XIX.
THE SEEDS OF REVOLT.
For the sake of brevity I shall summarize here the statement that Tizocmade to us, and for the sake of clearness I shall add to it some factsof minor importance which came to our knowledge later--thus at onceexhibiting the whole of the troublous condition of affairs that stirreddangerously the people dwelling in the Valley of Aztlan at the time ofour coming among them.
At this period the political situation, as I may term it, wasexceedingly critical. Three powerful factions were in existence; andpeace was preserved only by the generally diffused belief that openrevolt, on the part of either one, would be crushed instantly by atemporary coalition of the other two. The beginning of this unpleasantlyvolcanic condition of affairs dated back six cycles--that is to say, alittle more than three hundred years--and was the direct result of aviolation of the law set forth by the wise King Chaltzantzin when thecolony was founded, by which it was ordained that all among theAztlanecas who, on coming to maturity, were weaklings or cripples,should be put to death.
Being once suggested, the repeal or the modification of this law foundmany advocates. Naturally, the change was urged most strongly by allthose whose sons and daughters were sickly or malformed, and so weredoomed to die in the very blossom of their years. It was urged by thenobles because the more astute among them perceived the possibility ofso manipulating it that it would result in the creation of adistinctively servile class; and the priests urged it because they alsoperceived a way by which it might be made to provide more victims forsacrifice to the gods. And so it came to pass, through the influence ofthese diverse elements operating together towards a common end, that thelaw which Chaltzantzin had promulgated was set aside, and a law was madethat embodied the provisions demanded by the nobles and the priests,whereby should be created a new social class; which class, because ofthe infirmities of those composing it, received the name ofTlahuicos--"men turned towards the earth." Thereafter, the sickly andthe crippled were not slain upon reaching maturity, but then passed outfrom the class into which they were born and became servitors. And whenthe first cycle was ended after the making of this new law, andthenceforward every year, one in every ten among the Tlahuicos was takenby lot to be sacrificed to the gods--for the priests craftily had gainedthe barbarous concession that they demanded by placing the firstfulfilment of it at a time so far in the future that all concerned inthe granting of it would be dead in the course of nature before itbecame operative. Yet to the end that those of noble birth might besaved from the ignominy of servitude, it was provided that childrenwhich by reason of natural infirmity were doomed to become slaves, mightbe saved from that fate upon coming to maturity by being thensurrendered by their parents to the priests for sacrifice. Other gracethere was none. Excepting between death and slavery, there was no choicefor the weak or the malformed.
As time passed on, the Tlahuicos, marrying among themselves, had greatlyincreased in numbers; and so far from remaining a weakling race, they hadbecome, by reason of their frugal mode of living and of the wholesome,hearty labor in which they constantly were engaged, exceptionally haleand strong; the weak and crippled among them being mainly those who eachyear, because of such infirmities, were added to their number from thehigher ranks of the community. And thus was collected together materialas dangerous as it was inflammable; for the fresh additions to theTlahuicos kept constantly alive in the whole body a spirit of moodydiscontent, that time and again, at the season when the lots were castby which one in every ten was doomed to death, was fanned into armedmutiny. These revolts ever had as their single object escape from thevalley; which fact made evident enough the need for the elaborate systemof defensive works by which the outlet of the valley was barred.
From the Tlahuicos were drawn the house-servants of the rich; and bythose of this wretched class who were stout of body all the heavy laborof the community was carried on--the tilling of the fields, thequarrying of stone, the building of houses and bridges and roads, thefelling of timber, the carriage of all burdens, and the working of thegreat gold-mine, concerning which I shall hereafter have more to tell.And all of these people were held in absolute bondage, either as theserfs of individual owners or as the property of the State; for eachyear the new accessions to the class were sold publicly at an auction towhoever would bid the most for them; and those which none would buy,being too infirm to be useful as laborers, the State laid claim to--butonly that they might be kept alive until such time as they should beneeded by the priests for sacrifice.
Yet out of this custom of sale, that on the face of it was harsh andbarbarous, some slight mitigation of the cruelty of the system had come;for the practice had grown up of permitting parents to buy back theirown children--nominally thereafter holding them as slaves--and so tosave them at a single stroke from both death and servitude. One strongcause of the hatred of the Priest Captain Itzacoatl, Tizoc said (and wewondered then at the trembling in his voice, and at the evidently deepemotion that overcame him as he spoke), was that he had but latelyforbidden the continuance of this practice, by which only the letter ofthe law was obeyed.
