"Where they did get upDid get down again."
"Where they did get upDid get down again."
Meantime, Miss Hemmenshaw brought up the mid-day meal.
"Auntie," said the invalid, "this feverish cold puts queer fancies in my head. While you were away, I must have taken a little nap, and when I awoke there seemed to be some sort of a rumpus going on below; after which I fancied that a team started away from the back door. It could not have been Sholto's; for he would be coming from Brown's about that hour with our dinner."
"It may have been just a part of your dream, dear," pacified the aunt; "but come, now, here is our dinner. Let us have it together. A wonderfully nice dinner Mrs. Brown has sent us, too, and you can venture to-day on a quail, and a bit of orange pudding. For myself, I am as hungry as a bear;" and, removing the books from the oval bedroom table, Miss Paulina laid the cloth, set out the dishes and glasses, and daintily arranged the viands, which the two ladies discussed with evident relish.
"And now," said the aunt, "since you have dined, and have something to brace you up, I will 'tell my experience;'" and forthwith she related to the astonished Louise the adventure of the morning. The good lady had but accomplished her exciting account, when the valiant captors of the Apache drove up.
Miss Paulina, with the concentrated importance of her entire "Chapter," met and opened the door to her hero.
"Well?" asked she of the crestfallen athlete.
"No: ill!" replied he; "the Apache never reached Las Cruces. He managed to unbind himself, and slipped from our hands by the way. The clothes-line has come back safe; but the savage is, long ere this, well on his road to the Mescalero Reservation."
"Well," said Miss Paulina, judicially, "I can't say that I'm sorry. The creature had a rough time bumping about that low, dark cellar; and your blow on his head was a tough one. And when one considers the slip-shodness of things at Las Cruces, and the possible insecurity of their jail,we, on the whole, are the safer for his escape; andhewill, of course, feel more at home now in the Reservation, and will probably remain there for a while, after the fright we gave him."
Thus reassured, the Harvard man accepted Miss Hemmenshaw's invitation to stay to supper. And presently the convalescing invalid came down to express her thanks for his devoir of the morning. Reclining on the parlor lounge, in a cream-white tea gown, she looked so lovely that a man might well have dared a whole tribe of savages in her defence. By and by they had a quiet game of chess. It goes without saying that the lady won. Theremightbe men hard-hearted enough to beat Louise Hemmenshaw at chess. The Harvard man was notofthem.
So slipped away this happy afternoon; and, at sunset Sholto appeared with the tea equipage, and the young people covertly made merry over a chafing-dish mess achieved by the Cooking School pupil; and under cover of rarebit, water-biscuit, and cups of Russian tea, the Harvard man made hay for himself in this bit of sunshine, and grew in favor with both aunt and niece.
With Miss Paulina Hemmenshaw, true to her aristocratic birth and breeding, pedigree far out-weighed filthy lucre. To be well born was, in her estimation, to be truly acceptable to gods and men.
Roger Smith, with his plebeian surname and unillustrious "tanner" grandfather, was by no means a suitable husband for her motherless niece, to whom, as the head of her brother's household, she had for years filled a parent's place. Louise Hemmenshaw, as the good lady shrewdly guessed, was the magnet that drew this undeclared lover to Mesilla Valley. During the preceding winter they had met at many social functions in Boston and Cambridge, and he had become the willing captive of her bow and spear. He had never told his love.
The social discrepancy between the lovely aristocrat and Roger—the grandson of Roger the Tanner—was too wide to be easily overstepped.
Ostensibly the Harvard man had come to New Mexico to recruit his spent energies; but in his heart of hearts he knew that dearer than health was the hope of winning the heart of Louise Hemmenshaw. Already his native refinement and charm of manner had commended him to Miss Paulina; and now, his prowess in the day's adventure had made her, for good and all, his warm friend. As to her niece, he told himself, as, that night, by the light of a low moon, he took his way to Alamo Ranch, recalling the tender pressure of the invalid's white hand, when, with a rosy blush, she bade him good-night, that in his wooing he had to-day "scored one;" and with the confident egotism of presumptuous mortals, when events play unexpectedly into their hands, he decided that Fate had prearranged this timely call of his on the Hemmenshaws, and had timed the arrival of the Apache at that opportune hour, with an especial view to the fulfilment of his own cherished wishes.
Another two weeks of lighter Koshare festivities had again brought round the more solid fortnightly entertainment of the Club.
Its members duly assembled, the president in his chair, and the secretary at attention, Mr. Morehouse thus began his second paper.
"Before Texas," said he, "became a part of an independent republic, and until after the Mexican war (when we forced Mexico to sell us all California, New Mexico, and Arizona, nearly all of Utah and Nevada, besides Texas, and the greater part of Colorado), Mexico proper reached way up here; and it is thought by some archaeologists that the mesas or table-mountain land especially characterizing the New Mexican landscape may have afforded the suggestion for the Teocallis of the great pyramid-like mounds, with terraced sides, built by the Aztecs. Some scholars have even convinced themselves that the Aztec culture must have originated here in the North. Others wholly discard the conclusion.
"Mr. Baxter, in his valuable and interesting book of Mexican travel, says, decidedly, 'The New Mexican Indians were not Aztecs, and Montezuma had no more to do with New Mexico than he did with New England.' And with this assertion I think we must all, perforce, agree.
"Of the Toltecs, the probable predecessors in Mexico of the Aztecs, all written records," said the Antiquary, "have long since perished. They are known to us only through traditionary legends orally handed down by the races that succeeded them.
"They are said to have entered the Valley of Anahnac from a northerly direction, coming from a mysterious unknown region, and probably before the close of the seventh century. They appear to have been a far more gentle and refined nation than their immediate successors, the half-savage Aztecs, who, at last, with their semi-civilization, dominated Mexico. By general archæological agreement, the Toltecs were well instructed in agriculture, and many of the most useful mechanic arts.
"'They were,' declares Prescott, 'nice workers in metals.' They invented the complex arrangement of time adopted by the Aztecs, who are said to have been largely indebted to them for the beginnings of that incongruous civilization which reached its high-water mark in the reign of the Montezumas. So late as the time of the Spanish Conquest the remains of extensive Toltec buildings were to be found in Mexico.
"'The noble ruins of religious and other edifices,' says the same writer, 'still to be seen in Mexico, are referred to this people, whose name,Toltec, has passed into a synonym forArchitect.'
"After a period of four centuries—having succumbed to famine, pestilence, and unsuccessful wars—this remarkable people disappeared from the land as silently and mysteriously as they had entered it. It is conjectured that some of them may have spread over the region of Central America and the neighboring isles; and that the majestic ruins of Mitla and Paleque are the work of this vanished race. Tradition affirms that a remnant of Toltecs still lingering in Anahnac 'gave points' to the next inhabitants; and the Tezcucans are thought to have derived their gentle manners and comparatively mild religion from the handful of Toltecs who still remained in the country. A Spanish priest, with that keen relish for the marvellous common to his kind, accounts for this mysterious disappearance by supernatural stories of giants and demons.
"According to good authorities, more than a hundred years elapsed between the strange disappearance of the Toltecs from the land of Anahnac and the arrival on its borders of the Aztecs.
"After the nomadic fashion of barbarous races, this people did not at once make a permanent settlement, but pitched their tents in various parts of the Mexican valley, enduring many casualties and hardships, and being at one time enslaved by a more powerful tribe, whom their prowess subsequently dominated.
"Some of these wanderings and adventures are perpetuated in their oral traditional lore.
"One of these legends is well substantiated, and current at this day, having been the origin of the device of the eagle and cactus, which form the arms of the present Mexican republic, and may be found on the face of the Mexican silver dollar. Thus it runs: 'Having in 1325 halted on the southwestern borders of the larger Mexican lakes, the Aztecs there beheld, perched on the stem of a prickly pear, which shot out from a crevice of a rock that was washed by the waves, a royal eagle of extraordinary size and beauty, with a serpent in his talons, and his broad wings open to the rising sun.
"'They hailed the auspicious omen, which the oracle announced as an indication of the site of their future city.'
"The low marshes were then half buried in water; yet, nothing daunted, they at once proceeded to lay the sloppy foundation of their capital, by sinking piles into the shallows. On these they erected the light dwelling-fabrics of reeds and rushes,—the frail beginnings of that solid Aztec architecture carried to such elegant elaboration in the time of the Montezumas. In token of its miraculous origin they called their city Tenochtitlan. Later it was known as Mexico, a name derived from the Aztec war-god, Mexitil.
"It has been shown that the Aztec race, once permanently established in Mexico, finally attained to a civilization far in advance of the other wandering tribes of North America.
"'The degree of civilization which they had reached,' says Prescott, 'as inferred by their political institutions, may be considered not far short of that enjoyed by our Saxon ancestors under Alfred. In respect to the nature of it, they may better be compared to the Egyptians; and the examination of their social relations and culture may suggest still stronger points of resemblance to that ancient people.
"'Their civilization,' he goes on to say, 'was, at the first, of the hardy character which belongs to the wilderness. The fierce virtues of the Aztec were all his own. They refused to submit to European culture—to be engrafted on a foreign stock. They gradually increased in numbers, made marked improvements both in polity and military discipline, and ultimately established a reputation for courage as well as cruelty in war which made their name terrible throughout the valley.' In the early part of the fifteenth century—nearly a hundred years after the foundation of the city—that remarkable league—of which it has been affirmed that 'it has no parallel in history'—was formed between the states of Mexico and Tezcuco, and the neighboring little kingdom of Tlacopan, by which they agreed mutually to support each other in their wars, offensive and defensive, and that in the distribution of the spoil one-fifth should be assigned to Tlacopan and the remainder be divided—in what proportions is uncertain—between the two other powers.
"What is considered more remarkable than the treaty itself, however, is the fidelity with which it was kept.
"During a century of uninterrupted warfare that ensued no instance, it is declared, occurred in which the parties quarrelled over the distribution of the spoil. By the middle of the fifteenth century the allies, overleaping the rocky ramparts of their own valley, found wider occupation for their army, and under the first Montezuma, year after year saw their return to the Mexican capital, loaded with the spoils of conquered cities, and with throngs of devoted captives.
