her-work, and elaborately inwrought with gold and
silver. His sandals were of pure gold, with ties and anklets of gold and
silver thread, curiously interwoven with a variegated cotton cord. On
his head was a rich fillet of gold, with a beautiful plume bending
gracefully over one side, casting a melancholy shade over his handsome
but naturally pensive features. A few of the royal princes sat, in
respectful silence, at the farther end of the chamber, waiting, with an
anxiety almost equal to that of the monarch, the return of the royal
messenger.

The apartments of the emperor were richly hung with tapestry of
ornamental feather-work, rivalling, in the brilliancy of its dyes, and
the beautiful harmony of its arrangement, the celebrated Gobelin
tapestry. The floor was a tesselated pavement of porphyry and other
beautiful stones. Numerous torches, supported in massive silver stands,
delicately carved with fanciful figures of various kinds, blazed through
the apartment, lighting up, with an almost noonday brilliancy, the
gorgeous folds of the plumed hangings, and filling the whole palace with
the sweet breath of the odoriferous gums of which they were composed.

The emperor leaned pensively on his hand, seemingly oppressed with some
superstitious melancholy forebodings. Perhaps the shadow of that
mysterious prophecy, which betokened the extinction of the Aztec
dynasty, and the consequent ruin of his house, was passing athwart the
troubled sky of his mind, veiling the always doubtful future in mists of
tenfold dimness. Whatever it was that disturbed his royal serenity, his
reverie was soon broken by the sound of an approaching footstep. For a
moment, nothing was heard but the measured tread of the trembling
messenger, pacing with unwilling step the long corridor, that led to the
royal presence. With his head bowed upon his breast, his eyes fixed upon
the pavement, his person veiled in the coarse _nequen_,[A] and his feet
bare, he stood before the monarch, dumb as a statue.

"What response bring you," eagerly enquired the emperor, "from the
burning oracles of heaven? How reads the destiny of my new-born infant?"

"The response be to the enemies of the great Montezuma," replied the
messenger, without lifting his eyes from the floor, "and the destiny it
foreshadows to the children of them that hate him."

"Speak," exclaimed the monarch, "What message do you bring from the
priest of the stars?"

"Alas! my royal master, my me