In the court-yard stood four caciques, stately men in peaceful garb. They touched the pavement with their palms.
“We are come to say, O Malinche, that the lord Cuitlahua, our king, yields to your demand for peace. He prays you to give your terms to the pabas whom you captured on the temple, that they may bring them to him forthwith.”
The holy men were brought from their cells, one leaning upon the other. The instructions were given; then the two, with the stately commissioners, were set without the gate, and Cortes and his army went to rest, never so contented.
They waited and waited; but the envoys came not. When the sun went down, they knew themselves deceived; and then there were sworn many full, round, Christian oaths, none so full, so round, and so Christian as Cortes’.
A canoe, meantime, bore Io’ to Tula. In the quiet and perfumed shade of the chinampa he rested, and soothed the fever of his wound.
Meanwhile, also, a courier from the teotuctli passed from temple to temple; short the message, but portentous,—
“Blessed be Huitzil’, and all the gods of our fathers! And, as he at last saved his people, blessed be the memory of Montezuma! Purify the altars, and make ready for the sacrifice, for to-morrow there will be victims!”
CHAPTER XVI
ADIEU TO THE PALACE
At sunset a cold wind blew from the north, followed by a cloud which soon filled the valley with mist; soon the mist turned to rain; then the rain turned to night, and the night to deepest blackness.