THE COURT OF MONTEZUMA
Now for a week I was so ill from my wounds that I was unable to be
moved, and then I must be carried in a litter till we came to within
three days’ journey of the city of Tenoctitlan or Mexico. After that,
as the roads were now better made and cared for than any I have seen in
England, I was able to take to my feet again. Of this I was glad, for I
have no love of being borne on the shoulders of other men after the
womanish Indian fashion, and, moreover, as we had now come to a cold
country, the road running through vast table-lands and across the tops
of mountains, it was no longer necessary as it had been in the hot
lands. Never did I see anything more dreary than these immense lengths
of desolate plains covered with aloes and other thorny and succulent
shrubs of fantastic aspect, which alone could live on the sandy and
waterless soil. This is a strange land, that can boast three separate
climates within its borders, and is able to show all the glories of the
tropics side by side with deserts of measureless expanse.
One night we camped in a rest house, of which there were many built
along the roads for the use of travellers, that was placed almost on
the top of the _sierra_ or mountain range which surrounds the valley of
Tenoctitlan. Next morning we took the road again before dawn, for the
cold was so sharp at this great height that we, who had travelled from
the hot land, could sleep very little, and also Guatemoc desired if it
were possible to reach the city that night.
When we had gone a few hundred paces the path came to the crest of the
mountain range, and I halted suddenly in wonder and admiration. Below
me lay a vast bowl of land and water, of which, however, I could see
nothing, for the shadows of the night still filled it. But before me,
piercing the very clouds, towered the crests of two snow-clad
mountains, and on these the light of the unrisen sun played, already
changing their whiteness to the stain of blood. Popo, or the Hill that
Smokes, is the name of the one, and Ixtac, or the Sleeping Woman, that
of the other, and no grander sight was ever offered to the eyes of man
than they furnished in that hour before the dawn. From the lofty summit
of Popo went up great columns of smoke which, what with the fire in
their heart and the crimson of the sunrise, looked like rolling pillars
of flame. And for the glory of the glittering slopes below, that
changed continually from the mystery of white to dull red, from red to
crimson, and from crimson to every dazzling hue that the rainbow holds,
who can tell it, who can even imagine it? None, indeed, except those
that have seen the sun rise over the volcans of Tenoctitlan.
When I had feasted my eyes on Popo I turned to Ixtac. She is not so
lofty as her “husband,” for so the Aztecs name the volcan Popo, and
when first I looked I could see nothing but the gigantic shape of a
woman fashioned in snow, and lying like a corpse upon her lofty bier,
whose hair streamed down the mountain side. But now the sunbeams caught
her also, and she seemed to start out in majesty from a veil of rosy
mist, a wonderful and thrilling sight. But beautiful as she was then,
still I love the Sleeping Woman best at eve. Then she lies a shape of
glory on the blackness beneath, and is slowly swallowed up into the
solemn night as the dark draws its veil across her.
Now as I gazed the light began to creep down the sides of the volcans,
revealing the forests on their flanks. But still the vast valley was
filled with mist that lay in dense billows resembling those of the sea,
through which hills and temple tops started up like islands. By slow
degrees as we passed upon our downward road the vapours cleared away,
and the lakes of Tezcuco, Chalco, and Xochicalco shone in the sunlight
like giant mirrors. On their banks stood many cities, indeed the
greatest of these, Mexico, seemed to float upon the waters; beyond them
and about them were green fields of corn and aloe, and groves of forest
trees, while far away towered the black wall of rock that hedges in the
valley.
All day we journeyed swiftly through this fairy land. We passed through
the cities of Amaquem and Ajotzinco, which I will not stay to describe,
and many a lovely village that nestled upon the borders of Lake Chalco.
Then we entered on the great causeway of stone built like a road
resting on the waters, and with the afternoon we came to the town of
Cuitlahuac. Thence we passed on to Iztapalapan, and here Guatemoc would
have rested for the night in the royal house of his uncle Cuitlahua.
But when we reached the town we found that Montezuma, who had been
advised of our approach by runners, had sent orders that we were to
push on to Tenoctitlan, and that palanquins had been made ready to bear
us. So we entered the palanquins, and leaving that lovely city of
gardens, were borne swiftly along the southern causeway. On we went
past towns built upon piles fixed in the bottom of the lake, past
gardens that were laid out on reeds and floated over the waters like a
boat, past _teocallis_ and glistening temples without number, through
fleets of light canoes and thousands of Indians going to and fro about
their business, till at length towards sunset we reached the
battlemented fort that is called Xoloc which stands upon the dyke. I
say stands, but alas! it stands no more. Cortes has destroyed it, and
with it all those glorious cities which my eyes beheld that day.
