CHAPTER I

[Illustration]

Montezuma’s Daughter

by H. Rider Haggard

Contents

I. WHY THOMAS WINGFIELD TELLS HIS TALE

II. OF THE PARENTAGE OF THOMAS WINGFIELD

III. THE COMING OF THE SPANIARD

IV. THOMAS TELLS HIS LOVE

V. THOMAS SWEARS AN OATH

VI. GOOD-BYE, SWEETHEART

VII. ANDRES DE FONSECA

VIII. THE SECOND MEETING

IX. THOMAS BECOMES RICH

X. THE PASSING OF ISABELLA DE SIGUENZA

XI. THE LOSS OF THE CARAK

XII. THOMAS COMES TO SHORE

XIII. THE STONE OF SACRIFICE

XIV. THE SAVING OF GUATEMOC

XV. THE COURT OF MONTEZUMA

XVI. THOMAS BECOMES A GOD

XVII. THE ARISING OF PAPANTZIN

XVIII. THE NAMING OF THE BRIDES

XIX. THE FOUR GODDESSES

XX. OTOMIE’S COUNSEL

XXI. THE KISS OF LOVE

XXII. THE TRIUMPH OF THE CROSS

XXIII. THOMAS IS MARRIED

XXIV. THE NIGHT OF FEAR

XXV. THE BURYING OF MONTEZUMA’S TREASURE

XXVI. THE CROWNING OF GUATEMOC

XXVII. THE FALL OF TENOCTITLAN

XXVIII. THOMAS IS DOOMED

XXIX. DE GARCIA SPEAKS HIS MIND

XXX. THE ESCAPE

XXXI. OTOMIE PLEADS WITH HER PEOPLE

XXXII. THE END OF GUATEMOC

XXXIII. ISABELLA DE SIGUENZA IS AVENGED

XXXIV. THE SIEGE OF THE CITY OF PINES

XXXV. THE LAST SACRIFICE OF THE WOMEN OF THE OTOMIE

XXXVI. THE SURRENDER

XXXVII. VENGEANCE

XXXVIII. OTOMIE’S FAREWELL

XXXIX. THOMAS COMES BACK FROM THE DEAD

XL. AMEN

DEDICATION

My dear Jebb,

Strange as were the adventures and escapes of Thomas Wingfield, once of

this parish, whereof these pages tell, your own can almost equal them

in these latter days, and, since a fellow feeling makes us kind, you at

least they may move to a sigh of sympathy. Among many a distant land

you know that in which he loved and fought, following vengeance and his

fate, and by your side I saw its relics and its peoples, its volcans

and its valleys. You know even where lies the treasure which, three

centuries and more ago, he helped to bury, the countless treasure that

an evil fortune held us back from seeking. Now the Indians have taken

back their secret, and though many may search, none will lift the

graven stone that seals it, nor shall the light of day shine again upon

the golden head of Montezuma. So be it! The wealth which Cortes wept

over, and his Spaniards sinned and died for, is for ever hidden yonder

by the shores of the bitter lake whose waters gave up to you that

ancient horror, the veritable and sleepless god of Sacrifice, of whom I

would not rob you—and, for my part, I do not regret the loss.

What cannot be lost, what to me seem of more worth than the dead hero

Guatemoc’s gems and jars of gold, are the memories of true friendship

shown to us far away beneath the shadow of the Slumbering Woman,[1] and

it is in gratitude for these that I ask permission to set your name

within a book which were it not for you would never have been written.

I am, my dear Jebb,

Always sincerely yours,

H. RIDER HAGGARD.

DITCHINGHAM, NORFOLK, _October_ 5, 1892.

To J. Gladwyn Jebb, Esq.

NOTE

Worn out prematurely by a life of hardship and extraordinary adventure,

Mr. Jebb passed away on March 18, 1893, taking with him the respect and

affection of all who had the honour of his friendship. The author has

learned with pleasure that the reading of this tale in proof and the

fact of its dedication to himself afforded him some amusement and

satisfaction in the intervals of his sufferings.

H. R. H.

_March_ 22, 1893.

[1] The volcano Izticcihuatl in Mexico.

NOTE

The more unpronounceable of the Aztec names are shortened in many

instances out of consideration for the patience of the reader; thus

“Popocatapetl” becomes “Popo,” “Huitzelcoatl” becomes “Huitzel,” &c.

