The following day was set apart for certain games of wrestling, foot-racing, and other tests of strength or skill, and it was decided that these should end with the trial of weapons between Huetzin and Xicoten. There was an immense concourse of spectators to witness the games, and when at length the two Tlascalan champions stood forth, they were greeted with tumultuous applause. Each was accompanied by a second, pledged to see fair play. That of the war chief was a brother noble of gigantic size, and by Huetzin's side walked Sandoval, with a face as melancholy as though he were attending an execution.
There were no preliminary formalities. The contestants were placed two paces apart, Xicoten, armed with his maquahuitl, a tough oaken staff, some three and a half feet long, set with blades of itztli, and Huetzin with his sword of Toledo steel. Each bore on his left arm a tough leathern shield. Behind Xicoten stood his second, also armed with a maquahuitl, and a little to one side of Huetzin, Sandoval leaned gloomily on his great two-handed sword.
The contest began with a cautious play of fence, in which the adversaries displayed an equal skill, and which the spectators greeted with hearty approval. Soon, however, Xicoten's blows began to fall with a downright earnestness that boded ill for his slighter antagonist, and but for Huetzin's superior agility in springing back, and so evading them, it was evident that he would have come to grief. Several times was his guard beaten down by sheer force. The face of the young Toltec grew pale, his breath came in gasps, and it was apparent to all that his powers of endurance were nearly spent.
Finally blood began to ooze from the recent wound in his head, at sight of which murmurs arose from the spectators, and cries for the contest to end. Sandoval, who stood with half-closed eyes and an air of bored indifference, began to arouse. Huetzin deftly caught a cruel blow from Xicoten's maquahuitl on his shield; but beneath its force his left arm dropped as though numbed.
With blazing eyes Sandoval stepped forward and lifted his sword as a signal for the combat to cease. Disobeying the signal, Xicoten, blinded by a jealous rage, raised his weapon for yet another blow. Ere it could be delivered Sandoval's great sword was whirled about his head like a leaping flame, and in another instant it had shorn through the tough oak of Xicoten's weapon, as though it had been a reed. So complete was the severance that one-half fell to the ground behind the Tlascalan, leaving him to gaze at the other, still remaining in his hand, with such a bewildered air, that the vast audience broke into shouts of merriment. For a moment Sandoval glared about him as though seeking an excuse to repeat his mighty blow. Then, with a glance of contempt at Xicoten, he turned and stalked from the field.
On the next day, in spite of the protests from Montezuma's ambassadors, and the warnings of the Tlascalan counsellors, the white conquerors prepared to resume their march to Tenochtitlan, which they proposed to reach by way of the sacred city of Cholula.
CHAPTER XV.
MARCHING ON CHOLULA
While the Spanish commander had never swerved from his announced determination of penetrating to the very heart of Anahuac, and establishing himself, either by peaceful or warlike means, in its capital city, he was at all times confused by the contradictory advice of the natives as to the route by which he should advance. He had been advised to visit Tlascala, and urged not to do so by those who feared that, after encountering the unconquered armies of the mountain republic, he would be so weakened that the Aztecs would easily destroy him. In this case he had relied solely upon his own judgment, with the results already known. Up to the moment of his triumphal entry into the Tlascalan capital, every embassy from Montezuma, while striving to gain his good-will by lavish and costly gifts, had also endeavored to dissuade him from his purpose of visiting the royal city. The Tlascalans, too, protested against their new allies placing themselves at the mercy of the treacherous Aztec monarch by entering the island city of Tenochtitlan, where they could easily be cut off from all communication with the main land by the simple removal of the bridges on its several causeways. They assured him that the armies of Montezuma covered the continent, so that, in the event of battle, the Aztec king could well afford to allow the Spaniards to exhaust themselves with slaughter, and could then overwhelm them by mere force of numbers.