This was the manner of her death.  She had drunk of a poison of which the Indians have the secret, a poison that works slowly and without pain, leaving the mind unclouded to the end.  It was while her life was fading from her that she had spoken to me thus sadly and bitterly.  I sat upon the bed and gazed at her.  I did not weep, for my tears were done, and as I have said, whatever I might feel nothing could break my calm any more.  And as I gazed a great tenderness and sorrow took hold of me, and I loved Otomie better now that she was dead before me than ever I had done in her life days, and this is saying much.  I remembered her in the glory of her youth as she was in the court of her royal father, I remembered the look which she had given me when she stepped to my side upon the stone of sacrifice, and that other look when she defied Cuitlahua the emperor, who would have slain me.  Once more I seemed to hear her cry of bitter sorrow as she uncovered the body of the dead babe our firstborn, and to see her sword in hand standing over the Tlascalan.

Many things came back to me in that sad hour of dawn while I watched by the corpse of Otomie.  There was truth in her words, I had never forgotten my first love and often I desired to see her face.  But it was not true to say that I had no love for Otomie.  I loved her well and I was faithful in my oath to her, indeed, not until she was dead did I know how dear she had grown to me.  It is true that there was a great gulf between us which widened with the years, the gulf of blood and faith, for I knew well that she could not altogether put away her old beliefs, and it is true that when I saw her leading the death chant, a great horror took me and for a while I loathed her.  But these things I might have lived to forgive, for they were part of her blood and nature, moreover, the last and worst of them was not done by her own will, and when they were set aside there remained much that I could honour and love in the memory of this most royal and beautiful woman, who for so many years was my faithful wife.  So I thought in that hour and so I think to this day.  She said that we parted for ever, but I trust and I believe that this is not so.  Surely there is forgiveness for us all, and a place where those who were near and dear to each other on the earth may once more renew their fellowship.

At last I rose with a sigh to seek help, and as I rose I felt that there was something set about my neck.  It was the collar of great emeralds which Guatemoc had given to me, and that I had given to Otomie.  She had set it there while I slept, and with it a lock of her long hair.  Both shall be buried with me.

I laid her in the ancient sepulchre amid the bones of her forefathers and by the bodies of her children, and two days later I rode to Mexico in the train of Bernal Diaz.  At the mouth of the pass I turned and looked back upon the ruins of the City of Pines, where I had lived so many years and where all I loved were buried.  Long and earnestly I gazed, as in his hour of death a man looks back upon his past life, till at length Diaz laid his hand upon my shoulder: