ad I seen her look so beautiful or so dreadful. It was
not Otomie whom I saw, for where was the tender smile and where the
gentle eyes? Here before me was a living Vengeance wearing the shape of
woman. In an instant I guessed the truth, though I did not know it all.
Otomie, who although she was not of it, had ever favoured the Christian
faith, Otomie, who for years had never spoken of these dreadful rites
except with anger, whose every act was love and whose every word was
kindness, was still in her soul an idolater and a savage. She had hidden
this side of her heart from me well through all these years, perchance
she herself had scarcely known its secret, for but twice had I seen
anything of the buried fierceness of her blood. The first time was when
Marina had brought her a certain robe in which she might escape from
the camp of Cortes, and she had spoken to Marina of that robe; and the
second when on this same day she had played her part to the Tlascalan,
and had struck him down with her own hand as he bent over me.

All this and much more passed through my mind in that brief moment,
while Otomie marked the time of the death chant, and the pabas dragged
the Tlascalan to his doom.

The next I was at her side.

'What passes here?' I asked sternly.

Otomie looked on me with a cold wonder, and empty eyes as though she did
not know me.

'Go back, white man,' she answered; 'it is not lawful for strangers to
mingle in our rites.'

I stood bewildered, not knowing what to do, while the flame burned and
the chant went up before the effigy of Huitzel, of the demon Huitzel
awakened after many years of sleep.

Again and yet again the solemn chant arose, Otomie beating time with her
little rod of ebony, and again and yet again the cry of triumph rose to
the silent stars.

Now I awoke from my dream, for as an evil dream it seemed to me, and
drawing my sword I rushed towards the priest at the altar to cut him
down. But though the men stood still the women were too quick for me.
Before I could lift the sword, before I could even speak a word, they
had sprung upon me like the jaguars of their own forests, and like
jaguars they hissed and growled into my ear:

'Get you gone, Teule,' they said, 'lest we stretch you on the stone with
your brethren.' And still hissing they pushed me thence.

I drew back and thought for a while in the shadow of the temple. My eye
fell upon the long line of victims awaiting their turn of sacrifi