“I speak from the fulness of a heart darkened by a vision of Anahuac blasted, and her glory gone,” returned the ’tzin. Then in a lament, vivid with poetic coloring, he set forth a picture of the national ruin,—the armies overthrown, the city wasted, the old religion supplanted by a new. At the shore where the canoe was waiting, Montezuma stopped, and said,—

“You have spoken boldly, and I have listened patiently. One thing more: What does Guatamozin say the king should do?”

“It is not enough for the servant to know his own place; he should know his master’s also. I say not what the king should do, but I will say what I would do if I were king.”

Rising from the obeisance with which he accompanied the words, he said, boldly,—

“Cholula should be the grave of the invaders. The whole population should strike them in the narrow streets where they can be best assailed. Shut up in some square or temple, hunger will fight them for us, and win. But I would not trust the citizens alone. In sight of the temples, so close that a conch could summon them to the attack, I would encamp a hundred thousand warriors. Better the desolation of Cholula than Tenochtitlan. If all things else failed, I would take to the last resort; I would call in the waters of Tezcuco and drown the city to the highest azoteas. So would I, O king, if the crown and signet were mine.”

Montezuma looked from the speaker to the lake.

“The project is bold,” he said, musingly; “but if it failed, my son?”

“The failure should be but the beginning of the war.”

“What would the nations say?”

“They would say, ‘Montezuma is still the great king.’ If they do not that—”