The Bride of Huitzil—An Aztec Legend

by Hervey Allen

III

Here begins the third scroll with the sign of a man in a black canoe, which is the symbol of a soul crossing the Lake of Death.

And no one dared awake the king—
He slept—to him it seemed
White vapor covered everything,
And through its rifts there gleamed
A figure striding through the mist;
Dimly he saw the head,
The white skull set with turquoise stones,
The goddess of the dead.

Now at the hour before the dawn,
When owlets cease to call,
He put a cloak of black skins on
And walked forth from the hall,
Across the terrace, down the stair,
Along an empty street,
Where the lone watchman felt his hair
Rise at the soundless feet.
But to the dying king it seemed
As though he moved with ease
Upon a journey he had dreamed—
No weight above his knees—
So from his house he passed away,
Down to the stony strand
Where the black water of the lake
Whimpered against the land.
And there he hailed a boatman dim
Who gave a toothless scream
And motioned to wade out to him;
Cold as a mountain stream
He felt the lake rise to his chin;
It seemed to strike him through
And freeze his heart—but he plunged in,
And clutched the black canoe.

And the blind boatman helped him up,
Gave him a drink of blood;
Far in the lake he tossed the cup,
And straight across the flood
They moved like stars across the night,
Passing a fisher's raft
Where, seated by a flickering light,
A brown child sat and laughed,
Kissing again her painted doll;
She screamed at the strange sight—
The shadowy boatman tall—
The boat as black as night.
And they passed fishermen's canoes,
Anchored in shallow spots
Where nets were staked—among the crews
Fires glowed in earthen pots—
And chinampas, where in tended rows[[1]]
White, cherished orchids grew.
They saw far mountain snows
Glimmer against the blue
Of night that now turned faintly gray,
And the wide lake grew flushed
With the first scarlet of the day
As on they rushed.
But the king looked toward the shore,
And saw they left no wake.
The long streak gleamed that shows before
The sun bursts on the lake.
Vague lay the city and the land,
Veiled by a rain—or tears—
Where he had ruled with ruthless hand—
Dreams mirrored back dead years:

Childhood—and little shells brought to his mother.
On the beach at sunset when the lake grew dark;
Young faces of his playmates in old days,
And the first lusts of his strong youth.
The look of his first love, now long since dead;
And walks among the maize fields with his friend,
And that great day the high priest hailed him king—
Long lines of warriors charging home, with streaming feathers,
And the crash of shields,
The spurting arc of blood from one be smote
upon the neck in battle;
Houses and streets, and sights;
And cunning thoughts, and plans that
he had made in the dim city
There across the lake,
That he should see no more.

But now they neared a porphyry cliff
Where lingered blacker night,
And from the prow of the dark skiff
The king beheld a light
That burned upon a landing place
Where a stream cleft the land,
And the torch showed his nephew's face
Shaded by one small hand.
There the king leaped ashore,
And followed up the steep ravine.
The naked child went on before;
On pools there fell the sheen
Of his young body in the light,
And the king heard his echoed calls
And followed after through the night,
Up slippery waterfalls
On rough steps hollowed by the stream,
Up to the high plateaus
Where far across the valley gleam
Iztaccihuatl's snows.[[2]]
Then they glowed ruddy in the dawn
And the valley, one huge cup,
Lay shining, city and lake and lawn;
The sun was coming up.
In the morning light they stood alone
Upon a spine-like crest,
And the child took a jagged stone
Out from his empty breast,
And said, "The gods have sent you this;
They bid you to their feast.
The place you will not miss:
It lies due east."
Then in the shadows of the place
He seemed to melt away
As a smile fades from the face—
And it was day.

But the king pressed on across the plain
Where in long, dusty lines
The sand blew, for there fell scant rain;
The lizard with sharp spines
Hid mid the myriad cactus thorns,
And swifts would dart and cling,
And the toad blinked beneath his horns,
And birds never sing.
Ever the king rose higher,
Where gila monsters slept by dens
And the slopes grew drier—
Into the huge and solitary glens,
Wounds of a lonely world,
About whose beetling cliffs
The little clouds lay curled.

