The History of Initiation - The Masonic Trowel

202 HISTORY OP INITIATION
his cries might not be heard. Thus was he conducted
through caverns slippery with half congealed blood;
damp, gloomy, and full of terror. His ears are saluted
with heavy groans. His heart throbs as they seem to
rise from beneath his feet. His fears are realized ; for
here lay the quivering frame of a dying victim, whose
heart had been violently rent from its living sepulchre, 42
and offered up in sacrifice to the sanguinary gods. 43 The
candidate averts his eyes, and trembles for his own
security. He turns to his guide and is about to break
through the strict injunction of silence which he received
at his entrance into these subterranean chambers of
death. His guide, with an expressive look, lays his finger
on his
lips, and the candidate restrains his indignation.
He pauses and looks around him. He finds himself in a
spacious vault, through which an artificial sun or lambent
44 flame darted its feeble lustre and in ;
the roof observes
a small orifice, through which the wretched victim had
been precipitated ; for they were now immediately beneath
the high altar of Vitzliputzli. 45
Hurried on from one horror to another, it was only
the rapidity of his movements that prevented him from
sinking under the trial ; it was only the change of scene
and situation which, dissipating reflection, supported him
under the arduous ceremony. At length they arrived at
a narrow chasm or stone fissure at the termination of
this extensive range of caverns, through which the
42 We have already seen that the priests were clothed in the skins
of victims and ; they had another disgusting practice of a similar nature,
which is thus related. "It was a custom among them on certain
festivals, to dress a man in the bloody skin, just reeking from the body
of one of their victims. A Spanish author assures us that even their
kings and grandees did not think it derogatory to their honour to disguise
themselves in this manner, when the captive sacrificed was a
person of distinction. Be that as it will, the disguised person used to
run up and down the streets, and places of public resort of the city, to
beg the charity of all those he met with, and to beat such as refused.
This bloody kind of masquerade continued till such time as the skin
coat began to stink. The money that was collected in this devout
ramble, was employed in pious uses. Not to mention another festival,
when they used to slay a woman, and clothe an Indian with her skin,
who, thus equipped, danced for two days together with the rest of his
fellow-citizens." (Univ. Dis., vol. i., p. 189, 192.)
43 Acosta. Hist. Ind., p. 382. Fab. Pag. Idol., vol. iii., p. 189.
45 Humb. Res., vol. i., p. 222.