"No State was able long to resist the accumulated strength of the confederates; and at the beginning of the sixteenth century, on the arrival of the Spaniards, the Aztec dominion reached across the continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific."
Here Mr. Morehouse ended his paper on the Toltecs, and the Koshare, with many thanks for his interesting account of these ancient races, supplemented his information by a general discussion of the genuineness of the accepted authorities for the early history of the Aztecs and of the time of Montezuma.
"Prescott," said the Minister, "traces some points of resemblance between the history of the Aztecs and that of the ancient Romans; especially in polity and military success does he compare them."
"Unfortunately," observed the Antiquary, "the earlier records of the Mexican people can only be scantily gleaned from oral tradition and hiero-graphical paintings."
"Later, however," remarked the Journalist, "we have the seemingly more definite and reliable accounts of the Spanish chronicles."
"These," returned the Minister, "being usually ecclesiastic, have warped their record to suit their own bigoted views; consequently, much of the narrative popularly known as Mexican history is to be taken with more than the proverbial pinch of salt."
"It has," said the Journalist, "been urged by realistic critics of our own fascinating historian—Prescott—that since he drew his historic data, with the exception of the military record of the Spaniards, from these unreliable sources, his history is little other than the merest romance. Plainly, the assertions of some of the chroniclers are scarce more worthy of credence than the equally fascinating adventures of Sinbad the Sailor, and the impossible stories of Baron Munchausen. 'Bernard Diaz'—that enigmatical personage from whom many of Prescott's data are drawn—tells us that the Aztecs actually fattened men and women in cages, like spring chickens, for their sacrifice, and asserts that at the dedication of one of their temples a procession of captives two miles long, and numbering seventy-two thousand persons, were led to sacrifice! By the way, it has, however, been latterly proved that the so-called sacrificial stone, now exhibited in the National Museum of Mexico, is not a relic of the Aztecs, but of the earlier Toltecs (who were not addicted to human sacrifice), and is as innocent of human blood as the Calendar Stone, referred to the same period. The critics of Diaz have detected in his account constant blunders in many important matters, and his glaring geographical errors would seem to prove that, though he claims to have been, all through the Conquest, the very shadow of Hernando Cortez, he has never even been in the country he describes!"
"From what I have read of Bernald," said Leon, "I think we may finish him off with 'Betsy Prig's' very conclusive objection to Sairey Gamp's 'Mrs. Harris'—there ain't no sich person!"
"Even so," exclaimed the Minister, "I, for one, agree with certain downright critics who contend that Diaz was a pure fabrication, a priestly scheme of the Roman Church to screen the cruel enormities of their agent, Cortez. Father Torquemada, another of Prescott's authorities, is thought to be scarcely more reliable. Las Casas, another of our historian authorities, whose history was, at the time, promptly suppressed by the all-powerful Inquisition, declares these Spanish histories of the Conquest to be 'wicked and false.'"
"And yet, in spite of these strictures," contended Leon, "I, for one, still pin my faith to Prescott and his implicit honesty of purpose. He gave us, in his own learned and fascinating way, the narrative of these priestly chroniclers as he found it. If the chroniclers lied, why, so much the worse for the chroniclers."
"Lying," complained the Grumbler, "is a malady most incident to historians;" and thereupon rose to open the parlor door for the gray-eyed school teacher, who just then bade the Koshare good-night, adding that she had already been too long away from her sister.
And now the chairman announced the next paper in the Koshare course for the second Saturday in February, and the members, one and all, dispersed.
Sholto, roused from a most enjoyable series of naps, brought his wagon to the side door, and with a friendly grasp from the hand of Miss Paulina, and a shy, tremulous clasp from that of her niece, the Harvard man saw the ladies off.
February had come, bringing in its train such weather as verified the warmest praise of New Mexico's perfect climate.
It was on one of its most spring-like afternoons that a walking party of eight set out to pay a long-proposed visit to the ladies at Hilton Ranch.
As the little party went gayly along the mesa, Leon, carrying his gun, shot doves for the evening meal, while the rest walked on, chatting merrily.
The ladies talking over, by the way, the late attempt of the Apache on Hilton Ranch, Mrs. Bixbee declared herself curious to see the cellar in which Miss Paulina had caught that prowling savage. On their arrival that good lady, informed of this desire, kindly proceeded to gratify her guest, and the entire party was presently led by her to the kitchen, the hero of this adventure modestly walking beside the fair lady of his love. Sholto, busied about the place, was just then out of call, and Miss Hemmenshaw, intent to afford them a peep into the cellar, begged the Harvard man to raise for her the heavy trap-door.
The dear lady never quite knew how it was that, leaning forward, she lost her balance, and, but for the prompt help of Roger Smith, might have landed, pell-mell, on the cellar bottom; or how, in rescuing her, he himself made the misstep that, ere he could recover his poise, threw him to the end of the ladder-like cellar stairs.
