CHAPTER I
THE HEART CAN BE WISER THAN THE HEAD
I will now ask the reader to make a note of the passage of a fortnight. By so doing he will find himself close upon the 24th of June,—another memorable day in the drama of the conquest.
’Tzin Guatamo, as is already known, had many times proven himself a warrior after the manner of his country, and, in consequence, had long been the idol of the army; now he gave token of a ruling faculty which brought the whole people to his feet; so that in Tenochtitlan, for the first time in her history, were seen a sceptre unknown to the law and a royalty not the king’s.
He ruled in the valley everywhere, except in the palace of Axaya’; and around that he built works, and set guards, and so contrived that nothing passed in or out without his permission. His policy was to wait patiently, and in the mean time organize the nation for war; and the nation obeyed him, seeing that in obedience there was life; such, moreover, was the will of Huitzil’.
As may be thought, the Christians thus pent up fared illy; in fact, they would have suffered before the fortnight was gone but for the king, who stinted himself and his household in order to divide with his keepers the supplies sent in for his use.
In the estimation of the people of the empire, it was great glory to have shut so many teules in a palace, and held them there; but the success did not deceive the ’tzin: in his view, that achievement was not the victory, but only the beginning of the war; every hour he had news of Malinche, the real antagonist, who had the mind, the will, and the hand of a warrior, and was coming with another army, more numerous, if not braver, than the first one. In pure, strong love there is an element akin to the power of prophecy,—something that gives the spirit eyes to see what is to happen. Such an inspiration quickened the ’tzin, and told him Anahuac was not saved, though she should be: if not, the conquerors should take an empty prize; he would leave them nothing,—so he swore,—neither gods, gold, slaves, city, nor people. He set about the great idea by inviting the New World—I speak as a Spaniard—to take part in the struggle. And he was answered. To the beloved city, turned into a rendezvous for the purpose, flocked the fighting vassals of the great caciques, the men of the cities, and their dependencies, the calpulli, or tribes of the loyal provinces, and, mixed with them, wild-eyed bands from the Unknown, the wildernesses,—in all, a multitude such as had never been seen in the valley. At the altars he had but one prayer, “Time, time, O gods of my fathers! Give me time!” He knew the difference between a man and a soldier, and that, likewise, between a multitude and an army. As he used the word, time meant organization and discipline. He not only prayed, he worked; and into his work, as into his prayers, he poured all his soul.
The organization was simple: first, a company of three or four hundred men; next an army of thirty or forty companies,—a system which allowed the preservation of the identity of tribes and cities. The companies of Cholula, for example, were separate from those of Tezcuco; while the Acolmanes marched and fought side by side with the Coatopecs, but under their own chiefs and flags. The system also gave him a number of armies, and he divided them,—one to raise supplies, another to bring the supplies to the depots, a third to prepare material of war; the fourth was the active or fighting division; and each was subject to take the place of the other. To the labor of so many hands, systematized and industriously exerted, though for a fortnight, almost everything is possible. One strong will, absolutely operative over thousands, is nearer omnipotency than anything else human.
The climate of the valley, milder and more equable than that of Naples, permits the bivouac in all seasons. The sierra west of the capital, and bending around it like a half-drawn bow, is marked on its interior, or city side by verdant and watered vales; these were seized; and the bordering cliffs, which theretofore had shaded the toiling husbandman, or been themselves the scenes of the hunter’s daring, now hid the hosts of New World’s men, in the bivouac, biding the day of battle.
War, good reader, never touches anything and leaves it as it was. And the daughter of the lake, fair Tenochtitlan, was no exception to the law. The young master, having reduced the question of strategy to the formula,—a street or a plain, chose the street, and thereby dedicated the city to all of ruin or horror the destroyer could bring. Not long, therefore, until its presence could have been detected by the idlest glance: the streets were given up to the warriors; the palaces were deserted by families; houses conveniently situated for the use were turned into forts; the shrubbery garnishing roofs that dominated the main streets concealed heaps of stones made ready for the hand; the bridges were taken up, or put in condition to be raised; the canoes on the lakes were multiplied, and converted to the public service; the great markets were suspended; even the sacred temple were changed into vast arsenals. When the ’tzin, going hither and thither, never idle, observed the change, he would sigh, but say to himself, “’Tis well. If we win, we can restore; if we lose,—if we lose,—then, to the strangers, waste, to the waters, welcome!”
And up and down, from city to bivouac and back again, passed the minstrels, singing of war, and the pabas, proclaiming the oracles and divine promises; and the services in the temples were unintermitted; those in the teocallis were especially grand; the smoke from its turrets overhung the city, and at night the fire of Huitzil’, a new star reddening in the sky, was seen from the remotest hamlet in the valley. The ’tzin had faith in moral effects, and he studied them, and was successful. The army soon came to have, like himself, but one prayer,—“Set us before the strangers; let us fight!”