Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/98

90 mine, workshop and garden, and ended by a fast of thirteen days. The holy fire which had been kindled fifty-two years before on the temple-roofs was now suffered to die out, and the people sat down in a darkness of soul over which pitying angels must have wept. As the old year died the priests marched in solemn procession to a lofty hill a few miles outside the city, bearing with them the fairest of victims-—some noble young chieftain taken in battle and reserved until this fateful day to be offered in sacrifice. He was stretched across the altar with his face upturned to the sky, while the shaggy-haired priests stood about him chanting their wild temple-hymns. Would the gods accept the sacrifice, or would the spirits of evil prevail? Unseen by mortal eyes, the air was full of them. From the poorest hut by the lake-side to the most lordly pueblo in the land, men were waiting in breathless silence for an answer. Mothers covered the faces of their little ones lest malignant deities engaged in the battle supposed to be going on in the air should swoop down and carry them away. The devoted father cut his ears till the blood flowed, hoping thus to avert all evil from his family. All eyes gazed aloft till the Pleiades, slowly gliding through the heavens, should pass the zenith. The suspense grew awful. Would Tlaloc, god of storms, rise in his fury from his throne on yonder volcano and sweep the valley with a whirlwind? Would their queenly cities go down in the salt floods of Tezcuco, or would an earthquake prelude the mighty catastrophe which would ruin a guilty world? Slowly the moments pass. The stars go by overhead, and then, at a signal from priestly hands, a shout rends the air. The Seven Stars have crossed the dreaded line: the world is safe for another fifty years. The sacred fire is