"Guatemozin!"
"Guatemozin!" was repeated from mouth to mouth, while the pregonero or crier, as the crowd had already christened the speaker, continued to lift the veil from the significant allegory before him.
"See!" cried he, "here have his claws struck deepest. 'Tis in Guanaxato and Guadalajara."
A shudder seemed to run through the crowd.
"'Tis Tio Gachupin," continued the pregonero with a strange laugh, "who would fain play with you the same game that he did three centuries since with poor Guatemozin. And see! 'tis Guatemozin's ghost that appears bleeding before ye, and claims vengeance at your hands!"
It had now become evident to the surrounding crowd, that the pageant had a deep and dangerous political meaning. The spectators had greatly increased, and were each moment increasing, in number; the flat roofs and the miradores, or latticed balconies, of the surrounding houses, were crowded with gazers, while the street presented the appearance of a sea of heads. A deep silence reigned, broken only by an occasional whisper, or by the peculiar kind of low shuddering murmur that the Indian is apt to utter when reminded of the power and prosperity of his forefathers. Suddenly there was a loud cry.
"Vigilancia! Vigilancia!" was shouted from a distant balcony. The word passed from mouth to mouth.
"Vigilancia!" repeated the pregonero; "gracias, thanks, Señoras y Señores," added he, with a laugh and a slight bow, and then was lost in the crowd. There was a movement round the ghastly group upon the cart, which the next instant disappeared; and when the alguazils, by the aid of their staves, had forced themselves a passage to the spot where the pageant had been, no trace of it remained save fragments of wood and pasteboard, that were showered from all sides upon their detested heads. The crowd itself separated and dispersed in different directions; no inconsiderable portion of it entering the hotel, in front of which the scene had passed.
This hotel or fonda, the first in Mexico at that time, was then, as now, a great resort of the highest and lowest classes of the population—that is to say, of the greatest luxury and most squalid misery that the world can show. The ground floor was used as a sort of bazar, in which various articles of Mexican manufacture were exposed for sale; while the rooms on the upper story were appropriated to the reception of guests, and furnished with a sumptuousness that contrasted strangely with the appearance of the majority of those who frequented them.
In the first of these rooms stood a long and broad table, somewhat resembling a billiard-table, but upon which, instead of balls and cues, were piles of silver and gold, amounting to thousands of dollars; while the wardrobe of the players, who sat and stood around, did not appear to be worth as many farthings. Excepting the jingle of the money, and the words Señor and Señoria, occasionally uttered, scarcely a sound was heard; but upon the excited and eager countenances of the gamblers, which varied with every change in their luck, might be read the flushed exultation of the winners, and the suppressed fury of the less fortunate—a fury that, to judge from their fiery glances and set teeth, might momentarily be expected to break out into fierce and deadly strife.