The White Conquerors: A Tale of Toltec and Aztec

"Hold thy hand, my lord, it is only I, a poor slave of Iztapalapan, seeking to catch a few fish for the morrow's food."

"Come hither, slave, at once, that I may examine thee, ere I drive an arrow through thy miserable carcass," cried the voice.

Making an awkward splashing with his paddle, under cover of which Huetzin slid into the water, the old man obeyed. He found but a single soldier awaiting him, though others, who came running up from either side, demanding to know the cause for shouting, showed that he formed but one of a cordon guarding the whole lake shore. These carefully examined the old man and his canoe. At length, satisfied that he was alone and bore no resemblance to the one whom they sought, they let him go, bidding him not to venture near the shore again as he valued his life. As he humbly thanked them for their forbearance, and slowly paddled away, they moved up the beach in search of other suspicious characters.

Huetzin, who had been standing in water up to his neck, where he would hear every word that passed, now attracted the Tlascalan's attention by a low hissing sound, grasped his hand in token of farewell, and made his way to the spot just vacated by the soldiers, correctly assuming that, for a short time at least, it would be safer than any other. Cautiously and noiselessly he crept up the bank, nor did he dare to move at more than a snail's pace until a good quarter of a mile had been put between him and his enemies. Then he set forth at such speed that, before morning, he had left the valley of Mexico behind, and was climbing the rugged slope of the mountains bounding it on the east.

At the coming of daylight the fugitive sought a cave, near which issued a spring of clear water; and here he passed the day, having no food save the water-soaked tortillas, already sour and mouldering in his wallet. When night came he again ventured forth, and found a field, from which he procured a few ears of half-ripened maize.

Thus for a week he hid by day and travelled by night, rarely daring to set foot on the highway by which the mountains were traversed, but scrambling through the dense forests that bordered it, and having narrow escapes from wild beasts and wilder men. His clothing and skin were torn by thorns, his feet were cut and bleeding from rude contact with jagged rocks, his blood was chilled by the biting winds of the lofty heights to which he climbed, and his body was weakened and emaciated by starvation. Only an indomitable will, the remembrance of his father's death, and the thought of Tiata with no one in the world to care for her save him, urged the young Toltec forward.

Often during the day, from some hiding-place overlooking the public road, he watched with envy the king's couriers, hurrying east or west with the swiftness of the wind. Each of these, as he knew, ran at full speed for two leagues, at the end of which he delivered his despatches to another who was in waiting at a post-station, and was then allowed to refresh himself with food, drink, and a bath, before being again summoned to duty. Such was the swiftness of these trained runners, and the perfection of the system controlling them, that despatches were transmitted with incredible rapidity, and on the king's table in Tenochtitlan fresh fish were daily served, that were taken from the eastern ocean, two hundred miles away, less than twenty hours before.

Not only did Huetzin, barely existing on the few tunas or acrid wild figs that he occasionally found, envy the king's couriers the comforts of the post-stations, to which he dared not venture, and which seemed so desirable as compared with his own surroundings, but he longed to know the purport of the despatches that so constantly passed and repassed. That most of them contained information concerning the white conquerors, whose movements and intentions he was so anxious to discover, he felt certain. He knew that the penalty for molesting or delaying a king's courier was death; but that meant nothing to him, for the same fate would be his in any case if he should be captured. Thus, being already outlawed, he would not have hesitated to attack a courier and strive to capture his despatches, but for the fact that they were strong, well-fed men, while he was weak from starvation. Moreover, they were armed, while he was not, even his dagger having been broken off at the hilt in an attempt to cut for himself a club early in his flight. At length, however, he contrived a plan that promised success, and which he at once proceeded to put into execution.

He had saved the broken blade of his dagger, and transformed it into a rude knife by binding one end with bark. With this he cut a tough, trailing vine, nearly one hundred feet in length, and, coiling it as he would a rope, made his way, cautiously, just at dusk, to the edge of the highway. He had chosen a place from which he could see for some distance in either direction; and, after making certain that no person was in sight, he fastened one end of his rope-like vine to the roots of a small tree. Then, carrying the other across the road, he stretched it as tightly as possible, and made it fast. The rope, so arranged, was lifted some six inches above the surface of the road. Having thus set his trap, Huetzin concealed himself at one side and impatiently awaited the approach of a victim.

