ack Plumed, and the child, on admittance, was
painted this color, and blood drawn from his ears and offered to the
god.[1] Probably for the same reason, in many picture writings, both his
face and body were blackened.

[Footnote 1: Sahagun, Lib. iii, Append, cap. vii. and cf. Lib. i, cap v.
The surname is from _tlilli_, black, and _potonia_, "emplumar a otro."]

It is at first sight singular to find his character and symbols thus in a
sense reversed, but it would not be difficult to quote similar instances
from Aryan and Egyptian mythology. The sun at night was often considered
to be the ruler of the realm of the dead, and became associated with its
gloomy symbolism.

Wherever he was, Quetzalcoatl was expected to return and resume the
sceptre of sovereignty, which he had laid down at the instigation of
Tezcatlipoca. In what cycle he would appear the sages knew not, but the
year of the cycle was predicted by himself of old.

Here appears an extraordinary coincidence. The sign of the year of
Quetzalcoatl was, as I have said, One Reed, Ce Acatl. In the Mexican
calendar this recurs only once in their cycle of fifty-two years. The myth
ran that on some recurrence of this year his arrival was to take place.
The year 1519 of the Christian era was the year One Reed, and in that year
Hernan Cortes landed his army on Mexican soil!

The approach of the year had, as usual, revived the old superstition, and
possibly some vague rumors from Yucatan or the Islands had intensified the
dread with which the Mexican emperor contemplated the possible loss of his
sovereignty. Omens were reported in the sky, on earth and in the waters.
The sages and diviners were consulted, but their answers were darker than
the ignorance they were asked to dispel. Yes, they agreed, a change is to
come, the present order of things will be swept away, perhaps by
Quetzalcoatl, perhaps by hideous beings with faces of serpents, who walk
with one foot, whose heads are in their breasts, whose huge hands serve as
sun shades, and who can fold themselves in their immense ears.[1]

[Footnote 1: The names of these mysterious beings are given by Tezozomoc
as _Tezocuilyoxique, Zenteicxique_ and _Coayxaques. Cronica Mexicana_,
caps, cviii and civ.]

Little satisfied with these grotesque prophecies the monarch summoned his
dwarfs and hunchbacks--a class of dependents he maintained in imitation of
Quetzalcoatl--and ordered them to proceed to the sacred Cave of Cincalco