At Xoloc we began to enter the city of Tenoctitlan or Mexico, the
mightiest city that ever I had seen. The houses on the outskirts,
indeed, were built of mud or adobe, but those in the richer parts were
constructed of red stone. Each house surrounded a courtyard and was in
turn surrounded by a garden, while between them ran canals, having
footpaths on either side. Then there were squares, and in the squares
pyramids, palaces, and temples without end. I gazed on them till I was
bewildered, but all seemed as nothing when at length I saw the great
temple with its stone gateways opening to the north and the south, the
east and the west, its wall carven everywhere with serpents, its
polished pavements, its _teocallis_ decked with human skulls, thousands
upon thousands of them, and its vast surrounding tianquez, or market
place. I caught but a glimpse of it then, for the darkness was falling,
and afterwards we were borne on through the darkness, I did not know
whither.
A while went by and I saw that we had left the city, and were passing
up a steep hill beneath the shadow of mighty cedar trees. Presently we
halted in a courtyard and here I was bidden to alight. Then the prince
Guatemoc led me into a wondrous house, of which all the rooms were
roofed with cedar wood, and its walls hung with richly-coloured cloths,
and in that house gold seemed as plentiful as bricks and oak are with
us in England. Led by domestics who bore cedar wands in their hands, we
went through many passages and rooms, till at length we came to a
chamber where other domestics were awaiting us, who washed us with
scented waters and clothed us in gorgeous apparel. Thence they
conducted us to a door where we were bidden to remove our shoes, and a
coarse coloured robe was given to each of us to hide our splendid
dress. The robes having been put on, we were suffered to pass the door,
and found ourselves in a vast chamber in which were many noble men and
some women, all standing and clad in coarse robes. At the far end of
this chamber was a gilded screen, and from behind it floated sounds of
sweet music.
Now as we stood in the great chamber that was lighted with
sweet-smelling torches, many men advanced and greeted Guatemoc the
prince, and I noticed that all of them looked upon me curiously.
Presently a woman came and I saw that her beauty was great. She was
tall and stately, and beneath her rough outer robe splendidly attired
in worked and jewelled garments. Weary and bewildered as I was, her
loveliness seized me as it were in a vice, never before had I seen such
loveliness. For her eye was proud and full like the eye of a buck, her
curling hair fell upon her shoulders, and her features were very noble,
yet tender almost to sadness, though at times she could seem fierce
enough. This lady was yet in her first youth, perchance she may have
seen some eighteen years, but her shape was that of a full-grown woman
and most royal.
“Greeting, Guatemoc my cousin,” she said in a sweet voice; “so you are
come at last. My royal father has awaited you for long and will ask
questions as to your delay. My sister your wife has wondered also why
you tarried.”
Now as she spoke I felt rather than saw that this lady was searching me
with her eyes.
“Greeting, Otomie my cousin,” answered the prince. “I have been delayed
by the accidents of travel. Tobasco is far away, also my charge and
companion, Teule,” and he nodded towards me, “met with an accident on
the road.”
“What was the accident?” she asked.
“Only this, that he saved me from the jaws of a puma at the risk of his
life when all the others fled from me, and was somewhat hurt in the
deed. He saved me thus—” and in few words he told the story.
She listened and I saw that her eyes sparkled at the tale. When it was
done she spoke again, and this time to me.
“Welcome, Teule,” she said smiling. “You are not of our people, yet my
heart goes out to such a man.” And still smiling she left us.
“Who is that great lady?” I asked of Guatemoc.
“That is my cousin Otomie, the princess of the Otomie, my uncle
Montezuma’s favourite daughter,” he answered. “She likes you, Teule,
and that is well for you for many reasons. Hush!”
As he spoke the screen at the far end of the chamber was drawn aside.
Beyond it a man sat upon a broidered cushion, who was inhaling the
fumes of the tobacco weed from a gilded pipe of wood after the Indian
fashion. This man, who was no other than the monarch Montezuma, was of
a tall build and melancholy countenance, having a very pale face for
one of his nation, and thin black hair. He was dressed in a white robe
of the purest cotton, and wore a golden belt and sandals set with
pearls, and on his head a plume of feathers of the royal green. Behind
him were a band of beautiful girls somewhat slightly clothed, some of
whom played on lutes and other instruments of music, and on either side
stood four ancient counsellors, all of them barefooted and clad in the
coarsest garments.