Ere he had waited a half-hour there came a sound of quick foot-falls, and the heart of the young Toltec beat high with excitement. Now he could see the dim form of a man speeding forward through the darkness, and hear the panting breath. Now the flying messenger is abreast of the place where he crouches. Now he trips over the unseen obstacle, and plunges headlong with a startled cry and outstretched arms. Huetzin leaped forward and flung himself bodily upon the prostrate form. He had anticipated a struggle, and nerved himself for it, but none was made. The man's forehead had struck on the rocky roadbed, and he lay as one dead. Huetzin wasted no time in attempting to revive him; but, unfastening the green girdle that held the precious packet of despatches, and at the same time distinguished its wearer as being in the royal service, and securing the bow and arrows with which the courier was armed, he plunged again into the forest and disappeared.

That night he was so fortunate as to discover a corn-field, for he had now passed the range of the great volcan, and descended to the fertile table-land on its eastern side. At daylight he had the further good fortune to shoot a wild turkey, and though, having no fire nor means of procuring one, he was forced to eat the meat raw, it greatly refreshed and strengthened him. By the time he had finished this welcome meal, and selected a hiding-place for the day, the sun had risen, and he eagerly opened the packet of despatches.

For an hour he pored over them, and when it was ended the young Toltec was wiser, concerning some matters of vital importance, than the king himself. He had not only learned, as well as pictured likenesses could teach him, what manner of beings the white conquerors were, but a secret concerning them that might have altered the fate of the kingdom had Montezuma been aware of it at that moment. It was that the terrible beings who accompanied the conquerors, and were described as combining the forms of men and fire-breathing monsters, were in reality two distinct individuals, a man and an animal, also that they were mortal and not godlike. These facts were shown by pictures of a dead horse, and two of the white strangers, also lying on the ground, dead and transfixed by arrows. Near them stood a number of men, and several horses without riders, but all pierced by arrows, showing them to be wounded. It was evidently a representation of a battle-scene between the white conquerors, and – Could it be? Yes! There was the white heron, the emblem of the Tlascalan house of Titcala, the token of his mother's family! The white conquerors were at war with Tlascala!

This was a startling revelation to the son of Tlahuicol. He knew that his warrior father had deemed a union of the forces of Tlascala with those of the powerful strangers the only means by which the Aztec nation and its terrible priesthood could be overthrown. What could he do to stop the war now so evidently in progress, and bring about the desirable alliance? He could at least bear his father's last message, with all speed, to Tlascala, and he would. It should be heard by the council of chiefs ere the set of another sun. Thus deciding, and fastening the green girdle of the courier, the badge of royal authority, about his waist, Huetzin hastened to the highway, and set out boldly upon it, with all speed, in the direction of Tlascala.

CHAPTER IX.

WHO ARE THE WHITE CONQUERORS?

Yes, the white strangers were at war with Tlascala; there could be no doubt of it. The meaning of the pictured despatches was too clear on that point to be misunderstood. Which side would win in such a struggle? The pictures seemed to indicate that the strangers had suffered a defeat. Certainly some of them had been killed, as had at least three of the mysterious beings who had, until then, been believed to be gods. With such evidences of the superiority of his countrymen to reassure him, could the son of a Tlascalan warrior doubt which banner would be crowned with victory? And yet, if these white strangers should be destroyed, or driven back whence they came, what would become of his father's cherished plan for the overthrow of Montezuma and his bloody priesthood by their aid? Why had Tlahuicol placed such confidence in their powers? Who, and what, were these white conquerors? Whence had they come? and what was their object in braving the dangers that must beset every step of their advance into the land of Anahuac?

