that their thoughts were not wholly engrossed by the business before
them. A slight noise from without, followed instantly by an exchange of
significant looks between two of the party, confirmed his suspicions.
Instantly dashing away the false scroll, and springing to his feet, he
boldly charged the traitors with a conspiracy; and demanded an immediate
explanation. Alarmed at this mysterious and premature disclosure of
their designs, the chief of the party, without venturing a word of
reply, gave a shrill, piercing whistle, which was immediately responded
to from without. Finding himself entrapped, and not knowing what numbers
he might have to contend with, Guatimozin sprang to the door, stretching
one of the conspirators on the floor as he passed, and succeeded in
reaching his skiff, just as a band of armed men rushed in from the other
quarter. Cuitlahua also effected his escape, though not without a
desperate encounter with one of the advancing party, who attempted to
arrest his flight.

To seize his antagonist with a powerful embrace, to fling him over the
parapet into the water, and to plunge in after him, was the work of an
instant. Swimming under water for some distance, and rising to the
surface within the shadow of the building, he took possession of the
nearest canoe, and, following in the wake of Guatimozin, was soon out
of the reach of danger, or pursuit.

Cacama, unsuspicious of danger, and intent only on the object of their
meeting, was so engrossed with the scroll, and the plans delineated upon
it, that he did not fully comprehend the meaning of this sudden
interruption of their council, until his two friends had disappeared,
and, in their place, a band of twenty armed men stood before him.
Resistance was vain. By order of the chief of the conspirators, he was
seized, securely bound, and carried a prisoner to Tenochtitlan. There,
though treated with indignity by Cortez, and with severity by Montezuma,
he maintained a haughty and independent bearing, sternly refusing to
yield, in the slightest degree, to the insolent dictation of the one, or
the pusillanimous policy of the other. Cuitlahua was afterwards seized
in his own palace of Iztapalapan; but, after a short detention, was
released again, at the instigation of Montezuma.

These outrages, so far from intimidating the people, only excited and
incensed them the more, and led to other and more desperate assaults
upon the beleaguered foe, till Cortez, a