princes their
servants; the canals run red with the blood of your children, your
gateways are blocked with their bones. Death is about you everywhere,
dishonour is your daily bread, desolation is your portion. Farewell
to you, queen of the cities, cradle of my forefathers in which I was
nursed!'

Thus Montezuma lamented in the darkness, and as he cried aloud the great
moon rose over the edge of the world and poured its level light through
the boughs of the cedars clothed in their ghostly robe of moss. It
struck upon Montezuma's tall shape, on his distraught countenance and
thin hands as he waved them to and fro in his prophetic agony, on my
glittering garments, and the terror-stricken band of courtiers, and the
musicians who had ceased from their music. A little wind sprang up
also, moaning sadly in the mighty trees above and against the rocks of
Chapoltepec. Never did I witness a scene more strange or more pregnant
with mystery and the promise of unborn horror, than that of this great
monarch mourning over the downfall of his race and power. As yet no
misfortune had befallen the one or the other, and still he knew that
both were doomed, and these words of lamentation burst from a heart
broken by a grief of which the shadow only lay upon it.

But the wonders of that night were not yet done with.

When Montezuma had made an end of crying his prophecies, I asked him
humbly if I should summon to him the lords who were in attendance on
him, but who stood at some distance.

'Nay,' he answered, 'I will not have them see me thus with grief and
terror upon my face. Whoever fears, at least I must seem brave. Walk
with me a while, Teule, and if it is in your mind to murder me I shall
not grieve.'

I made no answer, but followed him as he led the way down the darkest of
the winding paths that run between the cedar trees, where it would have
been easy for me to kill him if I wished, but I could not see how I
should be advantaged by the deed; also though I knew that Montezuma was
my enemy, my heart shrank from the thought of murder. For a mile or more
he walked on without speaking, now beneath the shadow of the trees, and
now through open spaces of garden planted with lovely flowers, till at
last we came to the gates of the place where the royal dead are laid to
rest. Now in front of these gates was an open space of turf on which the
moonlight shone brightly, and in the centre of this space lay something
white, shaped like a