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.
Pages:
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488