“Of whom do you think in this moment, husband? Of me and of my dead child, or of that lady who lives far across the sea? Nay, I will not ask. I have been happy in my love, it is enough. Now love and life must end together, and it is well for me, but for you I grieve. Say, shall I thrust away the stool?”
“Yes, Otomie, since there is no hope but death. I cannot break my faith with Guatemoc, nor can I live to see you shamed and tortured.”
“Then kiss me first and for the last time.”
We kissed again and then, as she was in the very act of pushing the stool from beneath us, the door opened and shut, and a veiled woman stood before us, bearing a torch in one hand and a bundle in the other. She looked, and seeing us and our dreadful purpose, ran to us.
“What do you?” she cried, and I knew the voice for that of Marina. “Are you then mad, Teule?”
“Who is this who knows you so well, husband, and will not even suffer that we die in peace?” asked Otomie.
“I am Marina,” answered the veiled woman, “and I come to save you if I can.”
CHAPTER XXX
THE ESCAPE
Now Otomie put the rope off her neck, and descending from the stool, stood before Marina.
“You are Marina,” she said coldly and proudly, “and you come to save us, you who have brought ruin on the land that bore you, and have given thousands of her children to death, and shame, and torment. Now, if I had my way, I would have none of your salvation, nay, I would rather save myself as I was about to do.”