Recovering breath, Roger Smith cheerily called up to the affrighted group at the top, "All right!" but, on pulling himself together to make the ascent, he suddenly found all wrong. He had sprained his ankle; and it was with painful effort that he won to the top. At this juncture Sholto, aroused by the unwonted rumpus, made his appearance, anticipating no less a disaster than the reappearance of the slippery savage, for whom he still held the lasso "in pickle." Disabled by the sprain, the Harvard man submitted himself to the stout arms of the Mexican, and, by Miss Paulina's direction, was carried into the bedroom adjoining the ranch parlor.
There, laid upon a movable couch which served the double purpose of sofa and bed, Sholto having, not without difficulty, removed his boot and stocking, he submitted the swollen foot to the careful inspection of Miss Hemmenshaw, who, with a steadiness of nerve not unworthy of her "Chapter," put the dislocated joint in place, bandaged the injured member with arnica, administered an internal dose of the same restorative, and duly followed it with a glass of old Port. This done, Sholto wheeled the sufferer's couch into the adjoining parlor. Half an hour later Leon came in with a well-filled game-bag; and after an hour of mild Koshare merriment, in which the athlete but feebly joined (the pain of his ankle was still terrible), the little party took its way, in the fading sunlight, to Alamo Ranch. Miss Paulina, having promptly decided that her patient was unequal to the return by way of the jolting Hilton express team, sent to Mrs. Brown an order for supper for her guest, Louise, and herself. It was duly conveyed to Hilton's by an Alamo chore-boy. Sholto, as the sole male dependence of Hilton's, must stick to his post; for, sagely observed the "Daughter of the Revolution," two women, heroic though they might be, were no match for an Apache marauder; and as for poor Roger Smith, he could now neither "fight" nor "run away."
Sholto lighted the lamps, laid the supper on the low Queen Anne table, added fresh water from the spring, and when a pot of tea had been made by the hostess' own careful hand, and Sholto had wheeled up the couch of the invalid, that he might take his supperà la Roman, the three made a cheery meal.
When the man had removed the supper things, and piled fresh wood on the andirons, the ladies brought their work-baskets; and while they busied themselves with doily and centre-piece, the Harvard man, lying in the comfort of partial relief from pain, watched the dainty fingers of Louise Hemmenshaw as she bent industriously over her embroidery, and fell fathoms deeper in love with the dear and beautiful girl.
Roger Smith stayed on at Hilton Ranch, where, thrown day after day in semi-helplessness on the kind attendance of Miss Paulina and the sweet society of her niece, he (I grieve to say) fell a ready prey to the suggestions of a certain wily personage who (according to Dr. Watts) finds employment for idle hands, and thus conceived the wickedness of cunningly using this accident to further his own personal ends. Thus devil-tempted, this hitherto upright young person resolved that it should be a long day before his sprained ankle should permit him to return to Brown's, and lose this precious opportunity of establishing himself in the good graces of the aunt, and winning the love of the niece.
Far from approving the crooked policy which led Roger Smith to feign lameness long after the injured ankle had become as sound as ever, the present historian can only, in view of this lapse from integrity, affirm with Widow Bedott that "we're poor creeturs!" and, with that depreciative view of humanity, go on with this truthful narrative.
A whole delicious month had been passed by the Harvard man in this paradise,—Elysian days, while, waited on by Sholto, petted by Miss Paulina, and companioned by the loveliest of houris, he dreamed out his dream.
At last, on a certain decisive evening, Roger Smith found himself alone in the gloaming with Louise Hemmenshaw. The aunt, who through all these weeks had zealously chaperoned her niece, had passed into the dining-room to evolve some chafing-dish delicacy for the evening meal. Without, the setting sun flooded all the west with gold, touched the distant mountain peaks with splendor, and threw a parting veil of glory over the wide mesa. Within, the firelight made dancing shadows on the parlor wall, where the pair sat together in that eloquent silence so dear to love. "Well," said the athlete to himself (compunctiously glancing at his superfluous crutches, left within easy reach of his hand), "this performance can't go on forever. I have made believe about long enough; what better may I do than own up this very night, and somehow bring this base deceit to an end."
Mentally rehearsing the formula, in which, over and over, he had asked the hand of this beautiful aristocrat, his mind still sorely misgave him. "Why," thought this depressed lover, "was not my name Winthrop, Endicott, or Sturgis, instead of Smith; and my grandfather a senator, a judge, or even a stockbroker, rather than a tanner?"
Neither Miss Paulina nor her brother, he discouragedly mused, would ever countenance this unequal match. His millions would with them weigh nothing against "the claims of long descent."
The sun had gone down, the after-glow had faded to gray. They were still alone. The firelight half revealed the lovely figure beside the hearth. In that gown of golden-brown velvet, with the creamy old lace at wrists and throat, the brown hair combed smoothly from the white forehead, knotted behind and fastened with a quaint arrow of Etruscan gold, Louise Hemmenshaw was simply adorable! It was indeed good to be here; and why should not a life so sweet and satisfying go on indefinitely?
"It is four weeks to-day since I fell down cellar,"—such was the commonplace beginning to this much considered tale of love.
