“The condition is reasonable,” he said. “Is there a minstrel in the valley to call it otherwise?”
In a tone scarcely audible, though all were silent that they might hear, the ’tzin answered,—
“Obedience was the first lesson of every minstrel of the old time; but as the master we served loved us as his children, we never had occasion to sing for the purchase of our liberty. And more,—the capture of a harmless singer, though he were not aged as your poor slave, O king, was not deemed so brave a deed as to be rewarded by our master’s smile.”
The speech, though feebly spoken, struck both the king and his chief.
“Well done, uncle!” said the former, laughing. “And since you have tongue so sharp, we remove the condition—”
“Thanks, many thanks, most mighty king! May the gods mete you nothing but good! I will depart.” And the ’tzin stooped till his harp struck the floor.
The monarch waved his hand. “Stay. I merely spoke of the condition that made your liberty depend upon your song. Go, some of you, and call my singers.” A courtier hurried away, then the king added, “It shall be well for him who best strikes the strings. I promise a prize that shall raise him above trouble, and make his life what a poet’s ought to be.”
Guatamozin advanced, and knelt on the step from which Maxtla had risen, and said, his voice sounding tremulous with age and infirmity,—
“If the great king will deign to heed his servant again,—I am old and weak. There was a time when I would have rejoiced to hear a prize so princely offered in such a trial. But that was many, many summers ago. And this afternoon, in my hut by the lake-shore, when I took my harp, all covered with dust, from the shelf where it had so long lain untouched and neglected, and wreathed it with this fresh vine, thinking a gay dress might give it the appearance of use, and myself a deceitful likeness to the minstrel I once was, alas! I did not think of my trembling hand and my shattered memory, or of trial like this. I only knew that a singer, however humble, was privileged at your banquet, and that the privilege was a custom of the monarchs now in their halls in the Sun,—true, kingly men, who, at time like this, would have put gold in my hand, and bade me arise, and go in peace. Is Montezuma more careless of his glory? Will he compel my song, and dishonor my gray hair, that I may go abroad in Tenochtitlan and tell the story? In pity, O king, suffer me to depart.”
The courtiers murmured, and even Maxtla relented, but the king said, “Good uncle, you excite my curiosity the more. If your common speech have in it such a vein of poetry, what must the poetry be? And then, does not your obstinacy outmeasure my cruelty? Get ready, I hold the fortune. Win it, and I am no king if it be not yours.”