o their lights. At length all had spoken, and Cuitlahua said, looking
towards me:

'We have a new counsellor among us, who is skilled in the warfare and
customs of the white men, who till an hour ago was himself a white man.
Has he no word of comfort for us?'

'Speak, my brother?' said Guatemoc.

Then I spoke. 'Most noble Cuitlahua, and you lords and princes. You
honour me by asking my counsel, and it is this in few words and brief.
You waste your strength by hurling your armies continually against stone
walls and the weapons of the Teules. So you shall not prevail against
them. Your devices must be changed if you would win victory. The
Spaniards are like other men; they are no gods as the ignorant imagine,
and the creatures on which they ride are not demons but beasts of
burden, such as are used for many purposes in the land where I was born.
The Spaniards are men I say, and do not men hunger and thirst? Cannot
men be worn out by want of sleep, and be killed in many ways? Are not
these Teules already weary to the death? This then is my word of comfort
to you. Cease to attack the Spaniards and invest their camp so closely
that no food can reach them and their allies the Tlascalans. If this is
done, within ten days from now, either they will surrender or they will
strive to break their way back to the coast. But to do this, first they
must win out of the city, and if dykes are cut through the causeways,
that will be no easy matter. Then when they strive to escape cumbered
with the gold they covet and came here to seek, then I say will be the
hour to attack them and to destroy them utterly.'

I ceased, and a murmur of applause went round the council.

'It seems that we came to a wise judgment when we determined to spare
this man's life,' said Cuitlahua, 'for all that he tells us is true, and
I would that we had followed this policy from the first. Now, lords, I
give my voice for acting as our brother points the way. What say you?'

'We say with you that our brother's words are good,' answered Guatemoc
presently, 'and now let us follow them to the end.'

Then, after some further talk, the council broke up and I sought my
chamber well nigh blind with weariness and crushed by the weight of all
that I had suffered on that eventful day. The dawn was flaring in
the eastern sky, and by its glimmer I found my path down the empty
corridors, till at length I came to the curtains of my sleeping place.
I drew them and passed t