The land was much broken and thickly covered with vegetation, some of which was familiar to them from being common to the “tierra caliente” of Mexico. As they wandered inland they came to cultivated patches of yam and the sweet potato. Many of the fields were enclosed in well constructed stone walls. They were therefore in an inhabited land, and, as they thought, must soon meet the tillers of the soil. Bananas and other fruit hung within their reach. Numerous paths intersected grounds, which were divided into square or oblong lots, surrounded by dykes, planted with the broad leafed, nutritious taro, and irrigated by so admirable a network of water-courses as to extort from all exclamations of surprise. Following up the most trodden of these paths, they came to a retired valley embosomed amid forest-clad hills, with a quiet stream flowing through its centre, and cultivated as far up as the eye could see, in the same manner as the fields through which they had passed. Soon houses came into view. They were in clusters, low, of thatch, raised on embankments, with stone pavements around them, or fenced in by rude palisades.
Expecting each minute to meet the owners, they proceeded cautiously towards them. They were disappointed, however, for not a human being appeared; not even a dog or domestic animal of any kind; the air was still and the sun hot; there was no hum of insects or song of birds; the sole life that met their view was now and then a stray lizard, that glided so quickly and silently away as but to make the surrounding stillness still more sensible.
They began to distrust their senses. Were they in an enchanted land? Was their shipwreck real, or were they dreaming? Their very voices seemed to die out in the universal silence. They gathered fruit and eat, and this reassured them of the reality of their appetites at least, but their own shadows as they lengthened before them seemed unreal, while those of tree and rock cast spectral forms about their path.
Terrible and oppressive grew upon them the ambiguity of their position. Were they watched and being led by enchantment into the power of savage foes, or were they tantalized by illusions, like the dreams of starving men who rave of dainties ever within their reach? What meant this life without life, harvest without reapers, houses without owners, this atmosphere without insect-hum or bird-song? The very waters enclosed in rocky basins, or overshadowed by motionless foliage, were unrippled by current or wave, and repeating the landscape in their still depths, made it even more unreal. The gracefully shaped canoes which floated upon them without moving, looked as if painted upon the surface of the stream.
Juan’s impatient spirit chafed for want of action. “By the Holy Mass, father Olmedo,” he cried, “this silence beats that which made us hold our breaths on the night when we marched out of Mexico, thinking we were stealing away unseen from those red devils, when tens of thousands of their impish eyes were glaring upon us, awaiting the signal to drag us to their damnable temples. Well must you remember it, and how sad a night they made of it to us, after the silence was once broken by their infernal yells, as they dragged away so many of our companions to have their hearts torn from their living bodies, as offerings to their hideous war-god. Jesu Maria! I like not this awful stillness. Give me rather a hundred foes and my own trusty horse, that I might dash among them with our old battle-cry;”—and in the excitement of the moment, he sprang forward, waved his sword and shouted at the top of his voice, “At them, cavaliers; Santiago for Spain.”
“Ah! I have started you at last,” he exultingly exclaimed. “Hark! By the Holy Virgin, they reply in our blessed language. A dozen wax candles for our Lady’s shrine for this, as soon as I can get them—we are among friends, Beatriz.”
“You mistake, Juan,” replied Beatriz. “The words you hear are only your own sent back from the hills.”
Juan, distrusting her more acute senses, again shouted, and convinced himself that it was only the rocks that mockingly echoed the shout. It was the first time since their creation, that they had given back a sound foreign to their own shores, and it seemed to linger long among them as if they relished its notes. Then the silence brooded over the scene more ominously than before, as no foes appeared, and no human voice sent back the defiance. Tolta’s eyes, however, glared furiously on Juan at his ill-timed allusion to “La Noche Triste,” but it was only for a moment. Beatriz had observed the look, and in a low whisper said to Juan, “Nay, brother, forbear, that night was a sad one to many besides ourselves. Why provoke Tolta to revengeful thoughts? He has done us both faithful service. For my sake respect his feelings.”
Chafed as he was at the mysterious silence, which only angered him, while it awed, not through fear, but from the depths of its repose, the hearts of Olmedo and Beatriz, who found something in it kindred to their own position, Juan’s hasty impulse would have been to have vented his irritation upon the Mexican, but a second look from his sister restored his better nature, and he frankly held out his hand to him, exclaiming, “Pardon my hastiness, Tolta, I meant not to vex you.”
The Mexican’s features resumed their usual apathy, and no one would have supposed from them, that an emotion had ever touched his heart. Yet among them all, no eye or ear was keener than his, no nature more sensitive, none so quick in its perceptions when touched in its own interests or passions, and none more patient, outwardly forbearing, and inwardly revengeful, for he was faithful to self-immolation in his friendship, and equally so in his enmity.
In him love to the individual and hate to the Spanish race were so interwoven, that it would have been impossible for himself to foresee how he should act on any occasion which might afford scope for either passion. He was an Aztec by birth, of the race of the priesthood, young, accustomed to arms, and learned in the lore of his race; at heart a worshipper of their idols, though a forced baptism, and the necessities of a captive, made him nominally a Christian. Manuel was the name bestowed in baptism, but I prefer to retain that of his birth. In him lay dormant all those qualities which marked the downfall of his nation. He was both subtle and open, gentle and fierce; in his domestic relations inclined to love and peace, refined and courteous; in his faith believing in one God of “perfection and purity,” yet delighting in smearing the altars of terrible deities with human gore; a tiger in rage, and a lamb in sentiment; in short, combining in his own breast the instincts of brute and man, with no harmonizing principle to keep him in permanent peaceful relations with himself or his kind. He believed in peace and purity, and delighted in war and cruelty, displaying to his enemies either open and irreconcilable hatred, or concealing revenge under the mask of courtesy and kindness, nay, almost servility, at the same time recognizing no principles of humanity or religion which interfered with his desires. As a conqueror, he was imperious; as a captive, abject. But the native pride and fierceness of his race, so long dominant among servile tribes, ill adapted him to his present anomalous state, in which, while feeling himself partly treated as a friend, he could not forget the events so recent in the history of his race which had made him in reality a slave. Although he brooded much over his own altered destinies and his country’s fall, yet, while with Beatriz, the gentle principle in his nature became active, and he felt soothed and grateful.
Concord being restored, the little party footed their way towards a cluster of houses of more pretension than the others, built upon a slight eminence, terraced on all sides with stone work, and having a flight of steps to the summit. This was walled in, and gave sufficient area to enclose quite a hamlet. Indeed it might be considered a fortification of no slight strength, where fire-arms were unknown.
They proceeded cautiously up the steps, stimulated by curiosity, and thinking it better to brave openly and promptly any danger that might threaten, as from experience they knew that no demeanor imposes more powerfully upon barbarians than courage. To this course Tolta advised them. He was the least affected by the singularity of their position, and seemed in many things to recognize a similarity in the degree of civilization and manner of cultivation, as well as in the articles themselves, to the habits and productions of tribes on the southern frontiers of his own country, though the entire absence of precious metals, and any altars or edifices which indicated the worship of sanguinary deities, puzzled him not a little.