“Your friend is hurt; help him!” he said, turning to the courtier; but he was alone,—the craven had run. For one fresh from the hills, this was indeed a dilemma! A duel and a death in sight of the royal palace! A chill tingled through his veins. He thought rapidly of the alarm, the arrest, the king’s wrath, and himself given to glut the monsters in the menagerie. Up rose, also, the many fastnesses amid the cedared glades of Tihuanco. Could he but reach them! The slaves of Montezuma, to please a whim, might pursue and capture a quail or an eagle; but there he could laugh at pursuit, while in Tenochtitlan he was nowhere safe.
Sight of the flowing blood brought him out of the panic. He raised the Tezcucan’s arm, and tore the rich vestments from his breast. The wound was a glancing one; it might not be fatal after all; to save him were worth the trial. Taking off his own maxtlatl, he wound it tightly round the body and over the cut. Across the street there was a small, open house; lifting the wounded man gently as possible, he carried him thither, and laid him in a darkened passage. Where else to convey him he knew not; that was all he could do. Now for flight,—for Tihuanco. Tireless and swift of foot shall they be who catch him on the way!
He started for the lake, intending to cross in a canoe rather than by the causeway; already a square was put behind, when it occurred to him that the Tezcucan might have slaves and a palanquin waiting before the palace door. He began, also, to reproach himself for the baseness of the desertion. How would the ’tzin have acted? When the same Tezcucan lay with the dead in the arena, who nursed him back to life?
If Hualpa had wished his patron’s presence at the beginning of the combat, now, flying from imaginary dangers,—flying, like a startled coward, from his very victory,—much did he thank the gods that he was alone and unseen. In a kind of alcove, or resting-place for weary walkers, with which, by the way, the thoroughfares of Tenochtitlan were well provided, he sat down, recalled his wonted courage, and determined on a course more manly, whatever the risk.
Then he retraced his steps, and went boldly to the portal of the palace, where he found the Tezcucan’s palanquin. The slaves in charge followed him without objection.
“Take your master to his own palace. Be quick!” he said to them, when the wounded man was transferred to the carriage.
“It is in Tecuba,” said one of them.
“To Tecuba then.”
He did more; he accompanied the slaves. Along the street, across the causeway, which never seemed of such weary length, they proceeded. On the road the Tezcucan revived. He said little, and was passive in his enemy’s hands. From Tecuba the latter hastened back to Tenochtitlan, and reached the portico of Xoli, the Chalcan, just as day broke over the valley.
And such was the hunter’s first emprise as a warrior.