‘Do you swear these things, one and all?’
‘One and all I swear them,’ I answered because I must, though there was much in the oath that I liked little enough.
And yet mark how strangely things came to pass.
Within fifteen years from that night the volcan Popo had ceased to vomit smoke and fire, the kings had ceased to reign in Tenoctitlan, the priests had ceased to serve the altars of the gods, the people of Anahuac were no more a people, and my vow was null and void.
Yet the priests who framed this form chose these things as examples of what was immortal!
When I had sworn Guatemoc came forward and embraced me, saying:
‘Welcome, Teule, my brother in blood and heart.
Now you are one of us, and we look to you for help and counsel.
Come, be seated by me.’
I looked towards Cuitlahua doubtfully, but he smiled graciously, and said:
‘Teule, your trial is over.
We have accepted you, and you have sworn the solemn oath of brotherhood, to break which is to die horribly in this world, and to be tortured through eternity by demons in the next.
Forget all that may have been said in the hour of your weighing, for the balance is in your favour, and be sure that if you give us no cause to doubt you, you shall find none to doubt us.
Now as the husband of Otomie, you are a lord among the lords, having honour and great possessions, and as such be seated by your brother Guatemoc, and join our council.’
I did as he bade me, and Otomie withdrew from our presence.
Then Cuitlahua spoke again, no longer of me and my matters, but of the urgent affairs of state.
He spoke in slow words and weighty, and more than once his voice broke in his sorrow.
He told of the grievous misfortunes that had overcome the country, of the death of hundreds of its bravest warriors, of the slaughter of the priests and soldiers that day on the teocalli, and the desecration of his nation’s gods.
What was to be done in this extremity? he asked.
Montezuma lay dying, a prisoner in the camp of the Teules, and the fire that he had nursed with his breath devoured the land.
No efforts of theirs could break the iron strength of these white devils, armed as they were with strange and terrible weapons.
Day by day disaster overtook the arms of the Aztecs.
What wisdom had they now that the protecting gods were shattered in their very shrines, when the altars ran red with the blood of their ministering priests, when the oracles were dumb or answered only in the accents of despair?
Then one by one princes and generals arose and gave counsel according to their lights.
At length all had spoken, and Cuitlahua said, looking towards me:
‘We have a new counsellor among us, who is skilled in the warfare and customs of the white men, who till an hour ago was himself a white man.
Has he no word of comfort for us?’
‘Speak, my brother?’ said Guatemoc.
Then I spoke.
‘Most noble Cuitlahua, and you lords and princes.
You honour me by asking my counsel, and it is this in few words and brief.
You waste your strength by hurling your armies continually against stone walls and the weapons of the Teules.
So you shall not prevail against them.
Your devices must be changed if you would win victory.
The Spaniards are like other men; they are no gods as the ignorant imagine, and the creatures on which they ride are not demons but beasts of burden, such as are used for many purposes in the land where I was born.
The Spaniards are men I say, and do not men hunger and thirst?
Cannot men be worn out by want of sleep, and be killed in many ways?
Are not these Teules already weary to the death?
This then is my word of comfort to you.
Cease to attack the Spaniards and invest their camp so closely that no food can reach them and their allies the Tlascalans.
If this is done, within ten days from now, either they will surrender or they will strive to break their way back to the coast.
But to do this, first they must win out of the city, and if dykes are cut through the causeways, that will be no easy matter.
Then when they strive to escape cumbered with the gold they covet and came here to seek, then I say will be the hour to attack them and to destroy them utterly.’
I ceased, and a murmur of applause went round the council.
‘It seems that we came to a wise judgment when we determined to spare this man’s life,’ said Cuitlahua, ‘for all that he tells us is true, and I would that we had followed this policy from the first.
Now, lords, I give my voice for acting as our brother points the way.
What say you?’
‘We say with you that our brother’s words are good,’ answered Guatemoc presently, ‘and now let us follow them to the end.’
Then, after some further talk, the council broke up and I sought my chamber well nigh blind with weariness and crushed by the weight of all that I had suffered on that eventful day.
The dawn was flaring in the eastern sky, and by its glimmer I found my path down the empty corridors, till at length I came to the curtains of my sleeping place.