by V. V. Vide
CHAPTER I.
BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE OF TECUICHPO.
~Tell me, ascribest thou influence to the stars?~
"Wo! wo! wo! to the imperial House of Tenochtitlan! Never saw I the heavens in so inauspicious an aspect. Dark portentous influences appear on every side. May the horoscope of the infant daughter of Montezuma never be fulfilled."
These were the awful words of the priestly astrologer of Tenochtitlan,uttered with solemn and oracular emphasis from the lofty Teocalli, wherehe had been long and studiously watching the heavens, and calculatingthe relative positions and combinations of the stars. A deep unutterablegloom seemed to pervade his soul. Several times he traversed the broadterrace, in a terrible agitation; his splendid pontifical robes flowingloosely in the breeze, and his tall majestic figure relieved against theclear sky, like some colossal moving statue,--and then, in tones ofdeeper grief than before, finding no error in his calculations,reiterated his oracular curse--"Wo! wo! wo! to the imperial House ofTenochtitlan!" Casting down his instruments to the earth, and tearinghis hair in the violence of his emotions, he prostrated himself on thealtar, and poured forth a loud and earnest prayer to all his gods.
"Is there no favoring omen in any quarter, venerable father?" inquiredthe agitated messenger from the palace, when the prayer was ended--"isthere no one of those bright spheres above us, that will deign to smileon the destiny of the young princess?"
"It is full of mysterious, portentous contradictions," replied theastrologer. "Good and evil influences contend for the mastery. The evilprevail, but the good are not wholly extinguished. The life of theprincess will be a life of sorrow, but there will be a peculiarbrightness in its end. Yet the aspect of every sign in the heavens iswo, and only wo, to the imperial House of Montezuma."
Faith in the revelations of astrology was a deeply rooted superstitionwith the Aztecs. It pervaded the whole structure of society, affectingthe most intelligent and well-informed, as well as the humblest and mostignorant individual. In this case, the prophetic wailings of thepriestly oracle rolled, like a long funereal knell, through themagnificent halls of the imperial palace, and fell upon the ear of themonarch, as if it had been a voice from the unseen world. Montezuma wasreclining on a splendidly embroidered couch, in his private apartment,anxiously awaiting the response of the celestial oracle. He wasmagnificently arrayed in his royal robes of green, richly ornamentedwith variegated feather-work, and elaborately inwrought with gold andsilver. His sandals were of pure gold, with ties and anklets of gold andsilver thread, curiously interwoven with a variegated cotton cord. Onhis head was a rich fillet of gold, with a beautiful plume bendinggracefully over one side, casting a melancholy shade over his handsomebut naturally pensive features. A few of the royal princes sat, inrespectful silence, at the farther end of the chamber, waiting, with ananxiety almost equal to that of the monarch, the return of the royalmessenger.
The apartments of the emperor were richly hung with tapestry ofornamental feather-work, rivalling, in the brilliancy of its dyes, andthe beautiful harmony of its arrangement, the celebrated Gobelintapestry. The floor was a tesselated pavement of porphyry and otherbeautiful stones. Numerous torches, supported in massive silver stands,delicately carved with fanciful figures of various kinds, blazed throughthe apartment, lighting up, with an almost noonday brilliancy, thegorgeous folds of the plumed hangings, and filling the whole palace withthe sweet breath of the odoriferous gums of which they were composed.
The emperor leaned pensively on his hand, seemingly oppressed with somesuperstitious melancholy forebodings. Perhaps the shadow of thatmysterious prophecy, which betokened the extinction of the Aztecdynasty, and the consequent ruin of his house, was passing athwart thetroubled sky of his mind, veiling the always doubtful future in mists oftenfold dimness. Whatever it was that disturbed his royal serenity, hisreverie was soon broken by the sound of an approaching footstep. For amoment, nothing was heard but the measured tread of the tremblingmessenger, pacing with unwilling step the long corridor, that led to theroyal presence. With his head bowed upon his breast, his eyes fixed uponthe pavement, his person veiled in the coarse _nequen_,[A] and his feetbare, he stood before the monarch, dumb as a statue.
"What response bring you," eagerly enquired the emperor, "from theburning oracles of heaven? How reads the destiny of my new-born infant?"
"The response be to the enemies of the great Montezuma," replied themessenger, without lifting his eyes from the floor, "and the destiny itforeshadows to the children of them that hate him."
"Speak," exclaimed the monarch, "What message do you bring from thepriest of the stars?"
"Alas! my royal master, my message is full of wo--my heart faints, andmy tongue refuses its office to give it utterance. The old prophet bademe say, that the celestial influences are all unpropitious; that thedestiny of the infant princess is a life of sorrow, with a gleam of morethan earthly brightness in its evening horizon. And then, prostratinghimself upon the great altar, he groaned out one long, deep,heart-rending wail for the imperial House of Tenochtitlan, and thegolden realm of Anahuac."
A deeper shade came over the brow of Montezuma, and heaving a sigh fromthe very depths of a soul that had long been agitated by melancholyforebodings of coming evil, he raised his eyes to heaven, and said,"the will of the gods be done." Then, waving his hand to his attendants,they bowed their heads, and retired in silence from the apartment.
