The object of the coalition against Maxtla having been achieved, and Tezcuco once more in position to defend herself, the league was dissolved. The foreign armies quietly withdrew from the city, and returned to their respective capitals—the hunter-guard having early gone back to their mountain homes.
The parting between the old warrior chieftain, Ix, and his friend Tezcot, was expressive of a deep and lasting regard. The latter promised, at leaving—to please his hermit friend—that, providing his affairs at home would admit of it, he would return to witness the prince's coronation, which event was then paramount to everything else in the minds of the disenthralled and happy people, who were bent on making it a memorable occasion—a day on which not only the crowning of their new king should take place, but a grand celebration, also, in honor of Tezcuco's independence and their liberation from an enforced vassalage.
It was customary, when an event not down on their calendar was to be observed, to select one of their festal days on which to celebrate it, of which they had a great number, every deity having one especially set apart for its service. One of the most prominent on their calendar was, accordingly, chosen for the occasion—prominent because of the latitude which would be afforded the priesthood, in it, to exercise its peculiar functions, not omitting the revolting ceremony of human sacrifice, in which its members seemed to delight. Not since the subversion of their government had a festival so impressive in character been celebrated in Tezcuco, and the priests, awake to the importance of an occasion which would restore to them privileges so long withheld, were active in its promotion, and a great number of victims—chiefly prisoners of war—were selected for sacrifice.
Hualcoyotl was greatly averse to the shocking scenes of blood and agony, which always attended the sacrificial ceremony, but had no power—not even as a king—to stop it, for the authority of the priesthood in such matters was supreme.
We have it from fairly reliable sources—mostly traditional, to be sure, yet worthy of credence—that he made it an especial effort of his long and prosperous reign to have the inhuman practice abolished, and bring his people to worship according to the belief which he had early conceived to be the correct one—which, in the light of his surroundings, was truly remarkable. He believed in "One unseen Cause of Causes"—"One all-powerful God"—a unity, to whom appeals should be made direct. In this particular he showed a high order of intelligence, for it is an established opinion, if not a fact, that the simplicity of the idea of one God, who has no need of inferior representatives to execute his will, is too vast for the conception of narrowed understandings, and, as a consequence, resort to a multiplicity of deities follows.
The great Tezcucan was only partially successful in his efforts, because of the vitiating influence of his Aztec neighbors, who exceeded all the other races of Anahuac in barbaric practices, between whom and his people there existed the closest political relations, almost from the day of his coronation up to the time of the conquest.
The prince's failure to establish his belief in "One Supreme Intelligence" did not abate in the least his personal convictions on the subject, but as the years went by he became more firmly fixed in his faith, which, if not a Christian faith, was so near to it that the difference could only be found in the fact that he was a barbarian, having no knowledge of the Christ; and, yet, who shall say, when ways and means for the acquiring of religious knowledge are considered, that Hualcoyotl's religion was not as acceptable to "Him by whom we live" as was that of the shepherd king?
Itlza and her mother were in due time transferred to the Tezcucan palace, and no royal host was ever more considerate of the wants and comforts of his guests than was he of their's. The mother was elated to a degree which almost made her forget her affliction. In the transfer the first step leading to high honors for her daughter was taken, a sufficient cause for the excitement of a more enlightened intelligence than her's. Itlza, on the other hand, between love for Cacami and sorrow for her lost brother, took no account of the significance which was to be attached to the transfer of her residence from Zelmonco to Tezcuco, and entered upon the change with no suspicion of what it portended.
The prince, in making his proposal to Teochma that she and Itlza should take up their residence in the palace, had put it as near in the form of a command as he could without making it direct. He pressed it upon her as an honor which should not be treated lightly, and being ambitious of her child's advancement she readily complied. As an obedient daughter, who really had no choice in the matter, Itlza acquiesced, and, amid the bustle and confusion with which the city and palace were filled, found the change from quiet Zelmonco very agreeable.