ide ventured to resort to open violence--for each dreaded that
the other would turn the scale against it by invoking the aid of the
servile class. Thus it was that the despised Tlahuicos actually held the
balance of power. Yet of this fact, Tizoc declared--but I noticed that
just here there was a curious hesitancy about his speech, as though he
knew more than he was willing to disclose--the Tlahuicos were but dimly
conscious; while they did know certainly that in the present state of
affairs any attempt on their part to rise in mutiny would be met, as it
had been met many times in the past, by all the forces of both factions
of their superiors overwhelmingly united against them.

But the bond that was stronger than all others in holding together this
community, in which, beneath the surface, were working such potent
elements of disintegration, was the loyal resolve pervading it to
execute the mission to which its members were destined when they were
set apart from the remainder of their race a thousand years before.
Excepting only among the Tlahuicos--who, in the nature of things, could
have no share in it--there had ever been among all classes a fervent
longing for the summons that should call them forth to aid their
brethren in the battling with a foreign foe that Chaltzantzin had
prophesied. And by reason of this loyalty to a lofty purpose the open
rupture that assuredly otherwise would have come had been thus far
restrained. Honor forbade, Tizoc declared, that by falling to warring
among themselves they should put in jeopardy their power to respond
instantly to the summons that might at any instant come.

It was therefore with a profound and solemn interest--for the grave
import of it was plain to him--that Tizoc, having ended his own
statement, questioned us as to the full meaning of the words which we
had spoken when first we entered the valley: that the prophecy of
Chaltzantzin long since had been fulfilled, and that now, having in its
appointed time miscarried, the summons would never come.

With awe, and in sorrowful silence, he listened as Fray Antonio and I
told him how exactly the prophecy had been verified by the coming of the
Spaniards, and by their conquest and enslavement of the Mexicans; yet
was he cheered again as our narrative continued, and he learned of the
brave fight for freedom that his brethren had made, and of the happy
success that had crowned it in the end. Of the period between the
achieve