'The description is good,' he said at length, 'in all save one thing--it
does not say that this prisoner is the handsomest man in Anahuac. Say,
Teule, why have your countrymen landed on my dominions and slain my
people?'
'I know nothing of it, O king,' I answered as well as I might with the
help of Guatemoc, 'and they are not my countrymen.'
'The report says that you confess to having the blood of these Teules in
your veins, and that you came to these shores, or near them, in one of
their great canoes.'
'That is so, O king, yet I am not of their people, and I came to the
shore floating on a barrel.'
'I hold that you lie,' answered Montezuma frowning, 'for the sharks and
crocodiles would devour one who swam thus.' Then he added anxiously,
'Say, are you of the descendants of Quetzal?'
'I do not know, O king. I am of a white race, and our forefather was
named Adam.'
'Perchance that is another name for Quetzal,' he said. 'It has long been
prophesied that his children would return, and now it seems that the
hour of their coming is at hand,' and he sighed heavily, then added: 'Go
now. To-morrow you shall tell me of these Teules, and the council of the
priests shall decide your fate.'
Now when I heard the name of the priests I trembled in all my bones and
cried, clasping my hands in supplication:
'Slay me if you will, O king, but I beseech you deliver me not again
into the hands of the priests.
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