SCULPTURES FROM TIZOC'S STONE.
"The same authority," continued Fred, "tells us that the Mexicans were very punctilious about this ceremony even when they were the victims of it. A soldier when captured was reserved for sacrifice. He would consider himself disgraced, and would rather suffer death than be liberated except after a gladiatorial combat. There is a story of a chief who was captured and taken before Montezuma; he had a high reputation as a warrior, and, on learning his name, the King treated him with honor, spared his life, and offered him his liberty. The chief refused the offer, and demanded that he should be devoted to the gods, according to custom. After trying in vain to have him change his mind, Montezuma ordered that the chief should be tied to the stone and permitted to fight with some of the King's best soldiers, while the King himself, accompanied by his officers, should witness the combat. The chief killed eight men and wounded twenty; but he was finally overpowered, and carried off to be sacrificed to the war-god Huitzilopochtli."
GLADIATORIAL STONE—FROM AN AZTEC DRAWING.
"But you haven't said what these knives were with which the priests killed their victims," Frank remarked, as Fred paused. "What is obsidian?"
"It is a mineral substance," replied Doctor Bronson, to whom the question was referred, "and is formed by the cooling of the lava from a volcano. When lava cools it forms into obsidian and pumice. Everybody knows what pumice-stone is. Obsidian is a substance hard enough to scratch glass, and is capable of taking a high polish and a keen edge. The Mexicans called it itzli, and used it for making knives, razors, arrow-tips, saws, and other implements."
"Did they have a knowledge of any of the metals besides gold and silver?"