So we went, though Otomie desired to stay behind, leaving our son alone in the chamber where food had been brought to him.  I remember that I kissed him before I left, though I do not know what moved me to do so, unless it was because I thought that he might be asleep when I returned.  The Captain Diaz had his quarters at the other end of the palace, some two hundred paces away.  Presently we stood before him.  He was a rough-looking, thick-set man well on in years, with bright eyes and an ugly honest face, like the face of a peasant who has toiled a lifetime in all weathers, only the fields that Diaz tilled were fields of war, and his harvest had been the lives of men.  Just then he was joking with some common soldiers in a strain scarcely suited to nice ears, but so soon as he saw us he ceased and came forward.  I saluted him after the Indian fashion by touching the earth with my hand, for what was I but an Indian captive?

‘Your sword,’ he said briefly, as he scanned me with his quick eyes.

I unbuckled it from my side and handed it to him, saying in Spanish: 

’Take it, Captain, for you have conquered, also it does but come back to its owner.’  For this was the same sword that I had captured from one Bernal Diaz in the fray of the noche triste.

He looked at it, then swore a great oath and said: 

’I thought that it could be no other man.  And so we meet again thus after so many years.  Well, you gave me my life once, and I am glad that I have lived to pay the debt.  Had I not been sure that it was you, you had not won such easy terms, friend.  How are you named?  Nay, I know what the Indians call you.’

‘I am named Wingfield.’

’Friend Wingfield then.  For I tell you that I would have sat beneath yonder devil’s house,’ and he nodded towards the teocalli, ’till you starved upon its top.  Nay, friend Wingfield, take back the sword.  I suited myself with another many years ago, and you have used this one gallantly; never have I seen Indians make a better fight.  And so that is Otomie, Montezuma’s daughter and your wife, still handsome and royal, I see.  Lord!  Lord! it is many years ago, and yet it seems but yesterday that I saw her father die, a Christian-hearted man, though no Christian, and one whom we dealt ill with.  May God forgive us all!  Well, Madam, none can say that you have a Christian heart.  If a certain tale that I have heard of what passed yonder, some three nights since, is true.  But we will speak no more of it, for the savage blood will show, and you are pardoned for your husband’s sake who saved my comrades from the sacrifice.’

To all this Otomie listened, standing still like a statue, but she never answered a word.  Indeed she had spoken very rarely since that dreadful night of her unspeakable shame.

‘And now, friend Wingfield,’ went on the Captain Diaz, ’what is your purpose?  You are free to go where you will, whither then will you go?’