Chapter XXIX: Montoro and Cabrera Rescue a Human Sacrifice

"Cabrera."

"Diego!"

The one name had been spoken with a sort of eager hush in the voice; the second with an accent of startled interrogation.

The hour was about ten at night. Cabrera and Diego had been on sentry duty since Diego's short, sharp interview with the General. One of them had just been relieved, and the other was about to be so, when Montoro called to his friend, who passed him on his way to shelter and sleep.

Cabrera stepped up closer to his friend.

"Why, Toro, what is it? Of all men in the world to hear thee speaking as thou hadst some mystery to whisper!"

"And so I have," came the hurried return.

Juan's big round eyes grew bigger and rounder than ever.

"Well, and if thou hast, there is ne'er a redskin about can understand thee if thou dost but speak fast, and with some of those long words thou knowest so--"

"Hush thee, then," muttered Montoro hastily. "It is from no redskin that I would hide the matter that I have in hand, at least not for the moment, but from the keenest pair of Spanish ears that either thou or I are likely to have met with."

"If thou meanest to hint at our Captain-General by that," agreed Cabrera, "thou art right enough, for I believe that he hears thoughts sometimes, without need of the tongue to give them utterance. But the business grows interesting. I love a plot. I would thou wert about to propose to break bounds, and take a midnight wandering."

"And it is--" a pause at the fancied sound of an approaching footstep. And then he continued, scarcely audibly, "It is even so. Wilt thou join me?"

Cabrera paused an instant, and gave a perceptible start.

"It is death, Diego, by the General's orders."

"I know it. And it is death to a native Christian, my lost Indian interpreter, as a living sacrifice to heathen gods, if we do not rescue him ere the dawn. But there, I should not have asked thee to share the double danger; I will go alone. You will not, at least, betray me?"

"No, nor suffer you to go alone," was the hurried answer. "I would sooner shoot myself. But there comes your exchange. Where shall we meet again?"

"In the hollow there, two yards to the right," muttered Montoro quickly, and then he stood silent and watchful, awaiting the new-comer, as though intent upon nothing beyond guarding his present post.

Two minutes later he once more stood beside Cabrera, at the only spot of the temple's surroundings whence escape unobserved was possible. Montoro's diligent search had discovered it very soon after he quitted the General, and the daring companions had scarcely met before they were safe outside the temple's precincts. There they were joined by the Indian woman, waiting to be their guide to the great temple of sacrifice. On its lofty summit there was a fire burning, and in front of the fire was visible, even at a distance, the great stone, stained with the blood of the countless human sacrifices offered up to the honour of the horrible god of war.

Closely following their guide, and keeping in the darkest shadows of the houses along the silent streets, the two Spaniards went on their adventurous mission of mercy. Suddenly the woman fell back upon them for a few moments with a low cry, and her hand upraised towards the temple's heights. The Spaniards stood still and with their eyes obeyed her sign.

The fire had been replenished, and blazed up fiercely, and there, high up above the houses of the town, on the elevated platform, and illuminated by the ruddy glow, there now stood a group of men. As the Europeans gazed they perceived a stir amongst that group--one appeared to fall; there was a pause, the woman with another shuddering cry dropped her face into her hands. Then a far-off shout fell upon the two friends' ears, and they saw an upraised arm against the glowing background, a hand that held something--

"Is it a head?" muttered Cabrera.

But the woman once more hurried them on.

"But if he is already slain," questioned Montoro sadly, "what can we do more?"

"Perhaps he is not already sacrificed," came the anguished answer in broken Spanish. "There are many to die to-night to please the god; perhaps he still lives, and may be saved."

For that 'perhaps' the devoted champion of the oppressed, and his friend, continued their dangerous route. It might be to meet the fate that, only twenty-four hours before, Escalante had spoken of with such horror. But even if they escaped that, it would but be to receive death at the hands of their own countrymen. Montoro began to be sorely troubled. To save one man he had brought the life of another into jeopardy. After all, it might be that he did deserve Alvarado's accusation. He stood still again.

"Cabrera, I have done wrong."

"Well," was the calm answer. "A thought more wildly, perchance, than might have been looked for from the sensible Don Montoro. Shall we return?"

"You will," was the eager reply. "We have not as yet gone too far for you to find your way back easily."

"Oh--h," ejaculated Cabrera. "And for thyself?"

"I go on."

"Ah! I see. Thanks, my friend, for your dismissal then, but--I go on also."

Montoro clenched his hands tightly.

"It will be a load off my heart, Juan, if you will return."

"Without you?--never. You must keep your load."

They had begun to move on again slowly before this short dialogue was ended; but now a bitter, imploring moan from the poor creature with them helped Montoro to forget all but her troubles, and making a sign to her, they hurried on as rapidly as before.

After all, as far as Juan de Cabrera was concerned, any excitement, even to the excitement of deadly peril, was better than peace and quietness. He rather liked the sensation of feeling as though a dozen or two pairs of those lean, small, redskin hands were stretching out from every doorway to clutch at him, and that he had a sword by his side which should win him freedom. Montoro for the time thought of nothing at all, but his purpose to rescue his native servant from the bloody altar of the horrible war-god Huitzilopotchli.

Arrived at the foot of the mound on which the chief temple was built, the guide paused, and looked at her companions as though with some compunction for having brought them into so great peril; but her regrets were then too late. They had caught sight of a spectacle which had filled them with loathing indignation; and they sprang up the mound, rushed up the great flight of stone steps in the centre of the temple with a fierce shout, regardless of prudence, indifferent to all consequences, and gained the platform just in time to witness the completion of a third awful act of heathen faith.

On a huge block of jasper, with a slightly convex surface, lay the living, human, palpitating sacrifice. Around him were gathered six of the war-god's priests, hardened to their awful office by almost daily custom. Men fitted for such duties they looked, with their wild eyes, their long and matted locks flowing in wild disorder over their shoulders, and their sable, crimson-stained robes covered with hieroglyphic scrolls of mystic import.

Five of these weird, sombre, butcher-priests held down the head and limbs of the victim. The sixth, clad in a scarlet mantle, emblematic of the office, cut open the breast of the sacrifice with a sharp razor of the volcanic itztli, inserted his hand in the wound, and tore away the beating heart from the yet writhing body; the awful trophy was held for one moment up on high, then cast at the feet of the idol to which it was devoted.[6]

[Footnote 6: 'Hist. Conquest of Mexico,' vol. i. p. 63.--Prescott.]

All was over before the Spaniards' second furious cry had had power to escape their lips. The next instant that elevated plateau was a scene of wild confusion.

Transported beyond himself, Cabrera had shot down the priest of sacrifice, dashed to the ground, insensible, two of the other black-robed ministers of the dismal faith, and then with his sword cut asunder the bonds binding a group of prisoners awaiting their turn on the jasper block.

Montoro had not been idle. At the point of the sword he had driven the remaining priests into the interior of the temple, flung into the fire the instrument of torture, and the instruments of music used to drown the wretched sufferers' cries, and then, with a far-echoing shout--"For the glory of the one true God!" he signed to the rescued captives, brandished his sword aloft, and, followed by the liberated train, the two Spaniards rushed down from the height, thrust a way for themselves and their bewildered companions through the gathering multitudes, with an impetuosity that bore down all obstacles, and with the happy Indian woman once more for guide, regained their own quarters.

The whole band of their comrades was astir, and within an hour of their stealthy departure Montoro de Diego and Cabrera, with the little group of Indians about them, once more stood in the courtyard of the lesser temple, surrounded by their Captain-General and the whole company of his followers.