While these events were transpiring in the ever moving camp of the victorious invaders, the imperial court of Tenochtitlan was agitated and distracted by the divided counsels and wavering policy of the superstitious, fear-stricken monarch, and his various advisers. At one time, deeply offended by their audacious disregard of his positive prohibitions, and roused to a sense of his duty as a king, by the prophetic warning of Karee, which never ceased to ring in his ears, Montezuma was almost persuaded to give in to the war-party, and send out an army that should overwhelm the strangers at a blow. But, before this noble purpose had time to mature itself into action, all his superstitious fears would revive, and, without coming to any decision either to move or stand still, he would pause in timid inaction, till some new success had made the invaders more formidable than before, and invested their mission with something more of that preternatural sacredness, which alone had power to unman the monarch, and disarm his craving ambition. At each advance of the conquering Castilians, he realized the growing necessity of prompt and efficient measures of defence, while at the same time he felt a greater reluctance to contend with fate. The result was, that he only dallied with the foe, by continually sending new embassies, each, with larger and richer presents than the preceding, having no effect but to add fuel to their already burning thirst for gold, and strengthen their determination to accomplish their original purpose.
These royal embassies were less and less firm and peremptory in their terms, until they assumed the tone of expostulation, and assigning various and often conflicting reasons why the Spaniards should not pursue their route any farther towards the imperial city. At length, when the courier announced the arrival of the mysterious band at Tlascala, and the consummation of the alliance between them and his old and bitter enemies, together with the defection of many cities and districts, he felt it impossible to remain any longer undecided. His throne trembled under him. He must act, or it would fall, and involve him and his house in inevitable ruin. Instead, however, of a bold and masterly activity in the defence of his capital and crown, he changed his policy altogether, and sending a new embassy with more splendid gifts than ever, invited the strangers to his court, and promised them all the hospitalities of his empire. He designated the route they should pursue, and gave orders for their reception in all the towns and cities through which they should pass.
Montezuma was politic and wise in some things; and the purpose he had now in view, if it had not been frustrated, would have been deemed a master-stroke of policy, worthy of the ablest disciples of the Macchiavellian school. Perceiving the necessity of breaking up this combination of new and old enemies, he had recourse to stratagem to effect it, intending that the strangers, whom he dared not to oppose with direct violence, should fall into the snare they had laid for themselves, in thrusting themselves forward, in despite of his repeated remonstrances, into the heart of his empire. He feared to raise his own hand to destroy them, because they were, in his view, commissioned of heaven to overturn his throne; but he deemed it perfectly consistent with this reverence for the decrees of fate, to lay a snare into which they should fall, and so destroy themselves. He little understood the watchfulness and circumspection of the man he had to deal with, or the tremendous advantage which their armor of proof and their engines of destruction gave the Europeans over the almost naked Mexicans, with their primitive weapons of offence. It was his plan to separate the foreigners from their new Indian allies, and invite them to come alone to the capital, as was first proposed. And he designed to assign them accommodations in one of the ancient palaces, in the heart of the city, where, surrounded by high walls, on every side, they should be shut up from all intercourse with the people, and left to perish of famine.
When this purpose was formed, the monarch kept it a profound secret in his own breast. The ambassadors whom he sent to the Castilian camp, were of the highest ranks of the nobility, and were accompanied by a long train of slaves, bearing the rich presents, by which the wily monarch hoped at the same time to display his own royal munificence, and to propitiate the favor of the dreaded strangers. Every new display of this kind only served more effectually to defeat his own hopes; for the avarice of the Spaniards, whose lust of gold was absolutely insatiable, was so far from being satisfied with this profusion of royal gifts, that it was only the more inflamed with every new accession to their treasures. The only effect, therefore, of these repeated embassies was to confirm the Spaniards in their convictions of the conscious weakness of the Mexicans, and make them the more resolute in pushing forward to complete the subjugation of the whole country, and possess themselves of all its seemingly inexhaustible treasures of gold.
