ue,
of Painalla, on the southeastern borders of the Mexican kingdom. He
had died when she was very young, and her mother had married again,
and had a son. One night her mother had handed her over to some
traders, by whom she had been carried away. She had learned, from
their conversation, that her mother desired her son to inherit all
her possessions; and that she had, therefore, sold her to these
traders. The daughter of one of her slaves had died that evening,
and she intended to give out that Malinche was dead, and to
celebrate her funeral in the usual way. The traders had brought her
to Tabasco, and sold her to the cazique of that town.

"But this mother of yours must be an infamous woman, Malinche,"
Roger said indignantly, "thus to sell away her own daughter to be a
slave!"

"Girls are not much good," Malinche said, sadly. "They cannot
fight, and they cannot govern a people. It was natural that my
mother should prefer her son to me, and should wish to see him a
cazique, when he grew up."

Roger refused to see the matter in that light, at all, and was
indignant at Malinche for the forbearance that she showed, in
speaking of the author of her misfortunes.

This conversation had taken place at the time when Roger had first
learned to converse in the Tabascan language. The girl's
statements, with regard to the wealth of the country to which she
belonged, had fired his imagination. This was doubtless the country
concerning which rumors were current among the Spanish islands, and
with whom it had been the purpose of his father's expedition to
open trade.

Malinche told him that they spoke a language quite different from
that of the Tabascans. There were many dialects among the various
peoples under the sway of the Aztecs; but all could understand each
other, as they had all come down, from the far north, to settle in
the country.

Thinking the matter over he determined, if possible, that he would
someday make his way over to Malinche's country, which seemed so
far in advance of the Tabascans.

"The Spaniards will go there some day," he said; "and although they
would kill me without hesitation, if they found an Englishman there
before them; I might yet, in some way or other, manage to achieve
my escape."

Accordingly, he asked Malinche to teach him her language; and at
the end of the six months he could converse with her in it, almost
as readily as he could in Tabascan; for in learning it he had none
of the