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The will of the gods no longer is that we shall do the work for which our lord Chaltzantzin destined us; therefore are we free to set aside the custom that he decreed by which our weak ones are condemned to death, and with it the custom, yet more cruel, of our own devising, by which they are saved from death only that they may be made slaves. To my boy neither slavery nor death shall come.
There was no need for me to question Tizoc; for I knew that what I beheld before me, crowning with sombre grandeur this strange city, girded with such prodigious walls, was the Treasure-house that Chaltzantzin, the Aztec King, had builded in the dim dawning of a most ancient past.
In the heart of the city, he said, was the Treasure-house that Chaltzantzin had builded there; and within it the treasure remained that Chaltzantzin had stored away. What it consisted of, nor the value of it, he could not tell. The Treasure-house was also the Great Temple; and of the treasure only the Priest Captain had accurate knowledge.
He and El Sabio together were the visible sign which told that the prophecy touching the Priest Captain's downfall was about to be fulfilled; and, more than this, Pablo's simple statement of the condition of affairs among the modern Mexicans showing that the crisis in their fate that Chaltzantzin had foretold, and for which he had so well prepared, long since had come and gone would be far more convincing to the masses of the Aztlanecas than would be any exhibition of these same facts that we could make to them; for we were aliens among them, while Pablo was of their own race and class.
Therefore was this matter a secret known only to a few priests whose blood was of the royal line; in whose keeping, also, was the token that King Chaltzantzin had commanded should be sent to the walled city of Culhuacan when its warriors were to be called forth, and a map whereby the way thither was made plain.
"For the coming of the token from our lord Chaltzantzin we who dwell in this Valley of Aztlan have waited through many ages," he said; "but the promise was given that the token should come to us from our brethren in the time of their need, and should be brought by those of our own race.
And thus he provided that in the time of need there should be here a strong army of valiant warriors, ready to come forth to fight against the fair-faced bearded men, and by conquering them to save safe the land. "And yet more provision did King Chaltzantzin make for the strengthening and the saving of his race in the later ages.
It was therefore with a profound and solemn interest for the grave import of it was plain to him that Tizoc, having ended his own statement, questioned us as to the full meaning of the words which we had spoken when first we entered the valley: that the prophecy of Chaltzantzin long since had been fulfilled, and that now, having in its appointed time miscarried, the summons would never come.
This time we did not stop in front of the great idol, but went on beyond it towards a portal in the rear of the building that opened on an inner court; on the farther side of which court, as we knew from the description of the place that Tizoc had given us, was the Treasure-house, in which was stored not only the treasure placed there in long past ages by King Chaltzantzin, but also the treasure belonging to the State and to the temple that had been accumulated in later times.
Excepting only among the Tlahuicos who, in the nature of things, could have no share in it there had ever been among all classes a fervent longing for the summons that should call them forth to aid their brethren in the battling with a foreign foe that Chaltzantzin had prophesied.
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