Sketches of Aboriginal Life Part 3

Tecuichpo became more and more animated, till she seemed quite lifted above herself and the world about her. Suddenly rising in the midst, and pointing, with great energy of expression, to the royal eagle of Mexico, then sweeping down from his mountain eyrie, to prey upon the ocelot of the distant valley, she exclaimed--

'Tis he! 'Tis he! our imperial bird!

Whom the G.o.ds 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 pa.s.sing, seemed to take up and prolong the strain.

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 Tenocht.i.tlan had pa.s.sed 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--

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 encompa.s.sed 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 G.o.ds, not his. Banishing from his mind the impressions of the scenes just pa.s.sed, 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.

Tenocht.i.tlan was now alive with the bustle of preparation. It was the preparation, not for war, which would far better have suited the mult.i.tude 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 s.p.a.cious 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 n.o.bility, 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 a.s.signed the mission to Cacama, the young prince of Tezcuco.

Nothing could exceed the gorgeous splendor of this emba.s.sy. 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 n.o.ble 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 emba.s.sy 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 n.o.ble 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, a.s.suring 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 gla.s.s, hung over his neck by Cortez. As gla.s.s was not known to the Mexicans, it probably had in their eyes the value of the rarest jewels.

This interview being over, the royal envoy hastened back to the capital, while the Castilians and their allies, in the two-fold character of hostile invaders and invited guests, followed his steps by slow, easy and cautious marches. After a few days, during which they pa.s.sed through large tracts of highly cultivated and fertile ground, and several of the beautiful towns and cities of the plateau, they arrived at Iztapalapan, a place of great beauty, and large resources, and the residence of Cuitlahua, the n.o.ble brother of Montezuma. At the command of the Emperor, Cuitlahua, as governor of this place, received the strangers with courtesy, and treated them with attention. But it was a cold courtesy, and a constrained attention. With a proud and haughty mien, the brave soldier exhibited to the wondering strangers, all the riches and curiosities of the place, disposing every thing in such a manner as to impress them most powerfully with the immense wealth of the empire, and the irresistible power of the Emperor. He collected around him all the richest and most potent n.o.bles in his neighborhood, and displayed a magnificence of style, and a prodigality of expenditure, that was truly princely. The extent and beauty of his gardens, his beautiful aviary, stocked with every variety of the gorgeously plumed birds of that tropical clime, his menagerie, containing a full representation of all the wild races of animals in Anahuac, struck the Spaniards with surprise and admiration; while the architecture of his palaces, and the many refinements of his style of living, gave them the highest ideas of the advanced state of civilization to which the Mexicans had attained.

But, so far from disheartening them in their grand design, all they saw of wealth and splendor in the inferior cities, only served to inflame their desire to see the capital, and learn if any thing more brilliant and wonderful than they had yet seen, could be furnished at the great metropolis. While they were daily more and more convinced of the power and resources of their enemy, and the seeming impossibility of their own enterprise, they were also daily more and more inflamed with the desire and purpose to possess themselves of the incalculable treasures which every where met their eyes. The cold aspect, and lofty bearing of the Prince Cuitlahua, the commander-in-chief of the Mexican armies, and heir apparent to its throne, left no doubt that the final struggle for power would be ably and bitterly contested, and that the wealth they so ardently coveted, would be dearly bought. To a heart less bold and self-reliant than that of Cortez, it would have been no enviable position, to be shut up, with his little band of followers, within the gates of a city, commanded by so brave and experienced a soldier, whose personal feelings and views were known to be of the most hostile character. To the iron-hearted Castilian, it was but a scene in the progress of his romantic adventure; and, the greater the difficulty, the more imminent the peril, the more cordially he trusted to his good genius, or his patron saint, he seems not to have known which, to carry him triumphantly through.

