'
'We are all in the hands of the priests, who are the mouth of God,' he
answered coldly. 'Besides, I hold that you have lied to me.'
Then I went foreboding evil, and Guatemoc also looked downcast. Bitterly
did I curse the hour when I had said that I was of the Spanish blood and
yet no Spaniard. Had I known even what I knew that day, torture would
not have wrung those words from me. But now it was too late.
Now Guatemoc led me to certain apartments of this palace of Chapoltepec,
where his wife, the royal princess Tecuichpo, was waiting him, a very
lovely lady, and with her other ladies, among them the princess Otomie,
Montezuma's daughter, and some nobles. Here a rich repast was served to
us, and I was seated next to the princess Otomie, who spoke to me most
graciously, asking me many things concerning my land and the people of
the Teules. It was from her that I learned first that the emperor was
much disturbed at heart because of these Teules or Spaniards, for he was
superstitious, and held them to be the children of the god Quetzal, who
according to ancient prophecy would come to take the land. Indeed, so
gracious was she, and so royally lovely, that for the first time I felt
my heart stirred by any other woman than my betrothed whom I had left
far away in England, and whom, as I thought, I should never see again.
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