Here, in sight of the whole city the opposing forces closed in furious combat, of such a phenomenal nature, that all other hostilities were suspended by mutual consent, in order that this death-struggle in mid-air might be watched without interruption. The priests of the temple, seeming more like demons than human beings, with their blood-clotted locks and savage aspect, fought like such. They rushed at the Spaniards with incredible fury, and, in many cases, forced them over the awful brink, willing to sacrifice their own lives in the leap to death, if they could only carry the hated Christians with them.
Once, in the midst of the fighting, Huetzin heard his own name called in accents of despair, and saw his brother Sandoval whose sword had snapped off at the hilt, struggling with half a dozen of these fiends, who had forced him to within a few feet of the edge. In a moment the young Toltec had hewed a way to his friend's side, and in another Sandoval was free to snatch the sword of a dying cavalier, and plunge once more into the thickest of the fight. For three dreadful hours did the combat rage. At the end of that time a remnant only of the gallant band of assailants remained masters of the bloody arena. Every Aztec, priest, noble, or warrior, had either been slain, or hurled from the giddy height.
Some of the survivors entered the sanctuary where sat the frightful image of Huitzil, the war-god. Bound to the altar in front of it they discovered a man. His eyes were torn from their sockets; his limbs were broken, and he bore other evidences of the most diabolical tortures. That he still lived, in spite of all, was attested by his feeble moanings. For a moment the victors paused aghast at the sight. Then one from among them sprang forward, and knelt beside this pitiful victim of the most hideous religion known to the New World. He was Huetzin, and in the cruelly mutilated form before him, he still recognized Tlalco the Toltec, the priest who, on three separate occasions, had saved him from a like awful fate.
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE GLORIOUS TRIUMPH OF TLALCO
Tlalco the Toltec, one of the few survivors in Mexico of that mysterious race to which Huetzin traced his own ancestry, had, like Tlahuicol, been born in the land of the Mayans. Here he was educated as a priest of that gentle religion of love and peace, whose gods were the Four Winds, and other forces of nature, and the symbol of which was a cross. It had at one time been the faith of all Anahuac; but, with the coming of the conquering Aztecs, it was supplanted by the cruel worship of Huitzil, the war-god, whose blood-stained priests demanded the sacrifice of thousands of human victims every year.
The young Toltec first heard of these abominations with horror, but not until his only brother, to whom he was passionately attached, was captured by an Aztec war party and doomed to sacrifice in Tenochtitlan, did he conceive the idea of devoting his life to conflict with the gods who exacted them. His first act was to secretly enlist a number of young men whose enthusiasm in the sacred cause was equal to his own. Then, like a crusader of the old world, he entered Anahuac at the head of his little band. Its members were distributed by twos, in various places, from which they were to maintain a regular correspondence with him. By this means he gained early information of all important occurrences throughout the kingdom, and was able to lay his plans accordingly. He established himself in Tenochtitlan. Here he bearded the lion in its den, by entering the service of the temple, and becoming a candidate for the priesthood of Huitzil. While thus engaged he first heard of Tlahuicol.
Tlalco's nature was to plot and work by hidden means; but he could rejoice in the downright blows of the warrior, who fought openly against those of whom he was the secret enemy. Though he did not meet Tlahuicol, nor even learn that he, too, was a Toltec, until the very hour of the latter's death, he made himself familiar with every event of the great warrior's career. He augmented the prestige of the Tlascalan war-chief by originating, and spreading, the prophecy that through Tlahuicol should Huitzil fall. It was this prophecy, a knowledge of which had become general at the time the Tlascalan was captured by his enemies, that caused Topil, the chief priest, to regard him with such a bitter hatred, and demand his life of Montezuma.
After the death of Tlahuicol, and the startling discovery that he, too, was a Toltec, Tlalco determined to protect the children of the hero so far as lay in his power, and at the same time to use them in furthering his own life-work. All his hopes of ultimate success now centred in the mysterious white conquerors, who, bearing a cross as their symbol of faith, had recently arrived on the coast. Therefore, after rescuing Huetzin from the knife of sacrifice, he bade him seek and join himself to them, thus, unwittingly, reiterating the last instructions of Tlahuicol.