“Have you such in Tihuanco?” asked Guatamozin.
Hualpa balanced the weapon and laughed.
“We have only javelins,—mere reeds to this. Unless to hold an enemy at bay, I hardly know its use. Certainly, it is not for casting.”
“Set the mark, men. We will give the stranger a lesson. Set it to the farthest throw.”
A pine picket was then set up a hundred feet away, presenting a target of the height and breadth of a man, to which a shield was bolted breast-high from the sand.
“Now give the Chinantlan room!”
The wearer of the plume took his place; advancing one foot, he lifted the spear above his head with the right hand, poised it a moment, then hurled it from him, and struck the picket a palm’s breadth below the shield.
“Out, out!” cried the ’tzin. “Bring me the spear; I have a mind to wear the plume myself.”
When it was brought him, he cast it lightly as a child would toss a weed; yet the point drove clanging through the brazen base of the shield, and into the picket behind. Amid the applause of the sturdy warriors he said to Hualpa,—
“Get ready; the hunter must do something for the honor of his native hills.”