“Well, well,—they run like deer; on them the god and his comrades plunge into the masses in the street; beating back and pursuing, striking with their spears, and trampling down all in their way. Stones and arrows are flung from the houses, but they avail nothing. The god shouts joyously, he plunges on; and the blood flows faster than before; it reddens the shields, it drips from the spear-points—”
“Enough, Mualox!” said Montezuma, starting from his seat, and speaking firmly. “I want no more. Guide me hence!”
The paba was surprised; rising slowly, he asked,—
“Will not the king stay to the end?”
“Stay!” repeated the monarch, with curling lip. “Are my people of Cholula wolves that I should be glad at their slaughter? It is murder, massacre, not battle! Show me to the roof again. Come!”
Mualox turned to Tecetl; touching her hand, he found it cold; the sunken eyes, and the lips, vermeil no longer, admonished him of the delicacy of her spirit and body. He filled a vase at the fountain, and laved her face, the while soothingly repeating, “Tecetl, Tecetl, child!” Some minutes were thus devoted; then kissing her, and replacing the hand tenderly in the other lying in her lap, he said to the monarch,—
“Until to-day, O king, this sacredness has been sealed from the generations that forsook the religion of Quetzal’. Eye of mocker has not seen, nor foot of unbeliever trod this purlieu, the last to receive his blessing. You alone—I am of the god—you alone can go abroad knowing what is here. Never before were you so nearly face to face with the Ruler of the Winds! And now, with what force a servant may, I charge you, by the glory of the Sun, respect this house; and when you think of it, or of what here you have seen, be it as friend, lover, and worshipper. If the king will follow me, I am ready.”
“I am neither mocker nor unbeliever. Lead on,” replied Montezuma.
And after that, the king paid no attention to the chamber; he moved along the aisles too unhappy to be curious. The twenty thousand warriors had not been mentioned by Tecetl; they had not, it would seem, entered the city or the battle, so there was a chance of the victory; yet was he hopeless, for never a doubt had he of her story. Wherefore, his lamentation was twofold,—for his people and for himself.
And Mualox was silent as the king, though for a different cause. To him, suddenly, the object of his life put on the garb of quick possibility. Quetzal’, he was sure, would fill the streets of Cholula with the dead, and crown his wrath amid the ruins of the city. In the face of example so dreadful, none would dare oppose him, not even Montezuma, whose pride broken was next to his faith gained. And around the new-born hope, as cherubs around the Madonna, rustled the wings of fancies most exalted. He saw the supremacy of Quetzal’ acknowledged above all others, the Cû restored to its first glory, and the silent cells repeopled. O happy day! Already he heard the court-yard resounding with solemn chants as of old; and before the altar, in the presence-chamber, from morn till night he stood, receiving offerings, and dispensing blessings to the worshippers who, with a faith equal to his own, believed the ancient image the One Supreme God.