THE LAST SACRIFICE OF THE WOMEN OF THE OTOMIE
Here in the courtyard of the _teocalli_, by the light of burning
houses, for as they advanced the Spaniards fired the town, we mustered
our array to find that there were left to us in all some four hundred
fighting men, together with a crowd of nearly two thousand women and
many children. Now although this _teocalli_ was not quite so lofty as
that of the great temple of Mexico, its sides were steeper and
everywhere faced with dressed stone, and the open space upon its summit
was almost as great, measuring indeed more than a hundred paces every
way. This area was paved with blocks of marble, and in its centre stood
the temple of the war-god, where his statue still sat, although no
worship had been offered to him for many years; the stone of sacrifice,
the altar of fire, and the storehouses of the priests. Moreover in
front of the temple, and between it and the stone of sacrifice, was a
deep cemented hole the size of a large room, which once had been used
as a place for the safe keeping of grain in times of famine. This pit I
had caused to be filled with water borne with great toil to the top of
the pyramid, and in the temple itself I stored a great quantity of
food, so that we had no cause to fear present death from thirst or
famine.
But now we were face to face with a new trouble. Large as was the
summit of the pyramid, it would not give shelter to a half of our
numbers, and if we desired to defend it some of the multitude herded
round its base must seek refuge elsewhere. Calling the leaders of the
people together, I put the matter before them in few words, leaving
them to decide what must be done. They in turn consulted among
themselves, and at length gave me this answer: that it was agreed that
all the wounded and aged there, together with most of the children, and
with them any others who wished to go, should leave the _teocalli_ that
night, to find their way out of the city if they could, or if not, to
trust to the mercy of the Spaniards.
I said that it was well, for death was on every side, and it mattered
little which way men turned to meet it. So they were sorted out,
fifteen hundred or more of them, and at midnight the gates of the
courtyard were thrown open, and they left. Oh! it was dreadful to see
the farewells that took place in that hour. Here a daughter clung to
the neck of her aged father, here husbands and wives bade each other a
last farewell, here mothers kissed their little children, and on every
side rose up the sounds of bitter agony, the agony of those who parted
for ever. I buried my face in my hands, wondering as I had often
wondered before, how a God whose name is Mercy can bear to look upon
sights that break the hearts of sinful men to witness.
Presently I raised my eyes and spoke to Otomie, who was at my side,
asking her if she would not send our son away with the others, passing
him off as the child of common people.
“Nay, husband,” she answered, “it is better for him to die with us,
than to live as a slave of the Spaniards.”
At length it was over and the gates had shut behind the last of them.
Soon we heard the distant challenge of the Spanish sentries as they
perceived them, and the sounds of some shots followed by cries.
“Doubtless the Tlascalans are massacring them,” I said. But it was not
so. When a few had been killed the leaders of the Spaniards found that
they waged war upon an unarmed mob, made up for the most part of aged
people, women and children, and their commander, Bernal Diaz, a
merciful man if a rough one, ordered that the onslaught should cease.
Indeed he did more, for when all the able-bodied men, together with
such children as were sufficiently strong to bear the fatigues of
travel, had been sorted out to be sold as slaves, he suffered the rest
of that melancholy company to depart whither they would. And so they
went, though what became of them I do not know.
That night we spent in the courtyard of the _teocalli_, but before it
was light I caused the women and children who remained with us, perhaps
some six hundred in all, for very few of the former who were unmarried,
or who being married were still young and comely, had chosen to desert
our refuge, to ascend the pyramid, guessing that the Spaniards would
attack us at dawn. I stayed, however, with the three hundred fighting
men that were left to me, a hundred or more having thrown themselves
upon the mercy of the Spaniards, with the refugees, to await the
Spanish onset under shelter of the walls of the courtyard. At dawn it
began, and by midday, do what we could to stay it, the wall was
stormed, and leaving nearly a hundred dead and wounded behind me, I was
driven to the winding way that led to the summit of the pyramid. Here
they assaulted us again, but the road was steep and narrow, and their
numbers gave them no great advantage on it, so that the end of it was
that we beat them back with loss, and there was no more fighting that
day.
The night which followed we spent upon the summit of the pyramid, and
for my part I was so weary that after I had eaten I never slept more
soundly. Next morning the struggle began anew; and this time with
better success to the Spaniards. Inch by inch under cover of the heavy
fire from their arquebusses and pieces, they forced us upward and
backward. All day long the fight continued upon the narrow road that
wound from stage to stage of the pyramid. At length, as the sun sank, a
company of our foes, their advance guard, with shouts of victory,
emerged upon the flat summit, and rushed towards the temple in its
centre. All this while the women had been watching, but now one of them
sprang up, crying with a loud voice:
“Seize them; they are but few.”
Then with a fearful scream of rage, the mob of women cast themselves
upon the weary Spaniards and Tlascalans, bearing them down by the
weight of their numbers. Many of them were slain indeed, but in the end
the women conquered, ay, and made their victims captive, fastening them
with cords to the rings of copper that were let into the stones of the
pavement, to which in former days those doomed to sacrifice had been
secured, when their numbers were so great that the priests feared lest
they should escape. I and the soldiers with me watched this sight
wondering, then I cried out:
“What! men of the Otomie, shall it be said that our women outdid us in
courage?” and without further ado, followed by a hundred or more of my
companions, I rushed desperately down the steep and narrow path.
