been plentifully supplied, and their hopes continually
encouraged by the occasional losses of their enemy, whose numbers were
too small to admit of much diminution. The priests were unremitting in
their appeals to the patriotism of the people, and in promises of
peculiar divine blessings on all who should persevere to the last, in
defence of their altars and their gods. Guatimozin was ever among his
people, encouraging them by kind words, and an example of unyielding
defiance to every advance of the foe. He showed that he was not less the
father of his people, than their king, suffering the same exposure, and
enduring the same fatigues with the boldest and hardiest of his
subjects.

Such was their confidence of ultimate success in the defence of the
capital, that the splendor and gaiety of the court was little
diminished, until famine began to stare them in the face. The aqueduct
of Chapoltepec had been cut off, and there was no longer any supply of
wholesome water in the city. The dark visions of the lovely queen were
now renewed. For a brief season, she had been permitted to revel in
daylight, with scarcely a cloud to darken the sky above her. Suddenly
that light was obscured. All was gloom and darkness around her. War,
desolating war hovered once more about the gates of the beloved city.
Wan faces, and haggard forms began to take the places of the gay, happy,
spirited multitudes, that so recently thronged the palace. The image of
her father, insulted by the stranger, murdered by his own people, rose
to her view. His melancholy desponding look and tone, as he gave way to
the doom which he felt was sealed upon him, his frequent assurances that
the white men were "the men of destiny," the heaven appointed
proprietors and rulers of the land, and that wo would betide all who
should oppose their pretensions, or offer resistance to their invincible
arms--all these came up fresh to her thoughts, and filled her with
sadness. Her own ill-starred destiny too, marked by every possible sign
and presage, as full of darkness and sorrow--the thought was almost
overwhelming. Fain would she have severed at once the bond that linked
her fate with that of Guatimozin, for she felt that he was only sharing
her doom, and on her account was exposed to these terrible shafts of
fate. The love of Guatimozin, the faithful devotion of Karee, though
they soothed in some measure her troubled spirit, could not wholly
re-assure her, or dissipate th