Within an hour of this event, which revealed to me how great was the power of Montezuma, seeing that the sight of a ring from his finger could bring about the instant death of a high priest at the hands of his disciples, we started on our long journey.
But before I went I bid a warm farewell to my friend the cacique, and also to Marina, who wept at my going.
The cacique I never saw again, but Marina I did see.
For a whole month we travelled, for the way was far and the road rough, and sometimes we must cut our path through forests and sometimes we must wait upon the banks of rivers.
Many were the strange sights that I saw upon that journey, and many the cities in which we sojourned in much state and honour, but I cannot stop to tell of all these.
One thing I will relate, however, though briefly, because it changed the regard that the prince Guatemoc and I felt one to the other into a friendship which lasted till his death, and indeed endures in my heart to this hour.
One day we were delayed by the banks of a swollen river, and in pastime went out to hunt for deer.
When we had hunted a while and killed three deer, it chanced that Guatemoc perceived a buck standing on a hillock, and we set out to stalk it, five of us in all.
But the buck was in the open, and the trees and bush ceased a full hundred yards away from where he stood, so that there was no way by which we might draw near to him.
Then Guatemoc began to mock me, saying,
‘Now, Teule, they tell tales of your archery, and this deer is thrice as far as we Aztecs can make sure of killing.
Let us see your skill.’
‘I will try,’ I answered, ‘though the shot is long.’
So we drew beneath the cover of a ceiba tree, of which the lowest branches drooped to within fifteen feet of the ground, and having set an arrow on the string of the great bow that I had fashioned after the shape of those we use in merry England, I aimed and drew it.
Straight sped the arrow and struck the buck fair, passing through its heart, and a low murmur of wonderment went up from those who saw the feat.
Then, just as we prepared to go to the fallen deer, a male puma, which is nothing but a cat, though fifty times as big, that had been watching the buck from above, dropped down from the boughs of the ceiba tree full on to the shoulders of the prince Guatemoc, felling him to the ground, where he lay face downwards while the fierce brute clawed and bit at his back.
Indeed had it not been for his golden cuirass and helm Guatemoc would never have lived to be emperor of Anahuac, and perhaps it might have been better so.
Now when they saw the puma snarling and tearing at the person of their prince, though brave men enough, the three nobles who were with us were seized by sudden panic and ran, thinking him dead.
But I did not run, though I should have been glad enough to do so.
At my side hung one of the Indian weapons that serve them instead of swords, a club of wood set on both sides with spikes of obsidian, like the teeth in the bill of a swordfish.
Snatching it from its loop I gave the puma battle, striking a blow upon his head that rolled him over and caused the blood to pour. In a moment he was up and at me roaring with rage.
Whirling the wooden sword with both hands I smote him in mid air, the blow passing between his open paws and catching him full on the snout and head.
So hard was this stroke that my weapon was shattered, still it did not stop the puma.
In a second I was cast to the earth with a great shock, and the brute was on me tearing and biting at my chest and neck.
It was well for me at that moment that I wore a garment of quilted cotton, otherwise I must have been ripped open, and even with this covering I was sadly torn, and to this day I bear the marks of the beast’s claws upon my body.
But now when I seemed to be lost the great blow that I had struck took effect on him, for one of the points of glass had pierced to his brain.
He lifted his head, his claws contracted themselves in my flesh, then he howled like a dog in pain and fell dead upon my body.
So I lay upon the ground unable to stir, for I was much hurt, until my companions, having taken heart, came back and pulled the puma off me.
By this time Guatemoc, who saw all, but till now was unable to move from lack of breath, had found his feet again.
‘Teule,’ he gasped, ‘you are a brave man indeed, and if you live I swear that I will always stand your friend to the death as you have stood mine.’
Thus he spoke to me; but to the others he said nothing, casting no reproaches at them.
Then I fainted away.
CHAPTER XV
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.