atemoc came forward, and when the priest would have cut him with
the knife, he laughed and said, pointing to the bullet wound upon his
neck:

'No need for that, priest. Blood runs here that was shed by the Teules.
None can be fitter for this purpose.'

So the priest drew away the bandage and suffered the blood of Guatemoc
to drop into a second smaller bowl. Then he came to me and dipping his
finger into the blood, he drew the sign of a cross upon my forehead as a
Christian priest draws it upon the forehead of an infant, and said:

'In the presence and the name of god our lord, who is everywhere and
sees all things, I sign you with this blood and make you of this blood.
In the presence and the name of god our lord, who is everywhere and sees
all things, I pour forth your blood upon the earth!' (here he poured
as he spoke). 'As this blood of yours sinks into the earth, so may the
memory of your past life sink and be forgotten, for you are born again
of the people of Anahuac. In the presence and the name of god our lord,
who is everywhere and sees all things, I mingle these bloods' (here
he poured from one bowl into the other), 'and with them I touch your
tongue' (here dipping his finger into the bowl he touched the tip of my
tongue with it) 'and bid you swear thus:

'"May every evil to which the flesh of man is subject enter into my
flesh, may I live in misery and die in torment by the dreadful death,
may my soul be rejected from the Houses of the Sun, may it wander
homeless for ever in the darkness that is behind the Stars, if I depart
from this my oath. I, Teule, swear to be faithful to the people of
Anahuac and to their lawful governors. I swear to wage war upon their
foes and to compass their destruction, and more especially upon the
Teules till they are driven into the sea. I swear to offer no affront to
the gods of Anahuac. I swear myself in marriage to Otomie, princess of
the Otomie, the daughter of Montezuma my lord, for so long as her life
shall endure. I swear to attempt no escape from these shores. I swear to
renounce my father and my mother, and the land where I was born, and to
cling to this land of my new birth; and this my oath shall endure till
the volcan Popo ceases to vomit smoke and fire, till there is no king
in Tenoctitlan, till no priest serves the altars of the gods, and the
people of Anahuac are no more a people."

'Do you swear these things, one and all?'

'One and all I swear them,' I answe