Indian told me, further, that before the coming of
the Spaniards there was seen the sign of warning that King
Chaltzantzin had promised should tell when the danger that he had
so well prepared for should be near; which sign was the going out
of the sacred fire that the priests guarded on a certain high hill.
Meantime, all knowledge of their brethren hidden in the Valley of
Aztlan for their help in time of peril was lost to the Aztec tribe
in dim tradition; for the King had commanded, in order that his
people might not fall into weakness through trusting in the
strength of others for protection, that no open record of the
colony that he had founded should be preserved. Therefore was this
matter a secret known only to a few priests whose blood was of the
royal line; in whose keeping, also, was the token that King
Chaltzantzin had commanded should be sent to the walled city of
Culhuacan when its warriors were to be called forth, and a map
whereby the way thither was made plain. And so it was that,
when the sacred fire ceased burning, the priests were alert
for the threatened danger; and when the landing of the
Spaniards--'fair-faced and bearded men, coming for the
eastward'--was known to them, they warned their king, Montezuma,
that the prophecy was fulfilled, and that the time for sending for
the army and the treasure had come.

"For the bearer of this message was chosen a priest of the blood
royal, with whom went also a younger priest, his son. And with
these went a guard, whereof the captive Indian was one, that they
might be carried in safety through the region where the wild
Indians were. But the valor of the guard was useless, for the wild
Indians set upon them in such prodigious numbers--in a place not
far from where is this present mission of Santa Marta--that all of
the company, save only this single Indian who was wounded and made
captive, was overpowered and slain. Yet among the slain, the Indian
said, was not found the body of the priest's son; nor was there
found on the priest's body the token that he had been the bearer
of, nor the map that showed the way. For a time the Indian had
hoped that the younger priest had escaped out of the fight alive,
and had carried to them who dwelt in the walled city of Culhuacan
the message of summon