dened women, engrossed
as they were in their orgies.

Now I crept up to the Spaniards. They were squatted upon the ground,
bound by their hands and feet to the copper rings in the pavement. There
they sat silently awaiting the dreadful doom, their faces grey with
terror, and their eyes starting from their sockets.

'Hist!' I whispered in Spanish into the ear of the first, an old man
whom I knew as one who had taken part in the wars of Cortes. 'Would you
be saved?'

He looked up quickly, and said in a hoarse voice:

'Who are you that talk of saving us? Who can save us from these she
devils?'

'I am Teule, a man of white blood and a Christian, and alas that I must
say it, the captain of this savage people. With the aid of some few men
who are faithful to me, I purpose to cut your bonds, and afterwards you
shall see. Know, Spaniard, that I do this at great risk, for if we are
caught, it is a chance but that I myself shall have to suffer those
things from which I hope to rescue you.'

'Be assured, Teule,' answered the Spaniard, 'that if we should get safe
away, we shall not forget this service. Save our lives now, and the
time may come when we shall pay you back with yours. But even if we are
loosed, how can we cross the open space in this moonlight and escape the
eyes of those furies?'

'We must trust to chance for that,' I answered, and as I spoke, fortune
helped us strangely, for by now the Spaniards in their camp below had
perceived what was going forward on the crest of the teocalli. A yell of
horror rose from them and instantly they opened fire upon us with their
pieces and arquebusses, though, because of the shape of the pyramid and
of their position beneath it, the storm of shot swept over us, doing
us little or no hurt. Also a great company of them poured across the
courtyard, hoping to storm the temple, for they did not know that the
road had been broken away.

Now, though the rites of sacrifice never ceased, what with the roar of
cannon, the shouts of rage and terror from the Spaniards, the hiss of
musket balls, and the crackling of flames from houses which they had
fired to give them more light, and the sound of chanting, the turmoil
and confusion grew so great as to render the carrying out of my purpose
easier than I had hoped. By this time my friend, the captain of the
Otomie, was at my side, and with him several men whom he could trust.
Stooping down, with a few swift blows of a knife I cut the rope