Our crime is then, that we drew an army after us to fight against the Teules. And how did we draw this army?
Did I command you to muster your array?
Nay, I set out my case and I said
“Now choose.”
You chose, and of your own free will you despatched those glorious companies that now are dead.
My crime is therefore that you chose wrongly as you say, but as I still hold, most rightly, and because of this crime I and my husband are to be given as a peace offering to the Teules.
Listen: let me tell you something of those wars in which we have fought before you give us to the Teules and our mouths are silent for ever.
Where shall I begin?
I know not.
Stay, I bore a child—had he lived he would have been your prince to-day.
That child I saw starve to death before my eyes, inch by inch and day by day I saw him starve. But it is nothing; who am I that I should complain because I have lost my son, when so many of your sons are dead and their blood is required at my hands?
Listen again:’ and she went on to tell in burning words of the horrors of the siege, of the cruelties of the Spaniards, and of the bravery of the men of the Otomie whom I had commanded.
For a full hour she spoke thus, while all that vast audience hung upon her words.
Also she told of the part that I played in the struggle, and of the deeds which I had done, and now and again some soldier in the crowd who served under me, and who had escaped the famine and the massacre, cried out:
‘It is true; we saw it with our eyes.’
‘And so,’ she said, ‘at last it was finished, at last Tenoctitlan was a ruin and my cousin and my king, the glorious Guatemoc, lay a prisoner in the hands of Malinche, and with him my husband Teule, my sister, I myself, and many another.
Malinche swore that he would treat Guatemoc and his following with all honour.
Do you know how he treated him?
Within a few days Guatemoc our king was seated in the chair of torment, while slaves burned him with hot irons to cause him to declare the hiding place of the treasure of Montezuma!
Ay, you may well cry
“Shame upon him,” you shall cry it yet more loudly before I have done, for know that Guatemoc did not suffer alone, one lies there who suffered with him and spoke no word, and I also, your princess, was doomed to torment.
We escaped when death was at our door, for I told my husband that the people of the Otomie had true hearts, and would shelter us in our sorrow, and for his sake I, Otomie, disguised myself in the robe of a wanton and fled with him hither.
Could I have known what I should live to see and hear, could I have dreamed that you would receive us thus, I had died a hundred deaths before I came to stand and plead for pity at your hands.
‘Oh! my people, my people, I beseech of you, make no terms with the false Teule, but remain bold and free.
Your necks are not fitted to the yoke of the slave, your sons and daughters are of too high a blood to serve the foreigner in his needs and pleasures.
Defy Malinche.
Some of our race are dead, but many thousands remain.
Here in your mountain nest you can beat back every Teule in Anahuac, as in bygone years the false Tlascalans beat back the Aztecs.
Then the Tlascalans were free, now they are a race of serfs.
Say, will you share their serfdom?
My people, my people, think not that I plead for myself, or even for the husband who is more dear to me than aught save honour.
Do you indeed dream that we will suffer you to hand us living to these dogs of Tlascalans, whom Malinche insults you by sending as his messengers?
Look,’ and she walked to where the spear that had been hurled at her lay upon the pavement and lifted it, ‘here is a means of death that some friend has sent us, and if you will not listen to my pleading you shall see it used before your eyes.
Then, if you will, you may send our bodies to Malinche as a peace offering.
But for your own sakes I plead with you.
Defy Malinche, and if you must die at last, die as free men and not as the slaves of the Teule.
Behold now his tender mercies, and see the lot that shall be yours if you take another counsel, the counsel of Maxtla;’ and coming to the litter on which I lay, swiftly Otomie rent my robes from me leaving me almost naked to the waist, and unwound the bandages from my wounded limb, then lifted me up so that I rested upon my sound foot.
‘Look!’ she cried in a piercing voice, and pointing to the scars and unhealed wounds upon my face and leg; ‘look on the work of the Teule and the Tlascalan, see how the foe is dealt with who surrenders to them.
Yield if you will, desert us if you will, but I say that then your own bodies shall be marked in a like fashion, till not an ounce of gold is left that can minister to the greed of the Teule, or a man or a maiden who can labour to satisfy his indolence.’
Then she ceased, and letting me sink gently to the ground, for I could not stand alone, she stood over me, the spear in her hand, as though waiting to plunge it to my heart should the people still demand our surrender to the messengers of Cortes.
For one instant there was silence, then of a sudden the clamour and the tumult broke out again ten times more furiously than at first.
But it was no longer aimed at us.
Otomie had conquered.
Her noble words, her beauty, the tale of our sorrows and the sight of my torments, had done their work, and the heart of the people was filled with fury against the Teules who had destroyed their army, and the Tlascalans that had aided them. Never did the wit and eloquence of a woman cause a swifter change.
They screamed and tore their robes and shook their weapons in the air.
Maxtla strove to speak, but they pulled him down and presently he was flying for his life.
Then they turned upon the Tlascalan envoys and beat them with sticks, crying: ‘This is our answer to Malinche.
Run, you dogs, and take it!’ till they were driven from the town. Now at length the turmoil ceased, and some of the great chiefs came forward and, kissing the hand of Otomie, said:
‘Princess, we your children will guard you to the death, for you have put another heart into us.
You are right; it is better to die free than to live as slaves.’