Part II, Madoc in Aztlan: VI

The Hoamen in their Council-hall are met,
To hold the Feast of Souls; seat above seat,
Ranged round the circling theatre they sit.
No light but from the central fire, whose smoke,
Slow passing through the over aperture,
Excludes the day, and fills the conic roof,
And hangs above like cloud. Around,
The ghastly bodies of their Chiefs are hung,
Shrivelled, and parched by heat ; the humbler dead
Lie on the floor, white bones, exposed to view,
On deer, or elk-skin laid, or softer fur,
Or web, the work of many a mournful hour ;
The loathlier forms of fresh mortality,
Swathed, and in decent tenderness concealed.
Beside each body pious gifts are laid,
Mantle and belt and plumed coronal,
The bow he used in war, his drinking shell,
His arrows for the chace, the sarbacan,
Through whose tube the slender, breath-driven,
Might pierce the winged game. Husbands and wives,
Parents and children, there in death they lie ;
The widowed and the parent and the child
Look on in silence. Not a sound is heard
But of the crackling brand, or mouldering fire,
Or when, amid yon pendant string of shells,
The slow wind wakes a shrill and feeble sound,. .
A sound of sorrow to the mind attuned
By sights of woe.

Ayayaca at length
Came forward. . . Spirits, is it well with ye?
Is it well, Brethren ? said the aged Priest ;
Have ye received your mourning, and the rites
Of righteous grief? or round your dwelling-place
Still do your shadows roam dissatisfied,
And to the cries of wailing woe return
A voice of lamentation? Teach us now,
If we in aught have failed, that I, your Priest,
When I shall join ye soon, as soon I must, -
May unimpeded pass the perilous floods,
And, in the Country of the Dead, be hailed
By you, with song and dance and grateful joy.

So saying, to the Oracle he turned,
Awaiting there the silence which implied
Peaceful assent. Against the eastern wall,
Fronting the narrow portal's winding way,
That Image stood : a cloak of fur disguised
The rude proportion of its uncouth limbs ;
The skull of some old seer of days of old.
Topped it, and with a visor this was masked,
Honouring the oracular Spirit, who at times
There took his resting place. Ayayaca
Repeated, Brethren, is it well with ye ?
And raised the visor. But he started back,
Appalled and shuddering ; for a moony light
Lay in its eyeless sockets, and there came
From its immoveable and bony jaws
A long deep groan, thrice uttered, and thrice felt
In every heart of all the hearers round.
The good old Priest stood tottering, like a man
Stricken with palsy ; and he gazed with eyes
Of asking horror round, as if he looked
For counsel in that fear. But Neolin
Sprung boldly to the oracle, and cried,
Speak, Spirit! tell us of our sin, and teach
The atonement! A sepulchral voice replied,
Ye have for other Gods forsaken us,
And we abandon you! .. and crash with that
The Image fell.

A loud and hideous shriek,
As of a Demon, Neolin set up ;
So wild a yell, as, even in that hour,
Came with fresh terror to the startled ear.
While yet they sate pale and irresolute,
Helhua the Azteca came in. He bore
A shield and arrow, tokens these of war,
Yet now beheld with hope, so great relief
They felt his human presence.

Hoamen, hear me !
The messenger began ; Erillyab thou,
Elders and Priests and People, chiefly thou,
Prince Amalahta, as of these by birth,
So now of years mature, the rightful Lord, . .
Shall it be peace or war? . . Thus Aztlan saith ;
She,' in her anger, from the land will root
The Children of the Sea ; but viewing ye
In mercy, to your former vassalage
Invites ye, and remits the tribute lives,
And for rebellion claimeth no revenge.

Oh praise your Gods ! cried Neolin, and hail
This day-spring of new hope! Aztlan remits
The tribute lives, .. what more could Madoc give ?
She claimeth no revenge, and, if she claimed,
He could not save. O Hoamen, bless your Gods ;
Appease them! Thou, Prince Amalahta, speak,
And seize the mercy.