So soon as the screen was drawn all the company in the chamber
prostrated themselves upon their knees, an example that I hastened to
follow, and thus they remained till the emperor made a sign with the
gilded bowl of his pipe, when they rose to their feet again and stood
with folded hands and eyes fixed abjectly upon the floor. Presently
Montezuma made another signal, and three aged men whom I understood to
be ambassadors, advanced and asked some prayer of him. He answered them
with a nod of the head and they retreated from his presence, making
obeisance and stepping backward till they mingled with the crowd. Then
the emperor spoke a word to one of the counsellors, who bowed and came
slowly down the hall looking to the right and to the left. Presently
his eye fell upon Guatemoc, and, indeed, he was easy to see, for he
stood a head taller than any there.
“Hail, prince,” he said. “The royal Montezuma desires to speak with
you, and with the Teule, your companion.”
“Do as I do, Teule,” said Guatemoc, and led the way up the chamber,
till we reached the place where the wooden screen had been, which, as
we passed it, was drawn behind us, shutting us off from the hall.
Here we stood a while, with folded hands and downcast eyes, till a
signal was made to us to advance.
“Your report, nephew,” said Montezuma in a low voice of command.
“I went to the city of Tobasco, O glorious Montezuma. I found the Teule
and brought him hither. Also I caused the high priest to be sacrificed
according to the royal command, and now I hand back the imperial
signet,” and he gave the ring to a counsellor.
“Why did you delay so long upon the road, nephew?”
“Because of the chances of the journey; while saving my life, royal
Montezuma, the Teule my prisoner was bitten by a puma. Its skin is
brought to you as an offering.”
Now Montezuma looked at me for the first time, then opened a picture
scroll that one of the counsellors handed to him, and read in it,
glancing at me from time to time.
“The description is good,” he said at length, “in all save one thing—it
does not say that this prisoner is the handsomest man in Anahuac. Say,
Teule, why have your countrymen landed on my dominions and slain my
people?”
“I know nothing of it, O king,” I answered as well as I might with the
help of Guatemoc, “and they are not my countrymen.”
“The report says that you confess to having the blood of these Teules
in your veins, and that you came to these shores, or near them, in one
of their great canoes.”
“That is so, O king, yet I am not of their people, and I came to the
shore floating on a barrel.”
“I hold that you lie,” answered Montezuma frowning, “for the sharks and
crocodiles would devour one who swam thus.” Then he added anxiously,
“Say, are you of the descendants of Quetzal?”
“I do not know, O king. I am of a white race, and our forefather was
named Adam.”
“Perchance that is another name for Quetzal,” he said. “It has long
been prophesied that his children would return, and now it seems that
the hour of their coming is at hand,” and he sighed heavily, then
added: “Go now. To-morrow you shall tell me of these Teules, and the
council of the priests shall decide your fate.”
Now when I heard the name of the priests I trembled in all my bones and
cried, clasping my hands in supplication:
“Slay me if you will, O king, but I beseech you deliver me not again
into the hands of the priests.”
“We are all in the hands of the priests, who are the mouth of God,” he
answered coldly. “Besides, I hold that you have lied to me.”
Then I went foreboding evil, and Guatemoc also looked downcast.
Bitterly did I curse the hour when I had said that I was of the Spanish
blood and yet no Spaniard. Had I known even what I knew that day,
torture would not have wrung those words from me. But now it was too
late.
Now Guatemoc led me to certain apartments of this palace of
Chapoltepec, where his wife, the royal princess Tecuichpo, was waiting
him, a very lovely lady, and with her other ladies, among them the
princess Otomie, Montezuma’s daughter, and some nobles. Here a rich
repast was served to us, and I was seated next to the princess Otomie,
who spoke to me most graciously, asking me many things concerning my
land and the people of the Teules. It was from her that I learned first
that the emperor was much disturbed at heart because of these Teules or
Spaniards, for he was superstitious, and held them to be the children
of the god Quetzal, who according to ancient prophecy would come to
take the land. Indeed, so gracious was she, and so royally lovely, that
for the first time I felt my heart stirred by any other woman than my
betrothed whom I had left far away in England, and whom, as I thought,
I should never see again. And as I learned in after days mine was not
the only heart that was stirred that night.
Near to us sat another royal lady, Papantzin, the sister of Montezuma,
but she was neither young nor lovely, and yet most sweet faced and sad
as though with the presage of death. Indeed she died not many weeks
after but could not rest quiet in her grave, as shall be told.
