had represented this
removal as a voluntary act of courtesy, on his part, designed to
compliment the strangers, by becoming, for a time, their guest, and to
inspire them, by his personal presence among them, with confidence in
his professions of regard, as well as to show his own people how strong
the bond of amity was between them. At the same time, however, that he
assured them of his personal safety and his confidence that all would
end well, he recommended his wives and children to leave him, for the
present, and take up their abode in his rural mountain palace at
Chapoltepec.

The timid and sensitive Tecuichpo was thrown into the deepest distress
by this suggestion. She could not doubt the repeated assurances of her
royal father, and yet she could not divest herself of the sad impression
that his liberty, and perhaps his life, was in danger, in thus
separating himself from the strong arms and devoted hearts of his own
people, his natural protectors, and throwing himself, unarmed, into the
garrison of the fearful strangers. What security could she have that he
would ever return, or that violence would not be offered to his sacred
person by those who looked upon him only as the vassal of their own
sovereign, to be used for his purposes and theirs, as their own
selfishness and rapacity might dictate.

"Leave us not, my dear father," she exclaimed, "or at least compel not
us to leave _you_. Rather in darkness and in trouble than at any other
time, would we stand at your side, to administer, as far as we may, to
your comfort, and to share, and perhaps lighten, your sorrows."

"Nay, my beloved child," the grateful monarch calmly replied, "I have no
need, at this time, of your solace, or your counsel. I go among friends,
who respect my person and my authority, and who well know that their own
safety in Tenochtitlan, depends entirely upon retaining my friendship,
which alone can shield them from being overwhelmed, and swept away like
chaff, before the countless hosts of my warrior bands. Why then should I
fear for myself. But for you, and your mother, and your sisters, the
camp of the strangers is not a fitting place for you. They have customs
of their own, and are slow to recognize the propriety of ours, deeming
us, as they do, an inferior race of beings. They are bold and free in
their manners, quite too much so for the refined delicacy of an Aztec
maiden, or an Aztec matron, as you yourself both saw and felt, at the