"Really?" said the lady, looking innocently up from an absorbed contemplation of the fender. "It has not seemed so long. I never before realized what a serious thing it is to sprain one's ankle. You have been a most patient sufferer, Mr. Smith; and, indeed, for the past two weeks, a most jolly one. Aunt Paulina was saying to-day that it was high time we all went back to Alamo for our meals, and helped out the Koshare doings of the Club."
"Dear Miss Hemmenshaw," here blurted out the culprit, "do not despise me for my meanness, since it is all for love of you that I have been shamming lameness. For these last two weeks I could at any time have walked as well as ever." And, hereupon, without the slightest reference to his crutches, he rose from his chair and skipped over to her side. "A sprain," explained this audacious lover, "may be cured in a fortnight, but it takes a good month to woo and win a fair lady. Having soon after my accident decided that point, I have done my best. Tell me, dear Louise," pleaded he, "that my time has been well spent. Say that, deceitful ingrate though I am, you will take me, for good and all."
"Roger Smith," replied the lady, with much severity, "you have repaid the devoted care of two unsuspecting females by a whole fortnight of wilful duplicity. For my aunt I cannot answer; for myself, I can only reply,—since to err is human; to forgive, womanlike,—dear Roger, on the whole, I will."
Miss Paulina, a moment later entering the parlor, surprised her invalid guest, standing crutchless on his firm feet, with his arm thrown about the waist of her niece. "Well, well!" exclaimed the astonished lady, "and without his crutches!"
"Dear Miss Paulina," said Roger Smith with a happy laugh, "my ankle is as well as ever; and your niece has promised to marry me. Say that you will have me for your nephew."
"I seem already to have gotten you, my good sir, whether I will or no," laughed Miss Hemmenshaw. "But, my stars and garters" (mentally added she), "what ever will my brother say? A tanner's grandson coming into the family! and he a Hemmenshaw, and as proud as Lucifer!" "Never mind, Auntie dear," said the smiling fiancée, guessing her thoughts. It will be all right with father when he comes to know Roger; and besides, let us remember that under the 'Star Spangled Banner' we have our 'Vanderbilts,' our 'Goulds,' and our 'Rockefellers;' butnoVere de Veres. And if wehad, why, Love laughs at heraldry, and is
"'Its own great loveliness alway.'"
"'Its own great loveliness alway.'"
"To-morrow," said Miss Paulina decisively, "we will all dine at Alamo Ranch."
Through this month of wooing and betrothing at Hilton Ranch, the Koshare, at Alamo, never once remitted its endeavor to hearten the despondent.
The weekly entertainments took their regular course, and were successfully carried on, and, in due time, the fortnightly club convened to listen to the Antiquary's account of "Montezuma and his Time."
And here the Koshare chronicle returns on its track to record that able paper.
"As a consistent Koshare," said Mr. Morehouse, to his eager listeners, "it behooves me to give—without that dry adherence to facts observed by the 'Gradgrind' historian—the charming melodramatic details of that romantic monarch's life and times afforded by the popular Munchausen-like data of the Spanish chroniclers, albeit they have in their entirety, all the fascination, and, sometimes, all the unbelievableness of a fairy tale.
"The Aztec government," prefaced the Antiquary, "was an elective monarchy, the choice always restricted to the royal family.
"The candidate usually preferred must have distinguished himself in war; though, if (as in the case of the last Montezuma) he was a member of the priesthood, the royal-born priest, no less than the warrior was, with the Aztec, available as an emperor.
"When the nobles by whom Montezuma the Second was made monarch went to inform the candidate of the result of the election, they are said to have found him sweeping the court of the temple to which he had dedicated himself. It is further asserted that when they led him to the palace to proclaim him king, he demurred, declaring himself unworthy the honor conferred on him. It is a humiliating proof of the weakness of human nature in face of temptation, to find that, later, this pious king so far forswore his humility as to pose before his subjects as a god; that five or six hundred nobles in waiting were ordered to attend daily at his morning toilet, only daring to appear before him with bared feet.
"It was not until, by a victorious campaign, he had obtained a sufficient number of captives to furnish victims for the bloody rites which Aztec superstition demanded to grace his inauguration, that—amidst that horrible pomp of human sacrifice which stained the civilization of his people—Montezuma was crowned.
"The Mexican crown of that day is described as resembling a mitre in form, and curiously ornamented with gold, gems, and feathers.
"The Aztec princes, especially towards the close of the dynasty, lived in a barbaric Oriental pomp, of which Montezuma was the most conspicuous example in the history of the nation.
"Elevation, like wine, seems to have gone to the head of the second Montezuma.
"An account of his domestic establishment reads like the veriest record of midsummer madness. Four hundred young nobles, we are told, waited on the royal table, setting the covers, in their turn, before the monarch, and immediately retiring, as even his courtiers might not see Montezuma eat. Having drunk from cups of gold and pearl, these costly goblets, together with the table utensils of the king, were distributed among his courtiers. Cortez tells us that so many dishes were prepared for each meal of this lordly epicure, that they filled a large hall; and that he had a harem of a thousand women. His clothes, which were changed four times a day (like his table service), were never used a second time, but were given as rewards of merit to nobles and soldiers who had distinguished themselves in war. If it happened that he had to walk, a carpet was spread along his way, lest his sacred feet should touch the ground. His subjects were required, on his approach, to stop and close their eyes, that they might not be dazzled by his effulgent majesty. His ostentatious humility gave place to an intolerable arrogance. He disgusted his subjects by his haughty deportment, exacting from them the most slavish homage, and alienating their affection by the imposition of the grievous taxes demanded by the lavish expenditure of his court.