They were now but one day's march, and that a short and easy one, from the imperial city. Already they had seen it from a distance, resting, or rather riding, on the bosom of the lake, glowing and glittering in the sunbeams, like some resplendent constellation, transferred from the azure above to the azure below. They had seen its n.o.ble ally, the metropolis of the sister kingdom of Tezcuco, shining in rival though unequal splendor, on the opposite sh.o.r.e of the lake, and many other splendid cities, beautiful towns, and lovely hamlets, studding its bright border, in its entire circuit, like mingled gems and pearls, richly set in the band of the imperial diadem, all reposing under the shadow, and eclipsed by the superior glory, of the capital, the crowning jewel of the Western World. They had seen the _chinampas_, those wandering gardens of verdure and flowers, seeming more like the fairy creations of poetry, than the sober realities of life, and reminding them of those islands of the blest, which they had been told, in their childish days, floated about in the ethereal regions above, freighted with blessings for the virtuous, and sometimes stooping so near to earth as to permit the weary and the waiting to escape from their toils and trials here, and find repose in their celestial paradise. They had seen and admired the wonderful works of art, the causeways of vast extent, constructed with scientific accuracy, and of great strength and durability--the ca.n.a.ls and aqueducts, and bridges, which would have done honor to the genius and industry of the proudest nation in Europe. It now remained to them to see the imperial lord of all these wide and luxuriant realms, and to enter, as invited guests, into the gates of his royal abode.

CHAPTER V.

ARRIVAL OF THE SPANIARDS AT THE CAPITAL--THEIR RECEPTION BY MONTEZUMA--DETERMINED HOSTILITY OF GUATIMOZIN.

~Hark! at the very portals now they stand, Demanding entrance. Can I shut them out, When all the G.o.ds commission them to come?

Can we admit them, and preserve intact Our honor and the state?~

The spectacle of this day, the eighth of November, 1519, has not its parallel in the annals of history, and will probably never be repeated in the history of man. The sovereign and absolute monarch of a populous and powerful empire, stooping from his imperial throne, flinging wide open the gates of his capital, and condescending to go out, and receive with an apparent welcome an invading foe, whom he had in vain attempted to keep out, but whom he had now the power to crush under his feet in a moment. That invading foe consisted only of a few hundred adventurers, three thousand miles from home, in the heart of the country they had ravaged, and surrounded by countless thousands of exasperated foes, burning to revenge the injuries and insults they had received at the hands of the strangers, and only held back from rushing upon them, like herds of ravening tigers, by the strong arm of the royal prohibition.

Their position was like that of a group of children in a menagerie, amusing themselves with teasing and exasperating the caged animals around them. The furious creatures glare on them with looks of rage, growling fiercely, and gnashing their teeth. The keeper sympathizes with his enraged subjects, burning to let them loose upon their annoyers, but restrained by that mysterious agency, in which the divine hand is every where moulding and subduing the natural impulses of humanity, and working out its own wise ends by the wrath and pa.s.sions of men.

Let the keeper but raise the bar of that cage for a moment, and not one of the bright group would be left to tell the tragic issue of their sport. Let the terror-stricken Montezuma put on once more the air of a monarch, and raise his finger as a signal for the onset, before the enemy has become entrenched in his fortress, and few, if any, of that brave band would be left to tell the world of their fate--the marvellous story of the Conquest would never be told; the Aztec dynasty would outlive the period a.s.signed it by those mystic oracles; and Montezuma, recovered from the dark dreams of an imagination disordered by superst.i.tion--the long dreaded crisis of his destiny pa.s.sed--would have swayed again the sceptre of undisputed empire over the broad and beautiful realms of Anahuac. Having once vanquished and destroyed the terrible strangers, and stripped them of that supernatural defence, which the idea of their celestial origin threw around them, he would never again have yielded his soul to so unmanly a fear. If such had been the issue of the invasion of Cortez and his band, it is doubtful whether the Aztec dynasty would ever have been overthrown. The civilization of Europe would soon have been engrafted upon its own.

Christianity would have taken the place of their dark and b.l.o.o.d.y paganism; which, with a people so far enlightened as they were, could not have endured for a moment the noon-day blaze of the gospel; and the terrible power of that heathen despot would have been softened, without weakening it, into the consolidated colossal strength of an enlightened, Christian, peaceful empire. Christianity propagated by fire and sword consumes centuries, and wastes whole generations of men, in effecting a revolution, which they who go with the olive branch in their hand, and the gospel of peace in their hearts, require only a few years to accomplish. Witness the recent triumphs of a peaceful Christianity in the Sandwich Islands, as contrasted with the b.l.o.o.d.y and wasting Crusades of Spaniards in all portions of the new world.

With the earliest dawn, the reveille was beaten in the Spanish camp, and all the forces were mustered and drawn up in the order of their march.

