By Right of Conquest; Or, With Cortez in Mexico

by G. A. Henty

Cacama was summoned to a council on the following day; and returned, saying that the picture had quite turned the scale in Roger's favor; that it had been examined by the chief scribes and the men of science, who all agreed that no such thing had been seen before; and that a person who was thus able to turn, as it were, a leaf of paper into a mirror, to fix upon it the representation of scenes just as the eye beheld them, must be possessed of powers altogether strange and supernatural. They desired to know whether he would teach his methods to some of the chief scribes of the emperor.

Cacama warmly congratulated Roger on the result.

"You are now safe, for the present, at any rate," he said, "and the priests are silenced. You may have trouble in the future, but for the time Montezuma's love of art has overcome his doubts and fears as to good and evil omens."

"Shall I have to take up my residence in Mexico?"

"I hardly think so," Cacama replied. "Tezcuco is still acknowledged the center of the arts and sciences of Anahuac. Here are the best schools of the scribes, and they come here to be instructed in hieroglyphic writing from all parts of the kingdom. Moreover, in that way Montezuma will have less uneasiness concerning you. He will think that, even if the omens be unfavorable, there will be no danger so long as you are at a distance from his capital; therefore, I think he is more likely to order some of the scribes to take up their residence here, for a time, than he is to bid you to cross to teach them there."

Such in fact was the purport of the message received from Montezuma on the following day. Six of the most accomplished scribes of Mexico were to proceed at once to Tezcuco, there to be instructed in the new art; and the next day Roger found himself established in a room in the palace, with the six Aztec scribes, and six of those most celebrated for their skill in Tezcuco. Some attendants were told off to mix colors under his directions, and to purchase for him, in the market, all kinds of dyes and colors he might require. A male and female slave were, at Roger's request, placed at his service to act as models; and the attendants had orders to fetch, from the cages and aviaries, any beasts and birds he might desire to copy.

Roger had, at first, some difficulty in preserving his gravity at thus undertaking charge of an art school. At first he confined himself to sketching, from the models, with a burnt stick on the white paper, and in seeing that his pupils did the same. Their drawing had hitherto been purely conventional. They had always drawn a man in a certain way, not because they saw him so, but because that was the way in which they had been taught to draw him; and he had great difficulty in getting them to depart altogether from these lines, and to draw the model exactly as he stood before them.

What he called his school hours lasted but four hours a day; and as he did this work in the middle of the day, when it was too hot to go out, but very pleasant in the rooms with their thick walls and semi-shaded windows, it interfered but little with his daily life. He had now a set of apartments next to those of Cuitcatl, with attendants to wait upon him; but his time was spent as much in the young noble's rooms as in his own. In the morning they walked together, either in the town or beyond its walls. In the evening they spent hours upon the lake, sometimes in large canoes with gay parties, the boats decked with flowers; while at a short distance another boat with musicians followed in their wake, the melody, which was by no means agreeable to Roger when close, coming softly across the water. With Cuitcatl as a guide, Roger visited the schools where the young nobles were educated, and which reminded him much of that at which he had, for five or six years, been taught.

He also frequently witnessed the drilling of the soldiers. This was of a very simple character, consisting principally in teaching them to move together in masses, and to shoot with a bow. The bows were light and the arrows small, and Roger thought that they could scarcely be very formidable weapons, even against men clad in quilted cotton; for although they might wound and annoy, they could seldom kill.

One evening, about five months after his arrival, Roger had just returned from an excursion upon the lake; and he and Cuitcatl were seated in the latter's rooms, sipping chocolate, when the hangings of the door were drawn aside suddenly, and Amenche entered. With an exclamation of surprise, the two young men rose to their feet and saluted deeply.