some length, and
they broke up in silence. Next morning after I had breakfasted, four
soldiers came into my prison and ordered me to accompany them.

'Whither?' I asked.

'To the captain, traitor,' their leader answered.

'It has come at last,' I thought to myself, but I said only:

'It is well. Any change from this hole is one for the better.'

'Certainly,' he replied; 'and it is your last shift.'

Then I knew that the man believed that I was going to my death. In five
minutes I was standing before Cortes in his private house. At his side
was Marina and around him were several of his companions in arms. The
great man looked at me for a while, then spoke.

'Your name is Wingfield; you are of mixed blood, half English and
half Spanish. You were cast away in the Tobasco River and taken to
Tenoctitlan. There you were doomed to personate the Aztec god Tezcat,
and were rescued by us when we captured the great teocalli. Subsequently
you joined the Aztecs and took part in the attack and slaughter of the
noche triste. You were afterwards the friend and counsellor of Guatemoc,
and assisted him in his defence of Tenoctitlan. Is this true, prisoner?'

'It is all true, general,' I answered.

'Good. You are now our prisoner, and had you a thousand lives, you have
forfeited them all because of your treachery to your race and blood.
Into the circumstances that led you to commit this horrible treason I
cannot enter; the fact remains. You have slain many of the Spaniards
and their allies; that is, being in a state of treason you have murdered
them. Wingfield, your life is forfeit and I condemn you to die by
hanging as a traitor and an apostate.'

'Then there is nothing more to be said,' I answered quietly, though a
cold fear froze my blood.

'There is something,' answered Cortes. 'Though your crimes have been so
many, I am ready to give you your life and freedom upon a condition.
I am ready to do more, to find you a passage to Europe on the first
occasion, where you may perchance escape the echoes of your infamy if
God is good to you. The condition is this. We have reason to believe
that you are acquainted with the hiding place of the gold of Montezuma,
which was unlawfully stolen from us on the night of the noche triste.
Nay, we know that this is so, for you were seen to go with the canoes
that were laden with it. Choose now, apostate, between a shameful death
and the revealing to us of the secret of this treasure.'

For