I stood still listening.

Did my ears trick me, or did I hear the dreadful song of sacrifice?
Nay, again its wild refrain rang out upon the silence: To Thee we sacrifice! Save us, O Huitzel, Huitzel, lord god! I rushed forward, and turning the angle of the temple I found myself face to face with the past, for there as in bygone years were the pabas clad in their black robes, their long hair hanging about their shoulders, the dreadful knife of glass fixed in their girdles; there to the right of the stone of sacrifice were those destined to the god, and there being led towards it was the first victim, a Tlascalan prisoner, his limbs held by men clad in the dress of priests.

Near him, arrayed in the scarlet robe of sacrifice, stood one of my own captains, who I remembered had once served as a priest of Tezcat before idolatry was forbidden in the City of Pines, and around were a wide circle of women that watched, and from whose lips swelled the awful chant.
Now I understood it all.

In their last despair, maddened by the loss of fathers, husbands, and children, by their cruel fate, and standing face to face with certain death, the fire of the old faith had burnt up in their savage hearts.

There was the temple, there were the stone and implements of sacrifice, and there to their hands were the victims taken in war.