"It has come at last," inwardly groaned the monarch, as soon as he foundhimself alone--"it has come at last--that fearful prophecy, that has solong hung, like the shadow of a great cloud, over my devoted house, isnow to be fulfilled. The fates have willed it, and there is no escapefrom their dread decrees. I must make ready for the sacrifice."
Nerved by the stern influence of this dark fatalism, Montezuma brushed atear from his eye, and putting a royal restraint upon the turbulentsorrows and fears of his paternal heart, hastened to the apartments ofthe queen, to break to her, with all the gentleness and caution whichher delicate and precarious circumstances required, the mournful issueof their inquiries at the court of heaven, into the future destiny andprospects of their new-born babe.
A deep gloom hung over the palace and the city. Every heart, even themost humble and unobserved, sympathized in the disappointment, andshared the distress, of their sovereign. And the day, which should havebeen consecrated to loyal congratulations, and general festivities,became, as by common consent, a sort of national fast, a season ofuniversal lamentation.
The little stranger was welcomed into life with that peculiar chastenedtenderness, which is the natural offspring of love and pity--love, suchas infant innocence wins spontaneously from every heart--pity, such asmelancholy forebodings of coming years of sorrow to one beloved, cannotfail to awaken. She was regarded as the most beautiful and the mostinteresting of all her race. Every look and motion seemed to have itspeculiar significance in indicating the victim of a remarkable destiny.And it is not to be wondered at, that a superstition so sad, and anaffection so tender and solicitous, discovered an almost miraculousprecocity in the first developments of the intellectual and moralqualities of its subject. She was the attractive centre of all theadmiration and love of the royal household. Imagination fancied apeculiar sadness in her eye, and her merry laugh was supposed to minglean element of sadness in its tones. Her mild and winning manners, andher affectionate disposition made her the idol of all whom she loved;and each one strove to do her service, as if hoping to avert, in somemeasure, the coming doom of their darling; while she clung to the fondand devoted hearts around her, as the ivy clings to the oak, whichreceives its embraces, and is necessary to its support.
When the young princess, who received the name of Tecuichpo, had arrivedat the age of one year, she was given in charge to a young and beautifulslave, whom the Emperor had recently obtained from Azcapozalco. Kareewas gifted with rare powers of minstrelsy. Her voice had the sweetness,power and compass of a mocking bird, and all day long she wa
rbled herever-changing lays, as if her natural breathing were music, and song thenatural flow of her thoughts. She soon became passionately devoted tothe little pet, and exerted all her uncommon gifts to amuse and instructher. She taught her all the native songs of Azcapozalco and Mexitli,instructed her in dancing, embroidery and feather-work, and initiatedher into the science of picture-writing and the fanciful language offlowers. Karee and her royal charge were never apart. Gentle and timidas the dove, Tecuichpo clung to her new nurse, as to the bosom of amother. Even in her early infancy, she would so sweetly respond, like anecho, to the gentle lullaby, and mingle her little notes sosymphoniously with those of Karee, that it excited the wonder andadmiration of all. Karee was passionately fond of flowers. It was indeedan element in the national taste of this remarkable people. But Kareewas unusually gifted in her preceptions of natural beauty, and seemed tohave a soul most delicately attuned to the spirit and language offlowers, the painted hieroglyphics of nature. She loved to exercise herexuberant fancy in decorating her little mistress, and often contrivedso to arrange them upon the various parts of her person and dress, as tomake her at different times, the emblematic representation of everybright and beautiful spirit, that was supposed to people their celestialparadise, or to hover, on wings of love and gentle care, about the pathof those whom the gods delighted to favor.
It was the daily custom for Karee to carry the young princess into theapartment of the Emperor, as soon as he rose from his siesta, to receivethe affectionate caresses which her royal father was so fond oflavishing upon her. At such times, Tecuichpo would often take with hersome rich chaplets of flowers which Karee had woven for her, and amuseherself and her father, by arranging them in a coronet on his brow, ortwining them, in every fantastic form, about his person, to make, asshe said, a flower-god of _him_, who was a sun to all the flowers of herearthly paradise.
One day, when the young princess was sleeping in her little arbor, theever watchful nurse observed a viper among the flowers, which she hadstrown about her pillow, just ready to dart its venomous fang into thebosom of her darling. Quick as lightning she seized the reptile in herhand, and, before he had time to turn upon her, flung him upon thefloor, and crushed him under her sandalled heel. Passionately embracingher dear charge, she hastened with her to the apartments of the queen,and related the story of her narrow escape, with so much of theeloquence of gratitude for being the favored instrument of herdeliverance from so cruel a death, that it deeply affected the heart ofthe queen. She embraced her child and Karee, as if both were, for themoment, equally dear to her; and then, in return for the faithfulservice, rendered at the hazard of her own life, she promised to bestowupon the slave whatever she chose to ask. "Give me, O give me freedom,and a chinampa, and I ask no more," was the eager reply of Karee to thisunexpected offer of the queen. The request was immediately granted; andthe first sorrow that ever clouded the heart of the lovely Tecuichpo,was that of parting with her faithful and loving Karee.
