few tunas or acrid wild figs that he occasionally found, envy the king's couriers the comforts of the post-stations, to which he dared not venture, and which seemed so desirable as compared with his own surroundings, but he longed to know the purport of the despatches that so constantly passed and repassed. That most of them contained information concerning the white conquerors, whose movements and intentions he was so anxious to discover, he felt certain. He knew that the penalty for molesting or delaying a king's courier was death; but that meant nothing to him, for the same fate would be his in any case if he should be captured. Thus, being already outlawed, he would not have hesitated to attack a courier and strive to capture his despatches, but for the fact that they were strong, well-fed men, while he was weak from starvation. Moreover, they were armed, while he was not, even his dagger having been broken off at the hilt in an attempt to cut for himself a club early in his flight. At length, however, he contrived a plan that promised success, and which he at once proceeded to put into execution.
He had saved the broken blade of his dagger, and transformed it into a rude knife by binding one end with bark. With this he cut a tough, trailing vine, nearly one hundred feet in length, and, coiling it as he would a rope, made his way, cautiously, just at dusk, to the edge of the highway. He had chosen a place from which he could see for some distance in either direction; and, after making certain that no person was in sight, he fastened one end of his rope-like vine to the roots of a small tree. Then, carrying the other across the road, he stretched it as tightly as possible, and made it fast. The rope, so arranged, was lifted some six inches above the surface of the road. Having thus set his trap, Huetzin concealed himself at one side and impatiently awaited the approach of a victim.
Ere he had waited a half-hour there came a sound of quick foot-falls, and the heart of the young Toltec beat high with excitement. Now he could see the dim form of a man speeding forward through the darkness, and hear the panting breath. Now the flying messenger is abreast of the place where he crouches. Now he trips over the unseen obstacle, and plunges headlong with a startled cry and outstretched arms. Huetzin leaped forward and flung himself bodily upon the prostrate form. He had anticipated a struggle, and nerved himself for it, but none was made. The man's forehead had struck on the rocky roadbed, and he lay as one dead. Huetzin wasted no time in attempting to revive him; but, unfastening the green girdle that held the precious packet of despatches, and at the same time distinguished its wearer as being in the royal service, and securing the bow and arrows with which the courier was armed, he plunged again into the forest and disappeared.
That night he was so fortunate as to discover a corn-field, for he had now passed the range of the great volcan, and descended to the fertile table-land on its eastern side. At daylight he had the further good fortune to shoot a wild turkey, and though, having no fire nor means of procuring one, he was forced to eat the meat raw, it greatly refreshed and strengthened him. By the time he had finished this welcome meal, and selected a hiding-place for the day, the sun had risen, and he eagerly opened the packet of despatches.
For an hour he pored over them, and when it was ended the young Toltec was wiser, concerning some matters of vital importance, than the king himself. He had not only learned, as well as pictured likenesses could teach him, what manner of beings the white conquerors were, but a secret concerning them that might have altered the fate of the kingdom had Montezuma been aware of it at that moment. It was that the terrible beings who accompanied the conquerors, and were described as combining the forms of men and fire-breathing monsters, were in reality two distinct individuals, a man and an animal, also that they were mortal and not godlike. These facts were shown by pictures of a dead horse, and two of the white strangers, also lying on the ground, dead and transfixed by arrows. Near them stood a number of men, and several horses without riders, but all pierced by arrows, showing them to be wounded. It was evidently a representation of a battle-scene between the white conquerors, and – Could it be? Yes! There was the white heron, the emblem of the Tlascalan house of Titcala, the token of his mother's family! The white conquerors were at war with Tlascala!
This was a startling revelation to the son of Tlahuicol. He knew that his warrior father had deemed a union of the forces of Tlascala with those of the powerful strangers the only means by which the Aztec nation and its terrible priesthood could be overthrown. What could he do to stop the war now so evidently in progress, and bring about the desirable alliance? He could at least bear his father's last message, with all speed, to Tlascala, and he would. It should be heard by the council of chiefs ere the set of another sun. Thus deciding, and fastening the green girdle of the courier, the badge of royal authority, about his waist, Huetzin hastened to the highway, and set out boldly upon it, with all speed, in the direction of Tlascala.
CHAPTER IX.
WHO ARE THE WHITE CONQUERORS?
Yes, the white strangers were at war with Tlascala; there could be no doubt of it. The meaning of the pictured despatches was too clear on that point to be misunderstood. Which side would win in such a struggle? The pictures seemed to indicate that the strangers had suffered a defeat. Certainly some of them had been killed, as had at least three of the mysterious beings who had, until then, been believed to be gods. With such evidences of the superiority of his countrymen to reassure him, could the son of a Tlascalan warrior doubt which banner would be crowned with victory? And yet, if these white strangers should be destroyed, or driven back whence they came, what would become of his father's cherished plan for the overthrow of Montezuma and his bloody priesthood by their aid? Why had Tlahuicol placed such confidence in their powers? Who, and what, were these white conquerors? Whence had they come? and what was their object in braving the dangers that must beset every step of their advance into the land of Anahuac?
With thoughts and queries such as these was the mind of Huetzin filled as he sped forward on his self-appointed mission. The question of food, that had absorbed so large a share of his attention on the preceding days of his flight, no longer gave him any anxiety. The sight of his green girdle and packet of despatches caused his wants of this nature to be rapidly supplied from the several post stations, at which he halted for a moment without entering. To be sure his appearance created animated discussions after he had departed, but only when it was too late to make investigation. Thus Huetzin's mind was free to dwell upon the subject of the white conquerors and their war with his own people.
These "white conquerors," as Tlahuicol had termed them, formed the little army with which Hernando Cortes set forth from Cuba, in the spring of 1519, for the exploration and possible subjugation of the great western kingdom, concerning which fabulous accounts had already reached Spain. During the twenty-seven years that had elapsed since Columbus first set foot on an island of the New World, exploration had been active, and the extent of its eastern coast had been nearly determined. Sebastian Cabot had skirted it from Labrador to the peninsula of Florida. Columbus himself had reached the mainland, without realizing that it was such, and had sailed from Honduras to the mouth of the mighty Orinoco. Amerigo Vespucci and others had coasted southward as far as the Rio de la Plata. Balboa, with dauntless courage, had forced his way through the trackless forests of Darien, and from the summit of its lofty cordilleras sighted the mighty Pacific. The West Indian Islands were all known, and only the lands bordering the Mexican Gulf still remained unexplored.
In 1517 a Spanish slave-hunter, bound from Cuba to the Bahamas, was driven so far out of his course by a succession of easterly gales that, at the end of three weeks, he found himself on an unknown coast far to the westward. It was the land of the Mayas, who, having learned by rumor of the cruelties practised by the Spaniards in the Caribbean Islands, greeted these new-comers with an invincible hostility that resulted in a series of bloody encounters. In most of these the Spaniards were worsted; some of them were taken prisoners by the Indians, and so many were killed that all notions of their godlike nature were destroyed. When the whites questioned those natives with whom they gained intercourse as to the name of their land, the answer always given was, "Tec-ta-tan" (I do not understand you), and this, corrupted into "Yucatan," is the name borne by that portion of the country to this day.
In spite of their reverses and failure to gain a foothold in this new country, the Spanish slave-hunters
