the ear of the emperor. She had thrice
dreamed that the dark cloud which had so long hung over that devoted
land, had burst in an overwhelming storm, upon the capital, and buried
Montezuma and all his house in indiscriminate ruin. She had seen the
demon of destruction, in the guize of a snow white angel, clad in
burnished silver, borne on a fiery animal, of great power, and fleet as
the wind, having under him a small band of warriors, guarded and mounted
like himself, armed with thunderbolts which they hurled at will against
all who opposed their progress. She had seen the monarch of
Tenochtitlan, with his hosts of armed Mexicans, and the tributary armies
of Tezcuco, Islacapan, Chalco, and all the cities of that glorious
valley, tremble and cower before this small band of invaders, and yield
himself without a blow to their hands. She had seen the thousands and
tens of thousands of her beloved land fall before this handful of
strangers, and melt away, like the mists of the morning before the
rising sun. And she had heard a voice from the dark cloud as it broke,
saying, sternly, as the forked lightning leaped into the heart of the
imperial palace, "The gods help only those who help themselves."

Filled and agitated with the stirring influence of this prophetic
vision, Karee, who had always regarded herself as the guardian genius of
Tecuichpo, now imagined the sphere of her duty greatly enlarged, and
deemed herself specially commissioned to save the empire from impending
destruction. Weaving her vision, and the warning it uttered, into one of
her most impassioned chants, and arraying herself as the priestess of
nature, she followed Tecuichpo, with a firm step into the royal
presence, and, with the boldness and eloquence of a prophetess, warned
him of the coming danger, and urged him to arouse from his apathy,
unbecoming the monarch of a proud and powerful nation, cast off the
slavery of his superstitious fears, and prepare to meet, with the power
of a man, and the wisdom of a king, whatever evil might come upon him.
Rising with the kindling inspiration of her theme, she ventured gently
to reproach the awe-struck monarch with his unmanly fears, and to remind
him that on his single will, and the firmness of his soul, hung not only
his own destiny but that of wife and children; and more than that, of a
whole nation, whose myriads of households looked up to him, as the
common father of them all, the heaven-appointed guardian of