The Fair God; or, The Last of the 'Tzins

“Above it are clouds,—clouds white as the foam, and such as a god might choose to waft him on his way. I can see them sway and toss, but as the shell rushes into the hollow places, they lift it up, and drive it on.”

A brighter light flashed from his eyes. “It is the canoe, the canoe!” he exclaimed. “The canoe from Tlapallan!”

“The canoe, father! The waves rush joyously around it; they lift themselves in its path, and roll on to meet it; then, as if they knew it to be a god’s, in peace make way for its coming. Upon the temples in my pictures I have seen signs floating in the air—”

“You mean banners,—banners, child,” he said, tremulously.

“I remember now. Above the foremost canoe, above its clouds, there is a banner, and it is black—”

“’Tis Quetzal’s! ’Tis Quetzal’s!” he muttered.

“It is black, with golden embroidery, and something picture-written on it, but what I cannot tell.”

“Look in the canoe.”

“I see—O, I know not what to call them.”

“Of what shape are they, child?”

“Yours, father.”

“Go on: they are gods!” he said, and still the naming of men was unheard in the great chamber.

“There are many of them,” she continued; “their garments flash and gleam; around one like themselves they are met; to me he seems the superior god; he is speaking, they are listening. He is taller than you, father, and has a fair face, and hair and beard like the hue of his banner. His garments are the brightest of all.”

“You have described a god; it is Quetzal’, the holy, beautiful Quetzal’!” he said, with rising voice. “Look if his course be toward the land.”

“Every canoe moves toward the shore.”

“Enough!” he cried. “The writing on the wall is the god’s!” And, rising, he awoke the girl.

As Tecetl awake had no recollection of her journey, or of what she had seen in its course, she wondered at his trouble and excitement, and spoke to him, without answer.

“Father, what has Tecetl done that you should be so troubled?”

He put aside her arms, and in silence turned slowly from the pleasant place, and retraced his steps back through the halls of the Cû to the court-yard and azoteas.

The weight of the secret did not oppress him; it rested upon him lightly as the surplice upon his shoulders; for the humble servant of his god was lifted above his poverty and trembling, and, vivified by the consciousness of inspiration, felt more than a warrior’s strength. But what should he do? Where proclaim the revelation? Upon the temple?

“The streets are deserted; the people are in the theatre; the king is there with all Anahuac,” he muttered. “The coming of Quetzal’ concerns the Empire, and it shall hear the announcement: so not on the temple, but to the tianguez. The god speaks to me! To the tianguez!”

In the chapel he exchanged his white surplice for the regalia of sacrifice. Never before, to his fancy, wore the idol such seeming of life. Satisfaction played grimly about its mouth; upon its brow, like a coronet, sat the infinite Will. From the chapel he descended to the street that led to the great square. Insensibly, as he hurried on, his steps quickened; and bareheaded and unsandalled, his white beard and hair loose and flowing, and his face beaming with excitement, he looked the very embodiment of direful prophecy. On the streets he met only slaves. At the theatre the entrance was blocked by people; soldiery guarded the arena: but guard and people shrunk at his approach; and thus, without word or cry, he rushed within the wall of shields, where were none but the combatants, living and dead.

Midway the arena he halted, his face to the king. Around ran his wondrous glance, and, regardless of the royalty present, the people shouted, “The paba, the paba!” and their many voices shook the theatre. Flinging the white locks back on his shoulders, he tossed his arms aloft; and the tumult rose into the welkin, and a calm settled over the multitude. Montezuma, with the malediction warm on his lips, bent from his couch to hear his words.

“Woe is Tenochtitlan, the beautiful!” he cried, in the unmeasured accents of grief. “Woe to homes, and people, and armies, and king! Why this gathering of dwellers on the hills and in the valleys! Why the combat of warriors? Quetzal’ is at hand. He comes for vengeance. Woe is Tenochtitlan, the beautiful! * * * * This, O king, is the day of the fulfilment of prophecy. From out the sea, wafted by clouds, even now the canoes of the god are coming. His power whitens the waves, and the garments of his warriors gleam with the light of the sky. Woe is Tenochtitlan! This day is the last of her perfect glory; to-morrow Quetzal’ will glisten on the sea-shore, and her Empire vanish forever. * * * * People, say farewell to peace! Keepers of the temples, holy men, go feed the fires, and say the prayer, and sacrifice the victim! And thou, O king! summon thy strong men, leaders in battle, and be thy banners counted, and thy nations marshalled. In vain! Woe is Tenochtitlan! Sitting in the lake, she shines lustrously as a star; and though in a valley of gardens, she is like a great tree shadowing in a desert. But the ravager comes, and the tree shall be felled, and the star go out darkling forever. The fires shall fade, the bones of the dead kings be scattered, altars and gods overthrown, and every temple levelled with the streets. Woe is Tenochtitlan! Ended,—ended forever is the march of Azatlan, the mighty!”

His arms fell down, and, without further word, his head bowed upon his breast, the prophet departed. The spell he left behind him remained unbroken. As they recovered from the effects of his bodement, the people left the theatre, their minds full of indefinite dread. If perchance they spoke of the scene as they went, it was in whispers, and rather to sound the depths of each other’s alarm. And for the rest of the day they remained in their houses, brooding alone, or collected in groups, talking in low voices, wondering about the prescience of the paba, and looking each moment for the development of something more terrible.

