CHAPTER IV.
MONTEZUMA A PROPHET.--HIS PROPHECY.
Scarce five weeks before, Cortes sallied from the palace with seventysoldiers, ragged, yet curiously bedight with gold and silver; now hereturned full-handed, at his back thirteen hundred infantry, a hundredhorse, additional guns and Tlascalans. Surely, he could hold what he hadgained.
The garrison stood in the court-yard to receive him. Trumpet replied totrumpet, and the reverberation of drums shook the ancient house. Whenall were assigned to quarters, the ranks were broken, and theveterans--those who had remained, and those who had followed theirchief--rushed clamorously into each other's arms. Comradeship, with itsstrange love, born of toil and danger, and nursed by red-handed battle,asserted itself. The men of Narvaez looked on indifferently, or clombthe palace, and from the roof surveyed the vicinage, especially thegreat temple, apparently as forsaken as the city.
And in the court-yard Cortes met Alvarado, saluting him coldly. Thelatter excused his conduct as best he could; but the palliations wereunsatisfactory. The general turned from him with bitter denunciations;and as he did so, a procession approached: four nobles, carrying silverwands; then a train in doubled files; then Montezuma, in the royalregalia, splendid from head to foot. The shade of the canopy borne abovehim wrapped his person in purpled softness, but did not hide that othershadow discernible in the slow, uncertain step, the bent form, thewistful eyes,--the shadow of the coming Fate. Such of his family asshared his captivity brought up the cortege.
At the sight, Cortes waited; his blood was hot, and his head filled withthe fumes of victory; from a great height, as it were, he looked uponthe retinue, and its sorrowful master; and his eyes wandered fitfullyfrom the Christians, worn by watching and hunger, to the sumptuousnessof the infidels; so that when the monarch drew nigh him, the temper ofhis heart was as the temper of his corselet.
"I salute you, O Malinche, and welcome your return," said Montezuma,according to the interpretation of Marina.
The Spaniard heard him without a sign of recognition.
"The good Lady of your trust has had you in care; she has given you thevictory. I congratulate you, Malinche."
Still the Spaniard was obstinate.
The king hesitated, dropped his eyes under the cold stare, and wasfrozen into silence. Then Cortes turned upon his heel, and, without aword, sought his chamber.
The insult was plain, and the witnesses, Christian and infidel, wereshocked; and while they stood surprised, Tula rushed up, and threw herarms around the victim's neck, and laid her head upon his breast. Theretinue closed around them, as if to hide the shame; and thus theunhappy monarch went back to his quarters,--back to his captivity, tohis remorse, and the keener pangs of pride savagely lacerated.
For a time he was like one dazed; but, half waking, he wrung his hands,and said, feebly, "It cannot be, it cannot be! Maxtla, take thecouncillors and go to Malinche, and say that I wish to see him. Tell himthe business is urgent, and will not wait. Bring me his answer, omittingnothing."
The young chief and the four nobles departed, and the king relapsed intohis dazement, muttering, "It cannot be, it cannot be!"
The commissioners delivered the message. Olid, Leon, and others who werepresent begged Cortes to be considerate.
"No," he replied; "the dog of a king would have betrayed us to Narvaez;before his eyes we are allowed to hunger. Why are the markets closed? Ihave nothing to do with him."
And to the commissioners he said, "Tell your master to open the markets,or we will for him. Begone!"
And they went back and reported, omitting nothing, not even theinsulting epithet. The king heard them silently; as they proceeded, hegathered strength; when they ceased, he was calm and resolved.
"Return to Malinche," he said, "and tell him what I wished to say: thatmy people are ready to attack him, and that the only means I know todivert them from their purpose is to release the lord Cuitlahua, mybrother, and send him to them to enforce my orders. There is now noother of authority upon whom I can depend to keep the peace, and openthe markets; he is the last hope. Go."
The messengers departed; and when they were gone the monarch said,"Leave the chamber now, all but Tula."
At the last outgoing footstep she went near, and knelt before him;knowing, with the divination which is only of woman, that she was now tohave reply to the 'tzin's message, delivered by her in the earlymorning. Her tearful look he answered with a smile, saying tenderly, "Ido not know whether I gave you welcome. If I did not, I will amend thefault. Come near."
She arose, and, putting an arm over his shoulder, knelt closer by hisside; he kissed her forehead, and pressed her close to his breast.Nothing could exceed the gentleness of the caress, unless it was theaccompanying look. She replied with tears, and such breaking sobs as areonly permitted to passion and childhood.
"Now, if never before," he continued, "you are my best beloved, becauseyour faith in me fell not away with that of all the world besides;especially, O good heart! especially because you have to-day shown me anescape from my intolerable misery and misfortunes,--for which may thegods who have abandoned me bless you!"
He stroked the dark locks under his hand lovingly.
