young king entered the apartment where
Cuitcatl had placed Roger, and embraced him with real affection.

"Truly, I am glad to see you again, Roger Hawkshaw. I am glad to
see you for yourself, and I hail you as a counselor, in the strange
pass to which we have come. Here are Maclutha, and my sister,
Amenche."

The queen and the princess entered as he spoke, and each gave Roger
their hand; which, bowing deeply, he raised to his lips, having
before told them that this was the salutation, among his own
people, to ladies of high rank.

"We did not think, Roger Hawkshaw, when we last parted, that we
should meet again so soon. Who could have believed then that the
little band of white men, of whose arrival upon the coast we had
heard, would have made their way on to the capital, when the
emperor was bent upon preventing their coming? We have trembled for
you, and have prayed the gods to protect you; and greatly did we
rejoice when we heard, from Cuitcatl's follower, that you had
surmounted all your dangers safely, and joined the whites.

"It has been a strange time here, since you left. I have been, for
the most part, at the capital. The news that came, from day to day,
of the progress of the whites filled everyone with surprise, and
consternation.

"We of the council met daily, but Montezuma passed his time at the
shrines and among the priests. He was a brave warrior and a great
general, once, but he is no longer himself. My father's prophecy
seems to have unmanned him, and he has given himself up wholly to
superstition. I believe in our gods, and pay them due honor; but I
do not hold that a man should not think for himself, or that he
should trust wholly in the priests, who are but men like ourselves;
and who are, methinks, but poor judges of worldly affairs, though
wise and learned in matters concerning religion. Montezuma thinks
otherwise, and the result is that no orders have been issued, no
determination arrived at, and we have the disgrace of seeing a
handful of strangers installed in the capital.

"Mind, my counsels have always been that they should be conducted
honorably from the coast, and treated as ambassadors; but we have
done neither one thing nor the other. They have been loaded with
gifts, but forbidden to come here. Yet since they came, in spite of
orders, we have seemed as if we feared to meet them; and I blush at
the thought of the treacherous plan to destroy them, at Cholula.

"The gods had proph