"In his first years Montezuma's record was, in many respects, praiseworthy. He led his armies in person. The Aztec banners were carried far and wide, in the furthest province on the Gulf of Mexico, and the distant region of Nicaragua and Honduras. His expeditions were generally successful, and during his reign the limits of the empire were more widely extended than at any preceding period.
"To the interior concerns of his kingdom he gave much attention, reforming the courts of justice, and carefully watching over the execution of the laws, which he enforced with stern severity.
"Like the Arabian ruler,—Haroun Alraschid, of benign memory,—he patrolled the streets of his capital in disguise, to make personal acquaintance with the abuses in it. He liberally compensated all who served him. He displayed great munificence in public enterprise, constructing and embellishing the temples, bringing water into the capital by a new channel, and establishing a retreat for invalid soldiers in the city of Colhuacan.
"According to some writers of authority there were, in Montezuma's day, thirty great caciques, or nobles, who had their residence, at least a part of the year, in the capital.
"Each of these, it is asserted, could muster a hundred thousand vassals on his estate. It would seem that such wild statements should be 'taken with a pinch of salt.' All the same, it is clear, from the testimony of the conquerors, that the country was occupied by numerous powerful chieftains, who lived like independent princes on their domains. It is certain that there was a distinct class of nobles who held the most important offices near the person of their emperor.
"In Montezuma's time the Aztec religion reached its zenith. It is said to have had as exact and burdensome a ceremonial as ever existed in any nation. 'One,' observes Prescott, 'is struck with its apparent incongruity, as if some portion had emanated from a comparatively refined people, open to gentle influences, while the rest breathes a spirit of unmitigated ferocity; which naturally suggests the idea of two distinct sources, and authorizes the belief that the Aztecs had inherited from their predecessors a milder faith, on which was afterwards engrafted their own mythology.' The Aztecs, like the idolaters to whom Paul preached, declaring the 'Unknown God' of their 'ignorant worship,' recognized a Supreme Creator and Lord of the Universe.
"In their prayers they thus addressed him: 'The God by whom we live, that knoweth all thoughts, and giveth all gifts;' but, as has been observed, 'from the vastness of this conception their untutored minds sought relief in a plurality of inferior deities,—ministers who executed the creator's purposes, each, in his turn, presiding over the elements, the changes of the seasons, and the various affairs of man.' Of these there were thirteen principal deities, and more than two hundred inferior; to each of whom some special day or appropriate festival was consecrated.
"Huitzilopotchli, a terrible and sanguinary monster, was the primal of these; the patron deity of the nation. The forms of the Mexican idols were quaint and eccentric, and were in the highest degree symbolical.
"The fantastic image of this god of the unpronounceable name was loaded with costly ornaments; his temples were the most stately and august of their public edifices, and in every city of the empire his altars reeked with the blood of human hecatombs.
"His name is compounded of two words, signifying 'humming-bird' and 'left;' from his image having the feathers of this bird on his left foot.
"Thus runs the tradition respecting this god's first appearance on earth: 'His mother, a devout person, one day, in her attendance on the temple, saw a ball of bright-colored feathers floating in the air. She took it and deposited it in her bosom, and, consequently, from her, the dread deity was in due time born.' He is fabled to have come into the world (like the Greek goddess, Minerva) armedcap-à-piewith spear and shield, and his head surmounted by a crest of green plumes.
"A far more admirable personage in their mythology was Quetzalcoatl, god of the air; his name signifies 'feathered serpent' and 'twin.' During his beneficent residence on earth he is said to have instructed the people in civil government, in the arts, and in agriculture. Under him it was that the earth brought forth flower and fruit without the fatigue of cultivation.
"Then it was that an ear of corn in two days became as much as a man could carry; and the cotton, as it grew beneath his fostering smile, took, of its own accord, the rich dyes of human art.
"In those halcyon days of Quetzalcoatl all the air was sweet with perfumes and musical with the singing of birds.
"Pursued by the wrath of a brother-god, from some mysterious cause unexplained by the fabler, this gracious deity was finally obliged to flee the country. On his way he is said to have stopped at Cholula, where the remains of a temple dedicated to his worship are still shown.
"On the shores of the Mexican Gulf Quetzalcoatl took leave of his followers, and promising that he and his descendants would revisit them hereafter, entered his 'Wizard Skiff,' and embarked on the great ocean for the fabled land of Tlapallan.
"The Mexicans looked confidently for the second coming of this benevolent deity, who is said to have been tall in stature, with a white skin, long, dark hair, and a flowing beard. Undoubtedly, this cherished tradition, as the chroniclers affirm, prepared the way for the reception of the Spanish conquerors.
