“The noble Tula is unhappy. She is thinking of—”
A glance checked the name.
Then Yeteve whispered, “Look at the image-maker.”
The prompting was not to be resisted. She looked, and recognized Guatamozin. Not that only; through his low disguise, in his attitude, his eyes bright with angry fire, she discerned his spirit, its pride and heroism. Not for her was it to dispute the justice of his banishment. Love scorned the argument. There he stood, the man for the time; strong-armed, stronger-hearted, prince by birth, king by nature, watching afar off a scene in which valor and genius entitled him to prominence. Then there were tears for him, and a love higher, if not purer, than ever.
Suddenly he leaned over the verge, and shouted, “Al-a-lala! Al-a-lala!” and with such energy that he was heard in the street below. Tula looked down, and saw the cause of the excitement,—the Tlascalans were marching by! Again his cry, the same with which he had so often led his countrymen to battle. No one took it up. The companies inside the sacred wall turned their faces, and stared at him in dull wonder. And he covered his eyes with his hands, while every thought was a fierce invective. Little he then knew how soon, and how splendidly, they were to purchase his forgiveness!
When the Tlascalans were gone, he dropped his hands, and found the—mallet! So it was the artisan, the image-maker, not the ’tzin, who had failed to wake the army to war! He turned quickly, and took his way through the crowd, and disappeared; and none but Tula and Yeteve ever knew that, from the teocallis, Guatamozin had witnessed the entry of the teules.
And so poor Nenetzin had been left to follow the warrior of her dream; the shock and the pleasure were hers alone.
The palace of Axaya’ faced the temple of Huitzil’ on the west. In one of the halls Montezuma received Cortes and the cavaliers; and all their lives they recollected his gentleness, courtesy, and unaffected royalty in that ceremony. Putting a golden collar around the neck of his chief guest, he said, “This palace belongs to you, Malinche, and to your brethren. Rest after your fatigues; you have much need to do so. In a little while I will come again.”
And when he was gone, straightway the guest so honored proceeded to change the palace into a fort. Along the massive walls that encircled it he stationed sentinels; at every gate planted cannon; and, like the enemy he was, he began, and from that time enforced, a discipline sterner than before.
The rest of the day the citizens, from the top of the temple, kept incessant watch upon the palace. When the shades of evening were collecting over the city, and the thousands, grouped along the streets, were whispering of the incidents they had seen, a thunderous report broke the solemn stillness; and they looked at each other, and trembled, and called the evening guns of Cortes “Voices of the Gods.”