The prayer in Chapter xxvi. is freely rendered from Jourdanet’s French

translation of Fray Bernardino de Sahagun’s History of New Spain,

written shortly after the conquest of Mexico (Book VI, chap. v.), to

which monumental work and to Prescott’s admirable history the author of

this romance is much indebted. The portents described as heralding the

fall of the Aztec Empire, and many of the incidents and events written

of in this story, such as the annual personation of the god

Tezcatlipoca by a captive distinguished for his personal beauty, and

destined to sacrifice, are in the main historical. The noble speech of

the Emperor Guatemoc to the Prince of Tacuba uttered while they both

were suffering beneath the hands of the Spaniards is also authentic.

Montezuma’s Daughter

CHAPTER I

WHY THOMAS WINGFIELD TELLS HIS TALE

Now glory be to God who has given us the victory! It is true, the

strength of Spain is shattered, her ships are sunk or fled, the sea has

swallowed her soldiers and her sailors by hundreds and by thousands,

and England breathes again. They came to conquer, to bring us to the

torture and the stake—to do to us free Englishmen as Cortes did by the

Indians of Anahuac. Our manhood to the slave bench, our daughters to

dishonour, our souls to the loving-kindness of the priest, our wealth

to the Emperor and the Pope! God has answered them with his winds,

Drake has answered them with his guns. They are gone, and with them the

glory of Spain.

I, Thomas Wingfield, heard the news to-day on this very Thursday in the

Bungay market-place, whither I went to gossip and to sell the apples

which these dreadful gales have left me, as they hang upon my trees.

Before there had been rumours of this and of that, but here in Bungay

was a man named Young, of the Youngs of Yarmouth, who had served in one

of the Yarmouth ships in the fight at Gravelines, aye and sailed north

after the Spaniards till they were lost in the Scottish seas.

Little things lead to great, men say, but here great things lead to

little, for because of these tidings it comes about that I, Thomas

Wingfield, of the Lodge and the parish of Ditchingham in the county of

Norfolk, being now of a great age and having only a short time to live,

turn to pen and ink. Ten years ago, namely, in the year 1578, it

pleased her Majesty, our gracious Queen Elizabeth, who at that date

visited this county, that I should be brought before her at Norwich.

There and then, saying that the fame of it had reached her, she

commanded me to give her some particulars of the story of my life, or

rather of those twenty years, more or less, which I spent among the

Indians at that time when Cortes conquered their country of Anahuac,

which is now known as Mexico. But almost before I could begin my tale,

it was time for her to start for Cossey to hunt the deer, and she said

it was her wish that I should write the story down that she might read

it, and moreover that if it were but half as wonderful as it promised

to be, I should end my days as Sir Thomas Wingfield. To this I answered

her Majesty that pen and ink were tools I had no skill in, yet I would

bear her command in mind. Then I made bold to give her a great emerald

that once had hung upon the breast of Montezuma’s daughter, and of many

a princess before her, and at the sight of it her eyes glistened

brightly as the gem, for this Queen of ours loves such costly

playthings. Indeed, had I so desired, I think that I might then and

there have struck a bargain, and set the stone against a title; but I,

who for many years had been the prince of a great tribe, had no wish to

be a knight. So I kissed the royal hand, and so tightly did it grip the

gem within that the knuckle joints shone white, and I went my ways,

coming back home to this my house by the Waveney on that same day.

Now the Queen’s wish that I should set down the story of my life

remained in my mind, and for long I have desired to do it before life

and story end together. The labour, indeed, is great to one unused to

such tasks; but why should I fear labour who am so near to the holiday

of death? I have seen things that no other Englishman has seen, which

are worthy to be recorded; my life has been most strange, many a time

it has pleased God to preserve it when all seemed lost, and this

perchance He has done that the lesson of it might become known to

others. For there is a lesson in it and in the things that I have seen,

and it is that no wrong can ever bring about a right, that wrong will

breed wrong at last, and be it in man or people, will fall upon the

brain that thought it and the hand that wrought it.

Look now at the fate of Cortes—that great man whom I have known clothed

with power like a god. Nearly forty years ago, so I have heard, he died

poor and disgraced in Spain; he, the conqueror—yes, and I have learned

also that his son Don Martin has been put to the torture in that city

which the father won with so great cruelties for Spain. Malinche, she

whom the Spaniards named Marina, the chief and best beloved of all the

women of this same Cortes, foretold it to him in her anguish when after

all that had been, after she had so many times preserved him and his

soldiers to look upon the sun, at the last he deserted her, giving her

in marriage to Don Juan Xaramillo. Look again at the fate of Marina

herself. Because she loved this man Cortes, or Malinche, as the Indians

named him after her, she brought evil on her native land; for without

her aid Tenoctitlan, or Mexico, as they call it now, had never bowed

beneath the yoke of Spain—yes, she forgot her honour in her passion.