"Tears? Let there be none for me. I am happy. I have been unresolved,drifting with uncertain currents, doubtful, yet hopeful, seeing nothing,and imagining everything; waiting, sometimes on men, sometimes on thegods,--and that so long,--ah, so long! But now the weakness is past.Rejoice with me, O Tula! In this hour I have recovered dominion overmyself; with every faculty restored, the very king whom erst you knew, Iwill make answer to the 'tzin. Listen well. I give you my last decree,after which I shall regard myself as lost to the world. If I live, Ishall never rule again. Somewhere in the temples I shall find a celllike that from which they took me to be king. The sweetness of thesolitude I remember yet. There I will wait for death; and my waitingshall be so seemly that his coming shall be as the coming of a restfulsleep. Hear then, and these words give the 'tzin: Not as king tosubject, nor as priest to penitent, but as father to son, I send him myblessing. Of pardon I say nothing. All he has done for Anahuac, and allhe hopes to do for her, I approve. Say to him, also, that in the lasthour Malinche will come for me to go with him to the people, and that Iwill go. Then, I say, let the 'tzin remember what the gods have laidupon him, and with his own hand do the duty, that it may be certainlydone. A man's last prayer belongs to the gods, his last look to thosewho love him. In dying there is no horror like lingering long amidstenemies."
His voice trembled, and he paused. She raised her eyes to his face,which was placid, but rapt, as if his spirit had been caught by a suddenvision.
"To the world," he said, in a little while, "I have bid farewell. I seeits vanities go from me one by one; last in the train, and mostglittering, most loved, Power,--and in its hands is my heart. A shadowcreeps upon me, darkening all without, but brightening all within; andin the brightness, lo, my People and their Future!"
He stopped again, then resumed:--
"The long, long cycles--two,--four,--eight--pass away, and I see thetribes newly risen, like the trodden grass, and in their midst aPriesthood and a Cross. An age of battles more, and, lo! the Cross butnot the priests; in their stead Freedom and God."
And with the last word, as if to indicate the Christian God, the reportof a gun without broke the spell of the seer; the two started, andlooked at each other, listening for what might follow; but there wasnothing more, and he went on quietly talking to her.
"I know the children of the Aztec, crushed now, will live, andmore,--after ages of wrong suffered by them, they will rise up, and taketheir place--a place of splendor--amongst the deathless nations of theearth. What I saw was revelation. Cherish the words, O Tula; repeat themoften; make them an utterance of the people, a sacred tradition; letthem go down with the generations, one of which will, at last, rightlyinterpret the meaning of the words Freedom and God, now dark to myunderstanding;
and then, not till then, will be the new birth and newcareer. And so shall my name become of the land a part, suggested by allthings,--by the sun mildly tempering its winds; by the rivers singing inits valleys; by the stars seen from its mountain-tops; by its cities,and their palaces and halls; and so shall its red races of whateverblood learn to call me father, and in their glory, as well as misery,pray for and bless me."
In the progress of this speech his voice grew stronger, and insensiblyhis manner ennobled; at the conclusion, his appearance was majestic.Tula regarded him with awe, and accepted his utterances, not as the songhabitual to the Aztec warrior at the approach of death, nor as therhapsody of pride soothing itself; she accepted them as prophecy, and asa holy trust,--a promise to be passed down through time, to a generationof her race, the first to understand truly the simple words,--FREEDOMand GOD. And they were silent a long time.
At length there was a warning at the door; the little bells filled theroom with music strangely inharmonious. The king looked that way,frowning. The intruder entered without _nequen_; as he drew near themonarch's seat, his steps became slower, and his head drooped upon hisbreast.
"Cuitlahua! my brother!" said Montezuma, surprised.
"Brother and king!" answered the cacique, as he knelt and placed bothpalms upon the floor.
"You bring me a message. Arise and speak."
"No," said Cuitlahua, rising. "I have come to receive your signet andorders. I am free. The guard is at the door to pass me through the gate.Malinche would have me go and send the people home, and open themarkets; he said such were your orders. But from him I take nothingexcept liberty. But you, O king, what will you,--peace or war?"
Tula looked anxiously at the monarch; would the old vacillation return?He replied firmly and gravely,--
"I have given my last order as king. Tula will go with you from thepalace, and deliver it to you."
He arose while speaking, and gave the cacique a ring; then for a momenthe regarded the two with suffused eyes, and said, "I divide my lovebetween you and my people. For their sake, I say, go hence quickly, lestMalinche change his mind. You, O my brother, and you, my child, take myblessing and that of the gods! Farewell."
He embraced them both. To Tula he clung long and passionately. More thanhis ambassadress to the 'tzin, she bore his prophecy to the generationsof the future. His last kiss was dewy with her tears. With their facesto him, they moved to the door; as they passed out, each gave a lastlook, and caught his image then,--the image of a man breaking because hehappened to be in God's way.