Here they attacked us again.  The great drum on the teocalli beat for the last time, and for the last time the wild scream of the Aztec warriors went up to heaven.  We fought our best; I killed four men that day with my arrows which Otomie, who was at my side, handed me as I shot.  But the most of us had not the strength of a child, and what could we do?  They came among us like seamen among a flock of seals, and slaughtered us by hundreds.  They drove us into the canals and trod us to death there, till bridges were made of our bodies.  How we escaped I do not know.

At length a party of us, among whom was Guatemoc with his wife Tecuichpo, were driven to the shores of the lake where lay canoes, and into these we entered, scarcely knowing what we did, but thinking that we might escape, for now all the city was taken.  The brigantines saw us and sailed after us with a favouring wind—­the wind always favoured the foe in that war—­and row as we would, one of them came up with us and began to fire into us.  Then Guatemoc stood up and spoke, saying: 

’I am Guatemoc.  Bring me to Malinche.  But spare those of my people who remain alive.’

‘Now,’ I said to Otomie at my side, ’my hour has come, for the Spaniards will surely hang me, and it is in my mind, wife, that I should do well to kill myself, so that I may be saved from a death of shame.’

‘Nay, husband,’ she answered sadly, ’as I said in bygone days, while you live there is hope, but the dead come back no more.  Fortune may favour us yet; still, if you think otherwise, I am ready to die.’

‘That I will not suffer, Otomie.’

’Then you must hold your hand, husband, for now as always, where you go, I follow.’

‘Listen,’ I whispered; ’do not let it be known that you are my wife; pass yourself as one of the ladies of Tecuichpo, the queen, your sister.  If we are separated, and if by any chance I escape, I will try to make my way to the City of Pines.  There, among your own people, we may find refuge.’

‘So be it, beloved,’ she answered, smiling sadly.  ’But I do not know how the Otomie will receive me, who have led twenty thousand of their bravest men to a dreadful death.’

Now we were on the deck of the brigantine and must stop talking, and thence, after the Spaniards had quarrelled over us a while, we were taken ashore and led to the top of a house which still stood, where Cortes had made ready hurriedly to receive his royal prisoner.  Surrounded by his escort, the Spanish general stood, cap in hand, and by his side was Marina, grown more lovely than before, whom I now met for the first time since we had parted in Tobasco.

Our eyes met and she started, thereby showing that she knew me again, though it must have been hard for Marina to recognise her friend Teule in the blood-stained, starving, and tattered wretch who could scarcely find strength to climb the azotea.  But at that time no words passed between us, for all eyes were bent on the meeting between Cortes and Guatemoc, between the conqueror and the conquered.