Now my uncle, and you, lords, I tell you this: Slay yonder man if you will, but know that then you must find another than me to lure the Otomie from their rebellion, for then I complete what I began to-day, and follow him to the grave.’
She ceased and a murmur of amazement went round the chamber, for none had looked to find such love and courage in this lady’s heart.
Only Cuitlahua grew angry.
‘Disloyal girl,’ he said; ‘do you dare to set your lover before your country?
Shame upon you, shameless daughter of our king.
Why, it is in the blood—as the father is so is the daughter.
Did not Montezuma forsake his people and choose to lie among these Teules, the false children of Quetzal?
And now this Otomie follows in his path.
Tell us how is it, woman, that you and your lover alone escaped from the teocalli yonder when all the rest were killed.
Are you then in league with these Teules?
I say to you, niece, that if things were otherwise and I had my way, you should win your desire indeed, for you should be slain at this man’s side and within the hour.’
And he ceased for lack of breath, and looked upon her fiercely.
But Otomie never quailed; she stood before him pale and quiet, with folded hands and downcast eyes, and answered:
‘Forbear to reproach me because my love is strong, or reproach me if you will, I have spoken my last word.
Condemn this man to die and Prince you must seek some other envoy to win back the Otomie to the cause of Anahuac.’
Now Cuitlahua pondered, staring into the gloom above him and pulling at his beard, and the silence was great, for none knew what his judgment would be.
At last he spoke:
‘So be it.
We have need of Otomie, my niece, and it is of no avail to fight against a woman’s love.
Teule, we give you life, and with the life honour and wealth, and the greatest of our women in marriage, and a place in our councils.
Take these gifts and her, but I say to you both, beware how you use them.
If you betray us, nay, if you do but think on treachery, I swear to you that you shall die a death so slow and horrible that the very name of it would turn your heart to water; you and your wife, your children and your servants.
Come, let him be sworn!’
I heard and my head swam, and a mist gathered before my eyes.
Once again I was saved from instant death.
Presently it cleared, and looking up my eyes met those of the woman who had saved me, Otomie my wife, who smiled upon me somewhat sadly.
Then the priest came forward bearing a wooden bowl, carved about with strange signs, and a flint knife, and bade me bare my arm.
He cut my flesh with the knife, so that blood ran from it into the bowl. Some drops of this blood he emptied on to the ground, muttering invocations the while.
Then he turned and looked at Cuitlahua as though in question, and Cuitlahua answered with a bitter laugh:
‘Let him be baptized with the blood of the princess Otomie my niece, for she is bail for him.’
‘Nay, lord,’ said Guatemoc, ‘these two have mingled bloods already upon the stone of sacrifice, and they are man and wife.
But I also have vouched for him, and I offer mine in earnest of my faith.’
‘This Teule has good friends,’ said Cuitlahua; ‘you honour him overmuch.
But so be it.’
Then Guatemoc came forward, and when the priest would have cut him with the knife, he laughed and said, pointing to the bullet wound upon his neck:
‘No need for that, priest.
Blood runs here that was shed by the Teules.
None can be fitter for this purpose.’
So the priest drew away the bandage and suffered the blood of Guatemoc to drop into a second smaller bowl. Then he came to me and dipping his finger into the blood, he drew the sign of a cross upon my forehead as a Christian priest draws it upon the forehead of an infant, and said:
‘In the presence and the name of god our lord, who is everywhere and sees all things, I sign you with this blood and make you of this blood.
In the presence and the name of god our lord, who is everywhere and sees all things, I pour forth your blood upon the earth!’ (here he poured as he spoke).
‘As this blood of yours sinks into the earth, so may the memory of your past life sink and be forgotten, for you are born again of the people of Anahuac.
In the presence and the name of god our lord, who is everywhere and sees all things, I mingle these bloods’ (here he poured from one bowl into the other), ‘and with them I touch your tongue’ (here dipping his finger into the bowl he touched the tip of my tongue with it) ‘and bid you swear thus:
‘“May every evil to which the flesh of man is subject enter into my flesh, may I live in misery and die in torment by the dreadful death, may my soul be rejected from the Houses of the Sun, may it wander homeless for ever in the darkness that is behind the Stars, if I depart from this my oath.
I, Teule, swear to be faithful to the people of Anahuac and to their lawful governors.
I swear to wage war upon their foes and to compass their destruction, and more especially upon the Teules till they are driven into the sea.
I swear to offer no affront to the gods of Anahuac.
I swear myself in marriage to Otomie, princess of the Otomie, the daughter of Montezuma my lord, for so long as her life shall endure.
I swear to attempt no escape from these shores.
I swear to renounce my father and my mother, and the land where I was born, and to cling to this land of my new birth; and this my oath shall endure till the volcan Popo ceases to vomit smoke and fire, till there is no king in Tenoctitlan, till no priest serves the altars of the gods, and the people of Anahuac are no more a people.”