Until the promulgation by the Priest Captain of this decree, thepriesthood, the military aristocracy, and the mass of the army hadconstituted, politically, one single class. The civil government wasvested in a body styled the Council of the Twenty Lords, the members ofwhich originally had been chosen by Chaltzantzin, and from him hadreceived authority, in perpetuity, to fill the vacancies which deathwould cause among them by selecting the wisest of each new generation tobe Councillors. While the composition of this body was distinctivelyaristocratic--for its members were either military nobles or priests ofa high grade--there was in it also an element of democracy; for both thepriesthood and the army were recruited from all classes of society(saving only the servile class), and among the Twenty Lords there werealways men who had risen from obscurity to distinction solely by theirown merit. Over this body the Priest Captain presided; yet was his willsuperior to that of the Council, for he was the visible representativeof the gods, and so centred in his own person their high authority anddreadful power.
Until the time of Itzacoatl, each successive priest captain, in the longline that here had ruled, had exercised so discreetly his theocraticrights, and in all ways had shown such wisdom in his government, that noconflict had arisen between the temporal and the spiritual powers. Andthus wisely had Itzacoatl governed in the early years of his reign. Butas age stole upon him--and he now was a very old man--his rule had grownmore and more tyrannical. He had drawn about him certain priests forintimate advisers, and these constantly led him to run counter to thewill of the Twenty Lords, not only in matters about which divergentopinions reasonably might be held, but in matters wherein the will ofthe whole people was at one with the advice that the Council gave. Thus,gradually, two parties were built up within the State: that of thepriests, which strongly seconded the disposition that Itzacoatlmanifested to make the spiritual power absolutely supreme, and that ofthe nobles and people of the higher class, which sought to maintain theCouncil's ancient rights in matters temporal. In regard to these twofactions, the affiliations of the army were so nicely balanced thatneither side ventured to resort to open violence--for each dreaded thatthe other would turn the scale against it by invoking the aid of theservile class. Thus it was that the despised Tlahuicos actually held thebalance of power. Yet of this fact, Tizoc declared--but I noticed thatjust here there was a curious hesitancy about his speech, as though heknew more than he was willing to disclose--the Tlahuicos were but dimlyconscious; while they did know certainly that in the present state ofaffairs any attempt on their part to rise in mutiny would be met, as ithad been met many times in the past, by all the forces of both factionsof their superiors overwhelmingly united against them.
But the bond that was stronger than all others in holding together thiscommunity, in which, beneath the surface, were working such potentelements of disintegration, was the loyal resolve pervading it toexecute the missio
n to which its members were destined when they wereset apart from the remainder of their race a thousand years before.Excepting only among the Tlahuicos--who, in the nature of things, couldhave no share in it--there had ever been among all classes a ferventlonging for the summons that should call them forth to aid theirbrethren in the battling with a foreign foe that Chaltzantzin hadprophesied. And by reason of this loyalty to a lofty purpose the openrupture that assuredly otherwise would have come had been thus farrestrained. Honor forbade, Tizoc declared, that by falling to warringamong themselves they should put in jeopardy their power to respondinstantly to the summons that might at any instant come.
It was therefore with a profound and solemn interest--for the graveimport of it was plain to him--that Tizoc, having ended his ownstatement, questioned us as to the full meaning of the words which wehad spoken when first we entered the valley: that the prophecy ofChaltzantzin long since had been fulfilled, and that now, having in itsappointed time miscarried, the summons would never come.
With awe, and in sorrowful silence, he listened as Fray Antonio and Itold him how exactly the prophecy had been verified by the coming of theSpaniards, and by their conquest and enslavement of the Mexicans; yetwas he cheered again as our narrative continued, and he learned of thebrave fight for freedom that his brethren had made, and of the happysuccess that had crowned it in the end. Of the period between theachievement of independence and recent years we said but little--it isnot a period of which those whose feeling towards the Mexicans isfriendly have much desire to talk--contenting ourselves withemphasizing the fact that the race so long oppressed, having risensuccessfully against its oppressors, remained independent under a rulerof its own blood.
To that part of our narrative in which we told how we had gainedknowledge of the hidden city of Colhuacan, and possession of the tokenof summons, Tizoc gave but little heed. It was evident that his mind wasengrossed with consideration of the more important matters of which wehad told him, and of the direct bearing that they had upon the troubledcondition of affairs in which his own people were involved. Seeingwhich, we left him to his own thoughts while we talked of these samematters among ourselves.
Rayburn, in his quick, clear-headed way, grasped the situation promptlyand accurately. "About the size of it is," he said, "that we've knockedthe false work right from under everything that these folks have beenbuilding for the whole thousand years that they have been living here;and what they've built isn't strong enough to stand alone. As Youngsays, it's a cold day for the Priest Captain because we have got hold ofhis boss miracle; but it's still colder weather for him because the newsthat we have brought makes it all right for the crowd that wants tofight him to go right ahead and do it; and I guess they will do it, too,as soon as they get the fact fairly into their heads that there nolonger is a chance of their being called off in the middle of their row.Unless I am very much mistaken, we shall see some pretty lively times inthis valley inside of the next thirty days."
