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

And to the commissioners he said, “Tell your master to open the markets, or we will for him. Begone!”

And they went back and reported, omitting nothing, not even the insulting epithet. The king heard them silently; as they proceeded, he gathered strength; when they ceased, he was calm and resolved.

“Return to Malinche,” he said, “and tell him what I wished to say: that my people are ready to attack him, and that the only means I know to divert them from their purpose is to release the lord Cuitlahua, my brother, and send him to them to enforce my orders. There is now no other of authority upon whom I can depend to keep the peace, and open the markets; he is the last hope. Go.”

The messengers departed; and when they were gone the monarch said, “Leave the chamber now, all but Tula.”

At the last outgoing footstep she went near, and knelt before him; knowing, with the divination which is only of woman, that she was now to have reply to the ’tzin’s message, delivered by her in the early morning. Her tearful look he answered with a smile, saying tenderly, “I do not know whether I gave you welcome. If I did not, I will amend the fault. Come near.”

She arose, and, putting an arm over his shoulder, knelt closer by his side; he kissed her forehead, and pressed her close to his breast. Nothing could exceed the gentleness of the caress, unless it was the accompanying look. She replied with tears, and such breaking sobs as are only permitted to passion and childhood.

“Now, if never before,” he continued, “you are my best beloved, because your faith in me fell not away with that of all the world besides; especially, O good heart! especially because you have to-day shown me an escape from my intolerable misery and misfortunes,—for which may the gods who have abandoned me bless you!”

He stroked the dark locks under his hand lovingly.

“Tears? Let there be none for me. I am happy. I have been unresolved, drifting with uncertain currents, doubtful, yet hopeful, seeing nothing, and imagining everything; waiting, sometimes on men, sometimes on the gods,—and that so long,—ah, so long! But now the weakness is past. Rejoice with me, O Tula! In this hour I have recovered dominion over myself; with every faculty restored, the very king whom erst you knew, I will make answer to the ’tzin. Listen well. I give you my last decree, after which I shall regard myself as lost to the world. If I live, I shall never rule again. Somewhere in the temples I shall find a cell like that from which they took me to be king. The sweetness of the solitude I remember yet. There I will wait for death; and my waiting shall be so seemly that his coming shall be as the coming of a restful sleep. Hear then, and these words give the ’tzin: Not as king to subject, nor as priest to penitent, but as father to son, I send him my blessing. Of pardon I say nothing. All he has done for Anahuac, and all he hopes to do for her, I approve. Say to him, also, that in the last hour Malinche will come for me to go with him to the people, and that I will go. Then, I say, let the ’tzin remember what the gods have laid upon him, and with his own hand do the duty, that it may be certainly done. A man’s last prayer belongs to the gods, his last look to those who love him. In dying there is no horror like lingering long amidst enemies.”

His voice trembled, and he paused. She raised her eyes to his face, which was placid, but rapt, as if his spirit had been caught by a sudden vision.

“To the world,” he said, in a little while, “I have bid farewell. I see its vanities go from me one by one; last in the train, and most glittering, most loved, Power,—and in its hands is my heart. A shadow creeps upon me, darkening all without, but brightening all within; and in the brightness, lo, my People and their Future!”

He stopped again, then resumed:—

“The long, long cycles—two,—four,—eight—pass away, and I see the tribes newly risen, like the trodden grass, and in their midst a Priesthood and a Cross. An age of battles more, and, lo! the Cross but not the priests; in their stead Freedom and God.”

And with the last word, as if to indicate the Christian God, the report of a gun without broke the spell of the seer; the two started, and looked at each other, listening for what might follow; but there was nothing more, and he went on quietly talking to her.

“I know the children of the Aztec, crushed now, will live, and more,—after ages of wrong suffered by them, they will rise up, and take their place—a place of splendor—amongst the deathless nations of the earth. What I saw was revelation. Cherish the words, O Tula; repeat them often; make them an utterance of the people, a sacred tradition; let them go down with the generations, one of which will, at last, rightly interpret the meaning of the words Freedom and God, now dark to my understanding; and then, not till then, will be the new birth and new career. And so shall my name become of the land a part, suggested by all things,—by the sun mildly tempering its winds; by the rivers singing in its valleys; by the stars seen from its mountain-tops; by its cities, and their palaces and halls; and so shall its red races of whatever blood learn to call me father, and in their glory, as well as misery, pray for and bless me.”

In the progress of this speech his voice grew stronger, and insensibly his manner ennobled; at the conclusion, his appearance was majestic. Tula regarded him with awe, and accepted his utterances, not as the song habitual to the Aztec warrior at the approach of death, nor as the rhapsody of pride soothing itself; she accepted them as prophecy, and as a holy trust,—a promise to be passed down through time, to a generation of her race, the first to understand truly the simple words,—Freedom and God. And they were silent a long time.

At length there was a warning at the door; the little bells filled the room with music strangely inharmonious. The king looked that way, frowning. The intruder entered without nequen; as he drew near the monarch’s seat, his steps became slower, and his head drooped upon his breast.

“Cuitlahua! my brother!” said Montezuma, surprised.

“Brother and king!” answered the cacique, as he knelt and placed both palms upon the floor.

“You bring me a message. Arise and speak.”

“No,” said Cuitlahua, rising. “I have come to receive your signet and orders. I am free. The guard is at the door to pass me through the gate. Malinche would have me go and send the people home, and open the markets; he said such were your orders. But from him I take nothing except liberty. But you, O king, what will you,—peace or war?”

Tula looked anxiously at the monarch; would the old vacillation return? He replied firmly and gravely,—

“I have given my last order as king. Tula will go with you from the palace, and deliver it to you.”

