Also I told her how my surrender had been
sought, and she kissed me, and said smiling, that though my life was now
burdened with her, still it was better so than that I should fall into
the hands of the Spaniards.
Two days later came the news that Montezuma was dead, and shortly after
it his body, which the Spaniards handed over to the Aztecs for burial,
attired in the gorgeous robes of royalty. They laid it in the hall of
the palace, whence it was hurried secretly and at night to Chapoltepec,
and there hidden away with small ceremony, for it was feared that the
people might rend it limb from limb in their rage. With Otomie weeping
at my side, I looked for the last time on the face of that most unhappy
king, whose reign so glorious in its beginning had ended thus. And while
I looked I wondered what suffering could have equalled his, as fallen
from his estate and hated by the subjects whom he had betrayed, he lay
dying, a prisoner in the power of the foreign wolves who were tearing
out his country's heart. It is little wonder indeed that Montezuma
rent the bandages from his wounds and would not suffer them to tend his
hurts. For the real hurt was in his soul; there the iron had entered
deeply, and no leech could cure it except one called Death. And yet
the fault was not all his, the devils whom he worshipped as gods were
revenged upon him, for they had filled him with the superstitions of
their wicked faith, and because of these the gods and their high priest
must sink into a common ruin.
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