A _chinampa_ was a floating island in the lake of Tezcuco, upon whosevery bosom the imperial city was built. They were very numerous, andsome of them were large, and extremely beautiful. They were formed bythe alluvial deposit in the waters of the lake, and by occasional massesof earth detached from the shores, held together by the fibrous roots,with which they were penetrated, and which in that luxurious clime, putout their feelers in every direction, and gathered to their embracewhatever of nutriment and support the richly impregnated watersafforded. In the process of a few years accumulation, the floating massincreased in length, breadth and thickness, till it became an island,capable of sustaining not only shrubs and trees, but sometimes a humanhabitation. Some of these were from two to three hundred feet square,and could be moved about at pleasure, like a raft, from city to city,along the borders of the lake. The natives, who were skilful gardeners,and passionately devoted to the cultivation of flowers, improved uponthis beautiful hint of nature, to enlarge their means of supplying thecapital with fruits, vegetables and flowers. Constructing small rafts ofreeds, anchoring them out in the lake, and then covering them with thesediment drawn up from the bottom, they soon found them covered with athrifty vegetation, and a vigorous soil, from which they were able toproduce a large supply of the various luxuries of their highly favoredclime.
It was to one of these fairy gardens that the beautiful Karee retired,rich in the priceless jewel of freedom, and feeling that a chinampa allher own, and flowers to train and commune with, was the summit of humandesire. Karee was no common character. Gifted by nature with unusualtalents, she had, though in adverse circumstances, cultivated them byall the means in her power. Remarkably quick of perception, and shrewdand accurate of observation, with a memory that retained every thingthat was committed to it, in its exact outlines and proportions, shewas enabled to gather materials for improvement from every scene throughwhich she passed. Her imagination was exceedingly powerful and active,sometimes wild and terrific, but kept in balance by a sound judgment anda discriminating taste. Her love of flowers was a passion, a part of hernature. For her they had a language, if not a soul. And there was notone of all the endless varieties of that luxuriant clime, that had not adefinite and emphatic place in the vocabulary of her fancy. The historyof her life she could have written in her floral dialect, and to her,though its lines might have faded rapidly, its pages would have beenalways legible and eloquent. Her attachments were strong and enduring,and there was that element of heroism in her soul, that she wouldunhesitatingly have sacrificed life for the object of her love.
It is not to be wondered at, that, with such qualities of mind andheart, Karee was deeply impressed with the solemn and imposingsuperstitions of the Aztec religion. The rites and ceremonies by whichthey were illustrated and sustained, were well calculated to stir to itsvery depths, a soul like hers, and give the fullest exercise to her wildimagination. That pompous ritual, those terrible orgies, repeated beforeher eyes almost daily from her infancy, had become blended with thethoughts and associations of her mind, and intimately related to everyscene that interested her heart, or engaged her fancy. Yet her soul wasnot enslaved to that dark and dismal superstition. Though accustomed toan awful veneration of the priesthood, she did not regard them as asuperior race of beings, or listen to their words, as if they had beenaudible voices from heaven. Her spirit shrunk from many of the darkerrevelations of the established mythology, and openly revolted from someof its inhuman exactions. Its chains hung loosely upon her; and sheseemed fully prepared for the freedom of a purer and loftier faith. Herextreme beauty, her bewitching gaiety, and her varied talents, attractedmany admirers, and some noble and worthy suitors. But Karee had anotherdestiny to fulfil. She felt herself to be the guardian angel of theill-fated Tecuichpo, and her love for the princess left no room for anyother passion in her heart. She therefore refused all solicitations, andremained the solitary mistress of her floating island.
Karee's departure from the palace, did not in any degree lessen herinterest in the welfare of the young princess. She was assiduous in herattention to every thing that could promote her happiness; and seemed tovalue the flowers she cultivated on her chinampa chiefly as theyafforded her the means of daily correspondence with Tecuichpo. Shemanaged her island like a canoe, and moved about from one part of thebeautiful lake to another, visiting by turns the cities that glitteredon its margin, and sometimes traversing the valleys in search of newflowers, or exploring the ravines and caverns of the mountains forwhatever of rare and precious she might chance to find. The chivalry ofthe Aztecs rendered such adventures perfectly safe, their women beingalways regarded with the greatest tenderness and respect, and treatedwith a delicacy seldom surpassed in the most civilized countries ofChristendom.
This chivalric sentiment was, not improbably heightened, in the case ofKaree, in part by her extreme beauty, and in part by the power of hergenius and the brilliancy of her wit. She commanded respect by the forceof her intellect, and the purity of her heart; while the uncommon depthand splend
or of her imagination, when excited by any favorite theme, andthe seemingly inexhaustible fruitfulness of her mental resources,invested her, in the view of the multitude, with something of thedignity, and much of the superstitious charm of a prophetess.
[A] A mantle of coarse cotton fabric, which all who approached the emperor were compelled to put on, in token of humility and reverence.