ght when I reached the temple, for the labour of
levelling the road took many hours and food had been sent to us from
above. As I drew nigh I was amazed to hear the sound of solemn chanting,
and still more was I amazed when I saw that the doors of the temple of
Huitzel were open, and that the sacred fire which had not shone there
for many years once more flared fiercely upon his altar. I stood still
listening. Did my ears trick me, or did I hear the dreadful song of
sacrifice? Nay, again its wild refrain rang out upon the silence:

To Thee we sacrifice! Save us, O Huitzel, Huitzel, lord god!

I rushed forward, and turning the angle of the temple I found myself
face to face with the past, for there as in bygone years were the
pabas clad in their black robes, their long hair hanging about their
shoulders, the dreadful knife of glass fixed in their girdles; there to
the right of the stone of sacrifice were those destined to the god, and
there being led towards it was the first victim, a Tlascalan prisoner,
his limbs held by men clad in the dress of priests. 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. Never h