Me also they saluted as I passed, by touching the
earth with their right hands and then holding the hand above the head,
but I think that the horse I rode caused them more wonder than I did,
for the most of them had never seen a horse and looked on it as a
monster or a demon. So we went on through the shouting mass, followed
and preceded by thousands of warriors, many of them decked in glittering
feather mail and bearing broidered banners, till we had passed the
pyramid, where I saw the priests at their cruel work above us, and were
come to the palace gates. And here in a strange chamber sculptured with
grinning demons we found rest for a while.
On the morrow in the great hall of the palace was held a council of the
chiefs and head men of the Otomie clans, to the number of a hundred or
more. When all were gathered, dressed as an Aztec noble of the first
rank, I came out with Otomie, who wore royal robes and looked most
beautiful in them, and the council rose to greet us. Otomie bade them be
seated and addressed them thus:
'Hear me, you chiefs and captains of my mother's race, who am your
princess by right of blood, the last of your ancient rulers, and who am
moreover the daughter of Montezuma, Emperor of Anahuac, now dead to us
but living evermore in the Mansions of the Sun. First I present to you
this my husband, the lord Teule, to whom I was given in marriage when
he held the spirit of the god Tezcat, and whom, when he had passed the
altar of the god, being chosen by heaven to aid us in our war, I
wedded anew after the fashion of the earth, and by the will of my royal
brethren.
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