to
serve the foreigner in his needs and pleasures. Defy Malinche. Some of
our race are dead, but many thousands remain. Here in your mountain nest
you can beat back every Teule in Anahuac, as in bygone years the false
Tlascalans beat back the Aztecs. Then the Tlascalans were free, now they
are a race of serfs. Say, will you share their serfdom? My people, my
people, think not that I plead for myself, or even for the husband who
is more dear to me than aught save honour. Do you indeed dream that
we will suffer you to hand us living to these dogs of Tlascalans, whom
Malinche insults you by sending as his messengers? Look,' and she walked
to where the spear that had been hurled at her lay upon the pavement and
lifted it, 'here is a means of death that some friend has sent us, and
if you will not listen to my pleading you shall see it used before your
eyes. Then, if you will, you may send our bodies to Malinche as a peace
offering. But for your own sakes I plead with you. Defy Malinche, and
if you must die at last, die as free men and not as the slaves of the
Teule. Behold now his tender mercies, and see the lot that shall be
yours if you take another counsel, the counsel of Maxtla;' and coming to
the litter on which I lay, swiftly Otomie rent my robes from me leaving
me almost naked to the waist, and unwound the bandages from my wounded
limb, then lifted me up so that I rested upon my sound foot.

'Look!' she cried in a piercing voice, and pointing to the scars and
unhealed wounds upon my face and leg; 'look on the work of the Teule
and the Tlascalan, see how the foe is dealt with who surrenders to them.
Yield if you will, desert us if you will, but I say that then your own
bodies shall be marked in a like fashion, till not an ounce of gold is
left that can minister to the greed of the Teule, or a man or a maiden
who can labour to satisfy his indolence.'

Then she ceased, and letting me sink gently to the ground, for I could
not stand alone, she stood over me, the spear in her hand, as though
waiting to plunge it to my heart should the people still demand our
surrender to the messengers of Cortes.

For one instant there was silence, then of a sudden the clamour and the
tumult broke out again ten times more furiously than at first. But it
was no longer aimed at us. Otomie had conquered. Her noble words, her
beauty, the tale of our sorrows and the sight of my torments, had done
their work, and the heart of the people wa