"Long before the landing of the Spaniards in Mexico, rumors of the appearance of these men with fair complexions and flowing beards—so unlike their own physiognomy—had startled the superstitious Aztecs. The period for the return of Quetzalcoatl was now near at hand. The priestly oracles were consulted; they are said to have declared, after much deliberation, that the Spaniards, though not gods, were children of the Sun; that they derived their strength from that luminary, and were only vulnerable when his beams were withdrawn; and they recommended attacking them while buried in slumber. This childish advice, so contrary to Aztec military usage, was reluctantly followed by these credulous warriors, and resulted in the defeat and bloody slaughter of nearly the whole detachment.
"The conviction of the supernaturalism of the Spaniard is said to have gained ground by some uncommon natural occurrences, such as the accidental swell and overflow of a lake, the appearance of a comet, and conflagration of the great temple.
"We are told that Montezuma read in these prodigies special annunciations of Heaven that argued the speedy downfall of his empire.
"From this somewhat digressive account of the Aztec superstition, in regard to the 'second coming' of their beneficent tutelar divinity, which, as may be seen, played into the hands of Cortez, and furthered his hostile designs upon Mexico, let us return to the time in Aztec history when no usurping white man had set foot upon Montezuma's territory.
"We are told that this people, in their comparative ignorance of the material universe, sought relief from the oppressive idea of the endless duration of time by breaking it up into distinct cycles, each of several thousand years' duration. At the end of each of these periods, by the agency of one of the elements, the human family, as they held, was to be swept from the earth, and the sun blotted out from the heavens, to be again freshly rekindled. With later theologians, who have less excuse for the unlovely superstition, they held that the wicked were to expiate their sins everlastingly in a place of horrible darkness. It was the work of a (so-called) Christianity to add to the Aztec place of torment the torture of perpetual fire and brimstone. The Aztec heaven, like the Scandinavian Valhalla, was especially reserved for their heroes who fell in battle. To these privileged souls were added those slain in sacrifice. These fortunate elect of the Aztecs seem to have been destined for a time to a somewhat lively immortality, as they at once passed into the presence of the Sun, whom they accompanied with songs and choral dances in his bright progress through the heavens. After years of this stirring existence, these long-revolving spirits were kindly permitted to take breath; and thereafter it was theirs to animate the clouds, to reincarnate in singing birds of beautiful plumage, and to revel amidst the bloom and odors of the gardens of Paradise.
"Apart from this refined Elysium and a moderately comfortable hell, void of appliances for the torture of burning, the Aztecs had a third place of abode for immortals. Thither passed those 'o'er bad for blessing and o'er good for banning,' who had but the merit of dying of certain (capriciously selected) diseases. These commonplace spirits were fabled to enjoy a negative existence of indolent contentment. 'The Aztec priests,' says Prescott, 'in this imperfect stage of civilization, endeavored to dazzle the imagination of this ignorant people with superstitious awe, and thus obtained an influence over the popular mind beyond that which has probably existed in any other country, even in ancient Egypt.'
"Time will not permit here a detailed account of this insidious priesthood; its labored and pompous ceremonial; its midnight prayers; its cruel penance (as the drawing of blood from the body by flagellation, or piercing of the flesh with the thorns of the aloe), akin to the absurd austerities of Roman Catholic fanaticism. The Aztec priest, unlike the Roman, was allowed to marry, and have a family of his own; and notallthe religious ceremonies imposed by him were austere. Many of them were of a light and cheerful complexion, such as national songs and dances, in which women were allowed to join. There were, too, innocent processions of children crowned with garlands, bearing to the altars of their gods offerings of fruit, ripened maize, and odoriferous gums. It was on these peaceful rites, derived from his milder and more refined Toltec predecessors, that the fierce Aztec grafted the loathsome rite of human sacrifice.
"To what extent this abomination was carried cannot now be accurately determined. The priestly chroniclers, as has been shown, were not above the meanness of making capital for the church, by exaggerating the enormities of the pagan dispensation. Scarcely any of these reporters pretend to estimate the yearly human sacrifice throughout the empire at less than twenty thousand; and some carry the number as high as fifty thousand. A good Catholic bishop, writing a few years after the conquest, states in his letter that twenty thousand victims were yearly slaughtered in the capital. A lie is brought to absolute perfection when its author is able to believe it himself.
"Torquemada, another chronicler, often quoted by Prescott, turns this into twenty thousandinfants!
"These innocent creatures, he tells us, were generally bought by the priests from parents poor enough and superstitious enough to stifle the promptings of nature, and were, at seasons of drought, at the festival of Haloc, the insatiable god of the rain, offered up, borne to their doom in open litters, dressed in festal robes, and decked with freshly blown flowers, their pathetic cries drowned in the wild chant of the priests. It is needless to add that this assumption has but the slightest groundwork of likelihood.
"Las Casas, before referred to, thus boldly declares: 'This is the estimate of brigands who wish to find an apology for their own atrocities;' and loosely puts the victims at so low a rate as to make it clear that any specific number is the merest conjecture.