Framed at the end of one long vale
Was cleft a narrow gate,
A rocky entrance to the dale,
The only break
In the black cliffs to left and right;
It looked into the sky
As one square window frames the light.
To this the king drew nigh.

Suddenly he heard
The sound of stricken metal,
Like a spoken word,
And loud ringing gongs,
The shivering clash
Of cymbals, and the crash
Of drums, and timbrels with the noise
Of piping, and shrill songs of gelded boys.
Around, around him swept a howling rout
Of dancers in the masks of beasts,
With toss of feet and arms about
Like crazy drinkers at wild feasts;
These swept him to the gate, and there
Back to the rock caves fled,
Leaving flat silence on the air
And a dumb dread.

But through the gate he made his way,
Cut in the hill's midriff,
And found the sun with whitest day
Beating upon a cliff
That fell sheer to the valley dim;
And when the clouds would lift,
He saw the far landscape swim
Glimmering through the rift.
Then, reeling from the gaping height,
Back through a lava alley,
Stumbling on rocks in the half-light,
He came into a valley,
The hollow of a cup-shaped hill,
Where the long clouds lay
And all was gray and still.

There at their everlasting feast,
Around a table carved about
With many a tigerish beast
And faces, heavy-lipped, that pout
In stone, the gods sat—
Totec, parrot-faced, with stony stare,
And the water goddess fat,
With writhing serpents in her hair;
Huitzil, with flickering plumes
Of waving fire above his head,
And white-skulled Coatlicue,
The goddess of the dead;
Tlaloc, god of rain, with beryl eyes,
Who gloats on children brought
And slain to him with dismal cries,
In withering times of draught;
And Tezcat, lord of sharp obsidian,
And Quetzalcoatl with his golden curls,
Worshipped at Tlacopan
With sacrifice at noontide hours
Of copal gum, while girls
Bring heaps of fruit and flowers.
In blue folds his snake was curled,
The holy snake with crest
Of feathers, lord of this green world,
Swathed in a rustling nest
Of maize leaves—the wise god,
That makes the rain, and harvest wave,
And the grain ripen in the pod.
Now a desperate courage seized the king;
He dropped his warrior's cloak
And threw away his plumes and ring,
Drew near, and spoke:

"Naked to judgment, Merciless Ones, I come,
Nor fear the tomb,
Knowing that what I did was done
By your own doom."

Then the gods counseled among themselves,
Muttering like summer thunder,
As when the distant earthquake delves
Beneath the hills, and wonder
Falls on the cities of the plain
At the vast, rocking rumble—
Then terror, and men flee in vain,
And the high towers tumble.
So spoke the gods, and a thick gloom
Came upon everything
While the serpent hissed their doom
Upon the king.

"One act of mercy spoils a life
Of fragrant slaughter full.
Since you are nothing—
Neither merciless nor merciful,
Your doom is this:
You shall be hurled
From a cliff
And this good world to nothingness."
So spoke the serpent in a hiss.

Then Huitzil seized a monster spear
And drove the king along the path.
His soul now first knew fear
At the beast laugh
The gods gave—once he looked back,
But following after,
Huge Huitzil strode upon his track,
Shaking with laughter.
Now the far valley burst upon his view
With rolling hill and plain,
Cloud-shadowed to the mountains blue.
He stood upon the cliff again—
Tottered—and heard an eagle scream—
Then suddenly he seemed to fall
As one falls in a dream.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Down in the palace in the town,
The king's body stirred and cried
A fearful cry, and startled slaves ran in;
And rumor spread that he had died.
Then came a loud uproar
And the priests raged outside,
And with stone hammers smote upon the door
And Huitzil claimed his bride.

Here ends the third scroll with the sign
of a closed eye, which is
the symbol of
death.

[[1]] Chinampas, Floating garden rafts.

[[2]] One of the twin volcanoes in the valley of Mexico. The name means "The White Woman" from cihuatl, woman. The form of the mountain suggested the name.

Three hundred and fifty copies printed at
the Press of William Edwin Rudge, Mount
Vernon, N. T. Typography by Bruce Rogers.
Decorations by Bernhardt Wall.