Montezuma had now another difficulty to contend with, in his endeavor to rid himself of the intruders. The Tlascalans represented him to Cortez as false and deceitful as he was ambitious and rapacious, and used every argument in their power to dissuade him from committing himself to his hands. But the bold adventurer, always confident in his own resources, seemed never to think of danger when an object was to be accomplished, or to regard any thing as impossible which he desired to attain. As soon as the door was thrown open to his amicable approach to the capital, he set himself to prepare for the march. The expostulations and suspicions of the Tlascalans made him, perhaps, more careful in his preparations against a surprise, and more rigorous in the discipline of his little corps, than he might otherwise have been. Wherever he was, his camp was as cautiously posted, as fully and rigidly guarded as if, on the eve of battle, he was hourly expecting an assault. This watchfulness was maintained throughout the whole adventurous campaign, as well when in the midst of friends and allies, as when surrounded by hostile legions.
After the royal ambassadors had departed with their pacific message, the mind of Montezuma was harassed and agitated with many doubts of the propriety of the course he had adopted. His nobles, and the tributary princes of the neighboring cities of Tezcuco, Tlacopan, and Iztapalapan, were divided in their opinions. Some complained, though not loudly, of the weak and vacillating policy of the king. Some, even of the common people, feared the consequences, anticipating the most disastrous results, in accordance with their superstitious veneration for the oracles of their faith. The third day after the departure of the envoys, the king was pacing up and down one of the beautifully shaded walks of the royal gardens, listening with a disturbed mind to the powerful expostulations of his brother, Cuitlahua, who, from the beginning, had vehemently opposed every concession to the invaders, and urgently solicited permission to lead the army against them, and drive them from the land. Suddenly, a voice as of a distant choir of chanters arrested his ear. The melody was solemn, sweet and soothing. It seemed to come sometimes from the upper regions of the air, in tones of silvery clearness and power, sometimes from beneath, in suppressed and muffled harmony, as when the swell organ soliloquises with all its valves closed,—sometimes it retreated, as if dying into an echo along the distant avenues of royal palms and aged cypresses, or the citron and orange groves that skirted the farther end of the garden, and then, suddenly, and with great power, it burst in the full tide of impassioned song, from every tree and bower in that vast paradise of terrestrial sweets. Enchanted by the more than Circean melody, the brothers paused in their animated discourse, and stood, for a few moments, in silent wonder and fixed attention. Presently the chanting ceased, and one solitary voice broke forth in plaintive but emphatic recitative as from the midst of the sparkling jet that played its ceaseless tune in the grand porphyritic basin near which they stood. The words, which were simple and oracular, struck deep into the heart of Montezuma, and found a ready response in that of his royal brother.
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The lion[C]
walks forth in his power and pride, The terror and lord of the forest wide— When the fox appears, shall he flee and hide? |
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The eagle’s nest is strong and high, Unquestioned monarch of the sky— Should he quail before the falcon’s eye? |
| ——— |
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The sun rides forth through the heavens afar, Dispensing light from his flaming car— Should he veil his glory, or turn him back, When the meteor flashes athwart his track? |
| ——— |
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Shall the eagle invite the hawk to his nest? Shall the fox with the lion sit down as a guest? Shall the meteor look out from the noonday sky, When the sun in his power is flaming by? |
The pauses in this significant chant were followed by choral symphonies, expressing, as eloquently as inarticulate sounds could do, the most earnest remonstrance, the most moving expostulation. When this was concluded, the same sweet voice broke forth again, in tones of solemn tenderness and majestic power, in a prophetic warning to Montezuma.
The effect of this mysterious warning upon the mind of Montezuma was exceedingly powerful, and seemed, for a time, to change his purpose and fix his resolution. With an energy and decision to which he had long been a stranger, he turned to his brother, and said, “Cuitlahua, you are right. This realm is mine. The gods have made me the father of this people. I must and will defend them. The strangers shall be driven back, or die. They shall never profane the temples and altars of Tenochtitlan, by entering within its gates, or looking upon its walls. Go, marshall your host, and prepare to meet them, before they advance a step further.”