Thus I thought on in pitiable confusion of mind, not knowing that all these matters were beyond my ordering, since a path was already made ready to my feet, which I must follow or die.  And let this be a proof of the honesty of my words, since, had I been desirous of glozing the truth, I need have written nothing of these struggles of conscience, and of my own weakness.  For soon it was to come to this, though not by her will, that I must either wed Otomie or die at once, and few would blame me for doing the first and not the last.  Indeed, though I did wed her, I might still have declared myself to my affianced and to all the world as a slave of events from which there was no escape.  But it is not all the truth, since my mind was divided, and had it not been settled for me, I cannot say how the struggle would have ended.

Now, looking back on the distant past, and weighing my actions and character as a judge might do, I can see, however, that had I found time to consider, there was another matter which would surely have turned the scale in favour of Otomie.  De Garcia was among the Spaniards, and my hatred of de Garcia was the ruling passion of my life, a stronger passion even than my love for the two dear women who have been its joy.  Indeed, though he is dead these many years I still hate him, and evil though the desire be, even in my age I long that my vengeance was still to wreak.  While I remained among the Aztecs de Garcia would be their enemy and mine, and I might meet him in war and kill him there.  But if I succeeded in reaching the Spanish camp, then it was almost sure that he would bring about my instant death.  Doubtless he had told such a tale of me already, that within an hour I should be hung as a spy, or otherwise made away with.

But I will cease from these unprofitable wonderings which have but one value, that of setting out my strange necessity of choice between an absent and a present love, and go on with the story of an event in which there was no room to balance scruples.

While I sat musing on the couch the curtain was drawn, and a man entered bearing a torch.  It was Guatemoc as he had come from the fray, which, except for its harvest of burning houses, was finished for that night.  The plumes were shorn from his head, his golden armour was hacked by the Spanish swords, and he bled from a shot wound in the neck.

‘Greeting, Teule,’ he said.  ’Certainly I never thought to see you alive to-night, or myself either for that matter.  But it is a strange world, and now, if never before in Tenoctitlan, those things happen for which we look the least.  But I have no time for words.  I came to summon you before the council.’

‘What is to be my fate?’ I asked.  ’To be dragged back to the stone of sacrifice?’