On Xaca's lofty summit, now as always stood a pillar of fiery smoke, and
while I gazed, to my vision the smoke and the fire separated themselves.
Out of the fire was fashioned a cross of flame, that shone like
lightning and stretched for many a rod across the heavens, its base
resting on the mountain top. At its foot rolled the clouds of smoke, and
now these too took forms vast and terrifying, such forms indeed as
those that sat in stone within the temple behind me, but magnified a
hundredfold.
'See,' said Otomie again, 'the cross of your God shines above the shapes
of mine, the lost gods whom to-night I worshipped though not of my own
will.' Then she turned and went.
For some few moments I stood very much afraid, gazing upon the vision
on Xaca's snow, then suddenly the rays of the rising sun smote it and it
was gone.
Now for three days more we held out against the Spaniards, for they
could not come at us and their shot swept over our heads harmlessly.
During these days I had no talk with Otomie, for we shrank from one
another. Hour by hour she would sit in the storehouse of the temple a
very picture of desolation. Twice I tried to speak with her, my heart
being moved to pity by the dumb torment in her eyes, but she turned her
head from me and made no answer.
Soon it came to the knowledge of the Spaniards that we had enough food
and water upon the teocalli to enable us to live there for a month or
more, and seeing that there was no hope of capturing the place by force
of arms, they called a parley with us.
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