soil his royal feet, by too rude a contact with the earth. He was a young man of about twenty five years, with a fine manly countenance, a noble and commanding figure, and an address and manners that would have done honor to the most courtly knight of Christendom. Stepping forward with a bland and dignified courtesy, he made the customary Mexican salutation to persons of high rank, touching his right hand to the ground, and raising it to his head. Cortez embraced him as he rose, and the prince, in the name of his royal master, gave the strangers a hearty welcome, assuring them that they should be received with a hospitality, and treated with a respect, becoming the representatives of a great and mighty prince. He then presented Cortez with a number of large and valuable pearls, which act of munificence was immediately returned by the present of a necklace of cut glass, hung over his neck by Cortez. As glass was not known to the Mexicans, it probably had in their eyes the value of the rarest jewels.

This interview being over, the royal envoy hastened back to the capital, while the Castilians and their allies, in the two-fold character of hostile invaders and invited guests, followed his steps by slow, easy and cautious marches. After a few days, during which they passed through large tracts of highly cultivated and fertile ground, and several of the beautiful towns and cities of the plateau, they arrived at Iztapalapan, a place of great beauty, and large resources, and the residence of Cuitlahua, the noble brother of Montezuma. At the command of the Emperor, Cuitlahua, as governor of this place, received the strangers with courtesy, and treated them with attention. But it was a cold courtesy, and a constrained attention. With a proud and haughty mien, the brave soldier exhibited to the wondering strangers, all the riches and curiosities of the place, disposing every thing in such a manner as to impress them most powerfully with the immense wealth of the empire, and the irresistible power of the Emperor. He collected around him all the richest and most potent nobles in his neighborhood, and displayed a magnificence of style, and a prodigality of expenditure, that was truly princely. The extent and beauty of his gardens, his beautiful aviary, stocked with every variety of the gorgeously plumed birds of that tropical clime, his menagerie, containing a full representation of all the wild races of animals in Anahuac, struck the Spaniards with surprise and admiration; while the architecture of his palaces, and the many refinements of his style of living, gave them the highest ideas of the advanced state of civilization to which the Mexicans had attained.

But, so far from disheartening them in their grand design, all they saw of wealth and splendor in the inferior cities, only served to inflame their desire to see the capital, and learn if any thing more brilliant and wonderful than they had yet seen, could be furnished at the great metropolis. While they were daily more and more convinced of the power and resources of their enemy, and the seeming impossibility of their own enterprise, they were also daily more and more inflamed with the desire and purpose to possess themselves of the incalculable treasures which every where met their eyes. The cold aspect, and lofty bearing of the Prince Cuitlahua, the commander-in-chief of the Mexican armies, and heir apparent to its throne, left no doubt that the final struggle for power would be ably and bitterly contested, and that the wealth they so ardently coveted, would be dearly bought. To a heart less bold and self-reliant than that of Cortez, it would have been no enviable position, to be shut up, with his little band of followers, within the gates of a city, commanded by so brave and experienced a soldier, whose personal feelings and views were known to be of the most hostile character. To the iron-hearted Castilian, it was but a scene in the progress of his romantic adventure; and, the greater the difficulty, the more imminent the peril, the more cordially he trusted to his good genius, or his patron saint, he seems not to have known which, to carry him triumphantly through.

They were now but one day’s march, and that a short and easy one, from the imperial city. Already they had seen it from a distance, resting, or rather riding, on the bosom of the lake, glowing and glittering in the sunbeams, like some resplendent constellation, transferred from the azure above to the azure below. They had seen its noble ally, the metropolis of the sister kingdom of Tezcuco, shining in rival though unequal splendor, on the opposite shore of the lake, and many other splendid cities, beautiful towns, and lovely hamlets, studding its bright border, in its entire circuit, like mingled gems and pearls, richly set in the band of the imperial diadem, all reposing under the shadow, and eclipsed by the superior glory, of the capital, the crowning jewel of the Western World. They had seen the chinampas, those wandering gardens of verdure and flowers, seeming more like the fairy creations of poetry, than the sober realities of life, and reminding them of those islands of the blest, which they had been told, in their childish days, floated about in the ethereal regions above, freighted with blessings for the virtuous, and sometimes stooping so near to earth as to permit the weary and the waiting to escape from their toils and trials here, and find repose in their celestial paradise. They had seen and admired the wonderful works of art, the causeways of vast extent, constructed with scientific accuracy, and of great strength and durability—the canals and aqueducts, and bridges, which would have done honor to the genius and industry of the proudest nation in Europe. It now remained to them to see the imperial lord of all these wide and luxuriant realms, and to enter, as invited guests, into the gates of his royal abode.

CHAPTER V.

ARRIVAL OF THE SPANIARDS AT THE CAPITAL—THEIR RECEPTION BY MONTEZUMA—DETERMINED HOSTILITY OF GUATIMOZIN.

The spectacle of this day, the eighth of November, 1519, has not its parallel in the annals of history, and will probably never be repeated in the history of man. The sovereign and absolute monarch of a populous and powerful empire, stooping from his imperial throne, flinging wide open the gates of his capital, and condescending to go out, and receive with an apparent welcome an invading foe, whom he had in vain attempted to keep out, but whom he had now the power to crush under his feet in a moment. That invading foe consisted only of a few hundred adventurers, three thousand miles from home, in the heart of the country they had ravaged, and surrounded by countless thousands of exasperated foes, burning to revenge the injuries and insults they had received at the hands of the strangers, and only held back from rushing upon them, like herds of ravening tigers, by the strong arm of the royal prohibition. Their position was like that of a group of children in a menagerie, amusing themselves with teasing and exasperating the caged animals around them. The furious creatures glare on them with looks of rage, growling fiercely, and gnashing their teeth. The keeper sympathizes with his enraged subjects, burning to let them loose upon their annoyers, but restrained by that mysterious agency, in which the divine hand is every where moulding and subduing the natural impulses of humanity, and working out its own wise ends by the wrath and passions of men.

Let the keeper but raise the bar of that cage for a moment, and not one of the bright group would be left to tell the tragic issue of their sport. Let the terror-stricken Montezuma put on once more the air of a monarch, and raise his finger as a signal for the onset, before the enemy has become entrenched in his fortress, and few, if any, of that brave band would be left to tell the world of their fate—the marvellous story of the Conquest would never be told; the Aztec dynasty would outlive the period assigned it by those mystic oracles; and Montezuma, recovered from the dark dreams of an imagination disordered by superstition—the long dreaded crisis of his destiny passed—would have swayed again the sceptre of undisputed empire over the broad and beautiful realms of Anahuac. Having once vanquished and destroyed the terrible strangers, and stripped them of that supernatural defence, which the idea of their celestial origin threw around them, he would never again have yielded his soul to so unmanly a fear. If such had been the issue of the invasion of Cortez and his band, it is doubtful whether the Aztec dynasty would ever have been overthrown. The civilization of Europe would soon have been engrafted upon its own. Christianity would have taken the place of their dark and bloody paganism; which, with a people so far enlightened as they were, could not have endured for a moment the noon-day blaze of the gospel; and the terrible power of that heathen despot would have been softened, without weakening it, into the consolidated colossal strength of an enlightened, Christian, peaceful empire. Christianity propagated by fire and sword consumes centuries, and wastes whole generations of men, in effecting a revolution, which they who go with the olive branch in their hand, and the gospel of peace in their hearts, require only a few years to accomplish. Witness the recent triumphs of a peaceful Christianity in the Sandwich Islands, as contrasted with the bloody and wasting Crusades of Spaniards in all portions of the new world.

