When his conference with the warriors was ended, Tizoc approached us, and with him came a younger man, who carried a roll of paper in his hand. The face of the officer still wore a troubled, doubting expression, and these feelings were expressed also in the tones of his voice as he spoke to us. "For the coming of the token from our lord Chaltzantzin we who dwell in this Valley of Aztlan have waited through many ages," he said; "but the promise was given that the token should come to us from our brethren in the time of their need, and should be brought by those of our own race. But you tell us that the time of need long since is past, and ye who bring the token are of a race that is strange to us; and even this one among you who seems to be of our brethren speaks strangely of strange things. Had ye come in the way that long past was promised, there would have been no room for questioning your right of entry here nor your authority over us; and I, who am the Warden of the Pass—being in right succession from him whom our lord Chaltzantzin appointed to this high office—would have been the first to do you reverence and honor. But in this strange case that has arisen I hold it to be my duty to send news of your coming to the Priest Captain, Itzacoatl, that he and his Council of the Twenty Lords may decide what now is right to do. In this I mean no disrespect and no unkindness; and while we await the Priest Captain's orders I shall have the pleasure to offer you that rest and refreshment of which you stand in need."
To this firm but courteous speech I was in the act of replying in fit terms of equal courtesy—for all that Tizoc had said was so reasonable that no exception could be taken to it—when an outburst on Young's part interrupted me.
"Hold on there, young fellow!" he cried. "I'll be shot if I'm goin' t' stand bein' made a fool of that way! If you can't make a better likeness of me than that, you'd better shut up shop an' go out of th' business."
I turned quickly, and saw Young standing beside Tizoc's attendant, and looking half angrily and half laughingly at the sheet of paper that he held in his hand. Fearful that some harm might come from Young's maladroitness, I joined them quickly; and only a strong sense of the gravity of our situation restrained me from laughing outright as I behold the cause of his wrath. For the secretary, as I now perceived him to be, had made sketches in color of each member of our party; and while they all did violence to our vanity, that of Young—with a bald head out of all proportion to the size of his body, and with most aggressively red hair—was so outrageous a caricature that there really was some justice in his resentment of it.
But this was not a time when resentment could be safely manifested, and I hurriedly explained to Young that these pictures, no doubt, were to be transmitted as a part of the report that Tizoc was about to make to the King concerning us, and that he must find no fault with them.
"He's goin' t' send that thing t' th' King an' say it's me, is he? No, he's not—not by a jugful! See here, Professor! here's a photograph that I had taken last spring in Boston. I meant t' give it to a girl before I came away, but she went back on me an' I didn't. It's not much of a photograph, but it don't look like a squash trimmed with red clover. If they want to send anything, let 'em send that." And before I could stop him, Young had taken the photograph out of his pocket-book and had handed it to the secretary, with the remark, "Just say t' him, Professor, that he is t' give that t' th' King, an' tell him t' tell th' King that Mr. Seth Young, of Boston, sends it with his compliments."
After all, no harm came of this absurd performance, but rather good; for the secretary exhibited the photograph to Tizoc, and both of them, and the two warriors also, were lost in wonder at its marvellous likeness to the original, and evidently held us in increasingly great respect because we were the possessors of such an extraordinary work of art. Young was a good deal chagrined, however, because the picture of him that the secretary had drawn was forwarded as a part of Tizoc's despatches. He said that since he had set up a good likeness of himself, it wasn't the square thing to send the King a bad one.
When the secretary, bearing the despatches, had departed, Tizoc requested us to accompany him to the near-by guard-house, where we could refresh ourselves by bathing, and where food and drink would be provided for us. This order, for such it was, we obeyed gladly; for we were both weary and hungry, and the prospect of what Young described as a good wash and a square meal after it, was very pleasing to us. A detachment of men from the guard-house, accoutred in the same handsome fashion as Ixtlilton and his companion, had arrived while the secretary's portrait-work was in progress; and I observed that all of these guardsmen (excepting only Ixtlilton, whose skin was dark,) were much lighter in color and more gracious in bearing than the men in the crowd around us. So marked, indeed, was this difference that they seemed scarcely to belong to the same race.
As we moved away through the opening that the crowd made for us, with a platoon of guardsmen in advance, and another in our rear, Pablo touched my arm and was about to speak to me; but before his mouth could open there sounded suddenly from the hollow way in the mountain behind us a mighty bray. "Ah, the little angel!" Pablo cried. "Hearken to him, señor, calling to me." And so moved was Pablo by this evidence of El Sabio's affection that only my firm grasp upon his arm restrained him from attempting a dash through the guards to where the creature was penned in by the metal bars.
Truly, there is no sound more terrifying to those who are strangers to it than the braying of an ass; therefore, I was not at all surprised that a very considerable part of the crowd incontinently took to its heels; and I needed no better evidence of the bravery of the guardsmen who composed our escort than the steadiness with which they faced about in readiness to meet whatever danger might come forth from the gap in the mountain in the wake of this great roaring. Yet what they saw there was only the mild face of the Wise One extended towards us through the opening in the bars.