Wrapped in dreams, I lay on the night in question tranquilly sleeping, but gradually roused to a perception that discordant sounds disturbed the serenity of my slumber.  Loth to stir, I still dozed on, the sounds, however, becoming, as it seemed, more determined to make themselves heard; and I awoke to the consciousness that they proceeded from a belt of adjacent jungle, and resembled the noise that would be produced by some person felling timber.

Shutting my ears to the disturbance, I made no sign, until, with an expression of impatience, E—–­ suddenly started up, when I laid a detaining grasp upon his arm, murmuring that there was no need to think of rising at present—­it must be quite early, and the kitchen cooly was doubtless cutting fire-wood in good time.  E—–­ responded, in a tone of slight contempt, that no one could be cutting fire-wood at that hour, and the sounds were more suggestive of felling jungle; and he then inquired how long I had been listening to them.  Now thoroughly aroused, I replied that I had heard the sounds for some time, at first confusing them with my dreams, but soon sufficiently awakening to the fact that they were no mere phantoms of my imagination, but a reality.  During our conversation the noises became more distinct and loud; blow after blow resounded, as of the axe descending upon the tree, followed by the crash of the falling timber.  Renewed blows announced the repetition of the operations on another tree, and continued till several were devastated.

It is unnecessary to tell more of the tale.  In spite of minute examinations and close search, no solution of the mystery of the noises, on this or any other occasion, was ever found.  The natives, of course, attributed the disturbance to the Pezazi, or goblin.  No one, perhaps, has asserted that the Aztecs were connected by ties of race with the people of Ceylon.  Yet, when the Spaniards conquered Mexico, and when Sahagun (one of the earliest missionaries) collected the legends of the people, he found them, like the Cingalese, strong believers in the mystic tree-felling.  We translate Sahagun’s account of the ’midnight axe’:—­

When so any man heareth the sound of strokes in the night, as if one were felling trees, he reckons it an evil boding.  And this sound they call youaltepuztli (youalli, night; and tepuztli, copper), which signifies ‘the midnight hatchet.’  This noise cometh about the time of the first sleep, when all men slumber soundly, and the night is still.  The sound of strokes smitten was first noted by the temple-servants, called tlamacazque, at the hour when they go in the night to make their offering of reeds or of boughs of pine, for so was their custom, and this penance they did on the neighbouring hills, and that when the night was far spent.  Whenever they heard such a sound as one makes when he splits wood with an axe (a noise that may be heard afar off), they drew thence an