[Footnote 1: See H. de Charencey, _Des Couleurs Considérées comme Symboles
des Points de l'Horizon chez les Peuples du Nouveau Monde_, in the _Actes
de la Société Philologiques_, Tome vi. No. 3.]

Nor did these sages suppose that the struggle of the dark Tezcatlipoca to
master the Light-God had ceased; no, they knew he was biding his time,
with set purpose and a fixed certainty of success. They knew that in the
second heaven there were certain frightful women, without flesh or bones,
whose names were the Terrible, or the Thin Dart-Throwers, who were waiting
there until this world should end, when they would descend and eat up all
mankind.[1] Asked concerning the time of this destruction, they replied
that as to the day or season they knew it not, but it would be "when
Tezcatlipoca should steal the sun from heaven for himself"; in other
words, when eternal night should close in upon the Universe.[2]

[Footnote 1: These frightful beings were called the _Tzitzimime_, a word
which Molina in his Vocabulary renders "cosa espantosa ó cosa de aguero."
For a thorough discussion of their place in Mexican mythology, see _Anales
del Museo Nacional_, Tom. ii, pp. 358-372.]

[Footnote 2: The whole of this version of the myth is from the work of
Ramirez de Fuen-leal, which I consider in some respects the most valuable
authority we possess. It was taken directly from the sacred books of the
Aztecs, as explained by the most competent survivors of the Conquest.]

The myth which I have here given in brief is a prominent one in Aztec
cosmogony, and is known as that of the Ages of the World or the Suns. The
opinion was widely accepted that the present is the fifth age or period of
the world's history; that it has already undergone four destructions by
various causes, and that the present period is also to terminate in