neither life nor spirit in any that
breathed, to do the last office for the departed. Pestilence was in all
the air, so that many even of the besieging army snuffed it in the
breeze that swept over the city, and fell victims to the very fate which
their cruel rapacity was inflicting on the besieged.

Famine, cruel, gnawing famine, was in the palace of the Emperor, as well
as in the hovel of his meanest subject. That noble prince quailed not
before the fate that awaited himself. Had he stood alone in that
citadel, with power in his single arm to keep out the foe, he would have
stood till death, in whatever form, released him from his post, and
spurned every suggestion of compromise or quarter. But the scenes of
utter distress which every where met his eye--the haggard ghosts of his
friends, flitting restlessly before him, or crawling feebly and with
convulsive moans among the upturned earth, in the forlorn hope of
finding another root--the dead--the dying--the more miserable living
longing for death, and glaring with their horribly prominent, but glazed
and expressionless eye-balls on each other--this, this was too much for
the heart of Guatimozin.

"What!" he exclaimed, "shall I submit to see my last friend die before
my eyes, and my own sweet wife perish of hunger, only to retain for
another hour the empty name of king. No. I will endure it no longer. I
will go to Malinche, alone, and unaccompanied, and offer my life for
yours. He only wants our gold. Let him find that if he can. He will
spare _you_, and wreak all his vengeance on my head."

A faint murmur ran through the crowd, and then a feeble expiring "No,
never," burst feebly from many lips. One, a little stronger than the
rest, arose and said--

"Most gracious sovereign, think not of us. We only ask to live and die
with and for you. And the more cruel the death, the more glorious the
martyrdom for our country and our gods. Trust not Malinche."

The speaker fainted and fell, with his fist clenched, and his teeth set,
as if he felt that he held the last foe in mortal conflict.

"No, never--trust not Malinche--let us die together," was echoed by many
sepulchral voices, that seemed more like the groans of the dead, than
the remonstrances of the living.

"Trust not Malinche, remember my father," whispered the fond, devoted,
faithful, affectionate wife, now the shadow of her former self,
beautiful in her queenly sorrow, sublime in her womanly composure.

Guati