With the earliest dawn, the reveille was beaten in the Spanish camp, and all the forces were mustered and drawn up in the order of their march. Cortez, at the head of the cavalry, formed the advanced guard, followed immediately by the Castilian infantry in solid column. The artillery and baggage occupied the centre, while the dark files of the Tlascalan savages brought up the rear. The whole number was less than seven thousand, not more than three hundred and fifty of whom were Spaniards. Putting on their most imposing array, with gay flaunting banners, and the stirring notes of the trumpet, swelling over lake and grove, and rolling away in distant echoes among the mountains, they issued forth from the city, just as the rising sun, surmounting the eastern cordillera, poured the golden stream of day over the beautiful valley, and lighted up a thousand resplendent fires among the gilded domes, and enameled temples of the capital, and the rich tiara of tributary cities and towns that encircled it. Moving rapidly forward, they soon entered upon the grand causeway, which, passing through the capital, spans the entire breadth of the Tezcucan lake, constituting then the main entrance, as its remains do now the principal southern avenue, to the city of Mexico. It was composed of immense stones, fashioned with geometrical precision, well laid in cement, and capable of withstanding for ages the play of the waters, and the ravages of time. It was of sufficient width, throughout its whole extent, to allow ten horsemen to ride abreast. It was interrupted in several places by well built draw bridges for the accommodation of the numerous boats, that carried on a brisk trade with the several towns on the lake, and for the better defence of the city against an invading foe. At the distance of about half a league from the capital, it was also traversed by a thick heavy wall of stone, about twelve feet high, surmounted and fortified by towers at each extremity. In the centre was a battlemented gateway, of sufficient strength to resist any force that could be brought against it, by the rude enginery of native warfare. This was called the Fort of Xoloc.

Here they were met by a very numerous and powerful body of Aztec nobles, splendidly arrayed in their gayest costume, who came to announce the approach of Montezuma, and again in his name to bid the strangers welcome to the capital. As each of the chiefs presented himself, in his turn, to Cortez, and made the customary formal salutation, a considerable time was consumed in the ceremony; which was somewhat more tedious than interesting to the hot spirited Spaniards.

When this was over, they passed briskly on, and soon beheld the glittering retinue of the Emperor emerging from the principal gate of the city. The royal palanquin, blazing with burnished gold and precious stones, was borne on the shoulders of the principal nobles of the land, while crowds of others, of equal or inferior rank, thronged in obsequious attendance around. It was preceded by three officers, bearing golden wands. Over it was a canopy of gaudy feather-work, powdered with jewels, and fringed with silver, resting on four richly carved and inlaid pillars, and supported by four nobles of the same rank with the bearers. These were all bare-footed, and walked with a slow measured pace, as conscious of the majesty of their burden, and with eyes bent on the ground. Arrived within a convenient distance, the train halted, and Montezuma, alighting from his palanquin, came forward, leaning on the arms of his royal relatives, the lords of Tezcuco and Iztapalapan. As the monarch advanced, under the same gorgeous canopy which had before screened him from the public gaze, and the glare of the mid-day sun, the ground was covered with cotton tapestry, while all his subjects of high and low degree, who lined the sides of the causeway, bent their heads and fixed their eyes on the ground, as unworthy to look upon so much majesty. Some prostrated themselves on the ground before him, and all in that mighty throng were awed by his presence into a silence that was absolutely oppressive.

The appearance of Montezuma was in the highest degree interesting to the Spanish general and his followers. Flung over his shoulders was the tilmatli, or large square cloak, manufactured from the finest cotton, with the embroidered ends gathered in a knot round his neck. Under this was a tunic of green, embroidered with exquisite taste, extending almost to his knees, and confined at the waist, by a rich jeweled vest. His feet were protected by sandals of gold, bound with leathern thongs richly embossed with the same metal. The cloak, the tunic, and the sandals were profusely sprinkled with pearls and precious stones. On his head was a panache of plumes of the royal green, waving gracefully in the light breeze.

He was then about forty years of age. His person was tall, slender, and well proportioned. His complexion was somewhat fairer than that of his race generally. His countenance was expressive of great benignity. His carriage was serious, dignified and even majestic, and, without the least tincture of haughtiness, or affectation of importance, he moved with the stately air of one born to command, and accustomed to the homage of all about him.

The strangers halted, as the monarch drew near. Cortez, dismounting, threw his reins to a page, and, supported by a few of his principal cavaliers, advanced to meet him. What an interview! How full of thrilling interest to both parties! How painfully thrilling to Montezuma, who now saw before him, standing on the very threshold of his citadel, the all-conquering white man, whose history was so mysteriously blended with his own; whose coming and power had been foreshadowed for ages in the prophetic traditions of his country, confirmed again by his own most sacred oracles, and repeated by so many signs, and omens, and fearful prognostics, that he was compelled either to regard him as the heaven-sent representative of the ancient rightful lords of the soil, or to abandon his early and cherished faith, the religion of his fathers, and of the ancient race from which they sprung.

Putting a royal restraint upon the feelings which almost overwhelmed him, the monarch received his guest with princely courtesy, expressing great pleasure in seeing him personally, and extending to him the hospitalities of his capital. The Castilian replied with expressions of the most profound respect, and with many and ample acknowledgments for the substantial proofs which the Emperor had already given of his more than royal munificence. He then hung on the neck of the king a sparkling chain of colored crystal, at the same time making a movement, as if he would embrace him. He was prevented, however, by the timely interference of two Aztec lords from thus profaning, before the assembled multitudes of his people, the sacred person of their master.

After this formal introduction and interchange of civilities, Montezuma appointed his brother, the bold Cuitlahua, to conduct the Spaniards to their quarters in the city, and returned in the same princely state in which he came, amid the prostrate thousands of his subjects. Pondering deeply, as the train moved slowly on, upon the fearful crisis in his affairs which had now arrived, his ear was arrested by a faint low voice in the crowd, which he instantly recognized as Karee’s, breathing out a plaintive wail, as if in soliloquy with her own soul, or in high communion with the spirits of the unseen world. The strain was wild and broken, but its tenor was deeply mournful and deprecatory. It concluded with these emphatic words—

With an air of bold and martial triumph, their colors flying, and music briskly playing, the Spaniards, with the singular trail of half savage Tlascalans, the deadly enemies of the Aztecs, made their entrance into the southern quarter of the renowned Tenochtitlan, and were escorted by the brave Cuitlahua, to the royal palace of Axayacatl, in the heart of the city, once the residence of Montezuma’s father, and now appropriated to the accommodation of Cortez and his followers.

