Maxtla bowed and laughed. “Mualox is a magician; the stars deal with him. And my brother will not speak, lest he may cover the sky of his fortune with clouds.”
“No,” said the Tezcucan, proudly; “the wager was not a sacrilege to the paba or his god; if it was, the god, not the man, should be a warrior’s fear.”
“Does Maxtla believe Mualox a prophet?” asked Tlahua, a noble Otompan.
“The gods have power in the sun; why not on earth?”
“You do not like the paba,” observed Iztlil’, gloomily.
“Who has seen him, O prince, and thought of love? And the walls and towers of his dusty temple,—are they not hung with dread, as the sky on a dark day with clouds?”
The party, however they might dislike the cacique, could not listen coldly to this conversation. They were mostly of that mystic race of Azatlan, who, ages before, had descended into the valley, like an inundation, from the north; the race whose religion was founded upon credulity; the race full of chivalry, but horribly governed by a crafty priesthood. None of them disbelieved in star-dealing. So every eye fixed on the Tezcucan, every ear drank the musical syllables of Maxtla. They were startled when the former said abruptly,—
“Comrades, the wrath of the old paba is not to be lightly provoked; he has gifts not of men. But, as there is nothing I do not dare, I will tell the story.”
The company now gathered close around the speaker.
“Probably you have all heard,” he began, “that Mualox keeps in his temple somewhere a child or woman too beautiful to be mortal. The story may be true; yet it is only a belief; no eye has seen footprint or shadow of her. A certain lord in the palace, who goes thrice a week to the shrine of Quetzal’, has faith in the gossip and the paba. He says the mystery is Quetzal’ himself, already returned, and waiting, concealed in the temple, the ripening of the time when he is to burst in vengeance on Tenochtitlan. I heard him talking about it one day, and wagered him a thousand cocoa that, if there was such a being I would see her before the next sacrifice to Quetzal’.”