But, my father! dear Guatimozin! must he not be obeyed?"

"Yes, and he shall be. But he _must_ be persuaded, even at this late
hour, to dismiss the strangers, and banish them for ever from his
domains. He has no right to yield it up. It belongs to his subjects no
less than to him. He belongs to them, by the same sacred bond that binds
them all to him. He may not sacrifice them to a scruple, which has in it
more of superstition than of religion. I must go to the Temple of
Cholula, and bring up the hoary old prophet of Quetzalcoatl, and see if
he cannot move the too tender conscience of your father, and persuade
him that his duty to his gods cannot, by any possibility, be made to
conflict with his duty to his empire, and the mighty family of dependent
children, whom the gods have committed to his care."

"Oh! not now, Guatimozin, I pray you. Do not leave us at this terrible
moment. Stay, and sustain with your courageous hopes the sad heart of my
dear father, who is utterly overwhelmed with the dire omens of this
dismal morning."

"Omens! Oh! Tecuichpo, shall we not rather say that the gods have thus
frowned upon our cowardly abandonment of their altars, than that they
design, in these dark portents, to denounce an irreversible doom, which
our prayers cannot avert, nor our combined wisdom and courage prevent?"

* * * * *

At this moment Montezuma returned. But the deep distress depicted in his
countenance, and the air of stern reserve which he assumed in the
presence of those whose counsels would tend to shake his resolve,
effectually prevented Guatimozin from pursuing, at that moment, the
object nearest his heart. He retired into the garden, where he was soon
joined by the fair princess, who wished to divert him from his purposed
visit to Cholula, knowing full well it would be a fruitless mission.

"But why, my brave cousin, may not my father be right, in feeling that
these strangers are sent to us from the gods? And if from the gods, then
surely for our good; for the gods are all beneficence, and can only
intend the well-being of their children, in all the changes that befal
us here. Perhaps these strangers will teach us more of the beings whom
we worship, and direct us how we may serve them better than we now do,
and so partake more largely of their favor."

"Alas! my beloved, how can we hope that they who come to destroy, whose
only god is gold--to the possession of which they are r