Page:Romance of History, Mexico.djvu/164

 the victims of that day's sacrifice; the walls and floor were dark with human blood. In the other tower was the image of Tezcat, the "Soul of the World." This was an idol of polished black marble covered with golden ornaments, with mirrors for eyes, and a shield of burnished gold in which he saw reflected all the doings of the world. Here too lay offerings of human hearts, and "the stench was more intolerable," says the old chronicler, "than that of all the slaughter-houses of Castile!" Even to the god of the harvest, a figure half-alligator, half-man, said to contain the germ and origin of all created things, the Aztecs had made bloody sacrifice. "We thought," says Bernal Diaz, "we never could get out soon enough, and I devoted them and all their wickedness to God's vengeance."

"I do not know, my Lord Montezuma," exclaimed Cortés, "how so great a king and so learned a man as you are should not have collected in his thoughts that these idols are not gods, but devils? If you will but permit us to erect here the true cross, and place the images of the blessed Virgin and her Son in your sanctuaries, you will soon see how your false gods will shrink before them!" But at the words Montezuma's face grew dark, and the priests scowled blackly at the impious stranger. With much dignity the emperor replied, "My Lord Malinche, these are the gods who have led the Aztecs on to victory since they were a nation, and who send the seed-time and the harvest in their seasons. Had I thought you would have 138