Heart of the World

by H. Rider Haggard

We heard, and gathered up our courage to meet the advancing fate, for we knew that death was on us, and that for us there was no more pity or escape.

The door was opened, and Nahua came through it, dressed in the robes of her rank, and wearing the green diadem that could be carried only by the wife or mother of the cacique.

“What is your pleasure with me, lords?” she said proudly, after she had made her obeisance to the altar.

Then the Priest of the Records rose and read the charge, namely, that she had attempted with her own hand to do murder upon the body of the infant child of Maya, Lady of the Heart, and her husband, the white man; also that she had aided and abetted Tikal, her husband, in various acts of cruelty and misgovernment that were alleged against him, asking her what she pleaded in answer.

“To the last charge, not guilty,” she said. “Let Tikal defend his own sins. To the first, guilty. I did attempt to put an end to yonder brat, but Maya discovered me, and I was caught and bound.”

“Surely, brethren,” said Dimas, rising, “we need carry this matter no further. We have heard the evidence of the Lady Maya and the others, and now Nahua confesses to her crime. She confesses that she attempted to take the life of him whom she knew to be the sacred child, the hope of the People of the Heart, and for such a sin it seems to me that there is but one punishment, though it is terrible, and she who must suffer it is a woman and of high rank.”

“Stay!” broke in Nahua. “You have not heard me out, and I have the right to speak before I am condemned to die. You charge me with having attempted to take the life of ‘the sacred child, the hope of the People of the Heart,’ and, had I done this, doubtless I should be worthy of your doom, whereas in truth I am worthy of your praise. Lords of the Heart, this child whom you adore, the Heaven-sent Child of prophecy, whom to-night you would anoint as your cacique, deposing Tikal, my husband, and who, as you believe, shall be the star to light our race to greatness and to victory, is a living lie, a fraud, and a bastard!”

Now a confusion broke out among the Council, and angry voices called to her to cease her blasphemies; but she won silence, and went on:

“Hear me out, I pray you, for, even if I wished it, I should not dare to speak thus at random, but am prepared with proof of every word I utter. You think that I would have killed this child to wring the heart of my rival, Maya,—and indeed I desire to wring it; and that I would set my own son in his place,—and indeed I wish to set him there. Yet these were not my reasons for the deed. Lords of the Council, listen to a tale, the strangest that ever you have heard, and judge between me and Tikal, my husband, and Maya, my rival, and her friends. Mattai, my father, was known to you all, seeing that at the time of his death, and, indeed, since Tikal was anointed cacique, he stood next to him in place and power among the People of the Heart, holding those offices in the Brotherhood which now are filled by Dimas, and among them that of Keeper of the Sanctuary. Yet, lords, Mattai, my father, was no true man. Alas! that I should have to say it, seeing that it was more for my sake that he sinned than for his own, since he loved me, and desired my welfare above everything on earth. It was this love of his that ruined him, making him false to his god, to his oaths, and to his country. Thus, in the beginning, he knew that since I was a child I had set my heart upon the Lord Tikal, who was affianced to the Lady Maya; also that I was ambitious and yearned to be great. Therefore it was that he deceived Tikal, pretending that it had been revealed to him by heaven that the Lady Maya and her father were dead in the wilderness. Therefore it was also that when he had persuaded him that she was lost to him for ever, he pressed it upon the Lord Tikal that he should marry me in place of Maya, his affianced, who was dead, promising him in return that he would bring it about that he should be anointed cacique of the People of the Heart. All these things and others he did, though at that time I knew nothing of them, and thought in my folly that Tikal married me because he loved me, and sought me as the companion of his life and power.

“Then Zibalbay returned on the night of our marriage-feast, and with him came Maya and the strangers; and from that hour my husband began to hate me because I was his wife in place of Maya, whom he loved. More, as I have learned since, he went to Zibalbay while he lay in prison, and offered to resign his place as cacique in his favour for so long as he should live, and no more to oppose his schemes, if he would give him Maya in marriage after I had been put away either by death or by divorce. This Zibalbay would have done, and gladly; but, as it chanced, Maya here had set her heart upon the white man during their journeyings together through the wilderness, and refused to be separated from him that she might be palmed off in marriage upon Tikal. Yet he might have won his way, for their case was desperate, and the alternative was death had not Mattai, my father, found a plan whereby they could be saved and I remain the wife of the cacique. This was the plan, lords: that a prophecy should be set in the symbol of the Heart yonder, such as would deceive the Council of the Heart, and bring it about that Maya should be given in marriage to the white man whom she loved. Lords, this was done. At the dead of night they crept to the Sanctuary, and, opening the Heart, they placed within it that tablet which you have seen, the tablet that foreshadowed the birth of a Deliverer. The rest you know.”