Montezuma's Daughter Part 38

I have said that it was the women who sang this chant and glared so fiercely upon the victims, but I have not yet told all the horror of what I saw, for in the fore-front of their circle, clad in white robes, the necklet of great emeralds, Guatemoc's gift, flashing upon her breast, the plumes of royal green set in her hair, giving the time of the death chant with a little wand, stood Montezuma's daughter, Otomie my wife. Never had I seen her look so beautiful or so dreadful. It was not Otomie whom I saw, for where was the tender smile and where the gentle eyes? Here before me was a living Vengeance wearing the shape of woman. In an instant I guessed the truth, though I did not know it all.

Otomie, who although she was not of it, had ever favoured the Christian faith, Otomie, who for years had never spoken of these dreadful rites except with anger, whose every act was love and whose every word was kindness, was still in her soul an idolater and a savage. She had hidden this side of her heart from me well through all these years, perchance she herself had scarcely known its secret, for but twice had I seen anything of the buried fierceness of her blood. The first time was when Marina had brought her a certain robe in which she might escape from the camp of Cortes, and she had spoken to Marina of that robe; and the second when on this same day she had played her part to the Tlascalan, and had struck him down with her own hand as he bent over me.

All this and much more pa.s.sed through my mind in that brief moment, while Otomie marked the time of the death chant, and the pabas dragged the Tlascalan to his doom.

The next I was at her side.

'What pa.s.ses here?' I asked sternly.

Otomie looked on me with a cold wonder, and empty eyes as though she did not know me.

'Go back, white man,' she answered; 'it is not lawful for strangers to mingle in our rites.'

I stood bewildered, not knowing what to do, while the flame burned and the chant went up before the effigy of Huitzel, of the demon Huitzel awakened after many years of sleep.

Again and yet again the solemn chant arose, Otomie beating time with her little rod of ebony, and again and yet again the cry of triumph rose to the silent stars.

Now I awoke from my dream, for as an evil dream it seemed to me, and drawing my sword I rushed towards the priest at the altar to cut him down. But though the men stood still the women were too quick for me.

Before I could lift the sword, before I could even speak a word, they had sprung upon me like the jaguars of their own forests, and like jaguars they hissed and growled into my ear:

'Get you gone, Teule,' they said, 'lest we stretch you on the stone with your brethren.' And still hissing they pushed me thence.

I drew back and thought for a while in the shadow of the temple. My eye fell upon the long line of victims awaiting their turn of sacrifice.

There were thirty and one of them still alive, and of these five were Spaniards. I noted that the Spaniards were chained the last of all the line. It seemed that the murderers would keep them till the end of the feast, indeed I discovered that they were to be offered up at the rising of the sun. How could I save them, I wondered. My power was gone. The women could not be moved from their work of vengeance; they were mad with their sufferings. As well might a man try to s.n.a.t.c.h her prey from a puma robbed of her whelps, as to turn them from their purpose. With the men it was otherwise, however. Some of them mingled in the orgie indeed, but more stood aloof watching with a fearful joy the spectacle in which they did not share. Near me was a man, a n.o.ble of the Otomie, of something more than my own age. He had always been my friend, and after me he commanded the warriors of the tribe. I went to him and said, 'Friend, for the sake of the honour of your people, help me to end this.'

'I cannot, Teule,' he answered, 'and beware how you meddle in the play, for none will stand by you. Now the women have power, and you see they use it. They are about to die, but before they die they will do as their fathers did, for their strait is sore, and though they have been put aside, the old customs are not forgotten.'

'At the least can we not save these Teules?' I answered.

'Why should you wish to save the Teules? Will they save us some few days hence, when WE are in their power?'

'Perhaps not,' I said, 'but if we must die, let us die clean from this shame.'

'What then do you wish me to do, Teule?'

'This: I would have you find some three or four men who are not fallen into this madness, and with them aid me to loose the Teules, for we cannot save the others. If this may be done, surely we can lower them with ropes from that point where the road is broken away, down to the path beneath, and thus they may escape to their own people.'

'I will try,' he answered, shrugging his shoulders, 'not from any tenderness towards the accursed Teules, whom I could well bear to see stretched upon the stone, but because it is your wish, and for the sake of the friendship between us.'

Then he went, and presently I saw several men place themselves, as though by chance, between the spot where the last of the line of Indian prisoners, and the first of the Spaniards were made fast, in such a fashion as to hide them from the sight of the maddened women, engrossed as they were in their orgies.

Now I crept up to the Spaniards. They were squatted upon the ground, bound by their hands and feet to the copper rings in the pavement. There they sat silently awaiting the dreadful doom, their faces grey with terror, and their eyes starting from their sockets.

'Hist!' I whispered in Spanish into the ear of the first, an old man whom I knew as one who had taken part in the wars of Cortes. 'Would you be saved?'

He looked up quickly, and said in a hoa.r.s.e voice:

'Who are you that talk of saving us? Who can save us from these she devils?'

'I am Teule, a man of white blood and a Christian, and alas that I must say it, the captain of this savage people. With the aid of some few men who are faithful to me, I purpose to cut your bonds, and afterwards you shall see. Know, Spaniard, that I do this at great risk, for if we are caught, it is a chance but that I myself shall have to suffer those things from which I hope to rescue you.'

