nd trembled beneath his feet, while an untimely
night gathered at noon-day over the sky.

* * * * *

Among the noble princes who graced the court of Montezuma, there was no
one of a nobler bearing, or a loftier heart, than his nephew Guatimozin,
the favored lover of Tecuichpo. Unlike her disappointed suitor, the
Prince of Tezcuco, he had uniformly and powerfully opposed the timid
policy of the king, and urged, with Cuitlahua, a bold and unyielding
resistance to the encroachments of the intruding Spaniards. His
reluctance to their admission to the capital was so great, that he
refused to witness the humiliating spectacle; preferring to shut himself
up in the palace, and sustain, if he could, the fainting courage of the
princess, and her mother. All that could be done by eloquence, inspired
by patriotic zeal and inflamed by a pure and refined love, was attempted
by the accomplished youth, till, excited and inflamed by his own efforts
to comfort and persuade others, and nerved to higher resolves, by a new
contemplation of the inestimable heart-treasures, which were staked upon
the issue, a new hope seemed to dawn upon the clouded horizon of their
destiny.

"My fair princess," cried the impassioned lover, "it shall not be. These
wide and glorious realms, teeming with untold thousands of brave and
patriotic hearts, ready and able to defend our altars and our hearths,
shall never pass away to a mere handful of pale-faced invaders. They
_must_, they _shall_ be driven back. Or, if our gods have utterly
deserted us--if the time has indeed come, when the power and glory of
the Aztec is to pass away for ever, let the Aztec, to a man, pass away
with it. Let us perish together by our altars, and leave to the
rapacious intruder a ravaged and depopulated country. Let not one remain
to grace his triumph, or bow his neck to the ignominious yoke."

"Nay, my sweet cousin," she replied, with a tone and look of
indescribable tenderness, "we will indeed die together, if need be, but
let us first see if we cannot live together."

"Live?" exclaimed Guatimozin. "Oh! Tecuichpo, what would I not attempt,
what would I not sacrifice, to the hope of living, if I might share
that life with you. But my country! my allegiance! how can I sacrifice
that which is not my own?--that inheritance which was all my
birth-right, and which, as it preceded, must necessarily be paramount
to, all the other relations of life."

"