“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.’
“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!