'Be a.s.sured, Teule,' answered the Spaniard, 'that if we should get safe away, we shall not forget this service. Save our lives now, and the time may come when we shall pay you back with yours. But even if we are loosed, how can we cross the open s.p.a.ce in this moonlight and escape the eyes of those furies?'

'We must trust to chance for that,' I answered, and as I spoke, fortune helped us strangely, for by now the Spaniards in their camp below had perceived what was going forward on the crest of the teocalli. A yell of horror rose from them and instantly they opened fire upon us with their pieces and arquebusses, though, because of the shape of the pyramid and of their position beneath it, the storm of shot swept over us, doing us little or no hurt. Also a great company of them poured across the courtyard, hoping to storm the temple, for they did not know that the road had been broken away.

Now, though the rites of sacrifice never ceased, what with the roar of cannon, the shouts of rage and terror from the Spaniards, the hiss of musket b.a.l.l.s, and the crackling of flames from houses which they had fired to give them more light, and the sound of chanting, the turmoil and confusion grew so great as to render the carrying out of my purpose easier than I had hoped. By this time my friend, the captain of the Otomie, was at my side, and with him several men whom he could trust.

Stooping down, with a few swift blows of a knife I cut the ropes which bound the Spaniards. Then we gathered ourselves into a knot, twelve of us or more, and in the centre of the knot we set the five Spaniards.

This done, I drew my sword and cried:

'The Teules storm the temple!' which was true, for already their long line was rushing up the winding path. 'The Teules storm the temple, I go to stop them,' and straightway we sped across the open s.p.a.ce.

None saw us, or if they saw us, none hindered us, for all the company were intent upon the consummation of a fresh sacrifice; moreover, the tumult was such, as I afterwards discovered, that we were scarcely noticed. Two minutes pa.s.sed, and our feet were set upon the winding way, and now I breathed again, for we were beyond the sight of the women.

On we rushed swiftly as the cramped limbs of the Spaniards would carry them, till presently we reached that angle in the path where the breach began. The attacking Spaniards had already come to the further side of the gap, for though we could not see them, we could hear their cries of rage and despair as they halted helplessly and understood that their comrades were beyond their aid.

'Now we are sped,' said the Spaniard with whom I had spoken; 'the road is gone, and it must be certain death to try the side of the pyramid.'

'Not so,' I answered; 'some fifty feet below the path still runs, and one by one we will lower you to it with this rope.'

Then we set to work. Making the cord fast beneath the arms of a soldier we let him down gently, till he came to the path, and was received there by his comrades as a man returned from the dead. The last to be lowered was that Spaniard with whom I had spoken.

'Farewell,' he said, 'and may the blessing of G.o.d be on you for this act of mercy, renegade though you are. Say, now, will you not come with me?

I set my life and honour in pledge for your safety. You tell me that you are still a Christian man. Is that a place for Christians?' and he pointed upwards.

'No, indeed,' I answered, 'but still I cannot come, for my wife and son are there, and I must return to die with them if need be. If you bear me any grat.i.tude, strive in return to save their lives, since for my own I care but little.'

'That I will,' he said, and then we let him down among his friends, whom he reached in safety.

Now we returned to the temple, giving it out that the Spaniards were in retreat, having failed to cross the breach in the roadway. Here before the temple the orgie still went on. But two Indians remained alive; and the priests of sacrifice grew weary.

'Where are the Teules?' cried a voice. 'Swift! strip them for the altar.'

But the Teules were gone, nor, search where they would, could they find them.

'Their G.o.d has taken them beneath His wing,' I said, speaking from the shadow and in a feigned voice. 'Huitzel cannot prevail before the G.o.d of the Teules.'

Then I slipped aside, so that none knew that it was I who had spoken, but the cry was caught up and echoed far and wide.

'The G.o.d of the Christians has hidden them beneath His wing. Let us make merry with those whom He rejects,' said the cry, and the last of the captives were dragged away.

Now I thought that all was finished, but this was not so. I have spoken of the secret purpose which I read in the sullen eyes of the Indian women as they laboured at the barricades, and I was about to see its execution. Madness still burned in the hearts of these women; they had accomplished their sacrifice, but their festival was still to come. They drew themselves away to the further side of the pyramid, and, heedless of the shots which now and again pierced the breast of one of them--for here they were exposed to the Spanish fire--remained a while in preparation. With them went the priests of sacrifice, but now, as before, the rest of the men stood in sullen groups, watching what befell, but lifting no hand or voice to hinder its h.e.l.lishness.

One woman did not go with them, and that woman was Otomie my wife.

She stood by the stone of sacrifice, a piteous sight to see, for her frenzy or rather her madness had outworn itself, and she was as she had ever been. There stood Otomie, gazing with wide and horror-stricken eyes now at the tokens of this unholy rite and now at her own hands--as though she thought to see them red, and shuddered at the thought. I drew near to her and touched her on the shoulder. She turned swiftly, gasping,

'Husband! husband!'

'It is I,' I answered, 'but call me husband no more.'