he. "Fools! know ye
not that knowledge is forbidden? And yet, if you are any better than a
parcel of mules, you may see and understand."

"And if we _are_ no better than mules?" cried a voice.

"Then will I be your _arriero_, and drive you," replied the stranger
laughing, and tripping round the cart. "Mules! ay, _Madre de Dios!_ that
are ye, and have been all the days of your lives, ever since the gloomy
Gachupin yonder"--and he pointed to the monster, half monk, half
beast--"has chosen for his resting-place the body of the poor unhappy
creature, whom some call Anahuac, some Mexitli, and some Guatemozin.[11]
Mules, ay, threefold mules! Poor mules!" added he, in a tone of mingled
compassion and contempt.

"Poor mules!" sighed the surrounding spectators, gazing alternately at
the speaker and at the bleeding Torso.

On a sudden, the masked cavalier raised the cowl of the monster-monk,
and the severed head of the Torso rolled out from it. The features were
Indian, modelled and coloured in so masterly a manner, that the
resemblance they were intended to convey struck every body, and hundreds
of voices simultaneously exclaimed--

"Guatemozin!"

"Guatemozin!" was repeated from mouth to mouth, while the _pregonero_ or
crier, as the crowd had already christened the speaker, continued to
lift the veil from the significant allegory before him.

"See!" cried he, "here have his claws struck deepest. 'Tis in Guanaxato
and Guadalajara."

A shudder seemed to run through the crowd.

"'Tis Tio Gachupin," continued the pregonero with a strange laugh, "who
would fain play with you the same game that he did three centuries since
with poor Guatemozin. And see! 'tis Guatemozin's ghost that appears
bleeding before ye, and claims vengeance at your hands!"

It had now become evident to the surrounding crowd, that the pageant had
a deep and dangerous political meaning. The spectators had greatly
increased, and were each moment increasing, in number; the flat roofs
and the _miradores_, or latticed balconies, of the surrounding houses,
were crowded with gazers, while the street presented the appearance of a
sea of heads. A deep silence reigned, broken only by an occasional
whisper, or by the peculiar kind of low shuddering murmur that the
Indian is apt to utter when reminded of the power and prosperity of his
forefathers. Suddenly there was a loud cry.

"Vigilancia! Vigilancia!" was shouted from a distant balcony. The word
passed fro