‘Why do they come here to Anahuac?’

’I fear, O king, that they come to take the land, or at the least to rob it of all its treasure, and to destroy its faiths.’

’What then is your counsel, Teule?  How can I defend myself against these mighty men, who are clothed in metal, and ride upon fierce wild beasts, who have instruments that make a noise like thunder, at the sound of which their adversaries fall dead by hundreds, and who bear weapons of shining silver in their hands?  Alas! there is no defence possible, for they are the children of Quetzal come back to take the land.  From my childhood I have known that this evil overshadowed me, and now it is at my door.’

’If I, who am only a god, may venture to speak to the lord of the earth,’ I answered, ’I say that the reply is easy.  Meet force by force.  The Teules are few and you can muster a thousand soldiers for every one of theirs.  Fall on them at once, do not hesitate till their prowess finds them friends, but crush them.’

‘Such is the counsel of one whose mother was a Teule;’ the emperor answered, with sarcasm and bitter meaning.  ’Tell me now, counsellor, how am I to know that in fighting against them I shall not be fighting against the gods; how even am I to learn the true wishes and purposes of men or gods who cannot speak my tongue and whose tongue I cannot speak?’

‘It is easy, O Montezuma,’ I answered.  ’I can speak their tongue; send me to discover for you.’

Now as I spoke thus my heart bounded with hope, for if once I could come among the Spaniards, perhaps I might escape the altar of sacrifice.  Also they seemed a link between me and home.  They had sailed hither in ships, and ships can retrace their path.  For though at present my lot was not all sorrow, it will be guessed that I should have been glad indeed to find myself once more among Christian men.

Montezuma looked at me a while and answered: 

’You must think me very foolish, Teule.  What! shall I send you to tell my fears and weakness to your countrymen, and to show them the joints in my harness?  Do you then suppose that I do not know you for a spy sent to this land by these same Teules to gather knowledge of the land?  Fool, I knew it from the first, and by Huitzel! were you not vowed to Tezcat, your heart should smoke to-morrow on the altar of Huitzel.  Be warned, and give me no more false counsels lest your end prove swifter than you think.  Learn that I have asked these questions of you to a purpose, and by the command of the gods, as it was written on the hearts of those sacrificed this day.  This was the purpose and this was the command, that I might discover your secret mind, and that I should shun whatever advice you chanced to give.  You counsel me to fight the Teules, therefore I will not fight them, but meet them with gifts and fair words, for I know well that you would have me to do that which should bring me to my doom.’