As they marched through the crowded streets, new subjects of wonder and admiration greeted them on every side. The grandeur and extent of the city, the superior style of its architecture, the ample dimensions, immense strength, and costly ornaments of the numerous palaces, pyramids and temples, separated and surrounded by broad terraced gardens in the highest possible state of cultivation, and teeming with flowers of every hue and name—the lofty tapering sanctuaries, and altars blazing with inextinguishable fires,—and above all, the innumerable throngs of people who swarmed through the streets and canals, filling every door-way and window, and clustering on the flat roof of every building as they passed, filled them with mingled emotions of admiration, surprise and fear.

The swarming myriads of the Aztecs were, on their part, no less interested and amazed at the spectacle presented by their strange visitors. An intense and all-absorbing curiosity pervaded the entire mass of the people. Nothing could surpass their wonder and admiration of the prancing steeds, or four legged and double-headed men, as to their simple view they seemed to be, the rider as he sat with ease in his saddle, appearing to be but a part of the animal on which he rode. The piercing tones of the loud mouthed trumpets, astonished and delighted them exceedingly. But the deep thunder of the artillery as it burst upon them amid volumes of sulphurous smoke and flame, and then rolled away in long reverberated echoes among the mountains, filled them with indescribable alarm, and made them feel that the all-destroying god of war was indeed among them in the guise of men.

While these scenes were enacting in the city, the palace was shrouded in the deepest gloom. When the monarch arrayed himself, in the morning, to go forth to meet the strangers, several incidents occurred, which were deemed peculiarly ominous, confirming all the superstitious forebodings of the king, and tending to take away from the yet trusting hearts of his household, their last remaining hope. The imperial clasp, which bound his girdle in front, bearing as its device, richly engraven on the precious chalchivitl, the emblem of despotic power, which was the eagle pouncing upon the ocelot—snapped in twain, scattering the fragments of the eagle’s head upon the marble pavement. The principal jewel in the royal diadem was found loose, and trembling in its setting. But, more portentous than all to the mind of the devout Montezuma, the priest, who had charge of the great altar on the Teocalli of Huitzilopotchli, had been seized with convulsions during the preceding night, and fallen dead at his post. The perpetual fire had gone out, for want of a hand to replenish it, and when the morning sun shot his first beams upon that high altar, there was not a spark among the blackened embers, to answer his reviving glow.

It was impossible to shake off the influence of presages like these. From infancy, he had been taught to read in all such incidents, the shadowy revealings of the will of the gods, the dark lines of destiny foreshown to the faithful. The soul of Montezuma was oppressed almost to sinking. But he roused himself to his task, and went forth, feeling, as he went, that the ground trembled beneath his feet, while an untimely night gathered at noon-day over the sky.

Among the noble princes who graced the court of Montezuma, there was no one of a nobler bearing, or a loftier heart, than his nephew Guatimozin, the favored lover of Tecuichpo. Unlike her disappointed suitor, the Prince of Tezcuco, he had uniformly and powerfully opposed the timid policy of the king, and urged, with Cuitlahua, a bold and unyielding resistance to the encroachments of the intruding Spaniards. His reluctance to their admission to the capital was so great, that he refused to witness the humiliating spectacle; preferring to shut himself up in the palace, and sustain, if he could, the fainting courage of the princess, and her mother. All that could be done by eloquence, inspired by patriotic zeal and inflamed by a pure and refined love, was attempted by the accomplished youth, till, excited and inflamed by his own efforts to comfort and persuade others, and nerved to higher resolves, by a new contemplation of the inestimable heart-treasures, which were staked upon the issue, a new hope seemed to dawn upon the clouded horizon of their destiny.

“My fair princess,” cried the impassioned lover, “it shall not be. These wide and glorious realms, teeming with untold thousands of brave and patriotic hearts, ready and able to defend our altars and our hearths, shall never pass away to a mere handful of pale-faced invaders. They must, they shall be driven back. Or, if our gods have utterly deserted us—if the time has indeed come, when the power and glory of the Aztec is to pass away for ever, let the Aztec, to a man, pass away with it. Let us perish together by our altars, and leave to the rapacious intruder a ravaged and depopulated country. Let not one remain to grace his triumph, or bow his neck to the ignominious yoke.”

“Nay, my sweet cousin,” she replied, with a tone and look of indescribable tenderness, “we will indeed die together, if need be, but let us first see if we cannot live together.”

“Live?” exclaimed Guatimozin. “Oh! Tecuichpo, what would I not attempt, what would I not sacrifice, to the hope of living, if I might share that life with you. But my country! my allegiance! how can I sacrifice that which is not my own?—that inheritance which was all my birth-right, and which, as it preceded, must necessarily be paramount to, all the other relations of life.”

“But, my father! dear Guatimozin! must he not be obeyed?”

“Yes, and he shall be. But he must be persuaded, even at this late hour, to dismiss the strangers, and banish them for ever from his domains. He has no right to yield it up. It belongs to his subjects no less than to him. He belongs to them, by the same sacred bond that binds them all to him. He may not sacrifice them to a scruple, which has in it more of superstition than of religion. I must go to the Temple of Cholula, and bring up the hoary old prophet of Quetzalcoatl, and see if he cannot move the too tender conscience of your father, and persuade him that his duty to his gods cannot, by any possibility, be made to conflict with his duty to his empire, and the mighty family of dependent children, whom the gods have committed to his care.”

“Oh! not now, Guatimozin, I pray you. Do not leave us at this terrible moment. Stay, and sustain with your courageous hopes the sad heart of my dear father, who is utterly overwhelmed with the dire omens of this dismal morning.”

“Omens! Oh! Tecuichpo, shall we not rather say that the gods have thus frowned upon our cowardly abandonment of their altars, than that they design, in these dark portents, to denounce an irreversible doom, which our prayers cannot avert, nor our combined wisdom and courage prevent?”

At this moment Montezuma returned. But the deep distress depicted in his countenance, and the air of stern reserve which he assumed in the presence of those whose counsels would tend to shake his resolve, effectually prevented Guatimozin from pursuing, at that moment, the object nearest his heart. He retired into the garden, where he was soon joined by the fair princess, who wished to divert him from his purposed visit to Cholula, knowing full well it would be a fruitless mission.

“But why, my brave cousin, may not my father be right, in feeling that these strangers are sent to us from the gods? And if from the gods, then surely for our good; for the gods are all beneficence, and can only intend the well-being of their children, in all the changes that befal us here. Perhaps these strangers will teach us more of the beings whom we worship, and direct us how we may serve them better than we now do, and so partake more largely of their favor.”

