Beadle's Dime Novels No. 253: The White Gladiator

About this issue

This issue contains the opening chapters of The White Gladiator: A Tale of the Last of the Montezumas, serialized across multiple issues. The narrative, set in Cholula in 1519, depicts a human sacrifice ceremony at the great teocalli (pyramid temple) dedicated to Quetzalcoatl, the War-god. Prince Guatemoczin, tasked with sacrificing a victim to divine the nature of arriving Spanish strangers, discovers the intended sacrifice is Manola, his betrothed. Overcome by superstitious fear of the idol's apparent anger, he initially complies, but Manola survives the blow and flees the altar. Pursued across the temple platform, she and a pursuing priest fall from a precipice; the priest dies while Manola, miraculously unhurt, escapes into the sacred grove as imperial officers and crowds chase her through Cholula's streets. The issue also advertises the next installment: The Outlaw Ranger: The Old Hiker's Last Trail by Joseph E. Badger, Jr., a frontier narrative set in Missouri's settlement era.