“He will treat them graciously,” Maxtla continued, “because they come by his request; but when he tells them to depart, if they obey not,—if they obey not,—when was his vengeance other than a king’s? Who dares say he cannot, by a word, end this visit?”
“No one!” cried Io’.
“Ay, no one! But the goblets are empty. See! Io’, good prince,”—and Maxtla’s voice changed at once,—“would another draught be too much for us? We drink slowly; one more, only one. And while we drink, we will forget Malinche.”
“Would that were possible!” sighed the boy.
They sent up the goblets, and continued the session until daylight.
CHAPTER VII
MONTEZUMA GOES TO MEET CORTES
Came the eighth of November, which no Spaniard, himself a Conquistador, can ever forget; that day Cortes entered Tenochtitlan.
The morning dawned over Anahuac as sometimes it dawns over the Bay of Naples, bringing an azure haze in which the world seemed set afloat.
“Look you, uncles,” said Montezuma, yet at breakfast, and speaking to his councillors: “they are to go before me, my heralds; and as Malinche is the servant of a king, and used to courtly styles, I would not have them shame me. Admit them with the nequen off. As they will appear before him, let them come to me.”