“Alas! my beloved, how can we hope that they who come to destroy, whose only god is gold—to the possession of which they are ready to sacrifice life, love, honor, every thing—how can we hope that they will teach us any thing better or higher than we learn from the ancient oracles of our faith, and the holy priesthood of our religion? No, it cannot be. Their pathway is drenched in blood, and so it will be, till the throne, and he who honors it, are laid in dust at their feet, and you and I, and all the myriads of our people, have become their abject slaves.”

“Say not so, I beseech you, dear Guatimozin. Where my father leads, I must follow, and hope for the best. And you must follow too, for I cannot go without you. Here, take this rose, and wear it as a pledge to me, over this sparkling fountain, that you will no more hazard the imperial displeasure, and the anger of the gods, by your bold and rash resistance of the known decrees of fate. And I will weave a chaplet of the same, to lay upon the altar, to propitiate for us all the favor of heaven.”

There was too much real chivalry in the heart of Guatimozin, to resist the earnest love and eloquent persuasion of his lady-love. He kissed her fair cheek in token of submission to her sway, and then led her to the palace, to learn if any thing new had transpired to encourage his hope that his wishes would yet be realized, in the exclusion of the Spaniards from the city. As they passed along, they heard Karee-o-thán, the garrulous pet of the Princess, seemingly soliloquising among the branches of the flowering orange that hung over her favorite arbor. They paused a moment, but could gather nothing from his chatterings but “Brave Guatimozin! noble Guatimozin! all is yours.”

“An omen! my sweet cousin, a genuine emphatic omen! Even Karee-o-thán encourages me in my treason. I wish I knew how she would respond to the name of this redoubtable Cortez. Pray ask her, Tecuichpo, what she thinks of the Spaniard.”

“Fear you not to trifle thus?” asked Tecuichpo.

“Fear not, brave Guatimozin!” responded the parrot.

“There, I have it again, my love; all she says is against you. And what do you say of Malinché, pretty Karee-o-thán?”

“Poor Malinché! brave Guatimozin.”

“Bravo!” exclaimed the Prince, “the bird is as good as an omen, and I”——

At that moment, Karee appeared, and coming towards them in great haste and trepidation, informed them that the Spaniards had already reached their quarters in the old palace, and that Montezuma had gone thither, in royal state, to receive them.

“And what think you of all these things, my fairy queen,” asked Guatimozin, playfully.

“Wo! wo! wo! to the imperial house of Tenochtitlan!” energetically replied Karee,—“its glory is departed for ever,—its crown has fallen from the head of the great Montezuma, and there is none able to wear it, or to redeem it from the hand of the spoiler. Thou, most noble Prince, wilt do all that mortal courage and prowess can do, to rescue it from desecration, and to protect the house of Montezuma from the cruel fate to which he has delivered it up; but it will be all in vain. He must perish by an ignominious death. They must pass under the yoke of the strangers, and thou, too, after all thy noble struggles and sacrifices, must perish miserably under their cruel and implacable rapacity.”

This was too much for Tecuichpo. She looked upon Karee as an inspired prophetess, and had always found it exceedingly difficult to sustain the filial confidence which sanctified every act and every purpose of her royal father, when the powerful incantations of Karee were directed against them. It was a continual struggle between an affectionate superstition, and filial love. But that first, and holiest, and strongest instinct of her heart prevailed, and she clung the more warmly to her father, when she found that every thing else was against him. But now the shaft had pierced her at another and an unguarded point. Her spirit fainted within her. She swooned in the arms of Guatimozin, and was borne to her apartment in a state of insensibility, where, under the kind and skilful nursing of Karee, and the affectionate assurances of Guatimozin, she was soon restored to health, and her accustomed cheerfulness. But these ceaseless agitations, these painful alternations of hope and fear, were slowly wearing upon her gentle spirit, and undermining a frame so delicately sensitive, that, like the aspen,

CHAPTER VI.

MUNIFICENCE OF MONTEZUMA—THE ROYAL BANQUET—THE REQUITAL—THE EMPEROR A PRISONER IN HIS OWN PALACE.

Montezuma was always and every where munificent. When he had, though reluctantly, admitted the strangers into his capital, he prepared to give them a royally hospitable entertainment. Partly by way of triumph in the success of their movements hitherto, and partly by way of amusing, and at the same time overawing their entertainers, the Spaniards, the day after their arrival in the city, made a grand military display in their quarters, and in the neighboring streets. They exercised their prancing steeds in all the feats of horsemanship, racing, leaping, and careering, in all the wild majesty of the trained charger, under the three fold discipline of bit and spur, and cheering shout. They rushed upon each other in the mock warfare of the tournament, with clashing sword and glancing spear, and then, discharging their carbines in the air, separated amid clouds of dust and smoke, as if driven asunder by the bolts of heaven in their own hands. The astonished natives, accustomed only to the simple weapons of primitive warfare, looked on with undisguised admiration, not unmixed with fear. The strange beings before them, wielding such unwonted powers, seemed indeed to have descended upon earth from some higher sphere, and to partake of that mysterious and fearful character, which they had been wont to ascribe to inhabitants of the spiritual world. But when, in closing off the day’s entertainment, they brought out the loud-mouthed artillery, and shook the very foundations of the city with their oft-repeated thunders, the spirit of the Aztec sunk within him, and he felt, as he retired to his dwelling, that it was for no good end, that men of such power, having such fearful engines at their command, had been permitted to fix their quarters in one of the fortresses of Tenochtitlan.

“Alas!” said an ancient Cacique from the northern frontier, “we are fallen upon evil times. Our enemies are even now in the citadel—enemies whom we know not, whose mode of warfare we do not understand, whose weapons defy alike our powers of imitation and resistance. Let us abandon the field, and retire to the far north, whence our fathers came, and rear a new empire amid the impregnable fastnesses of the mountains.”

“Who talks of abandoning the field to the enemy?” interrupted Guatimozin,—“Let no Aztec harbor so base a thought. Rather let us stand by our altars and die, if die we must.”

“Right,” cried the youthful prince Axayatl, from the southern slope of the Sierra, “why should the all-conquering Aztec tremble at this display of the mysterious strangers? Are not the millions of Anahuac a match for a few hundred of their enemies, in whatever form they come? Be they gods, or be they demons, they belong not to this soil, nor this soil to them, and, by all our altars and all our gods, they must retire or perish, though we, and our wives, and our children perish with them.”

“Give us your hand, brave Axayatl,” exclaimed Cuitlahua and Guatimozin, at the same instant, “be that our vow in life and in death, and wo to the base Aztec, that abandons the standard of Montezuma, or whispers of submission to the haughty stranger.”

Thus were the councils of the people divided between a timid superstition, and a bold uncompromising patriotism. There wanted not the material, if well directed, to annihilate, at a blow, the hopes of the daring invaders. The arm of the nation was strong and sinewy, but “the head was sick, and the heart faint.” The Emperor, the hitherto proud and self-sufficient Montezuma,—

had cowered to a phantom of his own diseased imagination, and weakly consented to regard them as gods, whose passions, appetites and vices proved them to be men, and whose diminished numbers, after every battle they had fought, showed they were of mortal mould.