The king watched the holy man until he disappeared in the crowded passage; then a deadly paleness overspread his face, and he sunk almost to the platform. The nobles rushed around, and bore him to his palanquin, their brave souls astonished that the warrior and priest and mighty monarch could be so overcome. They carried him to his palace, and left him to a solitude full of unkingly superstitions.

Guatamozin, serene amid the confusion, called the tamanes, and ordered the old Othmi and the dead removed. The Tezcucan still breathed.

“The reviler of the gods shall be cared for,” he said to himself. “If he lives, their justice will convict him.”

Before the setting of the sun, the structure in the tianguez was taken down and restored to the temples, never again to be used. Yet the market-place remained deserted and vacant; the whole city seemed plague-smitten.

And the common terror was not without cause, any more than Mualox was without inspiration. That night the ships of Cortes, eleven in number, and freighted with the materials of conquest, from the east of Yucatan, came sweeping down the bay of Campeachy. Next morning they sailed up the Rio de Tabasco, beautiful with its pure water and its banks fringed with mangroves. Tecetl had described the fleet, the sails of which from afar looked like clouds, while they did, indeed, whiten the sea.

Next evening a courier sped hotly over the causeway and up the street, stopping at the gate of the royal palace. He was taken before the king; and, shortly after, it went flying over the city how Quetzal’ had arrived, in canoes larger than temples, wafted by clouds, and full of thunder and lightning. Then sank the monarch’s heart; and, though the Spaniard knew it not, his marvellous conquest was half completed before his iron shoe smote the shore at San Juan de Ulloa.[27 - Cortes’ squadron reached the mouth of the river Tabasco on the 12th of March, 1519.]

BOOK TWO

CHAPTER I.

WHO ARE THE STRANGERS?

March passed, and April came, and still the strangers, in their great canoes, lingered on the coast. Montezuma observed them with becoming prudence; through his lookouts, he was informed of their progress from the time they left the Rio de Tabasco.

The constant anxiety to which he was subjected affected his temper; and, though roused from the torpor into which he had been plunged by the visit to the golden chamber, and the subsequent prophecy of Mualox, his melancholy was a thing of common observation. He renounced his ordinary amusements, even totoloque, and went no more to the hunting-grounds on the shore of the lake; in preference, he took long walks in the gardens, and reclined in the audience-chamber of his palace; yet more remarkable, conversation with his councillors and nobles delighted him more than the dances of his women or the songs of his minstrels. In truth, the monarch was himself a victim of the delusions he had perfected for his people. Polytheism had come to him with the Empire; but he had enlarged upon it, and covered it with dogmas; and so earnestly, through a long and glorious reign, had he preached them, that, at last, he had become his own most zealous convert. In all his dominions, there was not one whom faith more inclined to absolute fear of Quetzal’ than himself.

One evening he passed from his bath to the dining-hall for the last meal of the day. Invigorated, and, as was his custom, attired for the fourth time since morning in fresh garments, he walked briskly, and even droned a song.

No monarch in Europe fared more sumptuously than Montezuma. The room devoted to the purpose was spacious, and, on this occasion, brilliantly lighted. The floor was spread with figured matting, and the walls hung with beautiful tapestry; and in the centre of the apartment a luxurious couch had been rolled for him, it being his habit to eat reclining; while, to hide him from the curious, a screen had been contrived, and set up between the couch and principal door. The viands set down by his steward as the substantials of the first course were arranged upon the floor before the couch, and kept warm and smoking by chafing-dishes. The table, if such it may be called, was supplied by contributions from the provinces, and furnished, in fact, no contemptible proof of his authority, and the perfection with which it was exercised. The ware was of the finest Cholulan manufacture, and, like his clothes, never used by him but the once, a royal custom requiring him to present it to his friends.[28 - Prescott, Conq. of Mexico.]

When he entered the room, the evening I have mentioned, there were present only his steward, four or five aged councillors, whom he was accustomed to address as “uncles,” and a couple of women, who occupied themselves in preparing certain wafers and confections which he particularly affected. He stretched himself comfortably upon the couch, much, I presume, after the style of the Romans, and at once began the meal. The ancients moved back several steps, and a score of boys, noble, yet clad in the inevitable nequen, responding to a bell, came in and posted themselves to answer his requests.

Sometimes, by invitation, the councillors were permitted to share the feast; oftener, however, the only object of their presence was to afford him the gratification of remark. The conversation was usually irregular, and hushed and renewed as he prompted, and not unfrequently extended to the gravest political and religious subjects. On the evening in question he spoke to them kindly.

“I feel better this evening, uncles. My good star is rising above the mists that have clouded it. We ought not to complain of what we cannot help; still, I have thought that when the gods retained the power to afflict us with sorrows, they should have given us some power to correct them.”

One of the old men answered reverentially, “A king should be too great for sorrows; he should wear his crown against them as we wear our mantles against the cold winds.”

“A good idea,” said the monarch, smiling; “but you forget that the crown, instead of protecting, is itself the trouble. Come nearer, uncles; there is a matter more serious about which I would hear your minds.”

They obeyed him, and he went on.

“The last courier brought me word that the strangers were yet on the coast, hovering about the islands. Tell me, who say you they are, and whence do they come?”

“How may we know more than our wise master?” said one of them.

“And our thoughts,—do we not borrow them from you, O king?” added another.

“What! Call you those answers? Nay, uncles, my fools can better serve me; if they cannot instruct, they can at least amuse.”

The king spoke bitterly, and looking at one, probably the oldest of them all, said,—

“Uncle, you are the poorest courtier, but you are discreet and honest. I want opinions that have in them more wisdom than flattery. Speak to me truly: who are these strangers?”