The ’tzin bore the interruption, though with an effort.
“In the midst of the service,” he continued, “when the yard was most crowded, and the revelry gayest, and the good company most happy and unsuspecting, dancing, singing, feasting, suddenly Tonatiah and his people rushed upon them, and began to kill, and stayed not their hands until, of all the revellers, not one was left alive; leaders in battle, ministers at the altar, old and young,—all were slain![47] O such a piteous sight! The court is a pool of blood. Who will restore the flower this day torn from the nation? O holy gods, what have we done to merit such calamity?”
Mualox listened, his hands still clasped.
“Not one left alive! Not one, did you say?”
“Not one.”
The paba arose from his stooping, and upon the ’tzin flashed the old magnetic flame.
“What have you done, ask you? Sinned against the true and only god—”
“I?” said the ’tzin, for the moment shrinking.
“The nation,—the nation, blind to its crimes, no less blind to the beginning of its punishment! What you call calamity, I call vengeance. Starting in the house of Huitzil’,—the god for whom my god was forsaken,—it will next go to the city; and if the lords so perish, how may the people escape? Let them tremble! He is come, he is come! I knew him afar, I know him here. I heard his step in the valley, I see his hand in the court. Rejoice, O ’tzin! He has drunk the blood of the sacrificers. To-morrow his house must be made ready to receive him. Go not away! Stay, and help me! I am old. Of the treasure below I might make use to buy help; but such preparation, like an offering at the altar, is most acceptable when induced by love. Love for love. So said Quetzal’ in the beginning; so he says now.”
“Let me be sure I understand you, father. What do you offer me?” asked the ’tzin, quietly.