He arose while speaking, and gave the cacique a ring; then for a moment he regarded the two with suffused eyes, and said, “I divide my love between you and my people. For their sake, I say, go hence quickly, lest Malinche change his mind. You, O my brother, and you, my child, take my blessing and that of the gods! Farewell.”

He embraced them both. To Tula he clung long and passionately. More than his ambassadress to the ’tzin, she bore his prophecy to the generations of the future. His last kiss was dewy with her tears. With their faces to him, they moved to the door; as they passed out, each gave a last look, and caught his image then,—the image of a man breaking because he happened to be in God’s way.

CHAPTER V

HOW TO YIELD A CROWN

As the guard passed the old lord and the princess out of the gate opposite the teocallis, the latter looked up to the azoteas of the sacred pile, and saw the ’tzin standing near the verge; taking off the white scarf that covered her head, and fell from her shoulders, after passing once around her neck, she gave him the signal. He waved his hand in reply, and disappeared.

The lord Cuitlahua, just released from imprisonment and ignorant of the situation, scarcely knowing whither to turn yet impatient to set his revenge in motion, accepted the suggestion of Tula, and accompanied her to the temple. The ascent was laborious, especially to him; at the top, however, they were received by Io’ and Hualpa, and with every show of respect conducted to the ’tzin. He saluted them gravely, yet affectionately. Cuitlahua told him the circumstances of his release from imprisonment.

“So,” said the ’tzin, “Malinche expects you to open the market, and forbid the war; but the king,—what of him?”

“To Tula he gave his will; hear her.”

And she repeated the message of her father. At the end, the calm of the ’tzin’s temper was much disturbed. At his instance she again and again recited the prophecy. The words “Freedom and God” were as dark to him as to the king, and he wondered at them. But that was not all. Clearly, Montezuma approved the war; that he intended its continuance was equally certain; unhappily, there was no designation of a commander. And in thought of the omission, the young chief hesitated; never did ambition appeal to him more strongly; but he brushed the allurement away, and said to Cuitlahua,—

“The king has been pleased to be silent as to which of us should govern in his absence; but we are both of one mind: the right is yours naturally, and your coming at this time, good uncle, looks as if the gods sent you. Take the government, therefore, and give me your orders. Malinche is stronger than ever.” He turned thoughtfully to the palace below, over which the flag of Spain and that of Cortes were now displayed. “He will require of us days of toil and fighting, and many assaults. In conquering him there will be great glory, which I pray you will let me divide with you.”

The lord Cuitlahua heard the patriotic speech with glistening eyes. Undoubtedly he appreciated the self-denial that made it beautiful; for he said, with emotion, “I accept the government, and, as its cares demand, will take my brother’s place in the palace; do you take what else would be my place under him in the field. And may the gods help us each to do his duty!”

He held out his hand, which the ’tzin kissed in token of fealty, and so yielded the crown; and as if the great act were already out of mind, he said, –

“Come, now, good uncle,—and you, also, Tula,—come both of you, and I will show what use I made of the kingly power.”

He led them closer to the verge of the azoteas, so close that they saw below them the whole western side of the city, and beyond that the lake and its shore, clear to the sierra bounding the valley in that direction.

“There,” said he, in the same strain of simplicity, “there, in the shadow of the hills, I gathered the people of the valley, and the flower of all the tribes that pay us tribute. They make an army the like of which was never seen. The chiefs are chosen; you may depend upon them, uncle. The whole great host will die for you.”

“Say, rather, for us,” said the lord Cuitlahua.

“No, you are now Anahuac”; and, as deeming the point settled, the ’tzin turned to Tula. “O good heart,” he said, “you have been a witness to all the preparation. At your signal, given there by the palace gate, I kindled the piles which yet burn, as you see, at the four corners of the temple. Through them I spoke to the chiefs and armies waiting on the lake-shore. Look now, and see their answers.”

They looked, and from the shore and from each pretentious summit of the sierra, saw columns of smoke rising and melting into the sky.

“In that way the chiefs tell me, ‘We are ready,’ or ‘We are coming.’ And we cannot doubt them; for see, a dark line on the white face of the causeway to Cojohuacan, its head nearly touching the gates at Xoloc; and another from Tlacopan; and from the north a third; and yonder on the lake, in the shadow of Chapultepec, a yet deeper shadow.”

“I see them,” said Cuitlahua.

“And I,” said Tula. “What are they?”

For the first time the ’tzin acknowledged a passing sentiment; he raised his head and swept the air with a haughty gesture.

“What are they? Wait a little, and you shall see the lines on the causeways grow into ordered companies, and the shadows under Chapultepec become a multitude of canoes; wait a little longer, and you shall see the companies fill all the great streets, and the canoes girdle the city round about; wait a little longer, and you may see the battle.”

And silence fell upon the three,—the silence, however, in which hearts beat like drums. From point to point they turned their eager eyes,—from the causeways to the lake, from the lake to the palace.

Slowly the converging lines crawled toward the city; slowly the dark mass under the royal hill, sweeping out on the lake, broke into divisions; slowly the banners came into view, of every color and form, and then the shields and uniforms, until, at last, each host on its separate way looked like an endless unrolling ribbon.

When the column approaching by the causeway from Tlacopan touched the city with its advance, it halted, waiting for the others, which, having farther to march, were yet some distance out. Then the three on the teocallis separated; the princess retired to her chinampa; the lord Cuitlahua, with some nobles of the ’tzin’s train, betook himself to the new palace, there to choose a household; the ’tzin, for purposes of observation, remained on the azoteas.

And all the time the threatened palace was a picture of peace; the flags hung idly down; only the sentinels were in motion, and they gossiped with each other, or lingered lazily at places where a wall or a battlement flung them a friendly shade.