And the young chief knelt on the step before the throne, and answered with mock solemnity, “Your servant, O king, knows your great love of minstrelsy, and how it delights you to make rich the keeper of a harp who sings a good song well. I have taken one who bears him like a noble singer, and has age to warrant his experience.”
“Call you that the man?” asked the king, pointing to Guatamozin.
“He is the man.”
The monarch laughed, and all the guests listening laughed. Now, minstrels were common on all festive occasions; indeed, an Aztec banquet was no more perfect without them than without guests: but it was seldom the royal halls were graced by one so very aged; so that the bent form and gray locks, that at other places and times would have insured safety and respect, now excited derision. The men thought his presence there presumptuous, the women laughed at him as a dotard. In brief, the ’tzin’s peril was very great.
He seemed, however, the picture of aged innocence, and stood before the throne, his head bowed, his face shaded by the hood, leaning humbly on his staff, and clasping the harp close to his breast, the vines yet about it. So well did he observe his disguise, that none there, save Tula and Yeteve, might dream that the hood and dark gown concealed the boldest warrior in Tenochtitlan. The face of the priestess was turned away; but the princess sat a calm witness of the scene; either she had too much pride to betray her solicitude, or a confidence in his address so absolute that she felt none.
“He is none of ours,” said the king, when he had several times scanned the minstrel. “If the palace ever knew him, it was in the days of Axaya’, from whose tomb he seems to have come.”
“As I came in from the garden, I met him going out,” said Maxtla, in explanation. “I could not bear that my master should lose such a promise of song. Besides, I have heard the veterans in service often say that the ancient chants were the best, and I thought it a good time to test the boast.”
The gray courtiers frowned, and the king laughed again.
“My minstrel here represented that old time so well,” continued Maxtla, “that at first I was full of reverence; therefore I besought him to come, and before you, O king, sing the chants that used to charm your mighty father. I thought it no dishonor for him to compete with the singers now in favor, they giving us something of the present time. He declined in courtliest style; saying that, though his voice was good, he was too old, and might shame the ancient minstrelsy; and that, from what he had heard, my master delighted only in things of modern invention. A javelin in the hand of a sentinel ended the argument, and he finally consented. Wherefore, O king, I claim him captive, to whom, if it be your royal pleasure, I offer liberty, if he will sing in competition before this noble company.”
What sport could be more royal than such poetic contest,—the old reign against the new? Montezuma welcomed the idea.