to-day. For Guatemoc prayed him again and yet again to put away his
fears and declare open war upon the Teules before it was too late; to
cease from making gifts and sending embassies, to gather his countless
armies and smite the foe in the mountain passes.

But Montezuma would answer, 'To what end, nephew? How can I struggle
against these men when the gods themselves have declared for them?
Surely the gods can take their own parts if they wish it, and if they
will not, for myself and my own fate I do not care, but alas! for my
people, alas! for the women and the children, the aged and the weak.'

Then he would cover his face and moan and weep like a child, and
Guatemoc would pass from his presence dumb with fury at the folly of
so great a king, but helpless to remedy it. For like myself, Guatemoc
believed that Montezuma had been smitten with a madness sent from heaven
to bring the land to ruin.

Now it must be understood that though my place as a god gave me
opportunities of knowing all that passed, yet I Thomas Wingfield, was
but a bubble on that great wave of events which swept over the world of
Anahuac two generations since. I was a bubble on the crest of the wave
indeed, but at that time I had no more power than the foam has over the
wave. Montezuma distrusted me as a spy, the priests looked on me as a
god and future victim and no more, only Guatemoc my friend, and Otomie
who loved me secretly, had any faith in me, and with these two I
often talked, showing them the true meaning of those things that were
happening before our eyes. But they also were strengthless, for though
his reason was no longer captain, still the unchecked power of Montezuma
guided the ship of state first this way and then that, just as a rudder
directs a vessel to its ruin when the helmsman has left it, and it