Euetzin was quite rejoiced, and, with a happy smile upon his face, so lately covered by a cloud of anxiety, conducted his now joyful sister and her forever-famous young husband from the court-room, and into the presence of Teochma, the mother, who received them with demonstrations of joy and gladness, forgetting, in the happiness of the moment, her disappointment at not becoming the mother of a queen.
CHAPTER XL.
Immediately after the trial Cacami and Itlza accompanied Teochma to Zelmonco villa, where the twain remained for a time in the enjoyment of each other's society, made unspeakably felicitous by a love which had been purified and intensified, in the crucible of affliction. The reward of their fidelity was a rich one—the consciousness of having been true to each other through an ordeal little less terrible than death itself.
The stay of the happy couple at the villa was suddenly brought to a close by an edict from the king, conferring upon Cacami a title of nobility, accompanied by a domain commensurate with the dignity it entailed. He was ordered to appear before the proper authority, that he might be inducted into the high and honorable station he was to fill, and be put in possession of his estates, which included a beautiful villa, provided with everything necessary to make it a home worthy of one who was to be an associate of the king.
The prescribed forms were complied with, which raised the young farmer warrior to a position of distinction, and he and his faithful wife were duly installed in their new home.
Itlza, if not a queen, was the happy, loving consort of a noble, who in after years became one of the great men of his nation.
Euetzin was in due time wedded to Mitla, at the king's palace.
Hualcoyotl, remembering the act which saved him from capture by the Tepanec soldiers and brought him to a final refuge, expressed a wish to the tzin that the marriage ceremony between Mitla and himself should be celebrated in his presence. The latter, as a result of the request, made a trip to the mountaineer's home—not, however, as on previous occasions, in a pedestrial fashion, but as a dignitary, within a royal palanquin borne by tamanes—for the purpose of consulting the wishes of the hunters' chief and his family, with reference to the matter. The prestige such a wedding would confer upon the favored ones was sufficient inducement to cause a concurrence in the arrangement by the hunter and his family, and the tzin returned to his royal patron the bearer of the gratifying intelligence that he was to be chief sponsor of the occasion.
While elaborate preparations for the event were going on, Tezcot and his family were brought to the palace of the king to become his guests until after the nuptial ceremony.