On the following day, a magnificent banquet was prepared for Cortez, and his officers, in the imperial palace. It was graced by the presence of all the nobility of Azteca, with all the pride and beauty of their household divinities—for, among this refined people, the wife and the daughter held her appropriate rank, and woman exercised all the influence, which, among (so called) civilized nations, Christianity alone has assigned her. Every apartment of that spacious and magnificent pile blazed with the light of odoriferous torches, which sent up their clouds of incense from hundreds of gold and silver stands, elaborately carved and embossed in every form that fancy could suggest, or ingenuity invent. Flowers of every hue and name were profusely distributed through the rooms, clustered in beautiful vases, or hung in gorgeous festoons and luxurious chaplets from the walls. The costume of the monarch and his court was as rich and gorgeous, as the rare and variegated plumagé, with a lavish use of gold and gems, could make it. The women were as splendidly apparelled as the men. Many of them were extremely beautiful. Some were distinguished for their easy refinement of manners, which charmed, no less than it astonished, the Castilian knights, who had been accustomed to suppose that nothing so beautiful, or refined, could be found without the borders of Spain.

By special command of the Emperor, all his nobles were present at this festival, so that Guatimozin, contrary to his own will and purpose, was brought into contact with Cortez, and his steel-clad cavaliers. Tecuichpo also was there, in all her maiden loveliness, outshining all the stars of that splendid galaxy. And yet she was as a star in eclipse, for her soul was oppressed with those mysterious shadows that hung over her destiny and that of her father, as connected with the coming of these white men. Karee was there in attendance upon her mistress, as she still delighted to call her; but her attention was more absorbed by the strangers than by Tecuichpo. She watched every movement, and scanned every countenance with a scrutiny that did not escape their observation, in order to read, as well as she could, the character of each. Her scrutiny satisfied herself, and she whispered in the ear of the Princess, that “if these were gods, they came from the dark, and not from the sunny side of heaven.”

It was a rare spectacle, which this royal banquet presented. The contrast between the steel-clad cavaliers of Castile, whose burnished armor blazed and glittered in the brilliant torch-light, and rung under their heavy martial tramp upon the marble floor, and the comparatively fairy figures of the gaudily apparelled Aztecs, was as strong as could possibly be presented in a scene like this. The costumes and customs of each were matter of wonder and admiration to the other. The Aztec trembled at the mysterious power, the incomprehensible weapons, of the white man. The Castilian, if he did not tremble, fully appreciated the danger of a little band, separated and scattered among a festive throng of warlike men, amid the interminable labyrinths of the imperial palace, and under the eye of a monarch whose word was absolute law to all the myriads of his people.

But, whatever was passing in the inner man, the Aztec and the Castilian, alike, appeared perfectly at ease, each abandoning himself to the festivities of the occasion, as if each, unannoyed by the presence of a stranger, were revelling in the security of his own castle, and celebrating some time-honored festival of his own people.

With a benign dignity and grace, the Queen, and her suite of high-born ladies, received the homage of the cavaliers, after they had been presented to the Emperor. She was struck with admiration at the graceful and dignified bearing of the Castilian, which, while it showed all the deference and respect due to her sex and her rank, had nothing in it, of that abject servility, which placed an impassable barrier between the Aztec noble and his monarch, and made them appear to belong to distinct races of being. To the chivalrous, impassioned Castilian, accustomed to worship woman, and pay an almost divine homage to beauty, in the courtly halls and sunny bowers of Spain, the scene presented a perfect constellation of grace and loveliness. The flashing eye of the Aztec maiden, as lustrous and eloquent as any in the gardens of Hesperides; the jetty tresses, glittering with gems and pearls, or chastely decorated with natural flowers; the easy grace of the loose flowing robe, revealing the full rich bust and the rounded limb, in its fairest proportions, won the instant admiration of every mailed knight, and brought again to his lips his oft-repeated vows of love and devotion.

But of little avail were honied lips and eloquent tongues to the gallant cavaliers at that magic fête. They formed no medium of communion with the bright spirits, and gay hearts around them. The doom of Babel was on them all, and there was no interpreter. Nothing daunted by obstacles seemingly insurmountable, the gay Spaniards resolved, that, where bright eyes were to be gazed on, and sweet smiles won from the ranks of youth and beauty, they would make a way for themselves. The first ceremonies of presentation over, each knight addressed himself to some chosen fair one, and by sign and gesture, and speaking look, and smile of eloquent flattery, commenced a spirited pantomimic attack, to the infinite amusement of all the gay throng around. It was met with wonderful spirit, and ready ingenuity, by the Aztec maidens, to whom the dialect of signs, and the language of hieroglyphics was perfectly familiar; that being the only written language of all the nations of Anahuac.

The spirit and interest of the scene that followed surpasses all attempt at description. Abandoned to the gaiety of the hour, the Spaniards forgot alike their schemes of ambition and aggrandisement, and the peculiar perils which surrounded them; while the Aztec revellers dismissed, for the moment, both their superstitious dread of the white man, and their patriotic disgust at his daring pretensions to universal dominion.

The noble Sandoval, attracted by the mild beaming eye, and sweet smile of the Princess Tecuichpo, with a profound obeisance, laid his plumed helmet at her feet, and choosing, from a vase at her side, a half blown rose, which he gracefully twined with a sprig of amaranth, he first pressed it to his own heart and lips, and then placed it among the glittering gems upon her bosom. With queenly courtesy and grace, the fair princess received this gallant token, and instantly responded to it, by stooping down, and weaving among the plumes, so courteously laid at her feet, another, of such rare beauty and brilliancy of hue, that it quite eclipsed the gayest feather in the hall.

Cortez and Alvarado were, each in his turn, struck with the deep, dark, piercing eye of Karee, and each put forth his best endeavor to win from her a smile. But it was so coldly given, and accompanied with a look so deep and searching, that the general quailed before it, as he had never done before to mortal eye.

Instantly recovering himself, he put on such a smile of blended grace and dignity, as melted at once the icy reserve of the maiden, and opened the way for a long and animated parley. It was full of sparkles and power, but could not be translated into any living tongue, without losing all its force and brilliancy.

Meanwhile, an animated discussion had arisen between Guatimozin and the Prince of Tezcuco, touching the propriety of receiving gifts from the strangers, or, in any way, acknowledging their claims as friends. The showy trinket, which Cacama had received from Cortez at Ajotzinco, and which he displayed on his person at this festival, gave rise to the dispute.

“It is wrong,” urged Guatimozin, “wrong to our country and wrong to ourselves. Let them gain what they can from the exuberant munificence of the Emperor, and let them stay in peace, while he permits and requires it,—but let us not weaken our hands, by touching their gifts, or accepting their tokens. When they depart, let them not boast that they have left any remembrancer behind them, or laid claims upon our hands, by their gifts, which we have freely accepted.”

