Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/138

130 Serpent we cannot tell. When chosen by his peers to fill this high office, he was a priest in the great temple, and as such he must have known that Feathered Serpent had forbidden the loathsome and cruel rites which through Aztec influence had become common. As a priest he was well read, also, in the ancient history of his people. Nothing disheartened him so much as prophecies about Feathered Serpent. He believed that he was a man of flesh and blood like himself, whose followers might be expected to come again at any time to Mexico to fulfill his promised mission. If they did, a revolution was certain. Montezuma would no longer be "chief-of-men" and Aztec power would be humbled. These thoughts filled the chief with the deepest gloom. Rumors of the visit of Columbus to America and the presence of Spanish colonists in Cuba were probably afloat, and had reached the ears of the ever-vigilant council of chiefs. A coast-guard was on duty night and day, and fleet-footed couriers were ready to bear the news of an invasion to the proud city on the lake.

None were so frequently consulted in the council as were the shaggy-haired priests. Their night-watches in the towers of the great teocallis gave them the best possible opportunity of reading the stars. In no other way could the dark-minded Mexicans come so near to Him who made them as by studying the movements of the celestial bodies. But every sign now foretold disaster. In vain the soothsayers went through long fasts and cruel penances. The gods did not hear, though prayers to them were mumbled with tongues torn and bleeding with the thorns worn to gain their favor.

Not long before the arrival of the white men a priestess, a maiden nearly related to Montezuma, professed to