Amalahta stood
In act of speech ; but then Erillyab rose. . .
Who gives thee, Boy, this Elder's privilege?
The Queen exclaimed ; . . and thou, Priest Neolin,
Curb thou thy traitor tongue. The reign is mine;
I hold it from my father, he from his ;
Age before age, beyond the memory
Of man it hath been thus. My father fell
In battle for his people, and his sons
Fell by his side ; they perished, but their names
Are with the names we love, . . their happy souls
Pursue, in fields of bliss, the shadowy deer :
The spirit of that noble blood which ran
From their death-wounds, is in the ruddy clouds
Which go before the Sun, when he comes forth
In glory. Last of that illustrious race
Was I, Erillyab. Ye remember well,
Elders, that day when I assembled here
The people, and demanded at their choice
The worthiest, to perpetuate our old line
Of Kings and Warriors. ..'To the wind he spread
His black and blood-red banner. Even now
I hear his war-drum's tripled sound, that called
The youth to battle; even now behold
The hope which lit his dark and fiery eye,
And kindled with a sunnier glow his cheek,
As he from yonder war-pole, in his pride,
Took the death-doers down; . . a lurid light,
As in the heavy clouds which hang aloft,
When heaven is labouring with the thunder's birth.
Lo! here the bones of King Tepollomi !
There should be some among ye who beheld,
When, all with arrows quilled, and cloathed with blood,
As with a purple garment, he sustained
The unequal conflict, till the Aztecas
Took him at vantage, and their monarch's club
Let loose his struggling soul. Look, Hoamen, here !
See through how wide a wound his spirit fled !
Twenty long years of mournful widowhood
Have past away ; so long have I maintained
The little empire left us, loving well
My people, and by them as well beloved.
Say, Hoamen, am I still your Queen ?

At once,
The whole assembly rose with one acclaim, .
Still, O Erillyab, O Beloved, rule
Thy own beloved people!

But the Gods !
Cried Amalahta, .. but the Oracle!
The Oracle! quoth she ; what hath it said
That forty years of suffering had not taught
This wretched people? . . They abandon us ?
So let them go! Where were they at that hour,
When, like a blasting night-wind in the spring,
The multitudes of Aztlan came upon us?
Where were they when my father went to war ?
Where were they when thy father's stiffened corpse, -
Even after death a slave, held up the lamp
To light his conqueror's revels? . . Think not, Boy,
To palter with me thus! a fire may tremble
Within the sockets of a skull, and groans
May issue from a dead man's fieshless jaws,
And images may fall, and yet no God
Be there! . . If it had walked abroad with life,
That had indeed been something !

Then she turned
Her voice toward the people. .. Ye have heard
This Priest of Aztlan, whose insidious tongue
Bids ye desert the Children of the Sea,
And vow again your former vassalage.
Speaks Aztlan of the former? O my people,
I too could tell ye of the former days,
When yonder plain was ours, with all its woods
And waters and savannahs! . . of those days,
When, following where her husband's stronger arm
Had opened the light glebe, the willing wife
Dropt in the yellow maize ; ere long to bear
Its increase to the general store, and toss
Her flowing tresses in the dance of joy.
And I could tell ye how those summer-stores
Were hoarded for the invader's winter-feasts ;
And how the widows clipt those flowing locks,
To strew them, . . not upon their husbands' graves, . .
Their husbands had no graves! . . but un the rocks
And mountains in their flight. And even these rocks
And mountains could not save us! year by year,
Our babes, like firstlings of the flock, were culled
To be the banquet of these Aztecas!
This very wretch, who tells us of the past,
Hath chosen them for the butchery. ..Oh thank you
For this brave anger! . . in your name I take
The war gift !

Gods of Aztlan! Helhua cried,
As to Erillyab's ready hand he gave
The deadly token, in your name I give
The war-gift ! Ye have thirsted over-long ;
Take now your fill of blood ! . . He turned away ;
And Queen Erillyab bade the tribe fulfil
Their customary rites.