“Surely, my dear cousin,” said the Princess, “you make too much of so small a matter. They are but common courtesies, and too trifling for such grave consideration and argument.”

“Not so, believe me, my fair cousin. They take us on the weak side of the heart—they blind our eyes to our true relations, unnerve our arms, and blunt our weapons of defence.”

“What then would you do,” asked Cacama, as if more than half persuaded that Guatimozin was right in his views of duty.

“Do,” replied the Prince, with startling energy of tone and manner, “I would fling it at his feet, or trample it under my own, before his eyes, and show him that I scorn him and his gifts alike.”

Tecuichpo turned suddenly round at this remark, as if fearing the stranger would understand it, and in her agitation, dropped a magnificent jewel from her dress, and with it the rose so gallantly presented by Sandoval. A dozen princes and cavaliers sprang, at the same instant, to replace the precious toy. Pedro Orteguilla, the beautiful young page of Cortez, was so fortunate as to recover it. Doffing his cap, and kneeling gracefully at her feet, he presented it to the Princess with an air of admiring deference, and, by signs, solicited the honor of replacing it upon her arm.

This little incident put an end to the discussion, which was growing too warm for the occasion, and the festivities went on as gaily as before.

A group of sprightly, mischief loving girls, who had clustered round the cool basin of a sparkling jet d’ eau, and were amusing themselves by free and fearless comments upon the appearance and manners of the strangers, arrested the eye of the impulsive, humor loving Alvarado, and drew him to solicit a share in their sport; for, in beating a retreat from the eagle glance of Karee, he had strolled into an illuminated arbor, in one of the open courts of the palace. With hand, and eye, and lip, now appealing in emphatic gesture to the stars above, and now, with ready tact and admirable sagacity distributing the flowers among the gay naiads of the fountain, he soon ingratiated himself into their favor, and engaged them in a brilliant and animated pantomime, which, if it wanted the eloquence of words, found ample compensation for that defect, in the merry shout and ringing laugh, that accompanied each labored attempt to utter, or interpret, a sentiment. The gallant cavalier soon found himself loaded with a profusion of floral favors. For every flower he bestowed upon the fair nymphs, he received an appropriate return, till his hands were full, and he found it necessary to arrange them upon his person.

Instantly the whole group, as by one impulse of artistic taste, seized the idea, and resolved to array him as a flower-god. The magnificent cactus flashed among the plumes of his helmet—a pair of splendid magnolias, tastefully adjusted on either shoulder, supplied the place of the silver epaulette—a rich cluster of unfading forget-me-not, covered and eclipsed the gilded star upon his breastplate; while every joint in his armor, and every loop and button of his doublet, was set with its appropriate garden gem. Long wreaths of a blossoming vine were dexterously intertwined with flowers of every brilliant hue, and hung like a gorgeous sash over his right shoulder, its gay streamers waving in the gentle breeze, or winding themselves about the scabbard of his sword. His hands were gloved with a moss of the most delicate green velvet, dotted with golden stars, and his boots transformed into buskins of the most approved classic pattern, by alternate bands of jessamine and scarlet lobelia, crossed and plaided with strings of anemone and hyacinth.

Thus arrayed, his face skilfully masked with the flowering wax-plant despoiled of its leaves, he was conducted into the presence of the Queen, under a continually increasing escort of bright girls and fair dames, where, with due reverence to her majesty, and with the gallantry becoming a true knight, he begged, by significant looks and signs, to be permitted to lay all his bright honors at the feet of the lovely Tecuichpo.

The signal being given at this moment, he offered his arm to the Princess, and led the way into the banqueting hall, where the luxuries of all the climes of earth seemed to be spread out in endless profusion, and where, the native song of the Aztec alternating with the martial strains of the Castilian band, the night wore away with feasting and revelry.

The day had almost dawned, when the strangers, laden with presents of inestimable value, returned to their quarters, burdened with the weight of their treasures, and deeply impressed with the more than regal munificence of their host, and the unimagined loveliness and grace of the fair beings, who gave life and beauty to his magnificent court.

“If these white gods can be bought, dear father,” the Princess naively remarked, as they took their leave, “you have surely paid a price worthy of the ransom of the proudest monarch on earth.”

“The more you bribe them,” interrupted Guatimozin, “the less you bind them. They have not the soul of an Aztec, who scorns to receive a favor that does not pledge his heart in return. The Spaniard’s heart has nothing to do with his hand. He takes your gift, only to be the better able to plot and compass your ruin.”

The Emperor sighed, as he listened to a remark, to which he could make no reply. It brought again before his agitated mind, the only course he could safely adopt in the present crisis of his affairs. In vain did his paternal heart second the suggestion, and his kingly pride urge its immediate adoption. He had not the moral courage to execute his own resolve. Superstition had wholly unmanned him.

The victorious Spaniard had now reached the goal he had so long aimed at. But his position was far from agreeable, or promising. With a small force, he was completely shut up in the heart of an immense and powerful empire, teeming with millions of warriors, who were deemed terrible and invincible by those whom he had found so formidable, and who might, at a word or a look from their sovereign, either rush in and overwhelm him at once, or withhold all supplies, and leave them to perish of famine in their quarters.

Cortez realized the critical position into which he was drawn, and resolved immediately on one of his bold measures, to turn it to his own advantage. Soliciting an interview with Montezuma, in which he was accompanied by some of his bravest cavaliers, he informed the monarch, that it was not an idle curiosity that had drawn him to encounter the perils, and undergo the toils, of the adventure that had brought him to the capital. He came, as the accredited ambassador of the mighty monarch of Castile, to whom many kings and many broad lands were tributary, and who was the rightful lord of all the territories on which his armies had set their foot. And the object of the present interview was, to demand of the king an acknowledgment of his allegiance to his royal master, and his consent to pay an annual tribute for his crown.

The mind of the superstitious Montezuma had long been preparing for this acknowledgment. With little apparent constraint, therefore, he responded to this haughty demand—that the oracles of his religion had long ago instructed him, that the territories over which he reigned belonged to a race of white men, who had removed to other lands beyond the rising sun, but would return, in process of time, invested with more than mortal power, to claim their original inheritance. For his part, he was fully convinced that that time had now arrived—that the Spaniards were the men of destiny foretold by a long line of presages and traditions, and that he was fully prepared to acknowledge the king of Castile as his lord, and pay allegiance to him as such.

“And recognize me,” interposed the wily Castilian, “as his accredited ambassador, and representative?”

The monarch assented.

The Aztec nobles, who surrounded the throne, were thunderstruck at the humble tone, and humiliating attitude assumed by their once proud and imperious lord. But they were accustomed to unqualified and unquestioning submission to the word of the king. They accordingly, at his command, gave a full assent to all that he had said, and agreed to recognize Cortez as the representative of their new sovereign. Guatimozin left the hall in disgust, and hastened to Iztapalapan, to report the progress of their humiliation to Cuitlahua.

