At dark, on the last dread evening,—as soon as the sun had set, as they imagined, forever,—a sad and solemn procession of priests and people marched forth from the city to a neighboring hill, to rekindle the "New Fire." This mournful march was called the "procession of the gods," and was supposed to be their final departure from their temples and altars.
As soon as the melancholy array reached the summit of the hill, it reposed in fearful anxiety until the Pleiades reached the zenith in the sky, whereupon the priests immediately began the sacrifice of a human victim, whose breast was covered with a wooden shield, which the chief flamen kindled by friction. When the sufferer received the fatal stab from the sacrificial knife of obsidian, the machine was set in motion on his bosom, until the blaze had kindled. The anxious crowd stood round with fear and trembling. Silence reigned over nature and man. Not a word