CHAPTER I
THE FIRST COMBAT
The ’tzin’s companion the night of the banquet, as the reader has no doubt anticipated, was Hualpa, the Tihuancan. To an adventure of his, more luckless than his friend’s, I now turn.
It will be remembered that the ’tzin left him at the door of the great hall. In a strange scene, without a guide, it was natural for him to be ill at ease; light-hearted and fearless, however, he strolled leisurely about, at one place stopping to hear a minstrel, at another to observe a dance, and all the time half confused by the maze and splendor of all he beheld. In such awe stood he of the monarch, that he gave the throne a wide margin, contented from a distance to view the accustomed interchanges of courtesy between the guests and their master. Finding, at last, that he could not break through the bashfulness acquired in his solitary life among the hills, and imitate the ease and nonchalance of those born, as it were, to the lordliness of the hour, he left the house, and once more sought the retiracy of the gardens. Out of doors, beneath the stars, with the fresh air in his nostrils, he felt at home again, the whilom hunter, ready for any emprise.
As to the walk he should follow he had no choice, for in every direction he heard laughter, music, and conversation; everywhere were flowers and the glow of lamps. Merest chance put him in a path that led to the neighborhood of the museum.
Since the night shut in,—be it said in a whisper,—a memory of wonderful brightness had taken possession of his mind. Nenetzin’s face, as he saw it laughing in the door of the kiosk when Yeteve called the ’tzin for a song, he thought outshone the lamplight, the flowers, and everything most beautiful about his path; her eyes were as stars, rivalling the insensate ones in the mead above him. He remembered them, too, as all the brighter for the tears through which they had looked down,—alas! not on him, but upon his reverend comrade. If Hualpa was not in love, he was, at least, borrowing wings for a flight of that kind.
Indulging the delicious revery, he came upon some nobles, conversing, and quite blocking up the way, though going in his direction. He hesitated; but, considering that, as a guest, the freedom of the garden belonged equally to him, he proceeded, and became a listener.
“People call him a warrior. They know nothing of what makes a warrior; they mistake good fortune, or what the traders in the tianguez call luck, for skill. Take his conduct at the combat of Quetzal’ as an example; say he threw his arrows well: yet it was a cowardly war. How much braver to grasp the maquahuitl, and rush to blows! That requires manhood, strength, skill. To stand back, and kill with a chance arrow,—a woman could do as much.”
The ’tzin was the subject of discussion, and the voice that of Iztlil’, the Tezcucan. Hualpa moved closer to the party.
“I thought his course in that combat good,” said a stranger; “it gave him opportunities not otherwise to be had. That he did not join the assault cannot be urged against his courage. Had you, my lord Iztlil’, fallen like the Otompan, he would have been left alone to fight the challengers. A fool would have seen the risk; a coward would not have courted it.”
“That argument,” replied Iztlil’, “is crediting him with too much shrewdness. By the gods, he never doubted the result,—not he! He knew the Tlascalans would never pass my shield; he knew the victory was mine, two against me as there were. A prince of Tezcuco was never conquered!”