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’Tis he! ’Tis he! our imperial bird! Whom the gods to our aid have sent; I saw him in my dream, and heard, As down from his airy flight he bent, His victor shout, with the dying wail, Of the coming foe, borne on the gale; While the air was dark with the gathering throng Of bold young eaglets, that swept along From every cliff, in fierceness and wrath, To gorge on their prey, in the mountain path. |
When she ceased, an echo from a richly cultivated chinampa, which they were then passing, seemed to take up and prolong the strain.
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I saw it too, and I heard the scream, In the midst of my dark and troubled dream; ’Twas a dream of despair for our doomed land, For his wings were bound by the royal hand; His talons were wreathed with a golden chain, He smelt the prey, and he chafed in vain, For they trampled him down, in their brave career, While our monarch looked on with unmanly fear, Till his crown and his sceptre in dust were laid low, And proud Tenochtitlan had passed to the foe. |
The last words of this solemn chant died away on the ear, just as the royal barge rounded the little artificial promontory, which the ingenious Karee had constructed, for the double purpose of an arbor and look-out, at one of the angles of her chinampa. Leaning over the brow, and supporting herself by the overhanging branch of a luxuriant myrtle, she dropped a wreath of evergreen upon the head of Tecuichpo, and said—
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Oh! child of doom, Thy long sealed destiny is come— One brief, dark, dreadful night, Then on those blessed eyes Another day shall rise, Fair, glorious, bright, With an unearthly endless light. Thou shall lay down An earthly crown, To win a starry sceptre in the skies |
At this moment, signals were heard among the distant hills, which, answered and repeated from countless stations along the wild sierras, and reverberated by a thousand echoes as they came, burst upon the quiet valley, like the confused shouts of a mighty host rushing to battle. It fell like a death-knell upon the ear of Montezuma. It announced the arrival, within the mountain wall which encompassed his golden valley, of the dreaded strangers. It heralded their near approach to his capital, and the exposure of all he held dear to their irresistible power—their terrible rapacity. His heart sunk within him. But he had gone too far to retract. It was the act of the gods, not his. Banishing from his mind the impressions of the scenes just passed, he waved his hand to the rowers, and instantly every prow was turned, and the gaily caparisoned, but melancholy, terror-stricken pageant moved rapidly back to the city.
Tenochtitlan was now alive with the bustle of preparation. It was the preparation, not for war, which would far better have suited the multitude both of the chiefs and the people, but for the hospitable reception and entertainment of the strangers. The great imperial palace, which had been the royal residence of the father of Montezuma, was fitted up for their accommodation. With its numberless apartments, its spacious courts, and magnificent gardens, it was sufficient for an army much larger than that of the Castilians, swelled as it was by the company of their Tlascalan allies. Every room was newly hung with beautifully colored tapestry, and furnished with all the conveniences and luxuries of Mexican life. The appointments and provisions were all on a most liberal scale, for the Emperor was as generous and munificent as the golden mountains from which he drew his inexhaustible treasures.
Intending that nothing should be wanting to the graciousness of his submission to this act of constrained courtesy, Montezuma proposed to his brother Cuitlahua, to choose a royal retinue from the flower of the Aztec nobility, and go out to meet the strangers; and bid them welcome, in his name, to his realm and his capital. From this the soul of the proud undaunted soldier revolted, and he entreated so earnestly to be excused from executing a commission, so much at variance with his feelings and his convictions, that the monarch relented, and assigned the mission to Cacama, the young prince of Tezcuco.
Nothing could exceed the gorgeous splendor of this embassy. Borne in a beautiful palanquin, canopied and curtained with the rarest of Mexican feather-work, richly powdered with jewels, and glittering with gold, Cacama, preceded and followed by a long train of noble veterans and youths, all apparelled in the gayest costume of their country, presented himself before the advancing host. His approach, and the errand on which he came, having been announced by a herald, Cortez halted his band, and drew up his forces in the best possible array, to give him a fitting reception.
The meeting took place at Ajotzinco, on, or rather within, the borders of the lake Chalco, the first of the bright chain of inland lakes which the Spaniards had seen, and the place where they first saw that species of amphibious architecture, which prevailed so extensively among the Mexicans. When the royal embassy arrived in front of the waiting army, Cacama alighted from his palanquin, while his obsequious officers swept the ground before him, that he might not soil his royal feet, by too rude a contact with the earth. He was a young man of about twenty five years, with a fine manly countenance, a noble and commanding figure, and an address and manners that would have done honor to the most courtly knight of Christendom. Stepping forward with a bland and dignified courtesy, he made the customary Mexican salutation to persons of high rank, touching his right hand to the ground, and raising it to his head. Cortez embraced him as he rose, and the prince, in the name of his royal master, gave the strangers a hearty welcome, assuring them that they should be received with a hospitality, and treated with a respect, becoming the representatives of a great and mighty prince. He then presented Cortez with a number of large and valuable pearls, which act of munificence was immediately returned by the present of a necklace of cut glass, hung over his neck by Cortez. As glass was not known to the Mexicans, it probably had in their eyes the value of the rarest jewels.