With thoughts and queries such as these was the mind of Huetzin filled as he sped forward on his self-appointed mission. The question of food, that had absorbed so large a share of his attention on the preceding days of his flight, no longer gave him any anxiety. The sight of his green girdle and packet of despatches caused his wants of this nature to be rapidly supplied from the several post stations, at which he halted for a moment without entering. To be sure his appearance created animated discussions after he had departed, but only when it was too late to make investigation. Thus Huetzin's mind was free to dwell upon the subject of the white conquerors and their war with his own people.

These "white conquerors," as Tlahuicol had termed them, formed the little army with which Hernando Cortes set forth from Cuba, in the spring of 1519, for the exploration and possible subjugation of the great western kingdom, concerning which fabulous accounts had already reached Spain. During the twenty-seven years that had elapsed since Columbus first set foot on an island of the New World, exploration had been active, and the extent of its eastern coast had been nearly determined. Sebastian Cabot had skirted it from Labrador to the peninsula of Florida. Columbus himself had reached the mainland, without realizing that it was such, and had sailed from Honduras to the mouth of the mighty Orinoco. Amerigo Vespucci and others had coasted southward as far as the Rio de la Plata. Balboa, with dauntless courage, had forced his way through the trackless forests of Darien, and from the summit of its lofty cordilleras sighted the mighty Pacific. The West Indian Islands were all known, and only the lands bordering the Mexican Gulf still remained unexplored.

In 1517 a Spanish slave-hunter, bound from Cuba to the Bahamas, was driven so far out of his course by a succession of easterly gales that, at the end of three weeks, he found himself on an unknown coast far to the westward. It was the land of the Mayas, who, having learned by rumor of the cruelties practised by the Spaniards in the Caribbean Islands, greeted these new-comers with an invincible hostility that resulted in a series of bloody encounters. In most of these the Spaniards were worsted; some of them were taken prisoners by the Indians, and so many were killed that all notions of their godlike nature were destroyed. When the whites questioned those natives with whom they gained intercourse as to the name of their land, the answer always given was, "Tec-ta-tan" (I do not understand you), and this, corrupted into "Yucatan," is the name borne by that portion of the country to this day.

In spite of their reverses and failure to gain a foothold in this new country, the Spanish slave-hunters saw enough of its stone buildings, populous towns, cultivated fields, rich fabrics, and golden ornaments to convince them that they were on the borders of a powerful and wealthy empire. Thus, when they returned to Cuba, leaving half their number behind, either dead or as prisoners, they brought such glowing accounts of their discoveries that another expedition to extend them, as well as to procure slaves and gold, was immediately fitted out. Under the command of Juan de Grijalva, and embarked in four small vessels, it sailed from Santiago in May, 1518, and was gone six months, during which time it explored the coast from Yucatan to a point some distance beyond where the city of Vera Cruz now stands.

On the Mayan coast Grijalva met with the same fierce hostility that had greeted his predecessor, but among the Aztecs he was received with a more friendly spirit by a chieftain who had been ordered to make a careful study of the strangers for the information of the king of that land. This monarch, who was soon to become the world-famed Montezuma, also sent costly gifts to the Spaniards, hoping that, satisfied with them, they would depart and leave his country in peace. They did so, but only to carry to Cuba such wonderful tales of the wealth of the countries they had visited that a third expedition was at once undertaken. It was placed under command of Hernando Cortes, a trained soldier, about thirty-three years of age. His fleet consisted of eleven vessels, the largest of which was but of one hundred tons burden. Three others were from seventy to eighty tons, and the rest were open caravels. In these were embarked eight hundred and fifty souls, of whom one hundred and ten were sailors. Five hundred and fifty were soldiers, but of these only thirteen were armed with muskets, and thirty-two with crossbows, the rest being provided with swords and pikes. The remainder of the force consisted of Indian servants.

