'Why not, princess?' I answered. 'If I had no respect for rank, surely
beauty must claim it.'

'A truce to words,' she replied with a wave of her slim hand. 'I come
here, O Tezcat, according to the ancient custom, because I am charged
with a message to you. Those whom you shall wed are chosen. I am the
bearer of their names.'

'Speak on, princess of the Otomie.'

'They are'--and she named three ladies whom I knew to be among the
loveliest in the land.

'I thought that there were four,' I said with a bitter laugh. 'Am I to
be defrauded of the fourth?'

'There is a fourth,' she answered, and was silent.

'Give me her name,' I cried. 'What other slut has been found to marry a
felon doomed to sacrifice?'

'One has been found, O Tezcat, who has borne other titles than this you
give her.'

Now I looked at her questioningly, and she spoke again in a low voice.

'I, Otomie, princess of the Otomie, Montezuma's daughter, am the fourth
and the first.'