Cortez, at the head of the cavalry, formed the advanced guard, followed immediately by the Castilian infantry in solid column. The artillery and baggage occupied the centre, while the dark files of the Tlascalan savages brought up the rear. The whole number was less than seven thousand, not more than three hundred and fifty of whom were Spaniards.

Putting on their most imposing array, with gay flaunting banners, and the stirring notes of the trumpet, swelling over lake and grove, and rolling away in distant echoes among the mountains, they issued forth from the city, just as the rising sun, surmounting the eastern cordillera, poured the golden stream of day over the beautiful valley, and lighted up a thousand resplendent fires among the gilded domes, and enameled temples of the capital, and the rich tiara of tributary cities and towns that encircled it. Moving rapidly forward, they soon entered upon the grand causeway, which, pa.s.sing through the capital, spans the entire breadth of the Tezcucan lake, const.i.tuting then the main entrance, as its remains do now the princ.i.p.al southern avenue, to the city of Mexico. It was composed of immense stones, fashioned with geometrical precision, well laid in cement, and capable of withstanding for ages the play of the waters, and the ravages of time. It was of sufficient width, throughout its whole extent, to allow ten hors.e.m.e.n to ride abreast. It was interrupted in several places by well built draw bridges for the accommodation of the numerous boats, that carried on a brisk trade with the several towns on the lake, and for the better defence of the city against an invading foe. At the distance of about half a league from the capital, it was also traversed by a thick heavy wall of stone, about twelve feet high, surmounted and fortified by towers at each extremity. In the centre was a battlemented gateway, of sufficient strength to resist any force that could be brought against it, by the rude enginery of native warfare. This was called the Fort of Xoloc.

Here they were met by a very numerous and powerful body of Aztec n.o.bles, splendidly arrayed in their gayest costume, who came to announce the approach of Montezuma, and again in his name to bid the strangers welcome to the capital. As each of the chiefs presented himself, in his turn, to Cortez, and made the customary formal salutation, a considerable time was consumed in the ceremony; which was somewhat more tedious than interesting to the hot spirited Spaniards.

When this was over, they pa.s.sed briskly on, and soon beheld the glittering retinue of the Emperor emerging from the princ.i.p.al gate of the city. The royal palanquin, blazing with burnished gold and precious stones, was borne on the shoulders of the princ.i.p.al n.o.bles of the land, while crowds of others, of equal or inferior rank, thronged in obsequious attendance around. It was preceded by three officers, bearing golden wands. Over it was a canopy of gaudy feather-work, powdered with jewels, and fringed with silver, resting on four richly carved and inlaid pillars, and supported by four n.o.bles of the same rank with the bearers. These were all bare-footed, and walked with a slow measured pace, as conscious of the majesty of their burden, and with eyes bent on the ground. Arrived within a convenient distance, the train halted, and Montezuma, alighting from his palanquin, came forward, leaning on the arms of his royal relatives, the lords of Tezcuco and Iztapalapan. As the monarch advanced, under the same gorgeous canopy which had before screened him from the public gaze, and the glare of the mid-day sun, the ground was covered with cotton tapestry, while all his subjects of high and low degree, who lined the sides of the causeway, bent their heads and fixed their eyes on the ground, as unworthy to look upon so much majesty. Some prostrated themselves on the ground before him, and all in that mighty throng were awed by his presence into a silence that was absolutely oppressive.

The appearance of Montezuma was in the highest degree interesting to the Spanish general and his followers. Flung over his shoulders was the _tilmatli_, or large square cloak, manufactured from the finest cotton, with the embroidered ends gathered in a knot round his neck. Under this was a tunic of green, embroidered with exquisite taste, extending almost to his knees, and confined at the waist, by a rich jeweled vest. His feet were protected by sandals of gold, bound with leathern thongs richly embossed with the same metal. The cloak, the tunic, and the sandals were profusely sprinkled with pearls and precious stones. On his head was a _panache_ of plumes of the royal green, waving gracefully in the light breeze.

He was then about forty years of age. His person was tall, slender, and well proportioned. His complexion was somewhat fairer than that of his race generally. His countenance was expressive of great benignity. His carriage was serious, dignified and even majestic, and, without the least tincture of haughtiness, or affectation of importance, he moved with the stately air of one born to command, and accustomed to the homage of all about him.

