“So he told the boy.”
“Incredible!”
“I will not quarrel with my lord on that account,” rejoined the broker. “A more generous master than Montezuma never lived. Are not the people always complaining of his liberality? At the last banquet, for inventing a simple drink, did he not give me, his humblest slave, a goblet fit for another king?”
“And what is your drink, though ever so excellent, to the saving his life? Is not that your argument, Chalcan?”
“Yes, my lord, and at such peril! Ah, you should have seen the ocelot when taken from the tank! The keepers told me it was the largest and fiercest in the museum.”
Then Xoli proceeded to edify his noble audience with all the gossip pertaining to the adventure; and as his object was to take into court some friends for the luckless hunter more influential than himself, he succeeded admirably. Every few steps there were such expressions as, “It would be pitiful if so brave a fellow should die!” “If I were king, by the Sun, I would enrich him from the possessions of the Tezcucan!” And as they showed no disposition to interrupt him, his pleading lasted to the house of justice, where the company arrived not any too soon to procure comfortable seats.
The court-house stood at the left of the street, a little retired from the regular line of buildings. The visitors had first to pass through a spacious hall, which brought them to a court-yard cemented under foot, and on all sides bounded with beautiful houses. Then, on the right, they saw the entrance to the chamber of justice, grotesquely called the Tribunal of God,[37] in which, for ages, had been administered a code, vindictive, but not without equity. The great door was richly carved; the windows high and broad, and lined with fluted marble; while a projecting cornice, tastefully finished, gave airiness and beauty to the venerable structure.
The party entered the room with profoundest reverence. On a dais sat the judge; in front of him was the stool bearing the skull with the emerald crown and gay plumes. Turning from the plain tapestry along the walls, the spectators failed not to admire the jewels that blazed with almost starry splendor from the centre of the canopy above him.
The broker, not being of the class of privileged nobles, found a seat with difficulty. To his comfort, however, he was placed by the side of an acquaintance.
“You should have come earlier, Chalcan; the judge has twice used the arrow this morning.”