ntion; shoulder arms!" And the sleeping spirit of the
Aztec war-god floated in the murmur which, increasing in volume, arose
to tumultuous shout.

"On to Chapultepec! On to Chapultepec!" came from a thousand
throats; arms glistened in the sun, bugles sounded resonant in the
air, and the pattering noise of horses' hoofs mingled with the
stentorian voices of the rough teamsters and the cracking of the
whips. Like an irresistible, all-compelling wave, the troops swept out
of the valley to hurl themselves against castle and fortress and to
plant their colors in the heart of the capital city.

CHAPTER VII

A MEETING ON THE MOUNT

Clothed at its base in a misty raiment of purple, the royal hill
lifted above the valley an Olympian crest of porphyritic rock into the
fathomless blue. Here not Jupiter and his court looked serenely down
upon the struggling race, "indifferent from their awful height," but a
dark-hued god, in Aztec vestments, gazed beyond the meadows to the
floating flower beds, the gardens with their baths, and the sensuous
dancing girls. All this, but a panorama between naps, soon faded away;
the god yawned, drew his cloak of humming bird feathers more closely
about him and sank back to rest. An uproar then disturbed his
paleozoic dreams; like fluttering spirits of the garish past, the
butterflies arose in the forest glades; and the voices of old seemed
to chant the Aztec psalm: "The horrors of the tomb are but the cradle
of the sun, and the dark shadows of death the brilliant lights for the
stars." Even so they had chanted when the early free-booters burst
upon the scene and beheld the valley with its frame-work of mountains
and two guardian volcanoes, the Gog and Magog of the table-land.

Now again, from the towering column of Montezuma's cypress, to the
city marked by spires, the thunder rolled and echoed onward even to
the pine-clad cliffs and snow-crowned summits of the rocky giants.
Puffs of smoke dotted the valley beneath the mount, and, as the
answering reports reverberated across space, nature's mortars in the
inclosure of mountains sent forth threatening wreaths of white in
sympathy with the eight-inch howitzers and sixteen-pounders turned
upon the crest of the royal hill.

When the trees were yet wet with their bath of dew the booming of
artillery and the clattering of small arms dispelled that peace which
partook of no harsher discord than the purling of streams and the
still, small voi