Guatamozin dropped the hood upon his shoulders, and looked at Mualox sternly and steadily; and between them ensued one of those struggles of spirit against spirit in which glances are as glittering swords, and the will holds the place of skill.
“Father,” he said, at length, “I have been accustomed to love and obey you. I thought you good and wise, and conversant with things divine, and that one so faithful to his god must be as faithful to his country; for to me, love of one is love of the other. But now I know you better. You tell me that Quetzal’ has come, and for vengeance; and that, in the fire of his wrath, the nation will be destroyed; yet you exult, and endeavor to speed the day by prayer. And now, too, I understand the destiny you had in store for me. By hiding in this gown, and becoming a priest at your altar, I was to escape the universal death. What the king did, I was to do. Hear me now: I cut myself loose from you. With my own eyes I look into the future. I spurn the destiny, and for myself will carve out a better one by saving or perishing with my race. No more waiting on others! no more weakness! I will go hence and strike—”
“Whom?” asked Mualox, impulsively. “The king and the god?”
“He is not my god,” said the ’tzin, interrupting him in turn. “The enemy of my race is my enemy, whether he be king or god. As for Montezuma,”—at the name his voice and manner changed,—“I will go humbly, and, from the dust into which he flung them, pick up his royal duties. Alas! no other can. Cuitlahua is a prisoner; so is Cacama; and in the court-yard yonder, cold in death, lie the lords who might with them contest the crown and its tribulations. I alone am left. And as to Quetzal’,—I accept the doom of my country,—into the heart of his divinity I cast my spear! So, farewell, father. As a faithful servant, you cannot bless whom your god has cursed. With you, however, be all the peace and safety that abide here. Farewell.”
“Go not, go not!” cried Mualox, as the ’tzin, calling to Hualpa, turned his back upon him. “We have been as father and son. I am old. See how sorrow shakes these hands, stretched toward you in love.”
Seeing the appeal was vain, the paba stepped forward and caught the ’tzin’s arm, and said, “I pray you stay,—stay. The destiny follows Quetzal’, and is close at hand, and brings in its arms the throne.”
Neither the tempter nor the temptation moved the ’tzin; he called Hualpa again; then the holy man let go his arm, and said, sadly, “Go thy way,—one scoffer more! Or, if you stay, hear of what the god will accuse you, so that, when your calamity comes, as come it will, you may not accuse him.”
“Know, then, O ’tzin, that Quetzal’, the day he landed from Tlapallan, took you in his care; a little later, he caused you to be sent into exile—”
“Your god did that!” exclaimed the ’tzin. “And why?”