Page:Romance of History, Mexico.djvu/286

 dance before their accursed idols. When they had done this, they laid them upon their backs, on the stone used for the purpose, where they cut out their hearts, alive, and having presented them yet palpitating to their gods, they drew the bodies down the steps by the feet, where they were taken by others of their priests. Let the reader think what were our sensations. 'Oh, heavenly God!' said we to ourselves, 'do not suffer us to be sacrificed by these wretches! do not suffer us to die so cruel a death!' and then how terrible a reflection, that we could not relieve our poor friends thus murdered before our eyes!"

They were roused from their frozen gaze by another onslaught on the camp. "Look!" yelled the Aztecs as they charged the Spanish lines, "that is the way in which you all shall die, for our gods have promised this to us many times!"

There was joy and exultation in the city of Mexico. The gods had spoken at last! In the darkness of the night Guatemozin sent across the lake from city to city the heads of white men and of horses with this message, "The priests announce that Huitzilopotchli is appeased by the sacrifice of so many of his foes, and will deliver the strangers into the hands of his faithful people ere eight days have passed!"

With sinking hearts the allies heard this prediction. They too had gazed on the sacrifice of the Teules, whom they had once deemed invincible, and perhaps divine. Surely they had sinned to aid the foes of their gods, and now the time of punishment 246