If this small force of men had been his sole reliance, Cortes would have accomplished little more than his predecessors; but it was not. He was well provided with artillery, in the shape of ten heavy guns and four small brass pieces called falconets, besides a bountiful supply of ammunition. Better than all, however, he had sixteen horses, animals up to that time unknown on the American continent, and well fitted to inspire the simple-minded natives with terror. Cortes was also fortunate in his selection of officers. Among them were the fierce Alvarado, who had already been on the coast with Grijalva, and who was afterward named by the Aztecs "Tonatiah," or the Sunlit, on account of his golden hair and beard, and Gonzalo de Sandoval, barely twenty-two years of age and slow of speech, but of such a sturdy frame, good judgment, and absolute fearlessness that he became the most famous and trustworthy of all the conqueror's captains. He was also the owner of the glorious mare Motilla, the pride and pet of the army.

With this force Cortes sailed for the Mexican coast filled with hopes of conquest and of abolishing forever the cruel religion of the Aztecs, with its human sacrifices and bloody rites, concerning which the reports of his predecessors had said so much.

The policy of Cortes was to gain his ends by peaceful means, if possible, and only to fight when forced to do so. In pursuance of this plan of action he touched at several places on the Mayan coast, before proceeding to Mexico, and so won the good-will of those fierce fighters by his courtesy and a liberal bestowal of presents, that they not only desisted from hostilities, but delivered to him a Spaniard whom they had held as prisoner for several years. This man, whose name was Aguilar, could converse fluently in the Mayan tongue, and was thus invaluable as an interpreter.

At the mouth of the Tabasco River, on the borders of Aztec territory, where Grijalva had been so courteously received two years before, Cortes was greeted in a very different manner. As the Tabascans had been ordered by the Aztec monarch to treat Grijalva's expedition kindly and gain from it all possible information concerning the white strangers, they now received instructions from the same source to destroy this one. Accordingly a great army had been collected, and in spite of Cortes's efforts to maintain peaceful relations, his little force was attacked with the utmost fury as soon as it landed. The artillery created terrible havoc in the dense ranks of the natives; but so desperate was their onset that the Spaniards would doubtless have been defeated had it not been for the opportune arrival of their cavalry, which was thus used for the first time in a New-World battle. Before these death-dealing monsters, whose weight bore down all opposition, and beneath whose iron hoofs they were trampled like blades of grass, the panic-stricken Indians fled in dismay.

The loss of the Tabascans in this first battle of the conquest of Mexico was enormous, reaching well into the thousands, while of the Spaniards a number were killed and some two hundred were wounded. Among the prisoners taken were several caciques, whom Cortes set at liberty and sent back to their own people with presents, and the message that for the sake of peace he was willing to overlook the past provided they would now acknowledge the authority of his king and abolish human sacrifices from their religious observances. If they refused these terms he would put every man, woman, and child to the sword.

This threat, together with the punishment already received, was effective. On the following day a delegation of head men came in, to tender their submission to the White Conqueror. They brought many valuable gifts, among which were twenty female slaves, whom Cortes caused to be baptized and given Christian names. The most beautiful of these, and the one who quickly proved herself the most intelligent, had already passed through a long experience of slavery, though still but seventeen years of age. Sold, when a child, by a step-mother, in a distant northern province, she had been carried to the land of the Mayas, educated there in the household of a noble, and finally captured by the fierce Tabascans. She was thus able to speak both the Aztec and the Mayan tongues, and so could interpret the Aztec, through the Mayan, to Aguilar, who in turn translated her words into Spanish. Thus, through this young Indian girl, the Spaniards were, for the first time, placed in direct communication with the dominant race of the country. The Christian name given her was "Marina," a name destined to become almost as well known as that of the White Conqueror himself.

From Tabasco Cortes followed the coast to the island of San Juan de Ulloa, inside which he anchored his fleet. Here, for the first time, he received an embassy direct from Montezuma, and saw the Aztec artists busily making sketches of his men and their belongings for the king's information. Here, too, he landed, and founded the city of Vera Cruz, to be used as a base of operations while in that country.

The Spaniards spent some months on the coast, and in the Tierra Caliente, or hot lands, immediately adjoining it. They formed an alliance with the Totonacs, a disaffected people recently conquered by the Aztecs, regained for them their principal city of Cempoalla, where they destroyed the Aztec idols, and devoted themselves to a study of the resources of the country they proposed to conquer and the character of its people.