And what was her reward, what right came to her of her wrongdoing? This

was her reward at last: to be given away in marriage to another and a

lesser man when her beauty waned, as a worn-out beast is sold to a

poorer master.

Consider also the fate of those great peoples of the land of Anahuac.

They did evil that good might come. They sacrificed the lives of

thousands to their false gods, that their wealth might increase, and

peace and prosperity be theirs throughout the generations. And now the

true God has answered them. For wealth He has given them desolation,

for peace the sword of the Spaniard, for prosperity the rack and the

torment and the day of slavery. For this it was that they did

sacrifice, offering their own children on the altars of Huitzel and of

Tezcat.

And the Spaniards themselves, who in the name of mercy have wrought

cruelties greater than any that were done by the benighted Aztecs, who

in the name of Christ daily violate His law to the uttermost extreme,

say shall they prosper, shall their evil-doing bring them welfare? I am

old and cannot live to see the question answered, though even now it is

in the way of answering. Yet I know that their wickedness shall fall

upon their own heads, and I seem to see them, the proudest of the

peoples of the earth, bereft of fame and wealth and honour, a

starveling remnant happy in nothing save their past. What Drake began

at Gravelines God will finish in many another place and time, till at

last Spain is of no more account and lies as low as the empire of

Montezuma lies to-day.

Thus it is in these great instances of which all the world may know,

and thus it is even in the life of so humble a man as I, Thomas

Wingfield. Heaven indeed has been merciful to me, giving me time to

repent my sins; yet my sins have been visited on my head, on me who

took His prerogative of vengeance from the hand of the Most High. It is

just, and because it is so I wish to set out the matter of my life’s

history that others may learn from it. For many years this has been in

my mind, as I have said, though to speak truth it was her Majesty the

Queen who first set the seed. But only on this day, when I have heard

for certain of the fate of the Armada, does it begin to grow, and who

can say if ever it will come to flower? For this tidings has stirred me

strangely, bringing back my youth and the deeds of love and war and

wild adventure which I have been mingled in, fighting for my own hand

and for Guatemoc and the people of the Otomie against these same

Spaniards, as they have not been brought back for many years. Indeed,

it seems to me, and this is no rare thing with the aged, as though

there in the far past my true life lay, and all the rest were nothing

but a dream.

From the window of the room wherein I write I can see the peaceful

valley of the Waveney. Beyond its stream are the common lands golden

with gorse, the ruined castle, and the red roofs of Bungay town

gathered about the tower of St. Mary’s Church. Yonder far away are the

king’s forests of Stowe and the fields of Flixton Abbey; to the right

the steep bank is green with the Earsham oaks, to the left the fast

marsh lands spotted with cattle stretch on to Beccles and Lowestoft,

while behind me my gardens and orchards rise in terraces up the turfy

hill that in old days was known as the Earl’s Vineyard. All these are

about me, and yet in this hour they are as though they were not. For

the valley of the Waveney I see the vale of Tenoctitlan, for the slopes

of Stowe the snowy shapes of the volcans Popo and Iztac, for the spire

of Earsham and the towers of Ditchingham, of Bungay, and of Beccles,

the soaring pyramids of sacrifice gleaming with the sacred fires, and

for the cattle in the meadows the horsemen of Cortes sweeping to war.

It comes back to me; that was life, the rest is but a dream. Once more

I feel young, and, should I be spared so long, I will set down the

story of my youth before I am laid in yonder churchyard and lost in the

world of dreams. Long ago I had begun it, but it was only on last

Christmas Day that my dear wife died, and while she lived I knew that

this task was better left undone. Indeed, to be frank, it was thus with

my wife: She loved me, I believe, as few men have the fortune to be

loved, and there is much in my past that jarred upon this love of hers,

moving her to a jealousy of the dead that was not the less deep because

it was so gentle and so closely coupled with forgiveness. For she had a

secret sorrow that ate her heart away, although she never spoke of it.

But one child was born to us, and this child died in infancy, nor for

all her prayers did it please God to give her another, and indeed

remembering the words of Otomie I did not expect that it would be so.

Now she knew well that yonder across the seas I had children whom I

loved by another wife, and though they were long dead, must always love

unalterably, and this thought wrung her heart. That I had been the

husband of another woman she could forgive, but that this woman should

have borne me children whose memory was still so dear, she could not

forget if she forgave it, she who was childless. Why it was so, being

but a man, I cannot say; for who can know all the mystery of a loving

woman’s heart? But so it was. Once, indeed, we quarrelled on the

matter; it was our only quarrel.

