When he reached the bottom of the last flight of steps, and could go no farther, then he would turn and fight to the bitter end. They should never again lay his breathing body on the hideous stone of sacrifice.
Thus Huetzin determined; but when he came to the door, and the pursuing footsteps were close upon him, it stood open. Hardly crediting this wonder, the fugitive sprang through the opening thus miraculously provided, and slammed the heavy door behind him. Then he again ran forward through utter darkness. Feeling for the side passages that he remembered, he at length found and entered one. In this he ran, until suddenly he brought up against a solid wall, where he fell, panting, bruised, and almost unconscious, to the ground.
CHAPTER XXII.
SANDOVAL PLIGHTS HIS TROTH
When Sandoval returned with the others to the Spanish quarters, after leaving the temple, he urged Marina to find out who had sent the message that had despatched him on so fruitless an errand to Huitzil's shrine, and, if possible, what it meant. This Marina was only too glad to undertake; for she, as well as the young Spaniard, was anxious and unhappy concerning the fate of him who had been her patient in Tlascala.
In the meantime Sandoval, visiting the Tlascalan quarters, found the fierce warriors very angry, and inclined to quarrel with some one, on account of the loss of their well-liked young chief. They could form no idea of what had become of him, but declared that if he were not restored to them soon, and in safety, the city that had swallowed him should be made to feel their vengeance. The matter was becoming so serious that it must be reported to Cortes. Upon hearing of it, the Spanish leader declared his intention of immediately visiting the king, and demanding any information he might possess upon the subject. To this end, he summoned Marina to accompany him as interpreter.
The Indian girl had but just discovered the page who had brought her the message, and gained from him the information that it had been sent by one of the court ladies, who was even now walking in the king's gardens, and to whom he would willingly conduct her. As Marina must attend the Conqueror in his audience with the king, she turned the page over to Sandoval, with instructions to lead the young cavalier to the gardens instead of herself, and point the lady out to him.
Then the same party, that had made a tour of the city that morning, set forth for Montezuma's palace. After they had entered its grounds, Sandoval, keeping a tight hold of his page, managed to slip away unnoticed. He was pleasantly conscious that at length he, like other young men whom he had known, was setting forth in search of a romantic adventure. The feeling was an entirely novel one; for the plain-faced young soldier, though expert in the art of war, was awkward of speech, and so diffident that, since his childhood, he had hardly exchanged a dozen words with any woman. Marina was, of course, excepted, but he regarded her more in the light of a fellow-soldier than as a member of the dreaded sex.
He wondered if the woman he was about to see would be old or young, attractive or otherwise. He finally decided that she would be middle-aged, as dark-skinned as were most of the Indian women he had seen, and that she was probably the wife of some court noble, who had let drop a chance expression concerning Don Juan, which she had misunderstood. While thus cogitating, Sandoval was led through a maze of shaded alleys and perfumed shrubberies until he was as bewildered as one without a compass in mid-ocean.