CHAPTER VII.
LOYALTY OUTWEIGHS GOLD AND FREEDOM
The delight of these humble Tlascalan slaves at discovering, and being permitted to serve, the son of their country's hero, knew no bounds. They wept with joy, and would have kissed his feet had he allowed it. The man provided him with dry clothing from his own scanty stock, while the woman hastened to make some tortillas, the thin cakes of meal and water, baked on the surface of a flat stone set at an angle before the fire, that to this day form the staple bread of all Mexico. They marvelled at the story of his escape from beneath the very knife of sacrifice, and listened to it with ejaculations of thankfulness and amazement at every detail. They spoke with bated breath of Tlahuicol's brave fight, while the man declared proudly that the like had never been seen even in that land of battles, and that none but a Tlascalan could have performed such marvels. More than all were they proud that Huetzin had entrusted them with his life, and they wondered that he should have dared place himself at the mercy of strangers.
"No Tlascalan is a stranger to the son of Tlahuicol," answered the young man, simply.
"But how knew you that we were Tlascalans?"
"By the tongues with which you spoke. The voice of the mountaineer no more resembles that of a dweller in the valleys than the cry of the eagle is like that of a raven," replied Huetzin, with a smile.
Then they rejoiced that in all their years of slavery they had not lost their native accent, and recalled with simple pride how they had striven and helped each other to preserve this token of their birth, and sole reminder of their happy youth among the distant mountains. They told him of their captivity, and how they had been surprised, not far from their own home, by a party of Aztec slave-hunters, against whom the man's desperate resistance proved of no avail. "Though there were but few abler warriors than he in all the land," added the old woman, proudly, with a fond look at her old husband. They also told him of their only child, the little girl, Cocotin, who had been left behind and of whose fate they had gained no tidings in all these years. They told of their present life with all its toil and hardship, and, when the tale was ended they rejoiced that the gods had led them over the thorny paths of slavery to the end that they might be of service to the son of Tlahuicol, their country's hero.
With all this there was no intimation of the fact, that should they be suspected of aiding the escape of a victim doomed to sacrifice, or of having sheltered him for an hour, they would be condemned to death by torture. Huetzin, however, was well aware of this, and so, when he had eaten of their frugal fare and dried his wet garments, he would have taken his departure; but to this his entertainers would not listen.
"It is near morning, and with daylight your capture in this place would be certain," argued the man. "Tarry with us until the coming of another night, when I will guide you to a place from which you may reach the road to Tlascala."