Even with this arrangement, which had been accomplished so much more easily than he had expected, Cortez was by no means satisfied. He was still in the power of the Mexican, and could never feel safe in the position he held, without some substantial pledge, that the peace of the city would be preserved, and the ground he had already secured be left to him in undisturbed possession. To secure this, he conceived and executed a bolder and more audacious measure than that which we have just related. Soliciting another and a private interview with the Emperor, and directing his best and bravest cavaliers, with some of their chosen men, to keep near and about the palace, and be in readiness to sustain and defend him, if any resistance or outbreak should follow his daring attempt, he entered the royal presence. As the Spaniards always carried their arms, it excited no suspicion, to see them on this occasion fully equipped.

This disposition of his men and officers being effected, the bold cavalier addressed himself, in a stern voice, to the Emperor, charging him with secretly designing the destruction of his guests, and alleging, in support of the charge, some of the incidents already related, and others of more recent occurrence, in which some of the vassals of Montezuma had surprised and slain a party of Spaniards, who relied upon their hospitality. These were artfully woven into a tale of imaginary wrongs, for which he boldly pretended to claim instant redress, or rather security against their repetition.

The monarch was thunderstruck at the charge, while he, as well as the few attendants that remained near his person, with difficulty restrained the expression of their indignation at the disrespectful tone of the address, so unlike that to which the royal ears were accustomed. He peremptorily denied the charge. But Cortez was not to be foiled thus. He knew that he had now gone too far to retract, and that the change of feeling now produced would ensure his speedy destruction, if he failed of securing the object of the present interview. He, therefore, repeated the charge, assuring the monarch that such was the belief of all his men, and that nothing would convince them of his innocence, or make them willing to rest quietly in the capital, but the consent of the king to transfer his residence, for a time, to their quarters. And this he boldly demanded of him, in the name of their common sovereign, the great king of Castile, and he could not refuse obedience, without breaking allegiance with him.

“When was it ever known,” exclaimed the astonished and offended king, “that the monarch of a great people voluntarily left his own palace, to become a prisoner in the camp of a foreign nation. If I should consent to such indignity, my own subjects would every where cry out against it, and a storm would be raised, which could only be hushed when the last Spaniard was sacrificed to the outraged honor of their king, and the wrath of their offended gods.”

“No, my imperial lord,” replied the politic and smooth tongued knight, “your majesty entirely misapprehends my meaning, and the position in which I would place you. I only propose a temporary removal from one of your royal palaces to another, a thing of frequent occurrence, and therefore not likely to excite remark among your people. You can bring all your household and your court with you, and have the same royal attendance, as you now do. This show of confidence and regard, on your part, will inspire my men with new confidence in your kind intentions, and give stability in the eyes of your own people, to the friendly relations existing between us.”

Montezuma still protested that it was unworthy the dignity and majesty of the sovereign lord of Anahuac, thus to submit his motions to the direction of strangers, as it was a daring presumption and impiety, on their part, to suggest it. He therefore, peremptorily declined the proposal, and requested the general to say no more about it, if he would retain the position he now held in his regard, and that of his people.

Upon this, the iron-souled Castilian assumed a loftier aspect, and a bolder tone, and abruptly assured the monarch that it was a point he was not at liberty to dispense with. If he would not remove peaceably and quietly to the Spanish quarters, he must be carried there forcibly, though it should involve a struggle that should drench the palace in blood, and sacrifice the life of every man in his army.

Suddenly, the spirit of the monarch was gone. His old dread of the white man revived in all its power. He felt himself compelled by his destiny, to do as he was required. Signifying his assent to the haughty demand of the stranger, he ordered his nobles to make ready his palanquin, that he might go in royal state, and not appear in the eyes of his subjects, as he passed along, as a prisoner in his own capital.

With looks of astonishment, not unmingled with indignation, the proud chiefs obeyed, marching under their royal burden, with solemn pace and downcast looks, in utter silence, but nursing in their hearts an implacable hatred against the insulting Castilians, and a burning rage, which was yet to burst upon their devoted heads in an overwhelming storm of wrath. As they passed the threshold of the imperial palace, which their once proud but now humbled lord was never to recross, they heaved a deep sigh, as if the dark shadows of the future already hung frowningly over their heads. It was responded to by a deep, mysterious, sepulchral groan, which seemed to issue from the very heart of the earth, while, at the same instant, a royal eagle, sailing proudly over the capital, struck by an invisible leaden messenger from one of the sure-sighted marksmen in the Castilian camp, fluttered in his lofty flight, drooped his strong wing, and, with a terrible death shriek, the blood streaming freely from his wound, fell into the court, at the very feet of the royal procession.

The fate of Montezuma, and of his empire, was now sealed. He had, with his own hand, taken the crown from his head, and laid it at the feet of the Spaniard. And, more than all, he had humbled himself in the eyes of his own subjects, and diminished, though few were hardy enough to avow it, the profound respect and reverence with which they were accustomed to regard him. To his own immediate household, he had represented this removal as a voluntary act of courtesy, on his part, designed to compliment the strangers, by becoming, for a time, their guest, and to inspire them, by his personal presence among them, with confidence in his professions of regard, as well as to show his own people how strong the bond of amity was between them. At the same time, however, that he assured them of his personal safety and his confidence that all would end well, he recommended his wives and children to leave him, for the present, and take up their abode in his rural mountain palace at Chapoltepec.

The timid and sensitive Tecuichpo was thrown into the deepest distress by this suggestion. She could not doubt the repeated assurances of her royal father, and yet she could not divest herself of the sad impression that his liberty, and perhaps his life, was in danger, in thus separating himself from the strong arms and devoted hearts of his own people, his natural protectors, and throwing himself, unarmed, into the garrison of the fearful strangers. What security could she have that he would ever return, or that violence would not be offered to his sacred person by those who looked upon him only as the vassal of their own sovereign, to be used for his purposes and theirs, as their own selfishness and rapacity might dictate.

“Leave us not, my dear father,” she exclaimed, “or at least compel not us to leave you. Rather in darkness and in trouble than at any other time, would we stand at your side, to administer, as far as we may, to your comfort, and to share, and perhaps lighten, your sorrows.”

“Nay, my beloved child,” the grateful monarch calmly replied, “I have no need, at this time, of your solace, or your counsel. I go among friends, who respect my person and my authority, and who well know that their own safety in Tenochtitlan, depends entirely upon retaining my friendship, which alone can shield them from being overwhelmed, and swept away like chaff, before the countless hosts of my warrior bands. Why then should I fear for myself. But for you, and your mother, and your sisters, the camp of the strangers is not a fitting place for you. They have customs of their own, and are slow to recognize the propriety of ours, deeming us, as they do, an inferior race of beings. They are bold and free in their manners, quite too much so for the refined delicacy of an Aztec maiden, or an Aztec matron, as you yourself both saw and felt, at the festival of their reception. How shall I expose you to the rude gaze of these foreign cavaliers, and perhaps to the rude speeches of their soldiers. No, my beloved, go to your retirement at Chapoltepec, and train the flowers there for my coming, which will be at the approaching festival of the new moon.”

