Casting his eyes over the apartment once more, the soldier said:
"Since everything with you appears straight and satisfactory, we'll relieve you of our presence. Good luck to you, weaver."
"The same to the soldiers of the king," replied Kan, with a supreme effort at indifference, as the searchers turned to leave his place.
The party was hardly beyond the curtained doorway when the weaver's assumed carelessness gave place to cautiousness.
"Hist! do not stir!" he ejaculated guardedly. Rising, he went to a small window, a safe point from which to watch the soldiers' movements. When he was satisfied they would not return, and that all present danger was past, he went to the pile of selected fibers, which had grown so rapidly under his supreme efforts while the soldiers were searching his place, and, lifting them, said:
"You may rise now from your uncomfortable position. The soldiers seem to be satisfied with their search of my premises, and are gone."
The prince rose from the floor, on which he had been lying beneath the pile of fibers, and, glancing at his greatly disordered apparel, said, in a soliloquizing manner:
"Hualcoyotl is indeed fallen. I never expected to reach a state so far beneath my manhood as this; but, since it is for country and freedom, submission must be the rule, however humiliating the conditions." Fixing his eyes on the weaver, he continued: "Your reply to the soldier, Kan, in which you referred to royal aristocrats and the indifference usually shown by them for the lives of their subjects, has taught me a valuable lesson—one that I will not soon forget. It is too true that rulers are often disposed to hold the lives of their subjects lightly. Should it be my good fortune to regain my heritage, Kan and his words, so aptly spoken, shall not be forgotten."
"I pray, O Prince, that you will believe me. The words were not spoken out of disrespect, but to mislead the soldier that his search might not be too close." Spoken humbly and out of fear that he had given offense. "Kan is only one of many," he continued, "who would delight in serving and honoring Hualcoyotl as their king."
"It does not matter, Kan, what prompted the use of the words," replied the prince, kindly; "they were well said and timely, and you need have no regrets for having uttered them. At this moment I may be indebted to them for my liberty, if not my life. But let them pass; I would not they were unsaid. My escape from detection was narrow, indeed," he went on; "and due, my faithful friend, to your sagacity alone. I can no longer consent to your life and home being put in jeopardy on my account. There is no place in Tezcuco that will furnish me a safe retreat—my flight must be resumed. I will go into the mountains, in the direction of Tlascala, where refuge may be found in their fastnesses until my people are ready to avenge themselves on the authors of their degradation. If you will find a way, Kan, to inform Oza that I would see him, you will confer a favor which may be the last you will have an opportunity to bestow upon your unfortunate guest." The prince's closing words expressed deep dejection, and Kan hastened to answer by way of encouragement: