Sketches of Aboriginal Life / American Tableaux, No. 1

by V. V. Vide

It was not until the last avenue to the surrounding country was cut off, by divisions of the invading army, planted upon all the causeways, supported in all their movements by the thundering brigantines, that the true spirit of the besieged began to show itself. Till then, their tables had been plentifully supplied, and their hopes continually encouraged by the occasional losses of their enemy, whose numbers were too small to admit of much diminution. The priests were unremitting in their appeals to the patriotism of the people, and in promises of peculiar divine blessings on all who should persevere to the last, in defence of their altars and their gods. Guatimozin was ever among his people, encouraging them by kind words, and an example of unyielding defiance to every advance of the foe. He showed that he was not less the father of his people, than their king, suffering the same exposure, and enduring the same fatigues with the boldest and hardiest of his subjects.

Such was their confidence of ultimate success in the defence of the capital, that the splendor and gaiety of the court was little diminished, until famine began to stare them in the face. The aqueduct of Chapoltepec had been cut off, and there was no longer any supply of wholesome water in the city. The dark visions of the lovely queen were now renewed. For a brief season, she had been permitted to revel in daylight, with scarcely a cloud to darken the sky above her. Suddenly that light was obscured. All was gloom and darkness around her. War, desolating war hovered once more about the gates of the beloved city. Wan faces, and haggard forms began to take the places of the gay, happy, spirited multitudes, that so recently thronged the palace. The image of her father, insulted by the stranger, murdered by his own people, rose to her view. His melancholy desponding look and tone, as he gave way to the doom which he felt was sealed upon him, his frequent assurances that the white men were “the men of destiny,” the heaven appointed proprietors and rulers of the land, and that wo would betide all who should oppose their pretensions, or offer resistance to their invincible arms—all these came up fresh to her thoughts, and filled her with sadness. Her own ill-starred destiny too, marked by every possible sign and presage, as full of darkness and sorrow—the thought was almost overwhelming. Fain would she have severed at once the bond that linked her fate with that of Guatimozin, for she felt that he was only sharing her doom, and on her account was exposed to these terrible shafts of fate. The love of Guatimozin, the faithful devotion of Karee, though they soothed in some measure her troubled spirit, could not wholly re-assure her, or dissipate the dreadful thought, that all these terrible calamities were come upon the nation only as a part of that dark doom, for which the gods had marked her out, on her very entrance into life.

It was long before the Emperor and his immediate household, were made aware of the awful pressure of famine within that devoted city. Watchful and observing as he was, the people, with one consent, had contrived to keep him in comparative ignorance of the growing scarcity, in order that they might be permitted to supply his table, as long as possible, with all the necessaries and luxuries of life. So far was this loyal devotion carried, that multitudes, both of the chiefs and of the common people, were daily in the habit of denying themselves of every thing but what was absolutely necessary to sustain life, and sending to the palace every article of fresh food, or delicate fruit, which they could obtain from their own gardens, or purchase from those of others. This noble devotion on the part of his people, was discovered and made known to the Emperor by Karee. She was the almoner of the bounty of the queen to multitudes of the poor and the sick, in different quarters of the city. On one of her errands of mercy, while she was administering to the comfort of a poor friend, in the last stages of mortal disease, made ten-fold more appalling by the absence of almost every thing that could sustain nature in the final struggle, she overheard the conversation of a father with his child in the adjoining room.

“Nay, my dear father, you must eat it. Your strength is almost gone, and how can you stand among the fighting men, and defend your king and your house, when you have eaten nothing for two whole days?”

“My precious child, I shall find something when I go out. But this morsel is for you, for I know you cannot live till I come home, if you do not eat this. And what will life be worth when you are gone.”

“Father, dear father, I cannot eat it. It will do me more good to see you eat it, for then I shall be sure you can live another day at least, and then, who knows but the gods will send us help.”

Karee could listen no longer. Rushing into the apartment whence these melancholy sounds proceeded, she beheld the shadow of a once beautiful girl leaning on the arm of the pale and wasted figure of a man, endeavoring to draw him towards a table on which lay a single morsel of dried fruit, which he had brought in for her, it being the only food that either of them had seen for two days.

“Take this,” said she, offering the sweet child a portion of what she had prepared for the invalid, but which she was too far gone to receive, “and may it give you both strength till the day of our deliverance.” And she instantly returned to the death-bed of her friend.

To the famishing group it was like the apparition of an angel, with a gift from the gods. The savory mess was readily divided, though the affectionate self-denying child contrived to cheat her father into receiving a little more than his share, while he tried every effort in vain, to persuade her to take the larger half. The wretched pair had not had such a feast for many a long week. “Ah!” exclaimed the daughter, as she wept over the luxurious repast, “if our dear mother could have had such a morsel as this, before she died, to stay her in that last dreadful agony.”

“Yes, my beloved child,” replied the subdued and bitterly bereaved father, “but she has gone where there is plenty, and no tears mingled with it.”