"Prescott, commenting on these fabulous statements, instances the dedication of the great temple of the 'Mexican War God' in 1486, when the prisoners, for years reserved for the purpose, were said to have been ranged in files forming a procession nearly two miles long; when the ceremony consumed, as averred, several days, and seventy thousand captives are declared to have perished at the shrine of this terrible deity. In view of this statement, Prescott logically observes: 'Who can believe that so numerous a body would have suffered themselves to be led unresistingly, like sheep, to the slaughter? Or how could their remains, too great for consumption in the ordinary way, be disposed of without breeding a pestilence in the capital? One fact,' he adds, 'may be considered certain. It was customary to preserve the skulls of the sacrificed in buildings appropriate to the purpose; and the companions of Cortez say they counted one hundred and thirty-six thousand skulls in one of the edifices.'
"Religious ceremonials were arranged for the Aztec people by their crafty and well-informed priesthood, and were generally typical of some circumstances in the character or history of the deity who was the object of them. That in honor of the god called by the Aztecs 'the soul of the world,' and depicted as a handsome man endowed with perpetual youth, was one of their most important sacrifices. An account of this sanguinary performance is gravely given by Prescott and other writers. Though highly sensational and melodramatic, since our betters have found it believable, we transcribe it for the New Koshare; thus runs the tale:—
"'A year before the intended sacrifice, a captive, distinguished for his personal beauty, and without a single blemish on his body, was selected to represent this deity. Certain tutors took charge of him, and instructed him how to perform his new part with becoming grace and dignity. He was arrayed in a splendid dress, regaled with incense and with a profusion of sweet-scented flowers, of which the ancient Mexicans were as fond as are their descendants at the present day. When he went abroad he was attended by a train of the royal pages; and as he halted in the streets to play some favorite melody the crowd prostrated themselves before him, and did him homage as the representative of their good deity. In this way he led an easy, luxurious life until within a month of his sacrifice. Four beautiful girls were then given him as concubines; and with these he continued to live in idle dalliance, feasted at the banquets of the principal nobles, who paid him all the honors of a divinity. At length the fatal day of sacrifice arrived. The term of his short-lived glories was at an end.
"'He was stripped of his gaudy apparel, and bade adieu to the fair partners of his revelry. One of the royal barges transported him across the lake to a temple which rose on its margin, about a league from the city. Hither the inhabitants flocked to witness the consummation of the ceremony. As the sad procession wound up the sides of the pyramid, the unhappy victim threw away his gay chaplets of flowers, and broke in pieces the musical instruments with which he had solaced the hours of his captivity.
"'On the summit he was received by six priests, whose long and matted locks flowed disorderedly over their sable robes, covered with hieroglyphic scrolls of mystic import. They led him to the sacrificial stone, a huge block of jasper with its upper surface somewhat convex. On this the prisoner was stretched. Five priests secured his head and limbs, while the sixth, clad in a scarlet mantle, emblematic of his bloody office, dexterously opened the breast of the wretched victim with a sharp razor ofitzli(a volcanic substance hard as flint), and, inserting his hand in the wound, tore out the palpitating heart. The minister of death, first holding the heart up towards the sun (also an object of their worship) cast it at the feet of the god, while the multitudes below prostrated themselves in humble adoration.'
"The tragic circumstances depicted in this sanguinary tale were used by the priests to 'point a moral.' The immolation of this unhappy youth was expounded to the people as a type of human destiny, which, brilliant in its beginning, often closes in sorrow and disaster.
"In this loathsome manner, if we may believe the account given, was the mangled body disposed of. It was delivered by the priests to the warrior who had taken the captive in battle, and served up by him at an entertainment given to his friends.
"This, we are told, was no rude cannibal orgy, but a refined banquet, teeming with delicious beverages, and delicate viands prepared with dainty art, and was attended by guests of both sexes, and conducted with all the decorum of civilized life. Thus, in the Aztec religious ceremonial, refinement and the extreme of barbarism met together.
"The Aztec nation had, at the time of the Conquest, many claims to the character of a civilized community. The debasing influence of their religious rites it was, however, that furnished the fanatical conquerors with their best apology for the subjugation of this people. One-half condones the excuses of the invaders, who with the cross in one hand and the bloody sword in the other, justified their questionable deeds by the abolishment of human sacrifice.
"The oppressions of Montezuma, with the frequent insurrections of his people," concluded the Antiquary, "when in the latter part of his reign one-half the forces of his empire are said to have been employed in suppressing the commotions of the other, disgust at his arrogance, and his outrageous fiscal exactions, reduced his subjects to that condition which made them an easy prey to Cortez, whose army at last overpowered the emperor and swept the Aztec civilization from the face of the earth."
"I find it strange," said the Journalist (in the little talk that followed Mr. Morehouse's able paper), "that civilized nations have held an idea so monstrous as the necessity of vicarious physical suffering of a victim to appease the wrath of a divine being with the erring creatures who, such as they are, are the work of his hands.
"That unenlightened races, from time immemorial, should have supposed that the shedding of blood propitiated their angry god, or gods, is but the natural outcome of ignorance and superstition; but, that in this twentieth century, civilized worshippers should sing—