More to a withered flower, they forsook his shrine, and mock’d his
Image. His love, longest lingering, went down at last, but slowly
Went, as the brook, drop by drop, runs dry in the drought of a rainless
Summer. Wrath ’rose instead. Down in a chamber below the temple,
A chamber full of gold and unveiled splendor, beneath the Lake that
Long had ceased its laughing, thither went the god, and on the walls,
On the marble and the gold, he wrote—
The improvisation, if such it was, now wrought its full effect upon Montezuma, who saw the recital coming nearer and nearer to the dread mysteries of the golden chamber in the old Cû. At the beginning of the last sentence, the blood left his face, and he leaned forward as if to check the speech, at the same time some master influence held him wordless. His look was that of one seeing a vision. The vagaries of a mind shaken by days and nights of trouble are wonderful; sometimes they are fearful. How easy for his distempered fancy to change the minstrel, with his white locks and venerable countenance, into a servant of Quetzal’, sent by the god to confirm the interpretation and prophecies of his other servant Mualox. At the last word, he arose, and, with an imperial gesture, cried,—
“Peace—enough!”