It was clear star-light. Through the thick foliage an occasional bright ray at times found its way, as if to hint to his troubled soul there still was light for it if he would but look upward. But his eyes were either bent upon the ground, or peered out between the pendulous branches into the mysterious horizon around, out of which grew strange, spectral shapes, with long arms sweeping the night-air. In the daytime they were but common trees, like those under which he sat, but to him they now became demon ambassadors from his terrible war-god to arouse him to vengeance. Through the overhanging branches, the chill breeze sent hoarse sounds as they chafed against each other, at times grinding heavily with a dismal noise like the crushing of bones, while the more distant trees responded with fitful shrieks or deep sighings as the winds by turns rose or sunk in varying gusts; now wholly silent, then swelling into a diapason that thrilled Tolta’s heart with horrible fancies. Owls flapped their white wings, and lighted near by, hooting, with their great staring eyes fixed on him. Then gathered about him a chorus of furies that excited every passion to avenge his father, massacred by Cortez at the foot of the altar, on which still reeked a human sacrifice; his mother violated and slain by the savage allies of the inhuman Christian; himself, wounded and senseless in her defence, mangled and taunted by his Tezcucan foes,—but, but what? that _but_ for the instant exorcised the vision, for it recalled to him that Juan, indignant at the wanton barbarity, had rescued him from their hands, and that Beatriz had bound up his wounds, and spoken to him the first words of kindness he had ever heard from the lips of a Spaniard.
Could he have forgotten this, he would have gone straight on to his revenge without a single soul-qualm. As it was, fortified by his jealousy, and impelled by the gathering force of reawakened passions, the struggle of personal gratitude became gradually weaker, until there was nothing between him and his victims, except the love which he felt for Beatriz, and which jealousy had now all but turned into hate. From out of the gloom of nature around him, there spoke voices and issued shapes, kindred to all the darker purposes of his soul. Guatimotzin, his butchered sovereign, whose blood was in his own veins, called to him from his bed of hot coals, not to forget his martyrdom. The spirits of myriads of Mexicans slain by famine were waving their gaunt arms, and clawing with feeble fingers at him, while hollow voices muttered, “Avenge us, art thou not our kin?” and they pointed to the sleeping Spaniards, and wound their dark limbs over them in a death embrace. The flames of Mexico, once the pride and glory of the Aztec empire, now in ashes, burst upon his vision. He once more saw her towers and palaces glowing with heat and crumbling to the ground, while fire and smoke shut out the bright heaven above, and settled like a hellish pall upon his native city. His eye-balls became blood-shot as he strove to penetrate the darkness to gainsay his vision. It was in vain. Far into the deep shadow beyond, and high above him, there glowed a bright red spot growing larger each minute, with flames and smoke intermingled, and ever and anon there faintly reached him a crashing sound like the fall of heavy bodies from a great elevation. There was a reality in the sight he could not dissipate by reason, or by gazing. The longer he looked, the more true it became. At last, tired out by his watchings, he too sunk into an uneasy slumber, saying to himself as his original purpose, with renewed craft returned to him, “Away with doubt; I will obey your call, my countrymen, or join you in the dark abodes whence you urge me to vengeance,”—then mingling with his patriotic frenzy his personal desires, he added, “I will circumvent them all. The Spaniards shall be sacrificed, and Juan slain. Kiana and Pohaku must perish in the coming war. Olmedo and Beatriz shall believe that I have taken them away to save them. He shall die in attempting to escape, and she shall be rescued by me. It will then be time enough to use my opportunity, if she still resists my love. Alone! whom else can she look to? Chiefs and people all curse Pohaku, brute that he is. Many already hail me as their deliverer from his tyranny. Yes, love and revenge are both sweet to an Aztec. My parents’ slaughter shall be avenged, and these sacrilegious Spaniards shall learn that an Aztec’s hate never dies.”