The strangers halted, as the monarch drew near. Cortez, dismounting, threw his reins to a page, and, supported by a few of his princ.i.p.al cavaliers, advanced to meet him. What an interview! How full of thrilling interest to both parties! How painfully thrilling to Montezuma, who now saw before him, standing on the very threshold of his citadel, the all-conquering white man, whose history was so mysteriously blended with his own; whose coming and power had been foreshadowed for ages in the prophetic traditions of his country, confirmed again by his own most sacred oracles, and repeated by so many signs, and omens, and fearful prognostics, that he was compelled either to regard him as the heaven-sent representative of the ancient rightful lords of the soil, or to abandon his early and cherished faith, the religion of his fathers, and of the ancient race from which they sprung.

Putting a royal restraint upon the feelings which almost overwhelmed him, the monarch received his guest with princely courtesy, expressing great pleasure in seeing him personally, and extending to him the hospitalities of his capital. The Castilian replied with expressions of the most profound respect, and with many and ample acknowledgments for the substantial proofs which the Emperor had already given of his more than royal munificence. He then hung on the neck of the king a sparkling chain of colored crystal, at the same time making a movement, as if he would embrace him. He was prevented, however, by the timely interference of two Aztec lords from thus profaning, before the a.s.sembled mult.i.tudes of his people, the sacred person of their master.

After this formal introduction and interchange of civilities, Montezuma appointed his brother, the bold Cuitlahua, to conduct the Spaniards to their quarters in the city, and returned in the same princely state in which he came, amid the prostrate thousands of his subjects. Pondering deeply, as the train moved slowly on, upon the fearful crisis in his affairs which had now arrived, his ear was arrested by a faint low voice in the crowd, which he instantly recognized as Karee's, breathing out a plaintive wail, as if in soliloquy with her own soul, or in high communion with the spirits of the unseen world. The strain was wild and broken, but its tenor was deeply mournful and deprecatory. It concluded with these emphatic words--

The proud eagle may turn to his eyrie again, But his pinions are clipped, and his foot feels the chain, He is monarch no more in his wide domain-- The falcon has come to his nest.

With an air of bold and martial triumph, their colors flying, and music briskly playing, the Spaniards, with the singular trail of half savage Tlascalans, the deadly enemies of the Aztecs, made their entrance into the southern quarter of the renowned Tenocht.i.tlan, and were escorted by the brave Cuitlahua, to the royal palace of Axayacatl, in the heart of the city, once the residence of Montezuma's father, and now appropriated to the accommodation of Cortez and his followers.

As they marched through the crowded streets, new subjects of wonder and admiration greeted them on every side. The grandeur and extent of the city, the superior style of its architecture, the ample dimensions, immense strength, and costly ornaments of the numerous palaces, pyramids and temples, separated and surrounded by broad terraced gardens in the highest possible state of cultivation, and teeming with flowers of every hue and name--the lofty tapering sanctuaries, and altars blazing with inextinguishable fires,--and above all, the innumerable throngs of people who swarmed through the streets and ca.n.a.ls, filling every door-way and window, and cl.u.s.tering on the flat roof of every building as they pa.s.sed, filled them with mingled emotions of admiration, surprise and fear.

The swarming myriads of the Aztecs were, on their part, no less interested and amazed at the spectacle presented by their strange visitors. An intense and all-absorbing curiosity pervaded the entire ma.s.s of the people. Nothing could surpa.s.s their wonder and admiration of the prancing steeds, or four legged and double-headed men, as to their simple view they seemed to be, the rider as he sat with ease in his saddle, appearing to be but a part of the animal on which he rode. The piercing tones of the loud mouthed trumpets, astonished and delighted them exceedingly. But the deep thunder of the artillery as it burst upon them amid volumes of sulphurous smoke and flame, and then rolled away in long reverberated echoes among the mountains, filled them with indescribable alarm, and made them feel that the all-destroying G.o.d of war was indeed among them in the guise of men.

While these scenes were enacting in the city, the palace was shrouded in the deepest gloom. When the monarch arrayed himself, in the morning, to go forth to meet the strangers, several incidents occurred, which were deemed peculiarly ominous, confirming all the superst.i.tious forebodings of the king, and tending to take away from the yet trusting hearts of his household, their last remaining hope. The imperial clasp, which bound his girdle in front, bearing as its device, richly engraven on the precious _chalchivitl_, the emblem of despotic power, which was the eagle pouncing upon the ocelot--snapped in twain, scattering the fragments of the eagle's head upon the marble pavement. The princ.i.p.al jewel in the royal diadem was found loose, and trembling in its setting.

