And as I learned in after days mine was not the only heart that was
stirred that night.
Near to us sat another royal lady, Papantzin, the sister of Montezuma,
but she was neither young nor lovely, and yet most sweet faced and sad
as though with the presage of death. Indeed she died not many weeks
after but could not rest quiet in her grave, as shall be told.
When the feast was done and we had drunk of the cocoa or chocolate,
and smoked tobacco in pipes, a strange but most soothing custom that I
learned in Tobasco and of which I have never been able to break myself,
though the weed is still hard to come by here in England, I was led to
my sleeping place, a small chamber panelled with cedar boards. For a
while I could not sleep, for I was overcome by the memory of all the
strange sights that I had seen in this wonderful new land which was so
civilised and yet so barbarous. I thought of that sad-faced king, the
absolute lord of millions, surrounded by all that the heart of man can
desire, by vast wealth, by hundreds of lovely wives, by loving children,
by countless armies, by all the glory of the arts, ruling over the
fairest empire on the earth, with every pleasure to his hand, a god in
all things save his mortality, and worshipped as a god, and yet a victim
to fear and superstition, and more heavy hearted than the meanest slave
about his palaces.
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