own fate I do not care, but alas! for my
people, alas! for the women and the children, the aged and the weak.'

Then he would cover his face and moan and weep like a child, and
Guatemoc would pass from his presence dumb with fury at the folly of
so great a king, but helpless to remedy it. For like myself, Guatemoc
believed that Montezuma had been smitten with a madness sent from heaven
to bring the land to ruin.

Now it must be understood that though my place as a god gave me
opportunities of knowing all that passed, yet I Thomas Wingfield, was
but a bubble on that great wave of events which swept over the world of
Anahuac two generations since. I was a bubble on the crest of the wave
indeed, but at that time I had no more power than the foam has over the
wave. Montezuma distrusted me as a spy, the priests looked on me as a
god and future victim and no more, only Guatemoc my friend, and Otomie
who loved me secretly, had any faith in me, and with these two I
often talked, showing them the true meaning of those things that were
happening before our eyes. But they also were strengthless, for though
his reason was no longer captain, still the unchecked power of Montezuma
guided the ship of state first this way and then that, just as a rudder
directs a vessel to its ruin when the helmsman has left it, and it
swings at the mercy of the wind and tide.

The people were distraught with fear of the future, but not the less on
that account, or perhaps because of it, they plunged with fervour into
pleasures, alternating them with religious ceremonies. In those days no
feast was neglected and no altar lacked its victim. Like a river that
quickens its flow as it draws near the precipice over which it must
fall, so the people of Mexico, foreseeing ruin, awoke as it were and
lived as they had never lived before. All day long the cries of victims
came from a hundred temple tops, and all night the sounds of revelry
were heard among the streets. 'Let us eat and drink,' they said, 'for
the gods of the sea are upon us and to-morrow we die.' Now women who had
been held virtuous proved themselves wantons, and men whose names were
honest showed themselves knaves, and none cried fie upon them; ay, even
children were seen drunken in the streets, which is an abomination among
the Aztecs.

The emperor had moved his household from Chapoltepec to the palace
in the great square facing the temple, and this palace was a town in
itself, for every n