But, more portentous than all to the mind of the devout Montezuma, the priest, who had charge of the great altar on the Teocalli of Huitzilopotchli, had been seized with convulsions during the preceding night, and fallen dead at his post. The perpetual fire had gone out, for want of a hand to replenish it, and when the morning sun shot his first beams upon that high altar, there was not a spark among the blackened embers, to answer his reviving glow.

It was impossible to shake off the influence of presages like these.

From infancy, he had been taught to read in all such incidents, the shadowy revealings of the will of the G.o.ds, the dark lines of destiny foreshown to the faithful. The soul of Montezuma was oppressed almost to sinking. But he roused himself to his task, and went forth, feeling, as he went, that the ground trembled beneath his feet, while an untimely night gathered at noon-day over the sky.

Among the n.o.ble princes who graced the court of Montezuma, there was no one of a n.o.bler bearing, or a loftier heart, than his nephew Guatimozin, the favored lover of Tecuichpo. Unlike her disappointed suitor, the Prince of Tezcuco, he had uniformly and powerfully opposed the timid policy of the king, and urged, with Cuitlahua, a bold and unyielding resistance to the encroachments of the intruding Spaniards. His reluctance to their admission to the capital was so great, that he refused to witness the humiliating spectacle; preferring to shut himself up in the palace, and sustain, if he could, the fainting courage of the princess, and her mother. All that could be done by eloquence, inspired by patriotic zeal and inflamed by a pure and refined love, was attempted by the accomplished youth, till, excited and inflamed by his own efforts to comfort and persuade others, and nerved to higher resolves, by a new contemplation of the inestimable heart-treasures, which were staked upon the issue, a new hope seemed to dawn upon the clouded horizon of their destiny.

"My fair princess," cried the impa.s.sioned lover, "it shall not be. These wide and glorious realms, teeming with untold thousands of brave and patriotic hearts, ready and able to defend our altars and our hearths, shall never pa.s.s away to a mere handful of pale-faced invaders. They _must_, they _shall_ be driven back. Or, if our G.o.ds have utterly deserted us--if the time has indeed come, when the power and glory of the Aztec is to pa.s.s away for ever, let the Aztec, to a man, pa.s.s away with it. Let us perish together by our altars, and leave to the rapacious intruder a ravaged and depopulated country. Let not one remain to grace his triumph, or bow his neck to the ignominious yoke."

"Nay, my sweet cousin," she replied, with a tone and look of indescribable tenderness, "we will indeed die together, if need be, but let us first see if we cannot live together."

"Live?" exclaimed Guatimozin. "Oh! Tecuichpo, what would I not attempt, what would I not sacrifice, to the hope of living, if I might share that life with you. But my country! my allegiance! how can I sacrifice that which is not my own?--that inheritance which was all my birth-right, and which, as it preceded, must necessarily be paramount to, all the other relations of life."

"But, my father! dear Guatimozin! must he not be obeyed?"

"Yes, and he shall be. But he _must_ be persuaded, even at this late hour, to dismiss the strangers, and banish them for ever from his domains. He has no right to yield it up. It belongs to his subjects no less than to him. He belongs to them, by the same sacred bond that binds them all to him. He may not sacrifice them to a scruple, which has in it more of superst.i.tion than of religion. I must go to the Temple of Cholula, and bring up the h.o.a.ry old prophet of Quetzalcoatl, and see if he cannot move the too tender conscience of your father, and persuade him that his duty to his G.o.ds cannot, by any possibility, be made to conflict with his duty to his empire, and the mighty family of dependent children, whom the G.o.ds have committed to his care."

"Oh! not now, Guatimozin, I pray you. Do not leave us at this terrible moment. Stay, and sustain with your courageous hopes the sad heart of my dear father, who is utterly overwhelmed with the dire omens of this dismal morning."

"Omens! Oh! Tecuichpo, shall we not rather say that the G.o.ds have thus frowned upon our cowardly abandonment of their altars, than that they design, in these dark portents, to denounce an irreversible doom, which our prayers cannot avert, nor our combined wisdom and courage prevent?"