In the meantime they received many messages from Montezuma forbidding their proposed visit to his capital, and commanding them to depart whence they came. As these messages were always accompanied by magnificent presents of gold, jewels, and rich fabrics, the Spaniards were even more tempted to stay and search for the source of this unbounded wealth, than to leave it undiscovered. So, in spite of Montezuma's prohibition, Cortes, after first destroying his ships that they might offer no excuse for a retreat, took up his line of march for Tenochtitlan, two hundred miles in the interior.

CHAPTER X.

THE SIGN OF THE GOD OF THE FOUR WINDS

It was in August, the height of the rainy season, that the little Spanish army of four hundred men, only fifteen of whom were mounted, took up their line of march from Vera Cruz for the Aztec capital. They carried with them but three heavy guns and the four falconets. The remainder of the troops, one horse, and seven pieces of heavy artillery, were left for the defence of their infant city. To drag their guns and transport their baggage over the mountains they obtained from Cempoalla the services of a thousand tamanes, or porters. An army of thirteen hundred Totonac warriors also accompanied them.

Their first day's journey was through the perfumed forest filled with gorgeous blossoms and brightly plumaged tropic birds of the Tierra Caliente. Then they began to ascend the eastern slope of the Mexican Cordilleras, above which towers the mighty snow-robed peak of Orizaba. At the close of the second day they reached the beautifully located city of Jalapa, standing midway up the long ascent. Two days later they came to Naulinco, whose inhabitants, being allied to the Totonacs, received them in the most friendly manner. From here they passed into the rugged defile now known as the "Bishop's Pass," where, instead of the tropic heats and sunshine to which they had become accustomed, they began to experience cold winds, with driving storms of rain, sleet, and hail, which chilled them to the marrow, and caused the death of many of the Indian porters. The aspect of the surrounding country was as dreary as that of its leaden skies. On all sides were granite bowlders rent into a thousand fantastic shapes, huge masses of lava, beds of volcanic cinders and scoriæ, bearing no traces of vegetation, while, above all, towered snow-clad pinnacles and volcanic peaks. After three days of suffering and the most fatiguing labor amid these desolate scenes they descended, and emerged through a second pass into a region of exceeding fertility and a genial climate. They were now on the great table-land of Puebla, and seven thousand feet above the level of the sea. Here they rested for several days in the Aztec city of Cocotlan, the governor of which dared not resist them, as he had received no orders from his royal master to do so.

From Cocotlan they travelled down a noble, forest-clad valley, watered by a bold mountain-torrent, and teeming with inhabitants, who collected in throngs to witness the passing of the mysterious strangers, but made no offer to molest them. At the fortress of Xalacingo they came to two roads, one leading to the sacred city of Cholula, famed for its great pyramid, its temples, and its pottery, and the other leading to Tlascala. By the advice of their native allies the conquerors decided to take the latter way, and visit the sturdy little mountain republic which had maintained a successful warfare against the arrogant Aztec for more than two centuries, and with which they hoped to form an alliance. So an embassy of Totonac caciques, bearing an exquisite Spanish sword as a present, was despatched to explain to the Tlascalan chiefs the peaceful intentions of the Spaniards, and ask for permission to pass through their territory.

The Christian army waited several days in vain for the return of these messengers, and at length, impatient of the delay, determined to push on at all hazards. Leaving the beautiful plain in which they had halted, they struck into a more rugged country, and at length paused before a structure so strange that they gazed at it in wonder. It was a battlemented stone wall nine feet high, twenty in thickness, six miles long, and terminating at either end in the precipitous sides of tall mountains too steep to be scaled. Only in the centre of this wellnigh impregnable fortress was there a narrow opening, running for forty paces between overlapping sections of the wall. This remarkable structure stood on the boundary of Tlascalan territory and, had the mountain warriors to whom it belonged chosen to defend it upon this occasion, the white men might have dashed themselves against it as fruitlessly as the waves of the sea against an iron-bound coast, until their strength was spent, without effecting a passage to the country beyond.