"Until I wrong the gods why should I fear them? Have done, Paba. I, too, am a priest," said Montezuma, earnestly.
"I, his true servant, tell you never again to look for smile from Tlapalla. I will show you from Quetzalcoatl himself, that the end of your empire is at hand. Every breeze from the east is filled with woe for you and yours. The writing is on the wall. Look again and closely."
"I see nothing," cried the king.
"All that you have heard about the return of Quetzalcoatl is true. He is coming to end the days of the Aztecs forever."
"Forever! It cannot be. Read the next panel."
"There is no other, this is the last," answered the Paba sadly.
Montezuma turned quickly to the north wall, but found it without a single mark. Here indeed was the end.
That night the Aztec king could neither eat nor sleep. The prophecy was with him all the time. When the morning came he called for his canoe. From the battlements of Chapultepec, the palace and tomb of his fathers, he would see the sun rise. If Quetzalcoatl was angered and meant to wreak vengeance, he naturally supposed the sun, his dwelling place, would give some warning.
In all the heavens around there was not a fleck when suddenly a cloud of smoke rushed upward, and across the pathway of the sun, so that when it crept over the mountain range, it looked like a ball of blood! Montezuma drew the hood over his face quickly, and his head dropped on his breast.
The Paba had spoken the truth. Quetzalcoatl was coming! and next evening a runner 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 the news went flying over Tenochtitlan, that Quetzalcoatl had arrived in his huge water-house with wings, and filled with thunder and lightning! for that was what the Aztecs called the ships and cannon brought by Cortez.