When the feast was done and we had drunk of the cocoa or _chocolate_,
and smoked tobacco in pipes, a strange but most soothing custom that I
learned in Tobasco and of which I have never been able to break myself,
though the weed is still hard to come by here in England, I was led to
my sleeping place, a small chamber panelled with cedar boards. For a
while I could not sleep, for I was overcome by the memory of all the
strange sights that I had seen in this wonderful new land which was so
civilised and yet so barbarous. I thought of that sad-faced king, the
absolute lord of millions, surrounded by all that the heart of man can
desire, by vast wealth, by hundreds of lovely wives, by loving
children, by countless armies, by all the glory of the arts, ruling
over the fairest empire on the earth, with every pleasure to his hand,
a god in all things save his mortality, and worshipped as a god, and
yet a victim to fear and superstition, and more heavy hearted than the
meanest slave about his palaces. Here was a lesson such as Solomon
would have loved to show, for with Solomon this Montezuma might cry:
“I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings
and of the provinces: I gat me men singers and women singers, and the
delights of the sons of men, and musical instruments, and that of all
sorts. And whatsoever my eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld
not my heart from any joy. And behold, all was vanity and vexation of
spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.”
So he might have cried, so, indeed, he did cry in other words, for, as
the painting of the skeletons and the three monarchs that is upon the
north wall of the aisle of Ditchingham Church shows forth so aptly,
kings have their fates and happiness is not to them more than to any
other of the sons of men. Indeed, it is not at all, as my benefactor
Fonseca once said to me; true happiness is but a dream from which we
awake continually to the sorrows of our short laborious day.
Then my thoughts flew to the vision of that most lovely maid, the
princess Otomie, who, as I believed, had looked on me so kindly, and I
found that vision sweet, for I was young, and the English Lily, my own
love, was far away and lost to me for ever. Was it then wonderful that
I should find this Indian poppy fair? Indeed, where is the man who
would not have been overcome by her sweetness, her beauty, and that
stamp of royal grace which comes with kingly blood and the daily
exercise of power? Like the rich wonders of the robe she wore, her very
barbarism, of which now I saw but the better side, drew and dazzled my
mind’s eye, giving her woman’s tenderness some new quality, sombre and
strange, an eastern richness which is lacking in our well schooled
English women, that at one and the same stroke touched both the
imagination and the senses, and through them enthralled the heart.
For Otomie seemed such woman as men dream of but very rarely win,
seeing that the world has few such natures and fewer nurseries where
they can be reared. At once pure and passionate, of royal blood and
heart, rich natured and most womanly, yet brave as a man and beautiful
as the night, with a mind athirst for knowledge and a spirit that no
sorrows could avail to quell, ever changing in her outer moods, and yet
most faithful and with the honour of a man, such was Otomie,
Montezuma’s daughter, princess of the Otomie. Was it wonderful then
that I found her fair, or, when fate gave me her love, that at last I
loved her in turn? And yet there was that in her nature which should
have held me back had I but known of it, for with all her charm, her
beauty and her virtues, at heart she was still a savage, and strive as
she would to hide it, at times her blood would master her.
But as I lay in the chamber of the palace of Chapoltepec, the tramp of
the guards without my door reminded me that I had little now to do with
love and other delights, I whose life hung from day to day upon a hair.
To-morrow the priests would decide my fate, and when the priests were
judges, the prisoner might know the sentence before it was spoken. I
was a stranger and a white man, surely such a one would prove an
offering more acceptable to the gods than that furnished by a thousand
Indian hearts. I had been snatched from the altars of Tobasco that I
might grace the higher altars of Tenoctitlan, and that was all. My fate
would be to perish miserably far from my home, and in this world never
to be heard of more.
Musing thus sadly at last I slept. When I woke the sun was up. Rising
from my mat I went to the wood-barred window place and looked through.
The palace whence I gazed was placed on the crest of a rocky hill. On
one side this hill was bathed by the blue waters of Tezcuco, on the
other, a mile or more away, rose the temple towers of Mexico. Along the
slopes of the hill, and in some directions for a mile from its base,
grew huge cedar trees from the boughs of which hung a grey and
ghostly-looking moss. These trees are so large that the smallest of
them is bigger than the best oak in this parish of Ditchingham, while
the greatest measures twenty-two paces round the base. Beyond and
between these marvellous and ancient trees were the gardens of
Montezuma, that with their strange and gorgeous flowers, their marble
baths, their aviaries and wild beast dens, were, as I believe, the most
wonderful in the whole world.[5]
“At the least,” I thought to myself, “even if I must die, it is
something to have seen this country of Anahuac, its king, its customs,
and its people.”
[5] The gardens of Montezuma have been long destroyed, but some of the
cedars still flourish at Chapoltepec, though the Spaniards cut down
many. One of them, which tradition says was a favourite tree of the
great emperor’s, measures (according to a rough calculation the author
of this book made upon the spot) about sixty feet round the bole. It
is strange to think that a few ancient conifers should alone survive
of all the glories of Montezuma’s wealth and state. —AUTHOR.