At the first corner we met the main array of Spaniards and their
allies, coming up slowly, for now they were sure of victory, and so
great was the shock of our encounter that many of them were hurled over
the edge of the path, to roll down the steep sides of the pyramid.
Seeing the fate of their comrades, those behind them halted, then began
to retreat. Presently the weight of our rush struck them also, and they
in turn pushed upon those below, till at length panic seized them, and
with a great crying the long line of men that wound round and round the
pyramid from its base almost to its summit, sought their safety in
flight. But some of them found none, for the rush of those above
pressing with ever increasing force upon their friends below, drove
many to their death, since here on the pyramid there was nothing to
cling to, and if once a man lost his foothold on the path, his fall was
broken only when his body reached the court beneath. Thus in fifteen
short minutes all that the Spaniards had won this day was lost again,
for except the prisoners at its summit, none of them remained alive
upon the _teocalli_; indeed so great a terror took them, that bearing
with them their dead and wounded, they retreated under cover of the
night to their camp without the walls of the courtyard.
Now, weary but triumphant, we wended back towards the crest of the
pyramid, but as I turned the corner of the second angle that was
perhaps nearly one hundred feet above the level of the ground, a
thought struck me and I set those with me at a task. Loosening the
blocks of stone that formed the edge of the roadway, we rolled them
down the sides of the pyramid, and so laboured on removing layer upon
layer of stones and of the earth beneath, till where the path had been,
was nothing but a yawning gap thirty feet or more in width.
“Now,” I said, surveying our handiwork by the light of the rising moon,
“that Spaniard who would win our nest must find wings to fly with.”
“Ay, Teule,” answered one at my side, “but say what wings shall _we_
find?”
“The wings of Death,” I said grimly, and went on my upward way.
It was near midnight when I reached the temple, for the labour of
levelling the road took many hours and food had been sent to us from
above. As I drew nigh I was amazed to hear the sound of solemn
chanting, and still more was I amazed when I saw that the doors of the
temple of Huitzel were open, and that the sacred fire which had not
shone there for many years once more flared fiercely upon his altar. I
stood still listening. Did my ears trick me, or did I hear the dreadful
song of sacrifice? Nay, again its wild refrain rang out upon the
silence:
To Thee we sacrifice!
Save us, O Huitzel,
Huitzel, lord god!
I rushed forward, and turning the angle of the temple I found myself
face to face with the past, for there as in bygone years were the
_pabas_ clad in their black robes, their long hair hanging about their
shoulders, the dreadful knife of glass fixed in their girdles; there to
the right of the stone of sacrifice were those destined to the god, and
there being led towards it was the first victim, a Tlascalan prisoner,
his limbs held by men clad in the dress of priests. Near him, arrayed
in the scarlet robe of sacrifice, stood one of my own captains, who I
remembered had once served as a priest of Tezcat before idolatry was
forbidden in the City of Pines, and around were a wide circle of women
that watched, and from whose lips swelled the awful chant.
Now I understood it all. In their last despair, maddened by the loss of
fathers, husbands, and children, by their cruel fate, and standing face
to face with certain death, the fire of the old faith had burnt up in
their savage hearts. There was the temple, there were the stone and
implements of sacrifice, and there to their hands were the victims
taken in war. They would glut a last revenge, they would sacrifice to
their fathers’ gods as their fathers had done before them, and the
victims should be taken from their own victorious foes. Ay, they must
die, but at the least they would seek the Mansions of the Sun made holy
by the blood of the accursed Teule.
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 passed 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 passes 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 snatch 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 noble
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 hoarse 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 assured, 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 space 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 balls, 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 space.
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 passed, 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 God 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 gratitude, 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 God has taken them beneath His wing,” I said, speaking from the
shadow and in a feigned voice. “Huitzel cannot prevail before the God
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 God 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 hellishness.
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.”
“Oh! what have I done?” she wailed, and fell senseless in my arms.
And here I will add what at the time I knew nothing of, for it was told
me in after years by the Rector of this parish, a very learned man,
though one of narrow mind. Had I known it indeed, I should have spoken
more kindly to Otomie my wife even in that hour, and thought more
gently of her wickedness. It seems, so said my friend the Rector, that
from the most ancient times, those women who have bent the knee to
demon gods, such as were the gods of Anahuac, are subject at any time
to become possessed by them, even after they have abandoned their
worship, and to be driven in their frenzy to the working of the
greatest crimes. Thus, among other instances, he told me that a Greek
poet named Theocritus sets out in one of his idyls how a woman called
Agave, being engaged in a secret religious orgie in honour of a demon
named Dionysus, perceived her own son Pentheus watching the celebration
of the mysteries, and thereon becoming possessed by the demon she fell
on him and murdered him, being aided by the other women. For this the
poet, who was also a worshipper of Dionysus, gave her great honour and
not reproach, seeing that she did the deed at the behest of this god,
“a deed not to be blamed.”
Now I write of this for a reason, though it has nothing to do with me,
for it seems that as Dionysus possessed Agave, driving her to unnatural
murder, so did Huitzel possess Otomie, and indeed she said as much to
me afterwards. For I am sure that if the devils whom the Greeks
worshipped had such power, a still greater strength was given to those
of Anahuac, who among all fiends were the first. If this be so, as I
believe, it was not Otomie that I saw at the rites of sacrifice, but
rather the demon Huitzel whom she had once worshipped, and who had
power, therefore, to enter into her body for awhile in place of her own
spirit.