It chanced that when we had been married but two years, and our babe

was some few days buried in the churchyard of this parish of

Ditchingham, I dreamed a very vivid dream as I slept one night at my

wife’s side. I dreamed that my dead children, the four of them, for the

tallest lad bore in his arms my firstborn, that infant who died in the

great siege, came to me as they had often come when I ruled the people

of the Otomie in the City of Pines, and talked with me, giving me

flowers and kissing my hands. I looked upon their strength and beauty,

and was proud at heart, and, in my dream, it seemed as though some

great sorrow had been lifted from my mind; as though these dear ones

had been lost and now were found again. Ah! what misery is there like

to this misery of dreams, that can thus give us back our dead in

mockery, and then departing, leave us with a keener woe?

Well, I dreamed on, talking with my children in my sleep and naming

them by their beloved names, till at length I woke to look on

emptiness, and knowing all my sorrow I sobbed aloud. Now it was early

morning, and the light of the August sun streamed through the window,

but I, deeming that my wife slept, still lay in the shadow of my dream

as it were, and groaned, murmuring the names of those whom I might

never see again. It chanced, however, that she was awake, and had

overheard those words which I spoke with the dead, while I was yet

asleep and after; and though some of this talk was in the tongue of the

Otomie, the most was English, and knowing the names of my children she

guessed the purport of it all. Suddenly she sprang from the bed and

stood over me, and there was such anger in her eyes as I had never seen

before nor have seen since, nor did it last long then, for presently

indeed it was quenched in tears.

“What is it, wife?” I asked astonished.

“It is hard,” she answered, “that I must bear to listen to such talk

from your lips, husband. Was it not enough that, when all men thought

you dead, I wore my youth away faithful to your memory? though how

faithful you were to mine you know best. Did I ever reproach you

because you had forgotten me, and wedded a savage woman in a distant

land?”

“Never, dear wife, nor had I forgotten you as you know well; but what I

wonder at is that you should grow jealous now when all cause is done

with.”

“Cannot we be jealous of the dead? With the living we may cope, but who

can fight against the love which death has completed, sealing it for

ever and making it immortal! Still, _that_ I forgive you, for against

this woman I can hold my own, seeing that you were mine before you

became hers, and are mine after it. But with the children it is

otherwise. They are hers and yours alone. I have no part nor lot in

them, and whether they be dead or living I know well you love them

always, and will love them beyond the grave if you may find them there.

Already I grow old, who waited twenty years and more before I was your

wife, and I shall give you no other children. One I gave you, and God

took it back lest I should be too happy; yet its name was not on your

lips with those strange names. My dead babe is little to you, husband!”

Here she choked, bursting into tears; nor did I think it well to answer

her that there was this difference in the matter, that whereas, with

the exception of one infant, those sons whom I had lost were almost

adolescent, the babe she bore lived but sixty days.

Now when the Queen first put it in my mind to write down the history of

my life, I remembered this outbreak of my beloved wife; and seeing that

I could write no true tale and leave out of it the story of her who was

also my wife, Montezuma’s daughter, Otomie, Princess of the Otomie, and

of the children that she gave me, I let the matter lie. For I knew

well, that though we spoke very rarely on the subject during all the

many years we passed together, still it was always in Lily’s mind; nor

did her jealousy, being of the finer sort, abate at all with age, but

rather gathered with the gathering days. That I should execute the task

without the knowledge of my wife would not have been possible, for till

the very last she watched over my every act, and, as I verily believe,

divined the most of my thoughts.

And so we grew old together, peacefully, and side by side, speaking

seldom of that great gap in my life when we were lost to each other and

of all that then befell. At length the end came. My wife died suddenly

in her sleep in the eighty-seventh year of her age. I buried her on the

south side of the church here, with sorrow indeed, but not with sorrow

inconsolable, for I know that I must soon rejoin her, and those others

whom I have loved.

There in that wide heaven are my mother and my sister and my sons;

there are great Guatemoc my friend, last of the emperors, and many

other companions in war who have preceded me to peace; there, too,

though she doubted of it, is Otomie the beautiful and proud. In the

heaven which I trust to reach, all the sins of my youth and the errors

of my age notwithstanding, it is told us there is no marrying and

giving in marriage; and this is well, for I do not know how my wives,

Montezuma’s daughter and the sweet English gentlewoman, would agree

together were it otherwise.

And now to my task.