I spoke into her ear, I kissed her brow, but she did not move nor answer.
The light grew quickly, and now I saw all.
Otomie was dead, and by her own act.
This was the manner of her death. She had drunk of a poison of which the Indians have the secret, a poison that works slowly and without pain, leaving the mind unclouded to the end.
It was while her life was fading from her that she had spoken to me thus sadly and bitterly.
I sat upon the bed and gazed at her.
I did not weep, for my tears were done, and as I have said, whatever I might feel nothing could break my calm any more.
And as I gazed a great tenderness and sorrow took hold of me, and I loved Otomie better now that she was dead before me than ever I had done in her life days, and this is saying much.
I remembered her in the glory of her youth as she was in the court of her royal father, I remembered the look which she had given me when she stepped to my side upon the stone of sacrifice, and that other look when she defied Cuitlahua the emperor, who would have slain me.
Once more I seemed to hear her cry of bitter sorrow as she uncovered the body of the dead babe our firstborn, and to see her sword in hand standing over the Tlascalan.
Many things came back to me in that sad hour of dawn while I watched by the corpse of Otomie.
There was truth in her words, I had never forgotten my first love and often I desired to see her face.
But it was not true to say that I had no love for Otomie.
I loved her well and I was faithful in my oath to her, indeed, not until she was dead did I know how dear she had grown to me.
It is true that there was a great gulf between us which widened with the years, the gulf of blood and faith, for I knew well that she could not altogether put away her old beliefs, and it is true that when I saw her leading the death chant, a great horror took me and for a while I loathed her.
But these things I might have lived to forgive, for they were part of her blood and nature, moreover, the last and worst of them was not done by her own will, and when they were set aside there remained much that I could honour and love in the memory of this most royal and beautiful woman, who for so many years was my faithful wife.
So I thought in that hour and so I think to this day.
She said that we parted for ever, but I trust and I believe that this is not so.
Surely there is forgiveness for us all, and a place where those who were near and dear to each other on the earth may once more renew their fellowship.
At last I rose with a sigh to seek help, and as I rose I felt that there was something set about my neck.
It was the collar of great emeralds which Guatemoc had given to me, and that I had given to Otomie.
She had set it there while I slept, and with it a lock of her long hair.
Both shall be buried with me.
I laid her in the ancient sepulchre amid the bones of her forefathers and by the bodies of her children, and two days later I rode to Mexico in the train of Bernal Diaz.
At the mouth of the pass I turned and looked back upon the ruins of the City of Pines, where I had lived so many years and where all I loved were buried.
Long and earnestly I gazed, as in his hour of death a man looks back upon his past life, till at length Diaz laid his hand upon my shoulder:
‘You are a lonely man now, comrade,’ he said; ‘what plans have you for the future?’
‘None,’ I answered, ‘except to die.’
‘Never talk so,’ he said; ‘why, you are scarcely forty, and I who am fifty and more do not speak of dying.
Listen; you have friends in your own country, England?’
‘I had.’
‘Folk live long in those quiet lands.
Go seek them, I will find you a passage to Spain.’
‘I will think of it,’ I answered.
In time we came to Mexico, a new and a strange city to me, for Cortes had rebuilt it, and where the teocalli had stood, up which I was led to sacrifice, a cathedral was building, whereof the foundations were fitly laid with the hideous idols of the Aztecs.
The place was well enough, but it is not so beautiful as the Tenoctitlan of Montezuma, nor ever will be.
The people too were changed; then they were warriors and free, now they are slaves.
In Mexico Diaz found me a lodging.
None molested me there, for the pardon that I had received was respected.
Also I was a ruined man, no longer to be feared, the part that I had played in the noche triste and in the defence of the city was forgotten, and the tale of my sorrows won me pity even from the Spaniards.
I abode in Mexico ten days, wandering sadly about the city and up to the hill of Chapoltepec, where Montezuma’s pleasure-house had been, and where I had met Otomie.
Nothing was left of its glories except some of the ancient cedar trees.
On the eighth day of my stay an Indian stopped me in the street, saying that an old friend had charged him to say that she wished to see me.
I followed the Indian, wondering who the friend might be, for I had no friends, and he led me to a fine stone house in a new street.
Here I was seated in a darkened chamber and waited there a while, till suddenly a sad and sweet voice that seemed familiar to me, addressed me in the Aztec tongue, saying,
‘Welcome, Teule.’
I looked and there before me, dressed in the Spanish fashion, stood a lady, an Indian, still beautiful, but very feeble and much worn, as though with sickness and sorrow.
‘Do you not know Marina, Teule?’ she said again, but before the words had left her lips I knew her.
‘Well, I will say this, that I should scarcely have known YOU, Teule.
Trouble and time have done their work with both of us.’