g the Indians of Mexico to
this day, but if the writer may believe what he heard in
that country, the patient is frequently cured by it.

So we went and were ushered into a chamber where Cuitlahua lay covered
by a sheet, as though he were already dead, and with incense burning
round him in golden censers. When we entered he was in a stupor, but
presently he awoke, and it was announced to him that we waited.

'Welcome, niece,' he said, speaking through the sheet and in a thick
voice; 'you find me in an evil case, for my days are numbered, the
pestilence of the Teules slays those whom their swords spared. Soon
another monarch must take my throne, as I took your father's, and I do
not altogether grieve, for on him will rest the glory and the burden
of the last fight of the Aztecs. Your report, niece; let me hear it
swiftly. What say the clans of the Otomie, your vassals?'

'My lord,' Otomie answered, speaking humbly and with bowed head, 'may
this distemper leave you, and may you live to reign over us for many
years! My lord, my husband Teule and I have won back the most part of
the people of the Otomie to our cause and standard. An army of twenty
thousand mountain men waits upon your word, and when those are spent
there are more to follow.'

'Well done, daughter of Montezuma, and you, white man,' gasped the dying
king. 'The gods were wise when they refused you both upon the stone of
sacrifice, and I was foolish when I would have slain you, Teule. To you
and all I say be of a steadfast heart, and if you must die, then die
with honour. The fray draws on, but I shall not share it, and who knows
its end?'

Now he lay silent for a while, then of a sudden, as though an
inspiration had seized him, he cast the sheet from his face and sat upon
his couch, no pleasant sight to see, for the pestilence had done its
worst with him.

'Alas!' he wailed, 'and alas! I see the streets of Tenoctitlan red with
blood and fire, I see her dead piled up in heaps, and the horses of the
Teules trample them. I see the Spirit of my people, and her voice is
sighing and her neck is heavy with chains. The children are visited
because of the evil of the fathers. Ye are doomed, people of Anahuac,
whom I would have nurtured as an eagle nurtures her young. Hell yawns
for you and Earth refuses you because of your sins, and the remnant
that remains shall be slaves from generation to generation, till the
vengeance is accomplished!'

Having cr