Each family
Bore its own dead, and to the general grave,
With melancholy song and sob of woe,
The slow procession moves. The general grave
Was delved within a deep and shady dell,
Fronting a cavern in the rock, . . the scene
Of many a bloody rite, ere Madoc came, .. .
A temple, as they deemed, by Nature made,
Where the Snake-Idol stood. On fur and cloth
Of woven grass, they lay their burthens down,
Within the ample pit ; their offerings range
Beside, and piously a portion take
Of that cold earth, to which, for ever now
Consigned, they leave their fathers, dust to dust ;
Sad relic that, and wise remembrancer.
But as with bark and resinous boughs they pile
The sepulchre, suddenly Neolin
Sprung up aloft, and shrieked, as one who treads
Upon a viper in his heedless path.
The God ! the very God ! he cried, and howled
One long, shrill, piercing, modulated cry ;
Whereat, from that dark temple issued forth
A Serpent, huge and hideous. On he came,
Straight to the sound, and curled around the Priest
His mighty folds innocuous, overtopping
His human height, and, arching down his head,
Sought in the hands of Neolin for food ;
Then questing, reared and stretched and waved his neck,
And glanced his forky tongue. Who then had seen
The man, with what triumphant fearlessness,
Arms, thighs, and neck body, wreathed and ringed
In those tremendous folds, he stood secure,
Played with the reptile's jaws, and called for food,
Food for the present God! .. who then had seen
The fiendish joy which fired his countenance,
Might well have weened that he had summoned up
The dreadful monster from its native Hell,
By devilish power, himself a fiend infleshed.

Blood for the God! he cried; Lincoya's blood,
Friend of the Serpent's foe! . . Lincoya's blood !
Cried Amalahta ; and the people turned
Their eyes to seek the victim, as if each
Sought his own safety in that sacrifice.
Alone Erillyab raised her voice, confused,
But not confounded ; she alone exclaimed,
Madoc shall answer this ! unheard her voice
By the bewildered people, by the Priest
Unheeded ; and Lincoya sure had fallen
The victim of their terrors in that hour,
Had he been found ; but when his watchful eye
Beheld the monster from his den come forth,
He fled to bear the tidings. .. Neolin
Repeats the accursed call, Food for the God!
Ayayaca, his unbelieving Priest !
At once all eager eyes were fixed on him,
But he came forward calmly at the call.
Lo! here am I! quoth he; and from his head
Plucking the thin grey hairs, he dealt them round. ..
Countrymen, kinsmen, brethren, children, take
These in remembrance of me! there will be
No other relic of your aged Priest.
From manhood to old age, full threescore years,
Have I been your true servant: fit it is
That I, who witnessed Aztlan's first assault,
Should perish her last victim! . . and he moved
Towards the death. But then Erillyab
Seized him, and by the garment drew him back; ..
By the Great Spirit, but he shall not die
The Queen exclaimed ; nor shalt thou triumph thus,
Lyar and traitor! Hoamen, to your homes !
Madoc shall answer this !

They heard, and inobedient ; to obey
Fearing, yet fearing to remain. Anon,
The Queen repeats her bidding, To your homes,
My People! .. But when Neolin perceived
The growing stir and motion of the crowd,
As from the outward ring they moved away,
He uttered a new cry, and disentangling
The passive reptile's folds, rushed out among them,
With outstretched hands, like one possessed, to seize
His victim. Then they fled ; for who could tell
On whom the madman, in that hellish fit,
Might cast the lot? An eight-years boy he seized,
And held him by the leg, and, whirling him
In ritual dance, till breath and sense were gone,
Set up the death-song of the sacrifice.
Amalahta, and what others rooted love
Of evil leagued with him, accomplices
In treason, joined the death-song and the dance.
Some too there were, believing what they feared,
Who yielded to their old idolatry,
And mingled in the worship. Round and round
The accursed minister of murder whirled
His senseless victim: they, too, round and round,
In maddening motion, and with maddening cries,
Revolving, whirled and wheeled. At length, when now,
According to old rites, he should have dashed
On the stone Idol's head the wretch's brains,
Neolin stopt, and once again began
The long, shrill, piercing, modulated cry.
The Serpent knew the call, and, rolling on,
Wave above wave, his rising length, advanced
His open jaws; then, with the expected prey,
Glides to the dark recesses of his den.