sacrifice?'

'Nay, have no fear of that. But for the rest I cannot say. In an hour
you may be dead or great among us, if any of us can be called great in
these days of shame. Otomie has worked well for you among the princes
and the counsellors, so she says, and if you have a heart, you should be
grateful to her, for it seems to me that few women have loved a man so
much. As for me, I have been employed elsewhere,' and he glanced at his
rent armour, 'but I will lift up my voice for you. Now come, friend, for
the torch burns low. By this time you must be well seasoned in dangers;
one more or less will matter as little to you as to me.'

Then I rose and followed him into the great cedar-panelled hall, where
that very morning I had received adoration as a god. Now I was a god no
longer, but a prisoner on trial for his life. Upon the dais where I had
stood in the hour of my godhead were gathered those of the princes and
counsellors who were left alive. Some of them, like Guatemoc, were clad
in rent and bloody mail, others in their customary dress, and one in
a priest's robe. They had only two things in common among them, the
sternness of their faces and the greatness of their rank, and they sat
there this night not to decide my fate, which was but a little thing,
but to take counsel as to how they might expel the Spaniards before the
city was destroyed.

When I entered, a man in mail, who sat in the centre of the half circle,
and in whom I knew Cuitlahua, who would be emperor should Montezuma die,
looked up quickly and said:

'Who is this, Guatemoc, that you bring with you? Ah! I remember; the
Teule that was the god Tezcat, and who escaped the sacrifice to-day.