f men.

'Otomie,' cried their spokesman, after they had taken counsel together,
'we have chosen. Princess, your words have conquered us. We throw in
our lot with the Aztecs and will fight to the last for freedom from the
Teule.'

'Now I see that you are indeed my people, and I am indeed your ruler,'
answered Otomie. 'So the great lords who are gone, my forefathers, your
chieftains, would have spoken in a like case. May you never regret this
choice, my brethren, Men of the Otomie.'

And so it came to pass that when we left the City of Pines we took from
it to Cuitlahua the emperor, a promise of an army of twenty thousand men
vowed to serve him to the death in his war against the Spaniard.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE CROWNING OF GUATEMOC

Our business with the people of the Otomie being ended for a while, we
returned to the city of Tenoctitlan, which we reached safely, having
been absent a month and a day. It was but a little time, and yet long
enough for fresh sorrows to have fallen on that most unhappy town. For
now the Almighty had added to the burdens which were laid upon her. She
had tasted of death by the sword of the white man, now death was with
her in another shape. For the Spaniard had brought the foul sicknesses
of Europe with him, and small-pox raged throughout the land. Day by day
thousands perished of it, for these ignorant people treated the plague
by pouring cold water upon the bodies of those smitten, driving the
fever inwards to the vitals, so that within two days the most of them
died.* It was pitiful to see them maddened with suffering, as they
wandered to and fro about the streets, spreading the distemper far and
wide. They were dying in the houses, they lay dead by companies in the
market places awaiting burial, for the sickness took its toll of
every family, the very priests were smitten by it at the altar as they
sacrificed children to appease the anger of the gods. But the worst is
still to tell; Cuitlahua, the emperor, was struck down by the illness,
and when we reached the city he lay dying. Still, he desired to see us,
and sent commands that we should be brought to his bedside. In vain did
I pray Otomie not to obey; she, who was without fear, laughed at me,
saying, 'What, my husband, shall I shrink from that which you must face?
Come, let us go and make report of our mission. If the sickness takes me
and I die, it will be because my hour has come.'

* This treatment is followed amon