Anxious and often now the Priest surveyed

The maize-strewn threshold; for the wonted hour
Was come, and yet no footstep of the God!
More radiant now the fire of sacrifice,

Fed to full fury, blazed, and its red smoke
Imparted to the darker atmosphere
Such obscure light, as, o'er Vesuvio seen,
Or pillared upon Etna's mountain head,
Makes darkness dreadful. In the captives' cheeks
Then might a livid paleness have been seen,
And wilder terror in their ghastly eyes,
Expecting momently the pang of death.
Soon in the multitude a doubt arose,

Which none durst mention, lest his neighbour's fears,
Divulged, should strengthen his:.. the hour was past,
And yet no foot had marked the sprinkled maize !

X.

The Arrival of the Gods.

Now every moment gave their doubts new force, And each alarmëd eye disclosed the fear

Which on the tongue was trembling, when to the King, Emaciate like some bare anatomy,

And deadly pale, Tezozomoc was led,

By two supporting Priests. Ten painful months, Immured amid the forest, had he dwelt,

In abstinence and solitary prayer

Passing his nights and days: thus did the Gods From their High Priest exact, when they enforced,

By danger or distress, the penance due

For public sins; and he had dwelt ten months
Praying and fasting and in solitude,

Till now might every bone of his lean limbs

Be told, and in his starved and bony face
The living eye appeared unnatural, ..
A ghostly sight.

VOL. II.

In breathless eagerness

The multitude drew round as he began,..
O King, the Gods of Aztlan are not come;
They will not come before the Strangers' blood
Smoke on their altars: but they have beheld
My days of prayer, and nights of watchfulness,
And fasts austere, and bloody disciplines,
And have revealed their pleasure. Who is here,
Who to the White King's dwelling-place dare go,
And execute their will?

Scarce had he said,

When Tlalala exclaimed, I am the man.

Hear then! Tezozomoc replied... Ye know
That self-denial and long penance purge
The film and foulness of mortality,

For more immediate intercourse with Heaven
Preparing the pure spirit; and all eyes
May witness that with no relaxing zeal
I have performed my duty. Much I feared
For Aztlan's sins, and oft, in bitterness,
Have groaned and bled for her iniquity;
But chiefly for this solemn day the fear
Was strong upon me, lest her Deities,

Estranged, should turn away, and we be left
A spiritless and God-abandoned race,

A warning to the earth. Ten weary months
Have the raw maize and running water been
My only food; but not a grain of maize
Hath stayed the gnawing appetite, nor drop
Of water cooled my parched and painful tongue,
Since yester morn arose. Fasting I prayed,
And, praying, gashed myself; and all night long,
I watched and wept and supplicated Heaven,
Till the weak flesh, its life-blood almost drained,
Sunk with the long austerity: a dread

Of death came over me; a deathy chill

Ran through my veins, and loosened every limb; Dim grew mine eyes; and I could feel my heart Dying away within me, intermit

Its slow and feeble throbs, then suddenly
Start, as it seemed exerting all its force
In one last effort. On the ground I fell,
I know not if entranced, or dead indeed,
But without motion, hearing, sight, or sense,
Feeling, or breath, or life. From that strange state,
Even in such blessed freedom from all pain,

That sure I thought myself in very Heaven,

I woke, and raised my eyelids, and beheld

A light which seemed to penetrate my bones
With life and health. Before me, visible,

Stood Coatlantona; a wreath of flowers
Circled her hair, and from their odorous leaves
Arose a lambent flame; not fitfully,

Nor with faint flash or spark of earthly flowers;
From these, for ever flowing forth, there played,
In one perpetual dance of pointed light,

The azure radiance of innocuous fire.

She spake... Hear, Aztlan ! and give ear, O King!
She said, Not yet the offended Gods relax
Their anger; they require the Strangers' blood,
The foretaste of their banquet. Let their will
Be known to Aztlan, and the brave perform
Their bidding; I, meantime, will seek to soothe,
With all a mother's power, Mexitli's wrath.
So let the Maidens daily with fresh flowers
Garland my temple!.. Daily with fresh flowers
Garland her temple, Aztlan! and revere
The gentle mother of thy guardian God!

And let the brave, exclaimed young Tlalala,
Perform her bidding! Servant of the Gods,