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Updated: June 10, 2025
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.
Even then I knew it again; it was the idol of the god Tezcat that the Spaniards had torn from its shrine, and like an avenging demon it rushed straight on to me. Already it was upon us, there was no retreat from instant death, we had but escaped sacrifice to the spirit of the god to be crushed to powder beneath the bulk of his marble emblem.
When I entered, a man in mail, who sat in the centre of the half circle, and in whom I knew Cuitlahua, who would be emperor should Montezuma die, looked up quickly and said: 'Who is this, Guatemoc, that you bring with you? Ah! I remember; the Teule that was the god Tezcat, and who escaped the sacrifice to-day. Listen, nobles. What is to be done with this man?
Be joyful, Tezcat has come again in the body of the captive Teule. Then I understood that I was now a god and the greatest of gods, though at that moment within myself I felt more of a fool than I had ever been before. And now men appeared, grave and reverend in appearance, bearing lutes in their hands.
I was told that these were my tutors, and with them a train of royal pages who were to be my servants. They led me forth from the hall making music as they went, and before me marched a herald, calling out that this was the god Tezcat, Soul of the World, Creator of the World, who had come again to visit his people.
Do you then suppose that I do not know you for a spy sent to this land by these same Teules to gather knowledge of the land? Fool, I knew it from the first, and by Huitzel! were you not vowed to Tezcat, your heart should smoke to-morrow on the altar of Huitzel. Be warned, and give me no more false counsels lest your end prove swifter than you think.
'One has been found, O Tezcat, who has borne other titles than this you give her. Now I looked at her questioningly, and she spoke again in a low voice. 'I, Otomie, princess of the Otomie, Montezuma's daughter, am the fourth and the first. 'You! I said, sinking back upon my cushions. 'Yes, I. Listen: I was chosen by the priests as the most lovely in the land, however unworthily.
I knew it now, I was the god Tezcat, and on the morrow I must be sacrificed, and I slept in misery, and as I slept I dreamed. I dreamed that I stood where I stood this night, that the scent of the English flowers was in my nostrils as it was this night, and that the sweet song of the nightingales rang in my ears as at this present hour.
Glory to thee, O Tezcat! Then two of the chief nobles came forward, and taking torches led me to a magnificent chamber that I had never seen before. Here they changed my apparel, investing me in robes which were still more splendid than any that I had worn hitherto, being made of the finest embroidered cotton and of the glittering feathers of the humming bird.
They came with flowers in their hands, with the sound of music and joyous cries, and when they saw me they set up such a shout of welcome that it almost drowned the thunder of the guns and the angry roar of battle. Now and again an ill-aimed cannon ball would plough through them, killing some and wounding others, but the rest took no heed, only crying the more, 'Welcome, Tezcat, and farewell.
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