years! My lord, my husband Teule and I have won back the most part of
the people of the Otomie to our cause and standard. An army of twenty
thousand mountain men waits upon your word, and when those are spent
there are more to follow.'

'Well done, daughter of Montezuma, and you, white man,' gasped the dying
king. 'The gods were wise when they refused you both upon the stone of
sacrifice, and I was foolish when I would have slain you, Teule. To you
and all I say be of a steadfast heart, and if you must die, then die
with honour. The fray draws on, but I shall not share it, and who knows
its end?'

Now he lay silent for a while, then of a sudden, as though an
inspiration had seized him, he cast the sheet from his face and sat upon
his couch, no pleasant sight to see, for the pestilence had done its
worst with him.

'Alas!' he wailed, 'and alas! I see the streets of Tenoctitlan red with
blood and fire, I see her dead piled up in heaps, and the horses of the
Teules trample them. I see the Spirit of my people, and her voice is
sighing and her neck is heavy with chains. The children are visited
because of the evil of the fathers. Ye are doomed, people of Anahuac,
whom I would have nurtured as an eagle nurtures her young. Hell yawns
for you and Earth refuses you because of your sins, and the remnant
that remains shall be slaves from generation to generation, till the
vengeance is accomplished!'

Having cried thus with a great voice, Cuitlahua fell back upon the
cushions, and before the frightened leech who tended him could lift his
head, he had passed beyond the troubles of this earth. But the words