"And unless _I'm_ mistaken," Young struck in, "th' Colonel here will beabout th' first man t' take off his coat--that is, th' thing that Isuppose he thinks is a coat--an' sail in. I don't know just what he'sgot against th' Priest Captain, except that he seems t' be a sort ofpill on gen'ral principles, but I'm sure that he's down on him from th'word go. From what th' Colonel says, I judge that his crowd has a prettygood chance of comin' out on top--for th' other crowd seems t' be madeup for th' most part of parsons; an' parsons, as a rule, haven't muchfight in 'em. What we'd better do it t' tie t' th' Colonel, an' whenwe've helped him an' his friends t' wallop th' other fellows they'll beso much obliged to us that they'll let us bag all th' treasure we wantan' clear out. An' that reminds me, Professor--we haven't heard anythingabout any treasure so far. Just ask th' Colonel if there really is one.If there isn't, I vote for pullin' out before th' row begins. It's astrue of a fight as it is of a railroad--that runnin' it just for th'operatin' expenses don't pay."
Tizoc answered my question on this head somewhat absently, for heevidently was debating within himself some very serious matter; but hisanswer was of a sort that Young found entirely satisfactory. In theheart of the city, he said, was the Treasure-house that Chaltzantzin hadbuilded there; and within it the treasure remained that Chaltzantzin hadstored away. What it consisted of, nor the value of it, he could nottell. The Treasure-house was also the Great Temple; and of the treasureonly the Priest Captain had accurate knowledge. In the Treasure-house,Tizoc added, was stored the tribute that the people paid annually, andthe metal that was taken from the great mine. This metal was the mostprecious of all their possessions, he said, for from it their arms weremade, and also their tools for tilling the earth, and for working woodand stone. It had not always been of such value, for it naturally wastoo soft to serve these useful purposes; but at a remote period, untilwhich time their implements had been made of stone, a wise man amongthem had discovered a way by which it could be hardened, and from thattime onward the people dwelling in the valley had prospered greatly,because they thus were enabled to practise all manner of useful arts.
"And what is this metal like?" I asked, with much interest, for myarchaeological instinct instantly was aroused by hearing summed in thesefew words a matter of such momentous importance as the transition of apeople to the age of metal from the age of stone.
"It is like this," Tizoc answered, simply, disengaging as he spoke aheavy bracelet from his arm, "only this remains in its natural state ofsoftness. To be of great value it first must be made hard."
I had no doubt in my own mind as to what this metal was, but I knew thatRayburn, who was an excellent metallurgist, could pronounce upon itauthoritatively.
"Is this gold?" I asked, handing him the bracelet.
"Certainly it is," he answered, in a moment--"and it seems to beentirely without alloy."
"Then your guess about the bright, hard metal that has been such apuzzle to us," I continued, "was the right one; it is hardened gold:"and I repeated to him what Tizoc had told me.
Rayburn was deeply interested. "Scientifically, this is a big thing,Professor," he said. "These fellows can give points to ourmetallurgists. But for our purposes, of course, what they've caught onto here has no practical value. Gold has got to come down a good deal,or phosphor-bronze has got to go up a good deal, before it will pay usto turn gold dollars into axle-bearings and cogs and pinions. But it'smighty interesting, all the same. Fusing with silicium would give agold-silicide that might fill the bill for hardness; but I can't evenmake a guess as to how they do the tempering. Ask the Colonel what thewhole process is, Professor. It will make a capital paper to read beforethe Institute of Mining Engineers at their next meeting."
As I turned to Tizoc to ask this question, I perceived that his regardwas fixed upon something on the other side of the court-yard, and in hislook most tender love was blended with a deep melancholy. Following thedirection of his gaze, I saw that its object was a beautiful boy, a ladof twelve or fourteen years old, who was half hidden behind someflowering shrubs, and from this cover was peering at us curiously.
"It is my Maza--my little son," Tizoc said, as he turned and saw thedirection in which I looked. And then he called to the boy to come tohim. For a moment Maza hesitated, but when the call was repeated he cameout from behind the screen of flowers and so towards us across thecourt-yard; and as he advanced I perceived that he was lame. In his facewas the look of wistfulness which cripples so often have, and there wasa rare sweetness and intelligence in the expression of his large browneyes. In a moment I understood why it was that Tizoc resented sobitterly the abrogation by the Priest Captain of the custom that hadpermitted parents to buy back their crippled children, and so to savethem from slavery; and a selfish feeling of gladness came into my heartas this light dawned upon me--for I knew that when we faced the dangerthat threatened us (a most real danger, for our coming into the valleywas nothing less than a deadly blow at Itzacoatl's supremacy) we surelywould find in Tizoc an ally and a friend.
The Aztec Treasure-House Page 21
