“If it be God’s will, amen!” replied the priest, calmly. “We are stronger than when we went out.”
“So is the enemy, for he hath organized his people. The hordes that stared at us so stupidly when we first came—be the curse of the saints upon them!—are now fighting men.”
Olmedo searched his face, and said, coldly, “To doubt is to dread the result.”
“Nay, by my conscience! I neither doubt nor dread. Yet I hold it not unseemly to confess that I had rather meet the brunt on the firm land, with room for what the occasion offers. I like not yon canal, with its broken bridge, too wide for horse, too deep for weighted man; it putteth us to disadvantage, and hath a hateful reminder of the brigantines, which, as thou mayest remember, we left at anchor, mistresses of the lake; in our absence they have been lost,—a most measureless folly, father! But let it pass, let it pass! The Mother—blessed be her name!—hath not forsaken us. Montezuma is ours, and—”
“He is victory,” said Olmedo, zealously.
“He is the New World!” answered Cortes.
And so it chanced that the poor king was centre of thought for both the ’tzin and his enemy,—the dread of one and the hope of the other.
CHAPTER III
LA VIRUELA
A long interval behind the rear-guard—indeed, the very last of the army, and quite two hours behind—came four Indian slaves, bringing a man stretched upon a litter.