“But will you certainly come to us then, my dear father? Karee says”——

“Trouble me not with the dreams of Karee, my sweet child. They are not always as loyal as they should be. I believe I am right in what I am now doing, and I cannot be diverted from it by the mystic night visions of your favorite. Go, and the gods be with you.”

So saying, he tore himself from her embrace, and returned to his own apartments to attire himself for the removal.

The fiery, high spirited Guatimozin was so disgusted with this act of suicidal cowardice, on the part of his royal master, that he withdrew at once from the city, taking with him his servants and retainers, as well as his immense private treasures, and took up his abode at his country palace or castle, where he lived in all the pseudo-regal state and magnificence of a feudal baron, or a petty sovereign. Here he opened a correspondence with a large number of the principal nobles of the realm, who, like him, felt that the time had come to prepare for a terrible crisis. They concerted no measures, for they dared not move openly without the command or assent of their master; but they exchanged sentiments, and encouraged each other in their patriotic purpose, to defend their country from subjugation to a foreign foe, and their altars from desecration.

Passing Chapoltepec on his way, the noble Prince sought an interview with his lovely mistress, to inform her that, while the pledge he had given, in accepting the proffered rose, over the sparkling fountain of Tenochtitlan, should be sacredly regarded, he must be allowed to see with his own eyes, when danger was near, and to raise his arm in her defence, and in that of his country, from whatever quarter the threatened danger might come. He found her, bathed in tears, wandering wildly up and down, amid the shade of the tall cypresses that overhang and almost bury that mountain retreat. Her raven hair had escaped from its pearl-studded band, and was flying loosely in the breeze; the wonted bloom was gone from her cheek, and the brilliant lustre of her dark flashing eye had given way to a sad and subdued expression, which was more in keeping with the uniform mildness and gentleness of her spirit. Separated from her adored parent, and banished from the city of her love and her pride, she began to feel more deeply than she had ever done, the terror of those dark omens which had clouded her destiny, and marked her out as the doomed Princess of Anahuac. While she could cling to her father, and feel that she was to share all that might befal him, and perhaps, by sharing it, extract some portion of the bitterness from the cup which he was compelled to drink, she was calm and hopeful. But now, the sheet-anchor of her soul was gone, and she was drifting, at the mercy of the waves, she knew not whither.

“My sweet cousin,” said Guatimozin gently, as he arrested her flying step, “why this sudden abandonment to grief and despair. Dark as the clouds may be over our heads, all is not lost. Know you not, my love, that ten thousand times ten thousand brave hearts and strong arms are pledged, by every bond of loyalty and love, to rush to the rescue, the moment that any violence is offered to the sacred person of our lord. Be assured not a hair of his head shall be touched.”

“Ah! my brave Guatimozin! I know full well your courage and your zeal. But of what avail to us will be the direst vengeance your arms can wreak on the strangers, after the violence is done, and the honored head of my father—oh! that I should live to speak it!—laid low at their feet!”

“Fear not, my beloved, they dare not, with all their boasted power, they dare not lay a rude hand upon that sacred person. They know, they feel, that they are treading on a mighty volcano, that may burst out at any moment, and overwhelm them in hopeless destruction. It is this sense of impending danger only that has induced them to invite the Emperor to their quarters, and so to urge their suit, that he could not, as their professed friend, deny it. While he is there, they will feel safe, for his hand alone can stay the pent up fires, that they break not forth at once. Fear not. I go to-night to Iztapalapan, to confer with your royal uncle, the intrepid Cuitlahua. The noble Cacama joins us there, convinced already that his was a mistaken policy, when he counselled your father to receive the strangers courteously, and treat them as friends.”

“And what can Cacama do?”

“That is yet to be seen. He is convinced of his error, and is ready to atone for it with his life. With Cacama, with Cuitlahua, with a thousand more like them—chiefs who never feared danger, and never knew defeat—why should we despair, or even doubt?”

“But how know you, Guatimozin, that these Castilian strangers regard their own safety as any way involved in that of Montezuma?”

“I gathered it from the oracle, my love, and from omens which never deceive.”

“What oracle? What omens? I pray you explain?”

“The omens were their own troubled looks and clouded brows, while this strange negotiation was pending, and the guarded watchfulness, with which they now protect their guest, and prevent the intrusion upon his privacy of any considerable number of his friends, at the same time.”

“Prince Guatimozin, do I understand the import of those terrible words? Is my father already a prisoner in his own palace?”

“What else, my sweet cousin, seeing he cannot come forth, if he would, and we can only approach him by permission?”

“O ye gods! has it come to this? Fly, Guatimozin. Fly to Iztapalapan. I release you from your pledge. Sound the alarm throughout the realm. And, if need be, I will arm, and with you to the rescue.”

“Not so fast, brave princess; it is just this rashness that may endanger the precious head we would rescue. His life is safe at present; let us not put it to hazard, by moving too soon, or striking a useless blow.”

“But I see not yet, my dear cousin, how it is ascertained that my father is secure from further outrage. May it not be their policy to take away the head, hoping thus to dishearten and distract our people, and make them an easy prey to their victorious arms.”

“If so, they know not the spirit of the Aztec. To a man, throughout these broad realms, they would shed their last drop, to avenge the foul sacrilege, nor rest in their work of vengeance, till every altar in the land was drenched in the blood of the captive foe. But you forget that I have oracle as well as omen to sustain my faith.”

“What oracle has condescended, at last, to give us light? I thought they had all been silent, not deigning, since the advent of these mysterious strangers, any response to our prayers.”

“Karee is never deaf, or silent, where the welfare of Tecuichpo is concerned.”

“Karee?”

“Yes, love, Karee! I want no better or more trusty oracle. She has, you know, a sort of ubiquity. Nothing escapes her keen observation. Few mysteries are too deep for her sagacity to unravel. In her brief occasional encounters with the strangers, she has gathered the meaning of not a few of the words of their strange tongue. What she has once heard she never forgets. Presuming that no one could understand them, they have talked freely and boldly in her presence. And it is from her that I learn, that the Castilian general said to one of his officers, as he crossed the court yard, this morning—‘While we have the Emperor with us, we are safe. We must see to it, he does not escape.’”

“Escape?” shrieked the agitated Princess; “then he is indeed a prisoner. But these white men are gods, are the gods treacherous?”

“The gods of the deep are all treachery, but not those of the blue fields and bright stars above us. But, be they gods from below, or gods from above, they are not the gods of Anahuac, nor shall they claim a foot of its soil, till it is drenched with the blood of the Aztec. Farewell. Fear not. I will yet see you return in triumph to the imperial halls of Tenochtitlan.”

CHAPTER VII.

TREACHERY AND RETRIBUTION—MASSACRE OF THE AZTEC NOBILITY—DEATH OF MONTEZUMA.